These last few days I have been thinking and thinking of the Nordland
summer, with its endless day. Sitting here thinking of that, and of a
hut I lived in, and of the woods behind the hut. And writing things
down, by way of passing the time; to amuse myself, no more. The time
goes very slowly; I cannot get it to pass as quickly as I would, though
I have nothing to sorrow for, and live as pleasantly as could be. I am
well content withal, and my thirty years are no age to speak of.

A few days back someone sent me two feathers. Two bird's feathers in a
sheet of note-paper with a coronet, and fastened with a seal. Sent from
a place a long way off; from one who need not have sent them back at
all. That amused me too, those devilish green feathers.

And for the rest I have no troubles, unless for a touch of gout now and
again in my left foot, from an old bullet-wound, healed long since.

Two years ago, I remember, the time passed quickly--beyond all
comparison more quickly than time now. A summer was gone before I knew.
Two years ago it was, in 1855. I will write of it just to amuse
myself--of something that happened to me, or something I dreamed. Now, I
have forgotten many things belonging to that time, by having scarcely
thought of them since. But I remember that the nights were very light.
And many things seemed curious and unnatural. Twelve months to the
year--but night was like day, and never a star to be seen in the sky.
And the people I met were strange, and of a different nature from those
I had known before; sometimes a single night was enough to make them
blossom out from childhood into the full of their glory, ripe and fully
grown. No witchery in this; only I had never seen the like before. No.