At “Pole” she found only one. Ophelia couldn’t afford to be clumsy with such precious archives. She placed the sketchbook on a consulting lectern and, with the utmost care, turned the pages of drawings. Pale plains, just above the rock, a fjord imprisoned in ice, forests of great firs, houses encased in snow . . . These landscapes were austere, yes, but less daunting than Ophelia had imagined the Pole to be. She even found them quite beautiful, in a way. She wondered where her fiancé lived, in the midst of all this whiteness. Close to this river edged with pebbles? In this fishing port lost in
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