In order to make his art gallery business better, Mnusken has always been obsessed with communicating with his wife. However, it is difficult for him and Lu Quanquan to agree on this concept. Similarly, Lu Quanquan, who works in the media industry, is also very busy, running all over the world. She didn't want to lose the opportunity to work at Radio France. As a last resort, Mnusken separated from her, and she became one of his many lovers. However, when this situation lasted for a long time, their contradictions accumulated and exploded. Finally, after an explosive argument, the two have what they both consider to be their last love.

I'm gone, Mnusken said, I'm leaving you. I'll leave everything to you, but I'm leaving. As Lu Quanquan's eyes drifted to the ground and landed on an electrical socket for no apparent reason, Mnusken threw his key on the tray in the foyer. Then he buttoned up his coat and went out, gently closing the door of the small building.

Lu Quanquan's car was parked outside, and the steamy windows stayed quietly under the rearview mirror, and Mnusken didn't look at the car, and walked towards the Hengtong subway station, six hundred meters away. At nine o'clock in the evening on the first Sunday in January, the subway cars were empty. There were only a dozen lonely people inside, and Mnusken seemed to be one of them before twenty-five minutes. Usually, he would be happy to find a seat in the carriage that was empty all face-to-face, and it was like a box reserved for him alone, which was his favorite image in the subway. Tonight, he didn't even think about this layer, because of the breakup scene he had just played with Lu Quanquan, he was a little absent-minded now, but he was not as worried as expected. He had foreseen a more violent reaction, mixed with threatening and abusive shouts, and he relaxed but was annoyed by the same ease.

He kept the small box containing the washing utensils and a change of clothes at his feet, and at first, he looked fixedly ahead, mechanically identifying the billboards of pavement materials and real estate magazines.

Later, between Jinbu Station and Lujia Station, Mnusken opened his small box, took out a catalogue of traditional European art auctions, flipped through it until he got off at Delai Station.

Near the Cathedral of Delai, on the street, which is emptier than the subway, the lights made of wires and light bulbs have long since disappeared, and the stars have gone out.

The newly decorated windows of luxury stores remind absent passers-by that the year-end festivities have come to an end. Alone in his coat, Mnusken walked around the church and walked to the side of the arcade with the even-numbered house numbers.

In order to find the code to enter the door of the building, he squeezed a path under his coat with both hands: his left hand reached into his lining pocket to dig out a notepad, and his right hand reached into his front breast pocket to dig out his glasses.

He then walked through the porch, ignoring the elevator, and firmly attacked a staircase used by his followers.

He climbed up to the sixth floor, gasping not as hard as he thought he would, and stopped in front of a door that was haphazardly painted brick-red, and the bars proved at least two attempts to pick the lock.

There is no name on the door, except for a photograph pinned with a thumbtack, with all four corners upturned, reproducing the lifeless body of Noue, a former matador who worked as an assistant and then rose to forehand, and whose heart was opened like a book on May 1, 1992 by a brute named Kubasto: Mnusken knocked twice on this photograph.

While waiting for the door, the fingernail of his right hand slightly scratched the inner epidermis of his left forearm, just a little above the wrist, where, under the white skin, many tendons and blue veins crossed.

Then a young woman named Lance, with long brown hair, no more than thirty years old, and no less than one meter seventy-five in height, appeared, and she opened the door for him with a smile, and closed it behind them without saying a word.

At about ten o'clock the next morning, Mnusken went out to his studio again.

Six months later, also at about ten o'clock, the same Mnusken stepped out of a taxi in front of Terminal 2 of Charles de Gaulle Airport, with the June sky above him, the bright sunshine and the thin clouds to the northwest. Mnusken had not yet boarded his flight because he was too early: for just three quarters of an hour he had to push a cart containing a canvas duffel bag, a backpack, and his coat, which seemed too thick for the summer, around the halls. After he had a cup of coffee and bought some disposable tissues and aspirin, he looked for a quiet place and waited calmly for a while.

It was really difficult for him to find such a place, because an airport is not a comfortable existence. It was just a place of transition, a sieve, a fragile surface in the middle of a plain, a platform with a runway entangled, in which jumped rabbits that smelled of kerosene in their breath, a turntable, in which the wind swept in, driving all sorts of particles of innumerable origin—all the sand of the desert, flakes of gold and mica of all rivers, volcanic ash or radioactive dust, pollen or viruses, cigarette ash or rice flour. It's not easy to find a quiet corner, but Mnusken found a VIP lounge in the basement of the terminal, where he could sit quietly in an armchair and not think about anything big. He passed some time there, then went to check in his luggage and wandered around the duty-free area, he didn't buy any liquor, he didn't buy cigarettes and perfumes, he didn't buy anything. He's not going on vacation. There is no need to add to the burden at all.

