440 FARTHEST NORTH 



the thousands of years tliat are past, and will go on 

 singing through thousands of years to come. And the 

 snow whirls along in its age-old dance ; it spreads itself 

 in all the crevices and hollows, but it does not succeed 

 in covering up the stones on the beach ; black as ever, 

 they project into the night. (3n the open space in front 

 of the hut two figures are running up and down like 

 shadows in the winter darkness to keep themselves 

 warm, and so they will run up and down on the path 

 they have trampled out, day after day, till the spring 

 comes. 



" Sunday, December ist. Wonderfully beautiful 

 weather for the last few days ; one can never weary 

 of going up and down outside, while the moon trans- 

 forms the whole of this ice -world into a fairy -land. 

 The hut is still in shadow under the mountain which 

 hangs above it, dark and lowering; but the moonlight 

 tioats over ice and fjord, and is cast back glittering from 

 every snowy ridge and hill. A weird beaut3^ without 

 feeling, as though of a dead planet, built of shining 

 white marble. Just so must the mountains stand there, 

 frozen and icy cold; just so must the lakes lie con- 

 gealed beneath their snowy covering ; and now as ever 

 the moon sails silently and slowly on her endless course 

 through the lifeless space. And everything so still, so 

 awfully still, with the silence that shall one day reign 

 when the earth again becomes desolate and empty, 

 wdien the fox will no more haunt these moraines, when 



