With all the heart in the world, though, our going had to be slow. It
was the middle of the Antarctic winter, when absolute night reigned for
weeks and we had nothing to alleviate the darkness but the light of the
scudding moon, and sometimes the glory of the aurora as it encircled the
region of the unrisen sun.
Nevertheless my comrades sang their way home through the sullen gloom.
Sometimes I wakened the echoes of those desolate old hills myself with a
stave of "Sally's the gel," although I was suffering a good deal from my
darker thoughts of what the damnable hypocrisies of life might be doing
with my darling, and my desire to take my share of her trouble whatever
it might be.
The sun returned the second week in August. Nobody can know what relief
that brought us except those who have lived for months without it. To
see the divine and wonderful thing rise up like a god over those lone
white regions is to know what a puny thing man is in the scheme of the
world.
I think all of us felt like that at sight of the sun, though some
(myself among the rest) were thinking more of it as a kind of message
from friends at home.
Pages:
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855