Towards twelve o'clock, he boarded a small plane, and the background music in the cabin accompanied him all the way to his seat, and the volume of the music was turned down to allow the passengers to calm down. Mnusken folded his coat and stuffed it into a suitcase with his travel bag, and then sat down in the small space assigned to him next to a porthole, and he set it to heart:

Buckle up and put newspapers and magazines in front of you, glasses and sleeping pills at hand. Luckily, the seat next to him was vacant so he could use it as his own extra seat.

Subsequently, always like that, patiently waiting, vague ears to hear the sound announcement, confused eyes to track the safety operation demonstration. The plane finally moved, imperceptibly at first, then moved faster and faster, taking off and heading northwest, towards the clouds there. Later, among the clouds, Mnusken would look out of the windowpane and make out an ocean, with an island in the middle that he could not identify, and then there would be a land, in the middle of the land, this time a lake, the name of which he would not know.

He dozed off, he was dazed as he watched the opening credits of a movie on a screen, he couldn't finish it, he was distracted by the comings and goings of the flight attendants, they might not be what they used to be, he was very lonely.

In a cockpit that has withstood 200 atmospheres, people do feel more alone than ever.

This forced loneliness, he thought, may be a good opportunity for him to take stock of life and reflect on the meaning of the things that give rise to life.

He tried for a while, he forced himself a little, but in the face of the incoherent inner monologue that followed, he couldn't hold on for long, so, he gave up, he curled up in a ball, his head was numb, he really wanted to get a good night's sleep, he asked the stewardess for a drink, because he would sleep more soundly, and then, he asked for another drink, so that he could swallow the sleeping pills: he slept.

On the outer islands of Linan, after getting off the plane, the employees of the airport did not seem to be normally scattered under a blue sky that was wider than the rest of the world, and then, the Kaiwo brand buses were longer than the others, but the size of the highway was normal.

Once in the city centre, Mnusken hailed a green taxi to the port, the sea boat area, and Pier 11.

The taxi finally stopped in front of a sign in the port with the destination written in chalk: North Pole, and two hours later, the Flower Garden set sail for the North Pole.

For five years, until that night in January, when Mnusken left his small building in the southern suburbs of Paris, he spent every day except Sunday in the same way.

Wake up at 7:30, go to the toilet for ten minutes, accompany any printed material, from aesthetic treatises to humble bills, and then prepare breakfast for Lu Quanquan and himself, paying special attention to the scientific equipment of vitamins and inorganic salts.

At this time, he listened to the news broadcast while doing twenty minutes of gymnastics. After all this, he told Lu Quanquan to get up and ventilate the house.

Mnusken then brushed his teeth in the bathroom, until his gums were bleeding, but he never looked in the mirror, and at the same time turned on the faucet to let the ten liters of cool water from the municipal corporation run away in vain. Wash your face without changing the program, from left to right, from bottom to top. Shave without changing the program, first the right side of the face, then the left side of the face, first the chin, then the lower lip, then the upper lip, and finally the neck. While Mnusken followed the ritual as he could, he asked himself every morning how to get rid of the ritual, and the question even went deep into the ritual itself.

It was never solved, and at nine o'clock he went out to his studio.

The studio he was talking about was no longer a studio. When Mnusken began to call himself an artist and a self-described sculptor, it was a so-so studio, and since he switched to buying and selling other people's art, only the back room of the gallery is now used as a studio by him. It is located on the ground floor of a small apartment building in the 9th arrondissement, on a side street, and there are no favourable factors to open a gallery here: the artery of the trade and wholesale industry is somewhat popular for the neighborhood.

Directly opposite the gallery is an infrastructure site, where construction has just begun: deep foundations are being dug right now. When Mnusken arrived at the gallery, he made himself coffee, digested two cups of mocha, opened the letter, threw away the main part, touched the delayed papers, bravely wrestled with the thought of smoking his first cigarette, and waited patiently until ten o'clock. He pretended to be an artist, or a practitioner related to art, and looked for clues from it.

Then, he opened the gallery door and made a few phone calls. At about 12:10 he called again, and he was looking for someone to go out to dinner with: he always found someone.

From fifteen o'clock for a whole afternoon, Mnusken took care of the daily business of the gallery until nineteen o'clock, when he called Lu Quanquan and told her in the same words, "If you are hungry, eat first, don't wait for me." As long as she was at home, she always waited for him, and at twenty-thirty minutes Mnusken went to bed with her, arguing about once every other day, and then turning off the lights at twenty-three. For five years, yes, it happened like this, until it suddenly changed on January 3rd. However, not everything has changed: for example, in Lance's cramped bathroom, Mnuskin still washes his face from left to right and from bottom to top, but the bathroom space is too small, and he has to be aggrieved, of course, with a faint disappointment in his heart.

But he won't stay in her house for long, and in the next few days, he'll have to move to the studio. The studio was always short of a vacuum cleaner and looked like a bachelor's cave, a desperate fugitive's hideout, an empty bequest clutched by the heir.

