It is the end of the nineteenth century. A man lies dying in the far reaches of the Arctic. Drifting in and out of consciousness and madness, he tries to recall how he ended up here, and to defend the disastrous choices that have condemned him to this icy purgatory.

This is a true story. In 1897, Salomon Andrée attempted to fly a hot air balloon to the North Pole. He did not succeed. THE STARVATION ARTIST (93,000 words) reimagines this journey, fusing fact and fabrication to reconstruct the infamous Andrée Expedition, a doomed voyage that has killed Andrée’s beloved companion, and will now destroy him. 

Humanity’s enduring drive to push boundaries, even in the face of near-certain demise, continues to captivate audiences, as evidenced by the millions rapt by Artemis’s recent voyage around the moon. This book will appeal to those who enjoyed Dan Simmons’s The Terror, Iida Turpeinen’s Beasts of the Sea, and Benjamin Labatut’s The Maniac, as well as offering the merciless yet lyrical style found in Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection and Zoe Dubno’s Happiness and Love.

from THE STARVATION ARTIST

The first time I flew in a balloon was in 1892. The first time I flew in a balloon it was 1892, unless it was 1893. It might have been 1893. I think it was 1892. 1893 was, I think, when I first flew in my own balloon, in the first balloon of my own, Svea, thistle. That makes 1892 the year I first flew in a balloon, in any balloon. The first time I flew in a balloon, then, was in 1892, with The Captain. That’s what he called himself: The Captain. When he said it, he capitalized it, I mean he capitalized both words whenever he said his name: The Captain. I’m not sure I now know his Christian name, that I ever knew his Christian name, or if indeed he ever shared his full Christian name with me, supposing he ever had one, a Christian name, for he was certainly no Christian—The Captain was, as became clear, the sort of man who needed no Christian name, had no need of one, perhaps no inclination for one, his title sufficient, his title more than sufficient, the sort of man whose title proved more than sufficient in any situation in which he might find himself, for in any situation he might find himself he was and could be nothing less than The Captain—and in any case it strikes me as unlikely that if he, The Captain, had at any time deigned to share with me his Christian name, his supposed Christian name, some supposed Christian name, that that supposed Christian name he deigned to share with me would have been, in any case, his true Christian name, nor anything resembling it; more likely he would have shared some invented appellation, some pseudonym, some fantastic moniker, some nom de guerre intended to throw creditors, former employees, former lovers, current employees, current lovers, erstwhile lovers, erstwhile followers—not to mention the authorities—not to mention the many authorities of as many nations as he had at one time attended upon as might need be thrown off his considerable track; and at any rate despite whatever name he might so choose to utilize at any given time and place—real or imagined—his true name was The Captain, no more and no less—and so it was, then, The Captain who first flew me in his balloon, in 1892, or it might have been 1893. The Captain, or so I was led to believe—or so he led me to believe—I heard the stories both directly from him and from others, and to be fair I found neither at that time nor later any reason to doubt these stories, fantastic as they may have at first appeared, for he had clearly led, shall we say, he had obviously led a, shall we say, a colorful life—The Captain had certainly not led an entirely, shall we say, led an entirely blameless life, to put it mildly—but at any rate, neither then, nor at any later time was I given reason to doubt the stories I heard, the stories I heard spew astonishingly forth variously from his mouth and from others’, for despite the fact that I do not think we could say The Captain led his life entirely above-the-board, so to speak—unless we choose to speak literally, from the floorboards nailed across stages stretching across this continent, for instance, the numberless boards numerously trod across this continent and across others, as I shall relate, or, for that matter, from the boards abroad the basket of a balloon—at any rate, whether we speak literally or not precisely so, I, at any rate, choose to believe these stories, for even if they are not precisely and entirely true, strictly speaking, they are true in the only sense of the word that matters, which is to say, they convey a truth that is real, a real truth, which, though it might not, strictly speaking, represent anything adjacent to actual literal truth, nor anything really resembling it, necessarily, in the sense of relating things that really happened—as we all know, those things that have actually happened are not the only things that have happened—there often being more truth in fiction than in truth; that, indeed, fiction often supersedes supposed truth, for if we choose to limit ourselves only to the verifiable, the world must be impoverished indeed, an actual Arctic, a veritable desert—and it is for this reason I choose to believe the stories told of The Captain, I choose to believe the stories told to me variously by The Captain and by others, however wild and uncouth, however on their surface unbelievable, however hyperbolic and hysterical they might at first appear, for such stories well represent the man I knew, regardless of their actual veracity, setting aside any actual foundation in history as it is commonly understood, and what I was told, what I was told of The Captain, both by The Captain and by others of The Captain, is that before he came to Captain balloons, or so I have been assured, despite the far-fetched nature of the claims, I have been assured that