LAND AT LAST 439 



writing this book, it is all I can do to find out what was 

 once written on these dirty, dark- brown pages. I ex- 

 pose them to all possible lights, I examine them with a 

 magnifying-glass ; but, notwithstanding, I often have to 

 give it up. 



The entries in my journal for this time are exceed- 

 ingly meagre ; there are sometimes weeks when there is 

 nothing but the most necessary meteorological observa- 

 tions with remarks. The chief reason for this is that our 

 life w^as so monotonous that there was nothing to write 

 about. The same thoughts came and went day after 

 day; there was no more variety in them than in our 

 conversation. The very emptiness of the journal real- 

 ly gives the best representation of our life during the 

 nine months we lived there. 



"Wednesday, November 27th. —23° C. (9.4° below 

 zero, Fahr.). It is windy weather, the snow whirling 

 about your ears, directly you put your head out of the 

 passage. Everything is gray ; the black stones can be 

 made out in the snow a little way up the beach, and 

 above you can just divine the presence of the dark 

 cliff ; but wherever else the gaze is turned, out to sea 

 or up the fjord, there is the same leaden darkness; one 

 is shut out from the wide world, shut into one's self. The 

 wind comes in sharp gusts, driving the snow before it ; 

 but up under the crest of the mountain it whistles and 

 roars in the crevices and holes of the basaltic walls — 

 the same never-ending song that it has sung through 