Five pieces of furniture provided a minimum of comfort, and a small safe, the code for which Mnusken had long forgotten to open the box, a one-meter-wide and three-meter-long kitchen with an oil-stained oven, an empty refrigerator with two almost wilted vegetables, and a few expired cans on the shelves. Since the refrigerator was rarely used, a natural iceberg formed in the freezer compartment, and when the iceberg turned into a large ice floe, Mnusken used a hair dryer and a bread cutter to defrost it every year.

Rust, saltpeter, and purulent lime dominate the waterroom, but a closet hides six dark suits, a long line of white shirts, and a full tie. That's because, when Mnusken looks after his gallery, he makes it a rule to dress impeccably well: dress smartly and even stereotypically, like a politician or a bank manager.

In the living room, apart from two posters of Heidelberg and Montberryre exhibitions, nothing remains a shadow of the gallerist's past artistic activities. Of course, with the exception of two large pieces of marble, which are not very elegant, have been carved and used as low tables or television seats, and in their deep interiors they have always preserved for themselves the form that day came out of their guts. It could have been an avatar, a fountain of water, a body, but Mnusken left it there without finishing it.

At the moment, it is a large ship 100 meters long and 20 meters wide: eight engines installed in pairs, 13,600 horsepower, a top speed of 16.20 knots and a hull draft of 7.16 meters. Mnusken was housed in his cabin: the furniture was fixed to the siding, the foot-switched faucet did not produce water, the television receiver was screwed onto the extension of the single sleeper, and there was a book in the drawer of the bedside table. Plus a little strange ventilator, because the heating comes from the inner walls, creating a heat of about thirty degrees that is the same on all Arctic gear, whether it's a warship, a tractor's wheelhouse, or a house. Mnusken scattered his belongings in closets, keeping a book on Inuit sculpture within arm's reach of the sleeper. Thirty-two men made up the seafarers of the Flower Garden, plus three Mnusken women who could be clearly distinguished at once: a young woman who was in charge of cables, the one who loved to bite her fingernails was in charge of accounts, and a nurse of a very good physique, with a little make-up, her skin was just the right tan, and she wore very little under her overalls, and she was also in charge of the library and video materials, and her name was Silin. Mnusken quickly developed a habit of borrowing books and videos from her, and within a few days he knew it all clearly, and every evening Seline went to a radio operator with a mustache, a square chin, and a spindle nose.

There seems to be little hope for success in this regard, but let's see, we'll see, we're still early. Separated from Lu Qianqian, he had a particularly strong urge to find her filling.

On the first day, on deck, Mnusken met the head of the ship. The captain is like an actor, the first mate is like a host, but that's the end of it: the rest of the officers, the upper and lower ones, are uncharacteristic. After exchanging pleasantries, unable to find anything to talk about, Mnusken wandered around the huge, warm body of the icebreaker, gradually attracted by its scent. At first glance, it was so clear that nothing could be smelled, and then, with a little searching, one could distinguish in order the ghosts of crude diesel, food, tobacco, vomit, and the smell of compressed garbage, and then, looking deeper, there was a floating, vague background, mixed with the not-so-clean, musty dampness, the steam of the seawater, the screeching sound coming from the siphon. Tweeters buzzed with commands, and some guys laughed heartily behind the half-open door. As he wandered around, Mnusken met a variety of sailors, but he did not speak to them, and the attendants and mechanics were not accustomed to the presence of non-specialists, and were always busy: most of them were busy all day in the spacious mechanical or electrical distribution rooms, which were located on the ground floor of the ship, equipped with huge machine tools and delicate instruments. He had only spoken a few words to a young sailor, who was shy, muscular but vulnerable, and who was attentive to the whining of some of the birds that flew by. For example, ptarmigans, eider ducks whose feathers can be used to make eiderdown, pipe-nosed shearwaters, petrels, I think that's all there is to it.

That's probably all there is to it, fatty meals are served at fixed times, and every night, people can sit in the bar for a short half hour and pay for a beer or two. After the first day of discovery, from the foggy second day, time begins to disperse. From the porthole of his cabin, Mnusken saw the island move to his right until they began to sail along the coast, all the way to the bay, and then to the channel, never noticing the rumble of the engines.

Immersed in the high cliffs of ochre brown and purple, the air was motionless, cold, and therefore dignified, and pressed with its whole weight on a sea of equally immovable grains of sand: not a single wind, not a boat, and very soon, not even a bird, without the slightest movement, without any sound. The shore was desolate, and the steep cliffs were plunged into the water, and foam and moss floated on the water, like a sloppy face with an unshaven beard. Through the thick fog of the curtain, one can guess, rather than see, that beyond the cliffs, the flanks of the glaciers are falling at a speed that they are not aware of. For a while, everything was silent, until the big ice floe was encountered.

