LAND AT LAST 453 



fire is crackling comfortably and cozily in the stove, and 

 they can see the snowflakes falling outside and covering 

 the Christmas corn-sheaf. A delicious smell of roastins: 

 comes from the kitchen, and in the dining-room the long 

 table is laid for a orood, old-fashioned dinner with oood 

 old wine. How nice and comfortable everything is ! 

 One might fall ill with longing to be home. But wait, 

 wait ; when summer comes. . . . 



" Oh, the road to the stars is both long and difficult ! 



"Tuesday, December 31st. And this year too is 

 vanishing. It has been strange, but, after all, it has 

 perhaps not been so bad. 



" They are ringing out the old year now at home. 

 Our church-bell is the icy wind howling over glacier and 

 snow-field, howling fiercely as it whirls the drifting snow 

 on high in cloud after cloud, and sw^eeps it down upon us 

 from the crest of the mountain up yonder. Far in up 

 the fjord you can see the clouds of snow chasing one 

 another over the ice in front of the gusts of wind, and 

 the snow-dust glittering in the moonlight. And the full 

 moon sails silent and still out of one year into another. 

 She shines alike upon the good and the evil, nor does 

 she notice the wants and yearnings of the new year. 

 Solitary, forsaken, hundreds of miles from all that one 

 holds dear ; but the thoughts flit restlessly to and fro on 

 their silent paths. Once more a leaf is turned in the 

 book of eternity, a new blank page is opened, and no one 

 knows what will be written on it." 



