"So it is Sunday once more. How the days drag past! I work, read, think, and dream; strum a little on the organ; go for a walk on the ice in the dark. Low on the horizon in the southwest there is the flush of the sun--a dark fierce red, as if of blood aglow with all life's smouldering longings--low and far-off, like the dreamland of youth. Higher in the sky it melts into orange, and that into green and pale blue; and then comes deep blue, star-sown, and then infinite space, where no dawn will ever break. In the north are quivering arches of faint aurora, trembling now like awakening longings, but presently, as if at the touch of a magic wand, to storm as streams of light through the dark blue of heaven--never at peace, restless as the very soul of man. I can sit and gaze and gaze, my eyes entranced by the dream-glow yonder in the west, where the moon's thin, pale, silver sickle is dipping its point into the blood; and my soul is borne beyond the glow, to the sun, so far off now--and to the home-coming! Our task accomplished, we are making our way up the fjord as fast as sail and steam can carry us. On both sides of us the homeland lies smiling in the sun; and then ... the sufferings of a thousand days and hours melt into a moment's inexpressible joy. Ugh! that was a bitter gust--I jump up and walk on. What am I dreaming about! so far yet from the goal--hundreds and hundreds of miles between us, ice and land and ice again. And we are drifting round and round in a ring, bewildered, attaining nothing, only waiting, always waiting, for what? "'I dreamt I lay on a grassy bank, And the sun shone warm and clear; I wakened on a desert isle, And the sky was black and drear.' "One more look at the star of home, the one that stood that evening over Cape Chelyuskin, and I creep on board, where the windmill is turning in the cold wind, and the electric light is streaming out from the skylight upon the icy desolation of the Arctic night.