At the beginning, since the ice floe was still relatively small, the icebreaker began to hit head-on to open the way. Then, very quickly, they became quite thick, forcing the icebreaker to no longer be able to continue its operations. From then on, it took the method of crushing the ice upward, crushing the ice with its weight: and so it burst open, cracking open in all directions. Mnusken went to the bow pillar, which was only sixty millimetres of metal from the icebreaker, and listened closely to the sound of the impact: the amidships were vibrating, making strange scraping sounds, screams, roars, muffled echoes, various frictions. But once back on deck, he felt only a slight and persistent cracking sound, like a piece of cloth tearing without resistance on a nuclear submarine that had been quietly parked at the bottom of the sea, while the people in the submarine were still playing cards and cheating, waiting needlessly to revoke the order.

They continued to sail and the days passed. I didn't meet anyone on the way, except for one day when I ran into another icebreaker of the same type. The two boats met, stopped for an hour, the two captains exchanged maps and voyage records, and that's it, after which the ship moved back on its way. This is a territory that no one has ever visited, although several countries have more or less claimed sovereignty over it: the Scandinavian states, because the first people to survey here came from their own country, Russia. Because it's not far from here, Canada, because it's close, the United States, because it's the United States.

On two or three occasions, they saw the desolate villages on the Labrador coast, first built by the central government for the welfare of the indigenous people, from power generation centers to churches.

However, since all this did not suit the needs of the locals, they destroyed the villages, abandoned them, and committed suicide.

Scattered around some of the leaky boats were the carcasses of seals, like dry firewood and some hanging from wooden shelves, reminiscent of the method of protecting food from white bears.

It's funny, it's empty and sublime, but after a few days, it's a little boring. It was at this time that Mnusken became a bookworm in the library, from which he lent out many classics about polar expeditions – Greeley, Nansen, Barents, Nordensjöld – and various videos – "Rio Blood", "Life and Death", etc.

Of course, there are also tapes like "Imagination with an Abnormal Temperament" or "Greedy Female Singer". It was only after he was convinced of Silin's relationship with the radio operator that he went to her to borrow the latter type of work:

From then on, although he no longer had any hope of having a fight with the female nurse, he was no longer afraid of losing his prestige in her eyes. In fact, there is no need to be so cautious: when Seline indifferently registers "The Four Horsemen of Revelation" or "Stuff Us" on his library card, she just smiles calmly, full of motherly tolerance. The smile was so reassuring and commendatory, that Mnusken soon stopped hesitating, and he made some simple excuses for three days—headaches, brain fevers, back pains—and asked her for treatment, dressings, and massages. In the initial period, it went well.

Six months ago, it wasn't going well that was the gallery's business. Because at that stage, the art market was not very good, and by the way, the recent ECG done by Mnusken was also not very good. He had already had a heart attack, and a minor myocardial infarction had no other consequences than to quit smoking, and on this point, the expert de man was very tough. So far, if his life with a "Marlboro" has been like climbing up with a knotted rope, then he has been deprived of cigarettes. From then on, it was like climbing a slippery rope.

In recent years, Mnusken has built up a small network of artists, whom he visits regularly, giving them advice as much as he can, and apparently bothering them. There were no sculptors among them because of the previous experiences, but, of course, there were painters, such as Bukele, Spontini, Gouldal and especially Martinov, during this time he soared very fast, he painted only in yellow colors, in addition, there were some sculptors.

For example, Avery is an expert in ultra-high temperatures and designs blowers that enclose air ducts, and Esther, who places small piles of rock sugar and talcum powder around, Kimar, who magnifies insect bites, and Rakip, who experiments with sleep without exception. But, firstly, these works have not been so wanted so much lately, and secondly, these artists, especially Rakip, who has woken up in shock, finally made Mnusken realize that his visit was really inopportune.

In any case, it doesn't sell much anymore. The boom era is over, and there are no more phone calls, no more faxes that keep spitting out messages, and galleries all over the world no longer inquire about artists, artists' opinions, artists' biographies and photographs, catalogs and plans for exhibitions of artists' works. There were several years of rather interesting art frenzy, and it was not a problem to take care of all these artists and find them a scholarship in Berlin, a fund in Florida, a position at the art school in Strasbourg or Nancy. However, all this fashion seems to have expired, and fortune seems to have dried up.

Unable to convince enough collectors to buy these works, and seeing the rise of electronic art, Mnusken has recently shifted his field of action. He quietly abandoned sculpture, but of course continued to care for his painters, especially Guldale and Martinov – the former was in decline, the latter was in the ascendant – but he now intended to focus much of his energy on more traditional practices. Bambaraan art, Bantu art, plains Indians, things like that. In order to get effective advice on his investments, he hired a competent information specialist named Ginola to gather information for him, and Ginola came to his gallery three afternoons a week to look after the shop.

Despite her full stomach of professional knowledge, this Ginola has an appearance that cannot be complimented. Ginola is a man of arcs through and through. The spine was curved, his face was delicate, and his sparse mustache was uneven, covering his upper lip not too tightly, and even entering his mouth, and two tufts of nose hair slipped out of his nostrils.

The mustache is too long to be real, it can be said to be a fake mustache that has been pasted on.

