The taste for study is a great resource for me. I read a great deal with a pen in my hand; on the margin of my books I note my souvenirs, my reflections, and trace the details of the campaigns I have been through, and develope the considerations I had sketched about the military condition of Denmark. I still like to occupy myself with society as a simple spectator, though I have no desire to act a part in it. I like to dream awake while walking. The ramparts are the ordinary scene of my promenades.
Thence, when the weather is fine, I perceive the mountainous coasts of the mainland, the rocks, the valleys, the forests, the habitations, which form varied scenes, the islets and shoals with which the coast is studded. Sometimes I discern in the distance a vessel which is, perhaps, bringing me books; more frequently I watch the departure of the fishermen's boats, or else see them return, uttering shouts of joy and triumph, with the booty they have gained by so much fatigue and boldness in the dangerous Northern Seas.
I also take pleasure in contemplating the fury of the waves raised by storms, and which break against the rock on which I am a captive.
In the months of July and August the coast of Norway offers an aspect of magnificent vegetation; the navigation is active; clouds of birds appear to animate the rocks that border the shore; the sky is pure, and the view enjoyed from Munkholm is enchanting. The nights, especially, have a peculiar charm; the air has something unctuous and suave, which seems to soften my melancholy reveries; the nights at this period are a species of twilight, for at midnight it is clear enough to read even the finest type.
I have found in an external staircase a spot which has grown my favourite asylum, even when winter has commenced. There I am sheltered against the north winds; there, and in the company of my books, wrapped up in an old bearskin coat, I feel less a prisoner than elsewhere; though the eyes of the sentry plunge into the spot, my presence in it could not be suspected.
Since the commencement of my stay on the island, I have regulated the employment of my time. I rise in summer at daybreak, and in winter at eight o'clock. I employ the first hour of the day in pious meditations; I then occupy myself with readings that require some mental effort; a short walk precedes my dinner; I take a longer walk after the meal. Reading the newspapers, romances, or theatrical pieces, generally ends my evenings. The days on which the public papers arrive are holidays with me. The fort chaplain pays me a visit now and then: the one who held this office on my arrival has been removed to Bergen. His conversation caused me pleasure, and that of his successor pleases me no less; I have found them both enlightened, charitable, disposed to relieve me by consolatory discourses, and by procuring me books. The Danish clergy, generally, are distinguished from the rest of the nation by their virtues and information.
When the weather is bad, I walk in a large room in the tower of the fortress; this room served as a lodging for Count von Griffenfeldt. He was the son of a wine-merchant, and rose by his merit to the place of grand chancellor of the kingdom and the dignity of count. He governed the state wisely; if he had retained the power, he would have prevented the wars that ruined Denmark under Christian V. His enemies had him condemned to the punishment which the unhappy Struensee underwent; but on the scaffold itself the penalty of death, which had been too hasty, was commuted, as if by mercy, into a confinement on this rock, where he prolonged his wretchedness for nineteen years, and died of the gravel.
"Such," I said to myself, "is the fate which menaces me; but I shall not wait so long for it, for I believe that I can already feel the same malady."
In October, 1774, the marriage festival of Prince Frederick was celebrated, and at this very period a despatch arrived for the commandant of Munkholm. He was recommended greater severity with his prisoners, and especially with me. This letter of General Hauch's was certainly not written with the intention of my seeing it, but it was shown me by the commandant. His attentions to me did not escape my notice; he, doubtless, wished to make me feel them; what did he expect from me?
On March 1, 1775, a lodging was assigned me in another house, which had just been finished. I was given two rooms, but did not gain by the change. The other buildings of the fort, and in particular the one I had inhabited, were sheltered by the ramparts, while the new house, built in the angle of a lofty rock, was exposed to the north, east, and west winds. The beams that formed the walls did not join, any more than the planks of the floor; under my lodging a cellar seemed to breathe an icy blast through the openings in the flooring. The stove intended to heat the room could not protect me from the cold; yet its effect was sufficient when the snow fell to dissolve it into rain in the apartment; and it is in such a habitation, under the 64° of northern latitude, that I write this description, which is not exaggerated.