LE NUIT DE MAGDALENA: The Night at Magdalena

Author, journalist and traveler, Constantin-Weyer merges things seen at the North Cape with a love story verging on the incredible -- the realism of the book stepping short at the vividness of the scenery and isolated way of life in the far north which only personal experience can command. A writer, familiar with the Arctic, returns there on a cruise with some friends -- and stopping off at Magdalena they meet a rather unusual and gallant young Norwegian couple. The husband, a tubercular, has only a short time to live and is completing his experiments there to enable his wife to have some future security. Realizing that the man will shortly die, the writer decides to winter the long night near them -- to be on hand when the girl is left alone. He falls in love with her, to find himself frustrated by the husband's generous last gesture. A rather intriguing and unusual setting for a story, which despite its purple elements, is extremely readable.