the midnight sun
Many of his ancestors were familiar with every one of the important Mediterranean cities , they had visited the princes of the small Italian states , they had been received in audience by the Pope and by the Grand Turk , but never had it occurred to them to visit Madrid . Moreover , Febrer was often irritated with his relatives in the court city -- youths proud of their noble titles who smiled at his odd appellation of butifarra . With what indifference his family had allowed various marquisates to descend to relatives on the Peninsula while they clung to their supreme title of island nobility and the high knightly rank of Malta ! He began to run over Europe , fixing his residence in the autumn and during part of the winter in Paris ; spending the cold months on the Blue Coast ; spring in London ; summer in Ostend ; with various trips to Italy , Egypt , and Norway to see the midnight sun . In this new existence he was barely known . He was one traveler more , an insignificant circulating globule in the great arterial network which desire for travel extends over the Continent ; but this life of continual movement , of tedious monotony , and unexpected adventures , satisfied his hereditary instinct , the inclinations transmitted from his remote ancestors , constant visitors among new peoples . This wandering existence , also , satiated his longing for the extraordinary .