before making his living as an aeronaut The Captain had made his living as a mind reader, The Captain had been well known as a mind reader; The Captain, it was well known, read minds; it was known famously throughout the country—indeed, throughout countries, plural—throughout countries across the continent it was known that The Captain read minds, The Captain was a mind reader, a mentalist. Telepathy. This is the story that was told to me. This was the gist of the many stories told to me, told me directly or overheard: telepathic communication. However far-fetched it might seem, the gist of the story as related to me involved The Captain reading minds; and if you knew the man as I did, this would not seem so unlikely. Now, I don’t mean colloquially. I don’t mean people said of The Captain: The Captain is a mind reader. I mean professionally. I mean The Captain was paid to read minds. I mean he gave performances in which he read minds. I mean The Captain advertised his remarkable mind reading skills, went before the public, gave performances, and in these performances read minds; during these performances The Captain would read the minds of his audience and share the results of his cogitations forthwith to their astonishment. To their shared astonishment and amazement. It was, so he said, his extraordinary gift. His amazing, incomparable gift. It was amazing, he said. Absolutely amazing, he said. Incomparable. Incomparably amazing, he said. You should have seen me in my pomp. You—he said, gesturing loudly toward me as we floated far above the spinning globe, though without looking in my direction—you, Andrée, would have been, he said, amazed. Amazed, incomparably amazed, he said, at the remarkable accuracy and terrifying perspicacity of the mental discernment publicly displayed as I went before audiences and read their minds, audiences heretofore unknown to The Captain, who, without having met one among their number heretofore, could stand before them upon a lamplit stage, ascertain what secrets crept about their little sullen minds, and, before any astonished crowd, announce precisely what mysteries were withheld, bellow from between his beard each enigma heretofore hidden within their minds, each obscurity disguised deep within their puny brains shouted out loud, for all to hear, that they might be shocked and amazed. Shocked and amazed and appalled. Perhaps appalled. For who knows what’s hidden deep in one’s own mind, hidden deep within our own minds? The Captain shook his head. Did you know I once read the minds of the Royal Family? On one memorable occasion, The Captain said, I read the minds of the Royal Family. He shook his head. I read the minds of the Royal Family, he said; on one memorable occasion, on one memorable occasion I read the minds of the Royal Family, he said, and perhaps that was not wise, perhaps it was not wise to read the minds of the Royal Family, he said, shaking his head, for Royal Families hold many secrets. Many secrets. He shook his head. When I asked him what dark thoughts he had extracted from the minds of the Royal Family, his brow turned dark, and for once he appeared innocent of words. There is not much in the heads of Royal Families, he replied at length, at length he replied, in truth, little reposes in Royal minds; these Royals are so inbred, so insipid, so elegant with hauteur, pickled in idiocy, they have little discernable thoughts to be read, he muttered, and did not speak again on the subject. Perhaps this has something to do with why he turned to starvation. The Captain, apparently, The Captain, it is reported, abandoned mentalism after reading the minds of the Royal Family; it was directly after reading the minds of the Royal Family that The Captain became a fakir, as they are sometimes called; The Captain, directly after reading the minds of the Royal Family, fled the continent—he would not have used the word fled, I do not suppose, though rumors tend to confirm its accuracy—and traveled to farthest India, or so he claimed; he claimed that he then traveled to that boiling subcontinent and there he had learned, or so he claimed, during his voyage to farthest India, The Captain claimed he had learned the secrets of starvation from holy men in a distant ruined temple, flooded, overgrown with moss and overrun with monkeys, with wandering cows, watched over by ancient holy men, painted, yet otherwise wearing nothing, wearing nothing but intricate designs regularly applied upon one other in delicate dappled inky patterns at each festival of the full moon, and it was here, at this temple in deepest darkest India, The Captain claimed he had been taught the secrets of starvation, that he could concentrate his thoughts and mentally prepare his body such that he could starve himself at will with no ill effects, and it was this remarkable skill he demonstrated, as sequel to the succès de scandale of his telepathic tour; he starved himself before paying audiences with the skill of the Indian fakirsfrom whence it had been learned, there in a crumbling temple ensconced deep in tiger-infested jungle, overrun with rats and with snakes, flooded with murky water and tossed with dolphins, where he had in accord with the strenuous efforts of elaborately decorated ancient holy men learned to starve himself as they do toward some higher purpose, toward some spiritual design, whose meaning was murky as the waters, or perhaps simply incomprehensible to the mean crowds which gathered about to witness The Captain’s remarkable performances. So, The Captain became a fakir, advertised his remarkable starvation skills, went before the public, gave performances, and in these performances starved, during these performances The Captain would starve, publicly starve. They sometimes called him a starving artist, or a starvation artist, although these were not the terms he preferred. He called himself a fakir, for he wished