“Thoughts come and thoughts go. I cannot forget, and I cannot sleep. Everything is still; all are asleep. I only hear the quiet step of the watch on deck; the wind rustling in the rigging and the canvas, and the clock gently hacking the time in pieces there on the wall. If I go on deck there is black night, stars sparkling high overhead, and faint aurora flickering across the gloomy vault, and out in the darkness I can see the glimmer of the great monotonous plain of the ice: it is all so inexpressibly forlorn, so far, far removed from the noise and unrest of men and all their striving. What is life thus isolated? A strange, aimless process; and man a machine which eats, sleeps, awakes; eats and sleeps again, dreams dreams, but never lives. Or is life really nothing else? And is it just one more phase of the eternal martyrdom, a new mistake of the erring human soul, this banishing of one’s self to the hopeless wilderness, only to long there for what one has left behind? Am I a coward? Am I afraid of death? Oh, no! but in these nights such longing can come over one for all beauty, for that which is contained in a single word, and the soul flees from this interminable and rigid world of ice. When one thinks how short life is, and that one came away from it all of one’s own free will, and remembers, too, that another is suffering the pain of constant anxiety—‘true, true till death.’ ‘O mankind, thy ways are passing strange! We are but as flakes of foam, helplessly driven over the tossing sea.’
“Wednesday, October 10th. Exactly 33 years old, then. There is nothing to be said to that, except that life is moving on, and will never turn back. They have all been touchingly nice to me to-day, and we have held fête. They surprised me in the morning by having the saloon ornamented with flags. They had hung the ‘Union’ above Sverdrup’s place.[7] We accused Amundsen of having done this, but he would not confess to it. Above my door and on over Hansen’s they had the pennant with Fram in big letters. It looked most festive when I came into the saloon, and they all stood up and wished me ‘Many happy returns.’ When I went on deck the flag was waving from the mizzenmast-head.
“We took a snow-shoeing excursion south in the morning. It was windy, bitter weather; I have not felt so cold for long. The thermometer is down to 24° Fahr. below zero (-31° C.) this evening; this is certainly the coldest birthday I have had yet. A sumptuous dinner: 1. Fish-pudding. 2. Sausages and tongue, with potatoes, haricot beans, and pease. 3. Preserved strawberries, with rice and cream; Crown extract of malt. Then, to every one’s surprise, our doctor began to take out of the pocket of the overcoat he always wears remarkable-looking little glasses—medicine-glasses, measuring-glasses, test-glasses—one for each man, and lastly a whole bottle of Lysholmer liqueur—real native Lysholmer—which awakened general enthusiasm. Two drams of that per man was not so bad, besides a quarter of a bottle of extract of malt. Coffee after dinner, with a surprise in the shape of apple-cake, baked by our excellent cook, Pettersen, formerly smith and engineer. Then I had to produce my cigars, which were also much enjoyed; and of course we kept holiday all the afternoon. At supper there was another surprise—a large birthday cake from the same baker, with the inscription ‘T. L. M. D.’ (Til lykke med dagen, the Norwegian equivalent for ‘Wishing a happy birthday’), ‘10.10.94.’ In the evening came pineapples, figs, and sweets. Many a worse birthday might be spent in lower latitudes than 81°. The evening is passing with all kinds of merriment; every one is in good spirits; the saloon resounds with laughter—how many a merry meeting it has been the scene of!
“But when one has said good-night and sits here alone, sadness comes; and if one goes on deck there are the stars high overhead in the clear sky. In the south is a smouldering aurora arch, which from time to time sends up streamers; a constant, restless flickering.
A snow-shoe excursion (October, 1894)
(From a Photograph)
“We have been talking a little about this expedition, Sverdrup and I. When we were out on the ice in the afternoon he suddenly said, ‘Yes, next October you will, perhaps, not be on board the Fram.’ To which I had to answer that, unless the winter turned out badly, I probably should not. But still I cannot believe in this rightly myself.
“Every night I am at home in my dreams, but when the morning breaks I must again, like Helge, gallop back on the pale horse by the way of the reddening dawn, not to the joys of Valhalla, but to the realm of eternal ice.
“‘For thee alone Sigrun,