Salta il testo dell’articolo
I . Walton’s Letters : The Stranger on the Ice My dear Margaret , I am writing to you from a ship far in the north , among the ice . You were worried when I left England , but I am well , and I am still full of hope . In the spring I found a good ship at Archangel , a port in the north of Russia , and I hired a brave crew . Now we are sailing towards the North Pole , where no one has ever been . I want to find a way through the ice and learn why a compass always points north . If I succeed , people will remember my name for ever . But I have no friend here . My men are good and brave , but there is nobody to share my dreams with , and sometimes I feel very lonely . Now something very strange has happened , and I must tell you about it . Last Monday the ice almost shut our ship in , and a thick fog lay around us . At about two o’clock it lifted , and we saw great white plains of ice without end . Then we saw something that made us forget our own danger . A low sledge was moving fast across the ice towards the north . A sledge is a kind of carriage without wheels that slides over snow , and dogs were pulling this one . In it sat a figure in the shape of a man , but much bigger than any man . We watched him through our telescopes until he disappeared among the hills of ice . We were hundreds of miles from any land . Who was he , and where was he going ? That night the ice broke , and our ship was free . In the morning I found my sailors at the side of the ship . They were talking to someone in the sea . Another sledge was there , on a large piece of floating ice . Only one dog was still alive , and there was a man in the sledge . This man was not a giant . He was a European , and he spoke English with a foreign accent . “ Before I come onto your ship , ” he said , “ please tell me where you are going . ” I was surprised . The man was close to death , and he was asking questions ! I told him that we were sailing towards the North Pole . Then he agreed to come on board . Oh , Margaret , you cannot imagine how he looked . He was half frozen and terribly thin . We wrapped him in blankets and put him near the kitchen fire , and slowly he began to eat a little soup . For two days he could not speak at all . When he was a little better , one of my officers asked him why he had come so far over the ice in a sledge . His face became very dark . “ To find someone who ran away from me , ” he answered . “ Did that person travel in a sledge too ? ” “ Yes . ” “ Then I think we saw him . The day before we found you , we saw a man with dogs and a sledge on the ice . ”
Indietro Pagina 1 di 18 Pagina 1 di 18 Avanti Continua a leggere con le traduzioni Crea un account gratuito: 7 giorni di Pro, poi 20 traduzioni di parole al giorno oppure un piano a pagamento.
