THE NEW YEAR, i8g6 457 



turn one's hand to. How we longed for a book ! How 

 delightful our life on board the Fraui appeared, when we 

 had the whole library to fall back upon ! We would 

 often tell each other how beautiful this sort of life would 

 have been, after all, if we had only had anything to read. 

 Johansen always spoke with a sigh of Heyse's novels ; 

 he had specially liked those on board, and he had not 

 been able to finish the last one he was readinof. The 

 little readable matter which was to be found in our nav- 

 igation - table and almanac I had read so many times 

 already that I knew it almost by heart — all about the 

 Norwegian royal family, all about persons apparently 

 drowned, and all about self-help for fishermen. Yet it 

 was always a comfort to see these books ; the sight of 

 the printed letters gave one a feeling that there was, after 

 all, a little bit of the civilized man left. All that we really 

 had to talk about had long ago been thoroughly thrashed 

 out, and, indeed, there were not many thoughts of com- 

 mon interest that we had not exchanijed. The chief 

 pleasure left to us was to picture to each other how we 

 should make up next winter at home for everything we 

 had missed during our sojourn here. We felt that we 

 should hav^e learned for good and all to set store by all 

 the good things of life, such as food, drink, clothes, 

 shoes, house, home, good neighbors, and all the rest of it. 

 Frequently we occupied ourselves, too, in calculating how 

 far the Frani could have drifted, and whether there was 

 any possibility of her getting home to Norway before us. 



