We reach the third floor the moment the door shuts behind him. The mechanic carries the cart under his arm as if it were nothing.

The gilding and the cream-colored inlay from the doorway are repeated in the stairwell and on the doors. There are engraved brass nameplates. The plate in front of us is placed above an extra-wide mail slot. So that even the largest checks can get through. LAW OFFICE, it says. Of course. Law Office of Hammer & Ving. The door isn't locked, so we go in. The cart comes along.

We enter a large foyer. One door is open, leading to a series of offices that are extensions of one another, like the reception rooms in the photographs of Amalienborg Palace. And there are photographs of the Queen and the Prince, and shiny parquet floors, and paintings in gilt frames, and the most elegant office furniture I've ever seen. There is the same scent as in the stairwell, and now I recognize it. It's the scent of money.

Not a soul is around. I pick up a rag and wring it out, and the mechanic picks up a big mop.

At the end of the offices there is a closed double door. I knock on it. He must have a control panel near him, because when the door opens, he's sitting at the opposite end of the room, in an office with a window facing the courtyard.

He's sitting behind a black mahogany desk which stands on four lion's feet and is so big that you can't help wondering how they managed to get it up here. On the wall behind him hang three gloomy paintings of the Marble Bridge in heavy frames.

It's difficult to judge his age. From Elsa Lübing I know that he must be over seventy. But he looks healthy and athletic, as if every morning he walks barefoot across his beachfront and down to the sea, where he saws a hole in the ice and takes a refreshing dip, then runs back and eats a little bowl of gladiator muesli with skim milk.

It has kept his skin smooth and ruddy. But it hasn't been beneficial for hair growth. He's as bald as a peeled egg.

He's wearing glasses with gold frames that give off so many reflections that you never really get to see his eyes. "Good morning," I say. "Quality control. We're checking on the morning cleaning."

He doesn't say anything, merely looks at us. As clearly as if he had spoken, I remember his voice-dry and proper-from a telephone conversation a long time ago.

The mechanic withdraws to a corner and starts mopping. I take the windowsill closest to the desk.

He looks down at his papers. I wipe the sill with the rag. It leaves striped traces of dirty water.

Soon he'll start to wonder.

"There's nothing like having a proper cleaning done," I say.

He frowns, now mildly annoyed.

Next to the window hangs a picture of a sailing ship. I take it down and wipe the back of it with the rag.

"What a nice picture this is," I say. "I'm rather interrested in ships myself. When I get home after a long work day among rubber gloves and disinfectants, I put my feet up and leaf through a good book about ships."

Now he's wondering whether I'm deranged.

"We all have our favorites, of course. Mine are the ships that sailed to Greenland. And, as chance will have it, when I saw your name on the fancy nameplate, I said to myself, My God, Smilla, I said. Ving! That nice man who once gave one of your friends a model ship for Christmas. The good ship Johannes Thomsen. To a little Greenlandic boy."

I hang up the picture again. The water wasn't good for it. All cleaning has its price. I think about Juliane, on her knees before him, in the doorway.

"The other thing I never get tired of reading about is ships chartered for expeditions to Greenland."

He's sitting perfectly still now. Only in the reflections of his glasses is there a faint movement.

"For example, the two ships that were chartered in '66 and '91. For the expeditions to Gela Alta."

I go over to the cart and wring out the rag.

"I hope you'll be satisfied now," I say. "We have to move on. Duty calls."

On our way out we can look back through the long series of rooms all the way into his office. He's sitting behind the desk. He hasn't moved.

A middle-aged woman in a white smock is standing at the bottom of the stairs. She's standing there patting her vacuum cleaner, her expression sorrowful. As if she's been discussing how the two of them are going to manage in the big world without that janitor's cart.

The mechanic puts it down in front of her. He's not very happy about taking someone else's equipment. He wants to say a few words. From one working person to another. But he can't think of anything to say.

"We're from the firm," I say. "We've been checking your work. We are very, very satisfied."

I find one of Moritz's spanking new 100-krone bills in my pocket and balance it on the edge of the bucket. "Please accept this bonus. On such a fine morning. To buy a piece of pastry for your coffee."

She looks at me with melancholy eyes.

"I'm the proprietor," she says. "There's only me and four employees."

We stand there a moment, staring at each other, all three of us.

"So what?" I say. "Even proprietors eat pastry with their coffee."

We get into the car and sit there for a while, gazing out across the King's New Square. It's too late for us to eat breakfast together. We agree to meet later. Now that the tension is past, we talk to each other like strangers. After I get out, he rolls down the window.

"Smilla, was that wise?"

"It was an impulse," I say. "And besides, have you ever done any hunting?"

"A little."

"If you're hunting shy animals, like reindeer, you let them catch sight of you a few times on purpose. You stand up and wave the butt of your rifle. In all living creatures, fear and curiosity are closely related in the brain. The deer comes closer. It knows that it's dangerous. But it has to come and see what's moving like that."

"What did you do when it came close?"

"Nothing," I said. "I've never been able to make myself shoot. But maybe you're lucky enough to have someone nearby who knows what has to be done."

I walk home across Knippels Bridge. It's eight o'clock, the day has hardly begun. I feel as if I've accomplished just as much as if I had a paper route.

A letter is waiting for me, a rectangular envelope of heavy stationery. It's from my father. It's a lined envelope from the United Paper Companies with his initials embossed on it. His handwriting looks as if he has taken a course in bragging about himself calligraphically. Which he. has. That was while I was living with him. After two evening classes he had forgotten his old handwriting. And still hadn't learned a new one. After three months he wrote like a child. I had to forge his signature on the bills he sent out. He was afraid his patients would have a relapse when they saw the great medicine man's wobbly signature.

Later it became more controlled. The world admires it. To me it simply seems snobbish.

But the letter is friendly enough. It consists of one line on a piece of paper with a watermark, which I know costs five kroner per sheet. And a bunch of photocopies of newspaper clippings, held together with a paper clip.

"Dear Smilla," it says. "Here's what Berlingske Tidende's archives had on Loyen and Greenland." There is one more sheet.

"A complete list of his scientific publications," it says in Moritz's handwriting. The list is typed.

Underneath it says that the information is from something called Index Medicus, acquired from a database in Stockholm. There are articles in four languages, including Russian. Most of them are in English. I can't even understand the titles of half of them. But Moritz has added a brief explanation in the margin. There are articles on crash injuries. On toxicology. A co-authored article on the difficulties in assimilation of vitamin B12 by the stomach as a complication of gunshot wounds. They're from the forties and fifties. In the sixties the articles start dealirig with Arctic medicine. Trichinosis, frostbite. A book about influenza epidemics around the Barents Sea. There is a long list of shorter articles on parasites. Many on the use of X-rays. His work has been multifaceted.