But now, this afternoon, I found a better place--a spacious and elegant cave with walls and roof complete. Room here for me and my fire, and the smoke went up. I nodded at this, and decided to settle down here, though it was early yet, and still quite light; I could distinctly make out the hills and valleys and rocks on a naked fjeld straight ahead some few hours' march away. But I nodded, as if I had reached my goal, and set to work gathering firewood and bedding for the night. I felt so thoroughly at home here. It was not for nothing I nodded and took off my knapsack. “Was this the place you were making for?” I say, talking to myself in jest. “Yes,” I answer. The soughing in the air grew stronger; it was not snow that was falling now, but rain. Strange--a great wet rainfall down over the cave, over all the trees outside, and yet it was the cold Christmas month--December. A heat-wave had taken it into its head to visit us. It rained and rained that night, and there was a soughing all through the trees outside. It was like spring; it filled my sleep at last with so rich an ease, that I slept on sound and deep till it was broad day. Ten o'clock. The rain had ceased, but it is still warm. I sit looking out of the cave, and listening to the bend and whisper of the trees. Then a stone breaks loose on the fjeld opposite; it butts against a rock and brings that down as well; a few faint thuds are heard. Then a rumble: I see what is happening, and the sound echoes within me; the rock loosened other rocks, an avalanche goes thundering down the mountain-side, snow and earth and boulders, leaving a smoky cloud in its wake. The stream of rubble seems in a living rage; it thrusts its way on, tearing down other masses with it--crowding, pouring, pouring, fills up a chasm in the valley--and stops. The last few boulders settle slowly into place, and then no more. The thunder over, there is silence, and within myself is only a breathing as of a slowly descending bass. And so I sit once more, listening to the soughing of the woods. Is it the heaving of the AEgean sea, or is it the ocean current Glimma? I grow weak from just listening. Recollections of my past life rise within me, joys by the thousand, music and eyes, flowers. There is nothing more glorious than the soughing of the woods. It is like swinging, rocking--a madness: Uganda, Antananarivo, Honolulu, Atacama, Venezuela. But it is all the years, no doubt, that make me so weak, and my nerves that join in the sounds I hear. I get up and stand by the fire to get over it; now I think of it, I feel I could talk to the fire a little, make a speech to the dying fire. I am in a fire-proof house here, and the acoustic conditions are good. H'm! Then the cave is darkened; it is the elk-hunter again with his dog.