SECOND AUTUMN IN THE ICE 549 



the awning that is now stretched over the ship.* The 

 only part I have left open is the stern, abaft the bridge, 

 so as to be able to see round over the ice from there. 



" Personally, I must say that things are going well 

 with me ; much better than I could have expected. 

 Time is a good teacher; that devouring longing does 

 not gnaw so hard as it did. Is it apathy beginning.'* 

 Shall I feel nothing at all by the time ten years have 

 passed } Oh ! sometimes it comes on with all its old 

 strength, as if it would tear me in pieces ! But this is 

 a splendid school of patience. Much good it does to sit 

 wondering whether they are alive or dead at home ; it 

 only almost drives one mad. 



"All the same, I never grow quite reconciled to this 

 life. It is really neither life nor death, but a state be- 

 tween the two. It means never being at rest about any- 

 thing or in any place — a constant waiting for what is 

 coming ; a waiting in which, perhaps, the best years of 

 one's manhood will pass. It is like what a young boy 

 sometimes feels when he goes on his first voyage. The 

 life on board is hateful to him ; he suffers cruelly from all 

 the torments of sea -sickness; and being shut in within 

 the narrow walls of the ship is worse than prison ; but 

 it is something that has to be gone through. Beyond it 



* We had no covering over the ship the first winter, as we thought it 

 would make it so dark, and make it difficult to find one's way about on 

 deck. But when we put in on the second winter we found that it was 

 an improvement. 



