SECOND AUTUMN IN THE ICE 53 1 



Tciimiir Island — but there is no thought of victory now; 

 we are not so far north as I had expected ; the north- 

 west wind has come again, and we are drifting south.- 

 And yet the future does not seem to me so lono- and 

 so dark as it sometimes has done. Next September 

 6th . . . can it be possible that then every fetter will 

 have burst, and we shall be sitting together talkino- of 

 this time in the far north and of all the loneingf, as of 

 somethino; that once was and that will never be ao-ain.'* 

 The long, long night is past; the morning is just break- 

 ing, and a glorious new day lies before us. And what 

 is there against this happening next year.f* Why should 

 not this winter carry the Frani west to some place 

 north of Franz Josef Land } . . . and then my time 

 has come, and off I go with dogs and sledges — to the 

 north. My heart beats with joy at the very thought 

 of it. The winter shall be spent in making every 

 preparation for that expedition, and it will pass quickly. 



" I have already spent much time on these prepara- 

 tions. I think of everything that must be taken, and 

 how it is to be arranged, and the more I look at the 

 thing from all points of view, the more firmly convinced 

 do I become that the attempt will be successful, if only 

 the Fram can get north in reasonable time, not too late 

 in the spring. If she could just reach 84° or 85°, then 

 I should be off in the end of February or the first days 

 of March, as soon as the daylight comes, after the long 

 winter night, and the whole would go like a dance. 