to credit the holy men from whom he’d learned this trick—it was not a trick, no, not a trick! he insisted—it was a performance of the holiest kind, it was spiritual, it was ritual, it held meaning, it was no mere performance—no, no mere performance! Well, it was a kind of performance. It was a kind of performance, he at length admitted, though precisely what kind of performance it was, is, at this juncture, as I lie here, starving, in the empty white of White Island, somewhat difficult for me now to appreciate. It was the fashion at the time, apparently. It was the fashion at the time, I suppose, although, from my current position, from where I currently lie here in the wilderness of White Island, it seems rather a grim joke. Even the term fakir has, now, different connotations, just a few years later—perhaps not despite—perhaps because of, The Captain. Perhaps he should have been so smart as to select a term which was not so close to the English faker, though it does not mean that in Swedish, or in most other languages—English, though, has become our lingua franca; everyone, it seems, speaks English now, as they once spoke French—even I, even Andrée, gave my famous speech at the Explorers Club in English, for English has become the world’s language, the world overrun, as it is, by the British, and increasingly, by the Americans—though there is a portion of it overrun by no one, a large portion of the world never yet seen by British or American eyes—nor anyone else’s for that matter: the North. At any rate, even in another time, in another place, I might find The Captain’s performances rather difficult to appreciate, starvation I mean, starvation as performance, as—as some kind of supposed art—given all the starvation in the world, both actual and spiritual, given all that starve, day to day, not by choice but by necessity—it does seem to me rather indefensible, this so-called art of starvation; the starving artist, the starvation artist—the fakir—the faker—appears to me now as it did then rather an indefensible employment; but then, The Captain was, by any estimation, a rather indefensible man. At any rate, from time to time odd things come into fashion, and this was one of them. Starving artists. Perhaps it had something to do with all those starving artists then populating the garrets of Europe, shut up in their little attic rooms, alone with the stench of turpentine, splashing their odd little splotches on the canvas—impressionism, I’m told it’s called, this sloppy stuff—perhaps it has something to do with this, that apprehending starvation safely allows us to domesticate and ignore all the actual starvation in the world—or perhaps not—I rather suspect The Captain put much less thought than that into it, merely alighting upon something remarkable he could easily perform, and perform it he did, subsequently raking in all the plaudits—and all the cash. Like mind reading and mesmerism, starving artists came into fashion and The Captain, having read the Royal Family’s minds and apparently suffering some enigmatic humiliation in consequence, having climbed to the pinnacle of his profession and plunged perforce to its nadir—not to mention, knowing The Captain, likely rather bored by then of his tricks, or perhaps, perhaps pursued by them, pursued by the law, perhaps, in pursuit of said tricks—though he swore up and down to me they were no mere tricks, no more than this balloon, aloft in skies’ sickly void, represented some scientific boondoggle—for whatever reason, at that point, for whatever obscure reason, The Captain turned then to the art of starvation. What he did was, for instance, drink no water. He would drink no water, eat only meat. Nothing but meat. How it could be starvation if he did not starve but ate, in fact, meat, not just a little, but daily, ate meat in great quantities, was my question, to which he responded by relating to me the tale of the memorable occasion on which, he, The Captain, drank no water and ate only meat for an entire month, went an entire month without drinking, eating only meat during that time, nothing but meat. Now, there is water in meat, I suppose, water must repose somewhere in meat, I suppose, or in some vivifying substance within the meat, at any rate, for he did not die, The Captain, The Captain did not die though he drank no water for thirty days; The Captain ate only meat for thirty long days, meat replacing any and all liquid water in his diet, and neither at that time nor at any subsequent time did he die; The Captain, so far as I know, is indeed still out there somewhere, The Captain, out there somewhere flying his balloons, demonstrating some new amazing skill before an astounded populace, not eating anything, except, of course, meat, which is somehow starvation, apparently, gorging himself on meat starvation somehow—although now that I think about it, as I think upon it now, it strikes me I might have actually learned something of starvation from The Captain, unlikely as it may seem, for though it seemed without purpose at the time, and is in a way without purpose now, surrounded by water as I am, albeit by frozen water, by ice, by an entire frozen ocean, being entirely without meat, entirely without meat, excepting the odd tern, excepting the odd polar bear, whose meat I would prefer to abjure if it means avoiding the odd polar bear—all this notwithstanding, The Captain’s starvation, unlikely as it may seem, does represent some kind of object lesson, perhaps, an object lesson of some kind, of some useless kind—for The Captain did not die despite drinking no water for thirty days, eating only meat, nothing but meat, and neither did we, traveling across the ice to our final resting place on White Island, consuming our remaining supplies, having consumed most of our remaining victuals—the coffee, the biscuits, the bread, the potage and the Chateau Briand, the raspberry cordial and the