Ginola's movements were wavy and circular, his demeanor and his thoughts were crooked, even the temples of his glasses were crooked, the two glasses were not on the same floor, in short, nothing was straight on him. Ginola, you straighten up a little, Mnusken sometimes said to him in annoyance. The other one went his own way, well, deserved it.

In his first days away from his small Esse building, Mnusken took good advantage of his new order of life. At Lance's house, he enjoyed a towel, a bowl, and half a cupboard, and he slept every night in her house on the arcade. Later, little by little, things went from bad to worse: at first once every two days, then once every three days, soon once every four days, and the rest of the nights Mnusken spent in the gallery, first alone, then not alone, until one day, Lance spoke: "Go, now, you die, you serve your little business, get out."

Okay, I'll go, said Mnusken, and then said in his heart, I don't care. However, on a cold, lonely night, he woke up in the back hall of the gallery, got up early, and went out to find the nearest real estate office. This poor studio can no longer stay. Someone suggested he take a look at a very different apartment, on Emu Street. It's typical of Zheng Xin's period, you see, the people in the office said: the ceiling is decorated with wired feet, parquet floors, double living rooms, double aisles, double glass doors, high mirrors standing on the marble fireplace, wide aisles between the rooms, and a deposit for three months' rent is required for the servants. Okay, agreed, Mnusken said, I want it.

He settled down, spent a week on the job, bought some furniture, and fixed the water pipes.

One night, as he sat in a bright new armchair with a glass of wine in his hand, and glanced at the television from time to time, he finally felt that he was in his own home, when someone rang the doorbell, and it turned out to be Ginola. I'm just passing through here, Genora said, I just want to say something to you, I didn't bother you, did I? In principle, Ginora, with her back and legs all on her back, legs and feet, couldn't hide anything or someone behind her back, but this time, there seemed to be a figure behind him, looming in the shadows of the aisle.

Mnusken stood on tiptoe slightly. By the way, Ginola said as she turned away, please forgive me. I came with a friend, and she was a little shy. Can I come in?

Everyone can observe that there are some people who have plant-like bodies. Some people think of leaves, trees or flowers: sunflowers, rushes, baobabs. Speaking of Ginora, he was always disheveled, reminiscent of the nameless plants that grew in the city, gray and gray, emerging from the cracks in the masonry of some ruined yardyard yard yard and arching out of the cracks in the ruined walls. Emaciated, sluggish, hidden, but stubborn, they know that they have only a small mission in life, but they know how to fulfill it.

If Ginora's physical appearance, his mannerisms, and his chaotic verbal expressions are easily reminiscent of tenacious weeds, then the girlfriend who accompanied him symbolizes the style of another plant. At first glance, the beautiful plant named Tuwa is very quiet, more wild than ornamental or ornamental, more like a mandala than a mimosa, less fragrant and more thorny, in short, not very easy-going in appearance. In any case, Mnusken immediately understood that he couldn't take his eyes off her as soon as he saw her: of course, he said, please come in. Then, with only one inattentive ear, he dealt with Ginora's muddled words, and all his attention was on Tuva, occasionally meeting her gaze, and pretending not to care. At the rough end of the day, it's a vain ploy, and it's too early to win, but no one can tell. However, what Ginola told that night was not a boring trifle.

On September 11, 1958, he recounted that in the far north of Canada, a small merchant ship called the Silik was stranded off the coast of the Mackenzien, the exact location of which has not yet been determined. As the Silik sailed between the town of Cambridge Bay and Tuktoya, it was stuck tightly in the middle of the ice floe, loaded with fox, bear and seal pelts, as well as a collection of extremely valuable antiques, famous as local art.

After crashing into a reef and running aground, it was immediately enveloped in the rushing ice. The crew fled the collapsed cargo ship on foot, and at the cost of many frozen hands and feet, they fled to the nearest base, where some had to have their limbs amputated. In the weeks that followed, despite the value of the cargo, the remoteness of the area deterred the Steamship Company in the Gulf of Hader from abandoning their search plans.

Ginola brought with him the information he had just learned. The source even told him that if he looked into it, they would get more detailed information about the exact coordinates of the Silik. All of this, of course, was a fluke, but if things are clear, the expedition will be quite profitable. Often, it is true that the information about the discovery of a precious work of art or an antique is obtained through four or five hands. First, it is often the object found by a poor local; Then, there is the head of the place who oversees this trafficking; Next, there are special intermediaries who have experience in this area; Finally, there are the gallerists and collectors, who form the last link in the long chain. The whole small world is obviously constantly growing, and the price of an item increases at least three times with each hand.

That night, however, to be honest, Mnusken was not very attentive to the story, he was so concerned with the tuwa that he could not have imagined that she would move in with him a week later. He would undoubtedly be overjoyed if he had been told this, though perhaps at the same time he would not have felt a little uneasy. And if it had been made clear to him that each of the three men who had gathered in his house tonight would disappear in his own peculiar way by the end of the month, including him, of course, his uneasiness would have been exacerbated.

