Voyage through the Kara Sea. 163 



I slept badly that night, for this is what I find in my 

 diary : (i Got on board after what I think was the 

 hardest row I ever had. Slept well for a little, but 

 am now lying tossing about in my berth, unable to 

 sleep. Is it the coffee I drank after supper ? or the 

 cold tea I drank when I awoke with a burning thirst ? 

 I shut my eyes and try again time after time, but to no 

 purpose. And now memory's airy visions steal softly 

 over my soul. Gleam after gleam breaks through the 

 mist. I see before me sunlit landscapes smiling fields 

 and meadows, green, leafy trees and woods, and blue 

 mountain ridges. The singing of the steam in the boiler 

 pipe turns to bell-ringing church bells ringing in 

 Sabbath peace over Vestre-Aker on this beautiful 

 summer morning. I am walking with father along the 

 avenue of small birch-trees that mother planted, up 

 towards the church which lies on the height before us. 

 pointing up into the blue sky and sending its call far over 

 the country-side. From up there you can see a long way. 

 Naesodden looks quite close in the clear air, especially 

 on an autumn morning. And we give a quiet Sunday 

 greeting to the people that drive past us, all going our 

 way. What a look of Sunday happiness dwells on their 

 faces ! 



" I did not think it all so delightful then, and would 

 much rather have run off to the woods w T ith my bow and 

 arrow- after squirrels but now how fair, how wonder- 

 fully beautiful that sunlit picture seems to me ! The 



M 2 



