THE WINTER NIGHT 4i i 



ice to thaw faster, seemed to point in the opposite di- 

 rection. Had we got a southerly current together with 

 the wind now? H'm ! in that case somethinor must 

 come of it ! Or was it, perhaps, only the tide setting 

 that w^ay? 



" Still the same northerly wind ; we are steadily bear- 

 ing south. This, then, is the change I hoped the March 

 equinox would bring! We have been having northerly 

 winds for more than a fortnight. I cannot conceal from 

 myself any longer that I am beginning to despond. 

 Quietly and slowly, but mercilessly, one hope after the 

 other is being crushed and . . . have I not a right to be 

 a little despondent ? I long unutterably after home, per- 

 haps I am drifting away farther from it, perhaps nearer; 

 but anyhow it is not cheering to see the realization of 

 one's plans again and again delayed, if not annihilated 

 altogether, in this tedious and monotonously killing way. 

 Nature goes her age-old round impassively; summer 

 changes into winter ; spring vanishes away ; autumn 

 comes, and finds us still a mere chaotic whirl of dar- 

 ing projects and shattered hopes. As the wheel re- 

 volves, now the one and now the other comes to the top 

 —but memory betweenwhiles lightly touches her ringing 

 silver chords — now loud like a roaring waterfall, now 

 low and soft like far off sweet music. I stand and look 

 out over this desolate expanse of ice with its plains and 

 heights and valleys, formed by the pressure arising from 

 the shifting^ tidal currents of winter. The sun is now 