On the day when the Arctic Circle line will be crossed, the crew will normally celebrate the passage of the line. Mnusken was foretold of this in an insinuation, in a sarcastic tone, with a vague intimidation, bearing the mark of the fate of the Secret Order. Unaware of the threat, however, he assumed that the ritual was reserved for the passage of the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. But no: those things also celebrate in the cold. So, that morning, three sailors disguised as female demons rushed into Mnusken's cabin shouting, blindfolded him, and then pushed and shoved him through the network of alleys and alleys where he was leading all the way to the makeshift black sports hall. Someone removed the strip of cloth from his eyes, and saw a sea god dressed as the captain and several middle-ranking crew members sitting on a platform in the center. The maco-mafo is dressed as Neptune, with a crown on his head, a robe, a trident in his hand, and his feet on diving webs, and by his side is the woman who gnaws her nails, and she plays the role of Amphitrite. The god of the sea's eyes rolled and drank to make Mnusken kneel, repeating the jumbled incantations with him, measuring the area of the gymnasium one by one, biting out a bunch of keys from a basin of tomato sauce with his teeth, and other innocuous tricks. Mnusken begged for mercy, as if he noticed Neptune quietly cursing Amphitrit. After that, the captain gave a speech and handed Mnusken a certificate certifying his passage to the Arctic Circle.

After that, they entered the Arctic Circle and began to find some icebergs. But only far away: those icebergs, the ships better avoid them. Sometimes they drifted in pieces, sometimes gathered together, motionless, like a huge fleet of anchored ships, some of them smooth and shiny, all of them of crystal white ice, and some of them were stained by moraines and turned black and yellow. Their silhouettes depict the figures or geometric shapes of animals, and they vary in size from Place Vendôme to the Maas Pastoral Schoolyard. However, they look more stable and more depleted than the icebergs of Antarctica, which are moving thoughtfully in the form of large terraces. Equally, they are more stubborn, formless, and delicate, as if they had turned over many times in an unsteady sleep. During the night, when Mnusken slept equally restlessly, he got up and went to the deck to pass the time with the sailors on duty. At dawn, the deck, lined with portholes, looked wide and empty, like a waiting hall. Under the watchful eye of a sleepy-eyed officer, two sailors rotated the rudder in four-hour shifts, observing the instruments and radar, and their squinting eyes fixed on the collimator. Mnusken found a corner and sat down on a thick woven carpet. He looked at the bright light of the searchlight, even though he really had nothing to see, nothing but infinite white, hidden in the black, so little, sometimes too much. To find something to do, he looked at the charts, GPS, and weather gauges on his desk. At the behest of the sailor on duty, he quickly entered the door, and by scanning all the frequencies of the radio receiver, he finally passed the time: everything was only a quarter of an hour, and this was always what he obtained.

There was really only one thing, and for technical reasons, they stopped in the middle of the ice floe. They threw down a ladder, the ice on the rungs of the ladder forming a silhouette of a small peak, and Mnusken climbed down and slipped around. Silence, consistent, without any sound except for his own footsteps buried in the snow, the breath of the wind, and the whining or two of a cormorant.

Despite the notice, Mnusken walked a little further and found a family of soft walrus sleeping on an ice floe, huddled tightly together with each other. From time to time, the walrus opens its eyes to take a look, as if to protect its family. The elderly walrus guards their mates, and the bald bearded ones sometimes show the wounds left by the fight. Every now and then, a female walrus opens one eye, fanns herself with her flipper, and then falls asleep again. Mnusken returned to the ship.

Then everything resumes its progress, endlessly. However, there is a way to combat boredom:

Cut the time into sections like a sausage. It is divided into days (7 days until the day of arrival, 6 days, 5 days away), but equally divided into hours (I feel a little hungry: 2 hours until lunch), minutes (I drank my coffee: normally, 7 or 8 minutes before I go to the toilet), and even seconds (I walked around the deck, almost 30 seconds minus; Between the decision to go around and the reflection that followed, I saved another minute.) Quite simply, as in prison, just calculate and measure time in everything possible – meals, videos, crossword puzzles or comic strips – to beat the boredom of meeting its ghosts. Although one could still do nothing, lie down on his bunk, put on his shirt and the shorts of the previous day, read whatever he wanted, and spend the morning washing his face and dressing back. The ice floes cast a dazzling white light on the side of the ship, and broke into the cabin alive, and because of the shadowless effect, they hung a towel or something on the window hole, and they waited.

But, after all, there are other pastimes that are of little significance: the chief engineer and the person in charge of safety regularly come to check the cabin, practice evacuation exercises, and wear life jackets that float automatically in constant temperature while stuck on a stopwatch.

He could also often go to the nurseess, Celine, and when the radio operator was at work, he could venture to offer her a little courtesy, and he could praise her for her skill, her beauty, and her bronzed skin in such a climate. He later learned that in order to ensure women's health, it had long been agreed that female crew members were entitled to four hours of ultraviolet radiation a week in areas where there was no sunlight.

