284 A DAY AT FRAMHEIM 



she has chosen. Perfectly calm, clear with a starry 

 sparkle, and not a sound in any direction. But wait: 

 what is that? Like a stream of fire the light shoots 

 across the sky, and a whistling sound follows the move- 

 ment. Hush! can't you hear? It shoots forward 

 again, takes the form of a band, and glows in rays 

 of red and green. It stands still for a moment, think- 

 ing of what direction it shall take, and then away again, 

 followed by an intermittent whistling sound. So 

 Nature has offered us on this wonderful morning one 

 of her most mysterious, most incomprehensible, pheno- 

 mena the audible southern light. ' Now you will be 

 able to go home and tell your friends that you have 

 personally seen and heard the southern lights, for I sup- 

 pose you have no doubt that you have really done so? ' 

 "Doubt? How can one be in doubt about what one 

 has heard with one's own ears and seen with one's own 

 eyes? ' " And yet you have been deceived, like so 

 many others! The whistling northern and southern 

 lights have never existed. They are only a creation of 

 your own yearning for the mystical, accompanied by 

 your own breath, which freezes in the cold air. Good- 

 bye, beautiful dream! It vanishes from the glorious 

 landscape." Perhaps it was stupid of me to call atten- 

 tion to that; my guests have now lost much of the 

 beautiful mystery, and the landscape no longer has the 

 same attraction. 



Meanwhile we have come up past Nelson and Ronni- 



