ORDER AND TIDINESS! 249 



should spend here. On the outer walls of the hut, which 

 formed the other side of the passage, he had put up 

 shelves, and there all kinds of tinned foods were stored. 

 All was in such perfect order that one could put one's 

 hand on what one wanted in the dark. There stood salt 

 meat and hacon by themselves, and there were fish- 

 cakes. There you read the label on a tin of caramel 

 pudding, and you could be sure that the rest of the 

 caramel puddings were in the vicinity. Quite right; 

 there they stood in a row, like a company of soldiers. 

 Oh, Lindstrom, how long will this order last? 



Well, that was, of course, a question I put to myself 

 in the strictest secrecy. Let me turn over my diary. 

 On Thursday, July 27, I find the following entry: 

 " The provision passage turns our days into chaotic con- 

 fusion. How my mind goes back to the time when one 

 could find what one wanted without a light of any kind ! 

 If you put out your hand to get a plum-pudding and 

 shut it again, you could be sure it was a plum-pudding 

 you had hold of. And so it was throughout Lindstrom's 

 department. But now good Heavens! I am ashamed 

 to put down what happened to me yesterday. I went 

 out there in the most blissful ignorance of the state of 

 things now prevailing, and, of course, I had no light with 

 me, for everything had its place. I put out my hand 

 and grasped. According to my expectation I ought to 

 have been in possession of a packet of candles, but the 

 experiment had failed. That which I held in my hand 



