368 Chapter VI. 



tedious and monotonously killing way. Nature goes 

 her age-old round impassively ; summer changes into 

 winter ; spring vanishes away, autumn comes, and finds 

 us still a mere chaotic whirl of daring projects and 

 shattered hopes. As the wheel revolves, now the one 

 and now the other comes to the top but memory 

 bet\veenwhiles lightly touches her ringing silver chords 

 now loud like a roaring waterfall, now low and soft like 

 far off sweet music. I stand and look out over this, 

 desolate expanse of ice with its plains and heights and 

 valleys, formed by the pressure arising from the shifting 

 tidal currents of winter. The sun is now shining over 



O 



them with his cheering beams. In the middle lies the 

 Fram, hemmed in immovably. \Yhen, my proud ship, will 

 you float free in the open water again ? 



" Ich schau dich an, und \Vehmuth, 

 Schleicht mir in's Herz hinein." 



Over these masses of ice, drifting by paths unknown, a 

 human being pondered and brooded so long that he put 

 a whole people in motion to enable him to force his way in 

 among them a people who had plenty of other claims 

 upon their energies. For what purpose all this to do ? 

 If only the calculations were correct, these ice-floes 

 would be glorious, nay irresistible auxiliaries. But if 

 there has been an error in the calculation well, in that 

 case they are not so pleasant to deal with. And how 