The rest of the time was Sunday, an eternal Sunday, and the general silence of the felt created a distance between sounds, things, and even time: whiteness contractures space, and cold slows down the flow of time.

There's something numbing in the amniotic warmth of the icebreaker, and people don't even want to move in this stiffness, and since crossing the Arctic Circle, their feet no longer step into the sports hall, and they're basically all together over meals.

Tuva's pupils are punctate, her irises are electric green, like the small window of an old-fashioned radio radio, and her smile is cold, but after all, she is smiling, and she has moved to Eminem Street.

She didn't bring much with her when she came, just a small suitcase and a backpack, which she put at the door as if she had only been in the train station for an hour. And in the bathroom, in addition to her toothbrush, there is a small and delicate box with three collapsible makeup cases and three sets of beauty items.

She stayed, spending most of her time in an armchair reading a book, facing an on, but muted television. She doesn't talk much about herself, she barely talks about herself anyway, and if you ask her a question, she tends to answer with another question. She always seemed to be on the lookout for something, and even when there was no sign of a threat from the outside, she looked hesitant, and occasionally, she took the risk of inducing some offensive thoughts. When Mnusken receives guests, she always pretends that she is also a guest. It made him think she would even leave with the others at midnight, but she stayed, she stayed.

One of the consequences of Tuvaramnusken's house was that Ginola also came more often, but he was still so unkempt. One night, when he came to Emu Street, he was dressed more scruffily than usual——— his parka was no longer shaped, and the hem was dangling on a green stocking——— Mnusken felt that he couldn't stand it, and just as he was leaving, he stopped him, and he pulled Ginola into the aisle, Ginola, don't make you look like this, he warned him, when he came to look after the gallery, it was better to dress a little more decently, an art dealer should always pay attention to his appearance, Ginola looked at him, didn't understand.

You might as well think about it from the collector's standpoint, Mnusken insisted in a low voice, and pressed the switch of the staircase timer light again. He's coming to buy you a painting, this collector. He hesitated. You know what it means to him, to buy a painting, you know very well that he was so afraid of wasting his money, of not knowing what he was doing, of missing out on Van Gogh, of what his wife would say about him, all of that. He was so scared that he would never see it again, that painting, didn't he. He can only see you, the dealer, you in the dealer's clothes.

In this way, what he put on the painting is your appearance, do you understand what I say? If you were dressed in shabby clothes, what he would put on the painting would be your whole miserable appearance. Well, when you have an impeccable appearance, it's the other way around, so the painting is good, and then, everybody is good, especially us, get it.

yes, Ginola said, I think I get it. Well, Mnusken said, see you tomorrow then. Do you think he gets it?

Then he asked again, not expecting any answer, but Tuva had already gone to bed.

Mnusken turned out the lights one by one and made his way to his bedroom in the dark, and the next afternoon, when he appeared in the gallery, he wore a maroon tweed top, a sky-blue striped shirt, and a golden-brown woven tie.

Ginola came earlier, his beard was not shaven, he was still dressed in the same old way, only more wrinkled than yesterday, it is believed that he slept in his clothes, you can show me this shirt.

I think there's progress on the Silik, Ginola said. What number? Mnusken said. That ship, that over there, Genola said, you know, the ship with the antiques. I think I've found someone in the know. Ah, by the way, Mnusken muttered, distracted by the sound of the bell at the gate. Notice, he booed, someone came.

It's Rebara.

Rebala, whom they knew, was a regular visitor.

He made a lot of money in business, and he was very tired of it, because he didn't get excited about owning the world monopoly of Vilkro every day. The only moments when he was slightly happier were when he came to buy art. He also likes to be given advice, pointed out to him, and takes him to meet artists. One Sunday, Mnusken took him to visit a sculptor's workshop near the Moni Gate, and Rebara, who never left the 7th Arrondissement, even if only to fly across the Atlantic in his jet plane, could not help but be thrilled as he traversed the 11th Arrondissement. Ah, this kind of building, this kind of exotic people, it's hard to believe, I would love to visit it with you every Sunday. It's magical. His day was not in vain, Rebala. Still, he's in the category of hesitant people. Right now, he's wandering around a large piece of Martinov's rather expensive yellow-colored acrylic, looking closer, looking farther away, looking closer, over and over again. Wait a minute, Mnusken always whispered to Ginola, you wait and see. I'm going to kill his faith, and they love this.

Hey, when he approached Martinov's work, he said, do you like it? There's something here, Rebala said, there's really something. I think so, you see, how to put it. I know, I can tell, Mnusken said. But, overall, it's not particularly good, and frankly, it's far from the best in the series (it's a series, right), and besides, it's not finalized anyway. Not to mention that the price is really expensive, Martinov.

yes, the other said, I think there's something really going on with this yellow color. Of course, Mnusken backed down, after all, it wasn't bad, I won't say anything. However, it is still a little more expensive after all, and the real price is not real.

If it were me, I'd have looked up there," he added, pointing to a work made of four aluminium squares painted in light green, standing side by side, leaning against a corner of the gallery. This, it's interesting. This will soon go up quite a bit, but the price is modest for now. Besides, you see, how bright it is, isn't it?