cocoa, the condensed milk and the chocolate, peas, honey, and cheese, all gone—forced forthwith to subsist on meat alone, on pemmican, disgusting dried pemmican, on the odd tern, the odd polar bear, shot by Strindberg, as I have never been good with a gun, never much use with a rifle, unfortunately, a skill I failed to spend much time on on Danes, for I saw little reason at that time to improve this skill, not expecting to travel across the ice, not expecting to need the rifle I didn’t even intend on bringing—I didn’t even want to bring a rifle and ammunition, as it happens, because of the weight, allowing myself to be convinced otherwise by Strindberg only on the off chance we might take the opportunity to collect specimens from the basket of our balloon—at any rate, my point is, knowing The Captain survived thirty days on meat alone, might have survived much longer had he chosen to, was perhaps an object lesson to us, we who looked forward to eating nothing but meat for however much longer we might remain on this island—thirty days—longer—a lesson useful to have learned in advance, that such a thing might be possible, that despite the waste and stupidity of the thing itself, as an object lesson, as a sort of demonstration, an experiment, it possessed real value, real value to us, for as it turned out, The Captain lived, The Captain lived and lived on to fly his balloon a few years later, stomach sagging with flesh, balloon gravid with gravy, as it were, a balloon in which I joined him in 1893, or I guess it was 1892, if 1893 was, indeed, the year I first flew in my own first balloon, Svea, thistle. It strikes me now as odd that I do not exactly remember the first time I flew, the first time I flew in a balloon, in The Captain’s balloon, that I do not remember its name, nor The Captain’s Christian name, supposing that he had one, supposing that The Captain ever had a Christian name—that I do not remember my first flight in detail now strikes me as odd, that I cannot even remember the precise year in which it took place, although upon reflection it must have been 1892, not 1893, for it was surely in 1893 I first came to Captain my own balloon, Svea, thistle. I was thirty-eight years old. I was thirty-eight years old when I became Captain of Svea, thistle, and that likely has something to do with it, that’s likely a fact of significance in this instance, for once the age of thirty has passed I find we each of us tend to forget our age, increasingly forget our age, that age increasingly ceases to matter after the age of thirty, that, generally speaking, on the far side of thirty, decades begin to pass an accelerating haze of days, years drop away, precise dates a blur, our lives more and more a mere matter of accumulation, each life less lived than accumulating, like stone, sedimentary, like rings in a tree trunk, that once we are no longer saplings at the mercy of wind and storm the precise number of layers mounting upon our durable, sturdy shoulders hardly matters any longer, and it is perhaps for this reason I have trouble remembering the year in which my first balloon flight occurred, as I have trouble remembering the flight itself, despite its importance, despite its enormous significance to my life in so many ways, for I had by then long since passed the age of thirty, was nearing forty, in fact, approaching the point at which the end of my life loomed closer than its origin—though, of course, the fulcrum of my life, the precarious center on which my existence balanced, the precise point pinched between the Fates’ delicate fingers, slid considerably backward once The Eagle took flight, though of course I did not recognize this immediately—and for this reason, and for others more obscure and less clearly understood, I have trouble remembering the flight itself; of the flight itself I remember little except a jumbled succession of vague impressions. I remember flying in The Captain’s balloon, of course; what I do not remember is the flight itself, I do not much remember the flight itself, of the flight itself I remember virtually nothing, concentrating as I was on my sensations alone—during that first flight, I, by design, by predetermined plan, concentrated primarily on my specific experience of the flight—it was my fixed determination to focus on my own sensations and experience, as a means of discovering whether ballooning agreed with me, so to speak, whether I had a future in it, so to speak, for it is not given to all to act rationally at times of high stress or danger, and ballooning, for all its apparent quietude, is nothing if not dangerous, is nothing if not stressful, to be sure, and in order to determine whether or not I was suited to the habit of ballooning, I focused, in that first flight, less on the mechanics of ballooning, on the poetry of ballooning, on the experience of ballooning—to these things I gave no attention at all—I focused, rather, entirely on my own subjective experience of ballooning—or, to be more precise, focused less on my experience of than my reaction to ballooning, my physiological response, my mental response to the rigors of ballooning, for all the rest might come later—it does one little good to learn the mechanics of ballooning if one cannot operate without fear at altitude, if one cannot see clearly, if one cannot react with alacrity—and it was, therefore, inward I gazed, rather than outward, so that what outward impressions remain, remain rather attenuated, I am afraid—in retrospect, I wish I had spent more time taking in the experience—frankly, I wish I had spent more time just enjoying the experience—I, who have known so little joy—I don’t know that I ever, really, took any pleasure in my time aloft, as I have taken pleasure in so little for so long, focused as I have been on one thing and another, and especially for so long on this one, great goal—and I do regret this now, knowing I