SEEKING HELP 



I am back at Lynge Vicarage and do not hear the gramo- 

 phone — it is my sister who is playing our old piano with its 

 spinet tones ; a window to the garden is open and a mild breeze 

 taps the panes with the vine ; the fragrance of summer and 

 flowers floats in to us, and I hear the well-known beloved 

 rustling through the leaves of the big lime-trees. Round about 

 me sit all those I love, listening absorbed to the graceful melody 

 of Mozart. . . . 



Once more a pause, then the music plays up again : now it 

 is reminiscences of Chopin — a phantasy over a mazurka, a 

 waltz, and the famous polonaise. The scene changes : I am 

 back in my own rooms and my wife sits at the grand ; we are 

 alone with our children ; a deep peace has settled on our minds 

 — a mood of dusk which is only broken when a car rolls along 

 the street or a speedy motor coughs its way ahead. 



I must close my eyes again to keep the picture. As a 

 distant buzzing I hear our Eskimo friends telling Ajako of the 

 walrus-hunt of the summer ; through a mist I see the women 

 of the house, who have now, after the execution of their house- 

 wifely duties, sat down on the benches to stop the mouths of 

 their fidgety youngest ones with the abundance of their breasts. 



A door opens and the yell of sledge-dogs deafens for a 

 moment the music. I had almost forgotten that there are yet 

 two large oceans between my home-sick visions and the present. 

 I am once more in Etah, and now to work for our comrades 

 who are yet in Inglefield Land waiting for help. The sledges 

 must be fitted out and despatched forthwith. 



A DISAPPOINTMENT 



As soon as the first hubbub of our arrival has simmered 

 down, before I can do anything else, I must survey our present 

 position and decide wherefrom we could take the necessary 

 things for the outfit of the relief expedition. Only two letters 

 awaited me — one from Peter Freuchen in Thule, and one from 

 Captain Comer of the Crockerland Expedition. There was 

 no date to Freuchen 's letter ; it had probably been sent by the 



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