Obviously. It's bright.

It's nothing after all, says the business owner. I mean, people don't see anything unusual. At first glance, Mnusken says that one might be assessing it that way. But when you get home, at least you have it on your wall, and you don't feel awkward. That's right. I'm going to think about it, Rebala said as she left, and I'll come back with my wife. Well, Mnusken said to Ginola, you wait and see. I'm sure he'll come and buy it, this one Martinov. Sometimes, you have to go against them. They must be given the impression that they are thinking from their own point of view. Lo and behold, another one is coming.

The other was a painter, whom Mnusken had been taking care of for ten years, and his name was Guldale, forty-eight years old, smiling, with a mole under his lips with hair, and a flannel blouse, with a frame wrapped in brown paper under his arm. He brought a painting and came to hear the news.

It didn't particularly work, Mnusken said, his voice languid. You remember Bayanks, who bought one of your paintings. He gave it back to me again, and he didn't want that painting of yours, and I had to take it again. And Kurjiang, you can remember, he was going to buy it. Well, in the end, he stopped buying it, he preferred to buy an American painting. Also, you have two large paintings that go to auction for a negligible price and, frankly, sell for a very average price. Okay, said Guldare, smiling less heartily, opening the frame of the vellum wrapper, I brought this.

Again, it should be seen that it's always your fault, Mnusken continued, not even glancing at the painting. You moved from abstraction to figuration as if you didn't care about anything, and I had to completely adjust my strategy for your work. You know, it's going to be a lot of problems, painters are changing all the time, people are expecting a thing, and then they're disappointed. You know, everything is marked, after all, it's easier for me to push something that doesn't move too much, or else it's going to be a disaster. You know very well that it's all fragile. In the end, I tell you this, and it's up to you to decide. In any case, I can't accept this one, and I want to get rid of the rest first.

There was silence for a while, then Guldale hastily wrapped up his painting, nodded to Mnusken, and went out. On the sidewalk, he met Martinov, who had arrived. Martinov was a young fellow with an innocent cunning in his eyes, and they chatted a few words. He's getting rid of me, bastard, Guldale said. I was surprised, Martinov reassured him. He knows what you do and He has faith in you. After all, he still has a little bit of an artistic sense. No, said Guldale, no one had any sense of art anymore, and when he said that, he went away in the gray sky. The only people who still have a little bit of artistic sense are the popes and the kings. And then, there was no one else.

So, you've seen Guldare, Mnusken said. I just ran into him, Martinov said, and he didn't look right. A pile of outright rags, Mnusken said, doesn't work economically at all, just a token scrap. As for you, it's not bad during this time. A guy just came to see it, and he's going to want that big yellow color of yours. Other than that, what are you doing right now? Well, Maldinov said, I have a vertical series there, and I'm going to select two or three pieces from it for a collective exhibition. Wait a minute, Mnusken said, what are you talking about? Nothing, said Martinov, just for the trust company.

What? Mnusken said, are you going to attend a group exhibition at the trust company? What's going on here? Martinov said, trust company, that's good. Personally, I think, Mnusken said, it's ridiculous that you're holding an exhibition in a trust company.

It's ridiculous. What's more, it's still a group exhibition. You're devaluing yourself, lowering your own value. I've told you that. Well, after all, you can do whatever you want.

Next, in a rather bad mood, Mnusken listened to Ginola give him an overview of Arctic art:

The Ipyutaks, Tulle, Chori, Birnik and Denbigs, ancient whaling cultures between 2500 BC and 1000 BC. Mnusken was somewhat absent-minded as Ginola compared materials, influences, and styles, but it was only when Ginola began to talk about the numbers that his attention was focused: the story of the shipwreck, abandoned in the snow and ice, became more and more tangible and worth a visit, if confirmed. At the moment, however, it has not been confirmed, and more precise information is missing.

However, there are only a few days left in January, and in any case, Ginola reminds that even if you know in more detail, the climatic conditions in the polar regions will never allow people to set off before spring, and in the high latitudes of the polar regions, the sun will not rise until spring.

When Mnusken opened his eyes, the sun had just risen: on one of the walls of the cabin, a light, gray-blue square was drawn on the porthole. It was not easy to roll over the opposite wall in the narrow bed, and then, when he turned over, Mnusken had only thirty centimetres of mattress for his ribs, but he felt at least warmer today than in other mornings. He tried to hold his position in place with the faint movement of crawling on the spot, hoping that he could, but he couldn't. Then, as he tried to intensify those moves to win some hot ground, a sudden reverse push pushed him back: Mnusken fell off the bed.

When he fell, the weight of his whole body was pressed on his right shoulder, and he thought he was dislocated and trembled. It turned out that it wasn't:

The floor of the cabin was cold, and Mnusken was naked, except for a watch. He scrambled to his feet on all fours, and then, scratching his scalp, he fixed his eyes on the bed.