shall not have the chance again, knowing I shall never again have the opportunity to soar above the clouds, an experience given few to experience, one which I have, as I now recognize, squandered—in my narrow focus on achieving the one singular goal which has obsessed me for years, I know I have squandered that aspect of the experience which might have made it actually worthwhile, in the absence of achieving the long-sought goal—that, indeed, had we achieved our goal, had The Pole been ours, the fleeting moment of accomplishment so quickly past, I wonder if I should have taken any pleasure in it later, having failed to appreciate the journey itself, having declined to enjoy the journey—it is the journey, not the destination, as Strindberg so forcefully insisted—which is, admittedly, a cliché, an embarrassing cliché, I know, but what are clichés if not truths whose utility we deny, ashamed of our own simplicity—indeed, The Captain himself noticed this disconnect between mind and body, even on that first flight in 1892—yes, it must have been 1892—when, noticing, in contradistinction to the usual reaction of passengers who joined him in his basket, how little attention I gave to the balloon, to the flight, to The Captain himself—The Captain remarked on my odd mien, calling me disagreeably calm—he described me as disagreeably calm, rather unflatteringly if I am being honest—and why not, at this point, why not be honest, at this juncture there can be no reason to hold anything back—The Captain turned, his eyes flashed, and he spoke disdainfully of my disagreeable calm during the flight—he said that, deep within my mind, he had ascertained, as a remnant of his mentalist days, a disagreeable calm, an unreasonable aspect which he did not think would serve me well, not in a balloon, not in my future endeavors, no, not at all, or so he averred, and when I asked him what would become of me—and I must stress that I had not discussed with The Captain nor with anyone else at that time the churning plans then maturing deep within—when I asked him what would become of me, The Captain turned for the first time entirely in my direction and a curious aspect obscured his visage—he did not look into my eyes—he looked, so it appeared, directly behind me, right through me, as it were, and his eyes flashed—though that might have been some trick of the sun in the sky—and he quietly said, all I see is an endless whiteness—and then he turned away once more, seeming distantly troubled, which I took then as a favorable omen, that I should indeed one day see The Pole—it may have been at that moment that I first truly began to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, my plans should not come to nothing, that my future should not come to naught, and this offhand phrase pressed through pursed lips by The Captain refulgent in his airborne glory was just the first of many obscure omens which, quietly catalogued, all appeared to augur success in my endeavor—though of course as a man of science his alleged insight into my inner self struck me as rather unpleasantly wrong-headed, condescending, even, if I am being honest, disturbing—disagreeably calm­­—how patronizing, how supercilious—so at the time I perhaps too quickly dismissed this notion of The Captain’s insight into what my mind might contain, I dismissed The Captain’s keen insight at the time, whatever its source, though I wonder now if there might not have been some truth in his prognostication, I wonder if, by whatever means, The Captain might not have glimpsed somewhere in my character the small flaws which were the crack in the large glass of my endeavors—at the time I merely ignored his concern, perhaps mistakenly, preferring to focus on his uncanny vision of the North; at the time, to my ensuing regret, I paid little attention to The Captain’s dark divagations—disagreeable calm—and deliberately cast my thoughtful gaze not outward but inward, ignoring the landscape as it heaved about the horizon, preferring instead to look inward, examining my reactions to the flight as it transpired, as the balloon in the air respired, examining closely my own physiological reactions, my own psychological reactions, as that remarkable renegade Austrian Freud would call them, taking close counsel of my personal mental technologies, observing myself as closely as possible, observing in detail my specific, definite mental and physical reactions to flight in The Captain’s balloon, observing myself as closely as possible in order to learn whether, for instance, I was afraid or not afraid, searching diligently and without judgment for any reservoir of fear rising within me, casting a vigilant eye upon any potential tremulous temerities rising in me like frightful bubbles to the surface, knowing that this, more than any glorious sylvan landscape passing beyond our sight, would resound with far greater relevance to future flights: this, not tourism nor airy aesthesis, was the relevant purpose of my maiden flight, the principal, serious purpose underlying this first, experimental action, and, having thus examined my innermost reaches, cast lines into my innermost depths and hauled them up, peering closely and without prejudice at the strange catch twisting and twitching on the end of my line, to my satisfaction discovered in these meticulous observations no feeling of fear, I could discover no feeling of fear awakening in me whatsoever—no conscious feeling of fear, anyway—it may be some unknown terror lurked deep within, beyond the reach of my waking mind—yes, upon reflection I suppose I may have felt fear in some uncharted depth, as whales emerge from inky darkness enormous and at first unseen—it does seem possible, upon reflection it even seems likely that I felt some small species of fear, though I had no distinct feeling of it, of fear—I noted no signs of alarm or agitation in myself during my flight with The Captain, except, notably, perhaps, in that I clung for a time to the stay ropes, except for the inescapable fact that I clung, at first, during my maiden flight with The Captain, to the stay ropes, I did hold fast to the stay ropes for a time, I admit—it’s a fact I try to minimize, for I do not like to imagine I felt any fear, and told myself at the time it was the novelty of the experience which led me to so station myself—yet, I somewhat ashamedly admit, at first during my maiden flight I did tightly grip the stay ropes, even though these stay ropes represented the part of the balloon in which I felt least confident, even though from the beginning I had only the least confidence in these stay ropes, so that it took me long moments to realize I clung to these stay ropes, that though I did not trust them, that though they were the part of the balloon in which my trust, from the beginning, reposed in the least, in the very least, that finally, despite or because of my misgivings, at some point I let go of them, let go of the questionable stay ropes and grabbed onto something else—what, I do not remember, except it was not a stay rope—and I must have been afraid, letting go of the stay ropes, I must have felt fear, in that moment, letting go of the stay ropes, and though at that moment I remember feeling no fear, no fear whatsoever, I do not remember feeling fear, not then, and not later—no dizziness, no disquiet, no sensation whatsoever, only dispassion, only a kind of curious detachment—I did not feel my senses fail, nor feel like I’d left my body—only that I had no sensation or fear of falling at that moment, no sensation in fact whatever as I let go of the stay ropes, as I let go of the stay ropes and we climbed and climbed up into the silent air—and as I looked down into the deepening abyss below I felt no fear, there at my lofty station I remember feeling no fear, no fear at all, despite having so recently clung so tenaciously to the stay ropes—at that moment, curiously enough, I am certain no sensation of fear gripped me, that though perhaps some secret fear must have driven me at first to grasp the stay ropes, then to let go of them, to let go of the stay ropes in which I had so little confidence, this in itself perhaps gave me confidence, this letting go must have given me great confidence, instilled great confidence in me, and, having conquered whatever fear may have ballooned invisibly in me as we climbed and climbed up into the air, I felt sufficiently certain during and after my flight with The Captain to believe ballooning represented a possible means by which I might achieve The Pole, I felt sure ballooning represented a distinct possibility by which The Pole could be gained, that ballooning to The Pole, now, for me, far from being an impossibility denied by fear, represented a distinct possibility, such that, with practice and effort, I was and would be strong enough, mentally and physically, to Captain a balloon myself, on my own, to The Pole, to command a balloon, to control it, bend it to my will, while journeying to The Pole, and that nothing now stood in the way of my goal; I felt certain nothing could now prevent me from reaching my goal, The Pole by balloon, and I felt, having risen with The Captain a novice, I returned a putative Captain myself, and if I was to attempt to attain my goal, The Pole, in a balloon, that should something keep me from reaching my goal, The Pole, in a balloon, that that something would not be fear, that failure would by needs be delivered from a different source, that, having mastered fear, failure would not thus find me, would not find me cowering in terror, clutching stay ropes at altitude, frozen in place; I felt supremely confident in this, and I felt ready, therefore, having flown successfully with The Captain, to Captain my own balloon, to Captain my own balloon to The Pole. Having flown with The Captain, having had the experience of ballooning with The Captain, despite evincing disagreeable calm—whatever that is—I was ready to move on, more than ready to move on, to move on to greater things, and thence I did, in 1892—or perhaps it was 1893—move on to Captain my own balloon, Svea, thistle, leaving The Captain the mind reader, The Captain the fakir, The Captain the starving artist, The Captain the charlatan, leaving The Captain behind as he left his own Christian name behind, clutching his dubious abilities to his dubious beard, shortly thereafter acquiring at considerable personal expense my own balloon, Svea, thistle, with which I intended to develop and practice the techniques I would need to fly to The Pole in a balloon. This must have been in 1892. I was thirty-eight when I first came to Captain my own balloon, and it was therefore 1893—not 1892—when I acquired my own balloon, Svea, thistle; 1893, less than a year later, only a year after my maiden flight with The Captain, when I began finally to Captain my own balloon, Svea, thistle,in which I tested out the innovations I was certain would make possible my eventual triumph over The Pole. Though there were others then innovating in the space of airships, most notably the Brazilian Santos-Dumont in Paris, he had yet to successfully make airborne one of his crazy contraptions, whose designs, which I was privileged in Paris to examine, more resembled limp sausages encased in birdcages than any useful machine I’ve ever witnessed, I was already airborne in 1892—or it was, I supposed 1893, though no later than that year—in 1893 already out flying in Svea, thistle, testing my innovations which, would, I was certain, forever revolutionize the world of lighter-than-air aviation. I remember well those first flights in Svea, thistle. Though I hardly remember my time in The Captain’s balloon, a fine if ordinary balloon whose name I still do not now recall, I remember my own flights well—for my own flights they were, flights during which I had little time to examine my own experiences, physiological, mental, or otherwise, as I had to give my attention, all my attention, to the management of Svea, to Svea, thistle, which I flew alone, to my balloon Svea, thistle, which I alone flew without the luxury of other crew members—which I flew without the possibility of depending upon other crew members, making my lonely test flights out above the Nordic nations and the Baltic Sea. At this remove it is difficult to remember how many flights exactly I made in Svea, thistle—perhaps eight or nine, perhaps as many as ten, definitely more than five—I think the number was eight or nine, certainly no more than ten and no less than five—eight or nine seems like the right number, although at this moment like years they run together and it’s difficult to differentiate one from the other—in retrospect, at the distance of nearly half a decade, from where I now lie amongst rock and stone it’s difficult to separate one from the next, not only because my thoughts are, I admit, a little confused at this moment, not only because now is not the moment most conducive to clear thought, not only because clear thought is not to hand at this exact moment, for reasons which shall become obvious, but because they were so similar; each flight, despite beginning differently, despite ending differently, was, on the whole, rather similar to those that came before and those that followed, in a general sense, and though specific incidents are quite clear in my mind, indeed, individual flights cut distinct paths through my mind, their order and number remains unclear, not only because my mind is generally unclear just now, but because aerial math is confounding, one flight and one flight adding up, as it were, to one flight, and each flight added to the previous flight, adds up, in memory, to one long flight. I do remember my first flight, however; I specifically remember my first flight, I remember my first flight with great specificity because it was, frankly, not terribly successful, not entirely a success, though not entirely a failure, either, in that I was able to become airborne and land again without injury; I remember well my first flight because it was brief, yet also, shall we say, problematic, although thankfully we survived unscathed, Svea, thistle, and I; no, my first flight did not especially resemble my other flights, being of such brief duration, a first flight in which, as I recall, Svea, I remember, Svea, thistle, at the instant of launch jumped rather overenthusiastically from the ground as if impatient to begin our adventure, much too impatient to begin, before just as suddenly losing her nerve and crashing back again to the ground, bouncing, ricocheting, shooting back abruptly into the wide terrified sky, and then, finally, us two coming quickly to a shared shaken rest. This first aborted attempt at flight was not one I wished to repeat, and took pains to prevent going forward; however, this unpleasant experience would unfortunately be recapitulated at a most inopportune time. The other flights, on the other hand, blend one into another. One and one and one. However many there were, they run together one long ascent. One plus one equals one. I’m trying to untangle them, trying and failing to untangle them, my memory unclear, despite only a few years having passed since then, as, as I have ruefully made clear, for what will become obvious reasons, now is not the moment most conducive to perfect clarity. I remember the sound of dogs barking. I remember the bitter cold snatching at my skin. I remember faint shouts from below. I remember the acrid smell of smoke whispering up from bonfires below. I remember the way the shape of the balloon changed as I flew: sometimes the balloon floated above me a perfect polyhedron, a platonic solid, isometrically projected; at other times it resembled a striated terrestrial globe, a lozenge, a wet rag, a billowing cloak, or a cigar; more fancifully, at times I imagined it a traveling trunk, a staved-in skull, a broken goblet, a lumpy bag of vegetables, a sachet, a pear, an orange, an apple … yes, it most often resembled a kind of fruit—a quince, for instance, a pomegranate, an avocado, lumpy in places, broadly spherical, here bitten off by the wind, there pressed into by flurries’ fingers, bag of groceries stumbling through pendulous skies lumpen and heavy, over water, over land, over marsh, over sand, over a gray and darkening earth. During these flights in Svea, thistle, I was tremendously busy, not only navigating, dead reckoning—navigating, that is, by measuring from my known previous position, as opposed to sighting the stars from a sextant, which was nigh-impossible in those circumstances—not only by dead reckoning attempting to determine just where I might find myself at that particular moment, but also deeply engaged at my scientific instruments, making measurements, documenting temperatures and noting the weather, observing the clouds and the sky, throwing little pieces of paper from the basket with my address printed on them so that, like Theseus, I might find my way back through the labyrinth, so that, like Hansel and Gretel, I might find my way back through the dark wood, or, at least, have an idea where the labyrinth lay, where the dark wood stood, and little looked out upon the landscape as it slid past beneath. I always had headaches. It had something to do with the quality of the air. The quantity of the air. Air density declining with each isobar. My head invariably ached at altitude; I examined a little mirror from time to time to see if my face was changing color, if my face changed color as the quality of the air changed, as the quantity of the air changed: my face did not change color. Or it may be that as my face changed color, so too did my eyes, and I could not perceive the color changing in my face, for as my face changed, so, too, did my eyes; at any rate, despite regular examination in my little mirror, my appearance, at altitude, never appeared overmuch to change, excepting a slight swelling, a bagginess at the edges I attributed to the rapidly declining atmosphere, which could be so unforgiving. On one flight, I remember, I discarded too much ballast and shot upward so fast I nearly passed out. On another flight I emptied the entire envelope through a broken valve in two minutes flat. Two minutes to a perfect landing. Not dragged, not tossed into trees: a perfect landing. Once I landed in a tree and once, over scurrilous water, nearly ran flat into a steamship. Once I lost my anchor and made to jump free to safety, only to be tossed instead ungenerously from the basket by the wind, smashing my arm and the wristwatch to which it was strapped. The time was 7:18 in the evening; the place, the coast of Finland. It took all night to be rescued because the sudden, unexpected appearance of my balloon convinced the nearby villagers the Day of Judgment was nigh, that the Day of Judgment had arrived, the Day of Judgment finally here, the frightful, phantom appearance of my domed palisade descending from on high, as the King of Kings shall alight in the End Times, convincing the villagers, superstitious and little changed from their feudal ancestors, that this night the Day of Judgment was at long last upon them and upon their brethren, and they shrank from me in terror, the superstitious villagers shrank from me in terror, for they knew not who I was nor for what reason I had come, whether I was the long-awaited savior, or something more sinister, and it was for this silly superstitious reason it took all night for me to be rescued, that in the interim the villagers need be convinced the Day of Judgment was not, as first appeared, apparent, was not just then at hand, that the Day of Judgment had not in fact arrived—not for them, in any case—though perhaps it has, now, for me, perhaps the Day of Judgment has arrived for me, here on this desolate, remote White Island—however one chooses to look at it, whatever one chooses to believe, after a night smashed into the ground like a fallen fruit stepped upon by a peasant’s shoe, some more contemporary Finns came to avail my shivering self, and despite the portent represented by my balloon, by Svea, thistle, the Day of Judgment did not dawn, not for them, not then, in any case, though perhaps, now, it has, for me. After that I flew once more to Finland and found myself carried by westerly winds out over the Baltic Sea all the way to Gotland; on that memorable occasion I discovered I had soared all the way to the dark fields of Gotland, swept by westerly winds all the way to Gotland, out over marshes dark with moonlight like fields of black mirrors. Other times I traveled over eerily silent lands swept by cloud shadow, dappled and serene, yet ominously empty. I traveled over lakes and I traveled over farmlands. I saw lighthouses in improbable places. I saw towers rising from cliffs and vast seas emptying into tidal basins strewn with stones. I saw towns and church steeples reaching toward me as if straining to be free of the weight of belief, creaking wooden joints and joists aching to join me in the ethereal regions. Yet as these refulgent vistas passed beneath, I had precious little opportunity to meditate upon them as I was, as I have reported, tremendously busy with the operation of Svea, thistle. There were just so many things of which to keep track, innumerable operations to assay—too many—especially as I had not yet availed myself of a companion, of a crewmate, and was alone responsible for every aspect of each flight, however many flights there were—probably eight or nine in the end, I would think. Less than ten, more than five. In particular, I was concerned with the steering of my balloon. Without question the most important aspect of these flights, the most important thing I learned in Svea, thistle, indeed the principal purpose of my investigations, had to do with steering, with direction—by far the most important thing I learned in Svea, thistle, had to do with guide ropes, had to do with my use of guide ropes and a sail. This was my technical innovation. This was my great technical innovation. This was the technical innovation which, I was convinced, would make possible a flight to The Pole; the guide ropes and the sail were, together, the technical innovations without which a flight to The Pole would not have become possible. I speak with precision, as an engineer. I speak as a graduate of the Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, class of 1874, as a graduate, in mechanical engineering, of that fusion of the Teknologiska institutet and the Mekaniska skolan, the modern descendent of Christopher Polhem’s Laboratorium mechanicum of 1697—I speak as a former assistant at the Royal Institute of Technology, as a member in good standing of the City Council of Stockholm, as the author of numerous scientific publications in a variety of fields—most notably, the conduction of electricity in the air—as the particular friend of Jonas Patrik Ljungström, inventor of the distance tube for precision surveying, as an employee of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, through which association I made the acquaintance of John Wise, who in forty-four years of flight made 463 ascents, 462 of them successful, who invented the parachute balloon, which, when punctured, collapses to form a parachute, by which means the aeronaut may safely return to earth; John Wise, who invented the essential rip panel, which permits deflation of the envelope at a controlled rate, allowing the prudent aeronaut to easily control descent, and, lastly but not least, as a former member of Nils Gustaf Ekholm’s successful Spitsbergen Expedition of 1882, which did so much to open that mysterious archipelago to modern science.