Independent People (47 page)

Y
ES,
somebody had proposed coffee, and, everybody being in agreement, the religious ceremony was now breaking up of its own accord. More and more people drifted uninvited up the stairs; the whole countryside seemed to be billeting itself on Bjartur. Soon the floor started creaking dangerously, so someone told the younger people to be off, what the devil were they doing here anyway, this was neither the time nor the place for the screeching of hoydens, or, for that matter, for any other form of music; if they wanted coffee they could wait for it downstairs in the stable. The trapdoor was closed after them. The men arranged themselves in rows on the beds, squeezing in as best they could, while the women helped to quicken the fire.

‘That’s that, then, I suppose,” said one.

“Yes, that’s that,” agreed another.

“Urn,” said a third.

The visitors were still under the influence of occult phenomena and were therefore experiencing some difficulty in switching their minds immediately to the consideration of material affairs. Hrollaugur of Keldur, however, was an exception. This stalwart did not classify phenomena according to their origin, but took everything, natural or supernatural, just as it came, and then accorded it the attention he considered it deserved.

“Well, Mr. Minister,” he began, “I have, as everybody knows, a couple of fine young he-lambs that I couldn’t bring myself to geld in the autumn. Perhaps it’s suicide to rear such expensive animals just on spec, but what I was thinking was that maybe I could get
a decent price for them if somebody from the
Agricultural Journal
could be persuaded to take a look at them and write an article about them in higher places in the south.”

“Quite so,” agreed the minister, happy to have succeeded in convincing at least one soul of his knowledge of sheep and his desire to promote a good breed. He began at once to expound for his audience the results, as reported in the
Agricultural Journal,
of the ram-shows held in the west, especially with regard to mutton-sheep.

And the Fell King, who, though he had managed to sneak into the parish council, had not yet become a big farmer, but only a middle-class farmer who for more than a year had lived in great distress of mind because of the competition between dealer and co-operative society, for when two powerful rivals are at grips with each other it is essential to have the patience to wait and see—he too considered that it was of paramount importance in these hard times for the public to be made to realize the necessity of improving the stock. “But,” he added, “I should like to make it clear that I have never been a wholehearted believer in fat stock in and for itself alone, as our good friend the minister would appear to be. In my opinion, it has been shown repeatedly that in a hard year, like last year, for instance, your fat sheep have not that power of resistance in the hour of trial that various worthy men would have us believe. Your tough, hardy, outdoor sheep, on the other hand, the Rauthsmyri sheep for instance, and no one has ever dared to maintain that they were lacking in flesh—such sheep have always seemed in my eyes the acme of breeding, the model of what good sheep should be. In my eyes they are a breed that one can trust to the uttermost through good years and bad alike, at least as long as there does not appear another and a better breed.”

Now, it was only a few days since the assessments had been made, and since the Fell King had entered the conversation, it occurred to Olafur of Yztadale that it might be a good idea to inquire of him what luck the smaller fry would be having with the taxes that winter; for Olafur had voted for the Fell King in his time, trusting his rich sense of responsibility and believing that he would fulfil promises half-made to the smallholders, just as in his time he had nourished the hope of a little extra to eat as assistant dog-officer, trusting the Fell King in that matter also.

“Yes, the taxes,” replied the Fell King soberly. “I’m sorry to say it, Olafur, my friend, but the parish council is no entertainment
committee these days. Bailiff Jon of Myri, the county council, and the government will all testify that it’s no game assessing parish taxes in times as grave as these, when traffic and competition rage in every sphere of life within the district and without and no one really knows which side is going to gain the upper hand. It is difficult to forecast whether it will be Bruni that takes men bankrupt and worse than bankrupt under his wing, or whether the co-operative society will take smallholders oppressed by a terrific burden of debt into its arms. Or whether Jon of Myri, that most public-spirited gentleman, that magnanimous pillar of the State, will be the community’s last resort and salvation. Or thirdly, or even fourthly, whether the parish itself, though long since bogged in bottomless insolvency, will be forced to come to the relief of the public.”

“Oh well, it’s just the same as I’ve always said,” replied Olafur, without showing too much disappointment in the parish councillor he himself had voted for, “the life of man is so short that ordinary people simply can’t afford to be born. But I still maintain that if society was scientific from the beginning, and there was therefore some sensible relation between the amount of a man’s labour and the amount of supplies the merchant will give him for its product when he goes down to town, and if a fellow could put up a decent roof over his head before his children were rotten with consumption, then—damn it, what was it I was going to try and say? I see no possibility of ever paying my debts, though I keep on scratching and scraping along like this for another three thousand years.”

But at this point Einar of Undirhlith intervened to say that he hoped they would forgive him if he felt that talk of this kind was rather unspiritual at such a solemn moment, when mysterious powers had just trespassed upon their lives in unique fashion. “Are we then completely incapable,” he went on to ask, “however much the Lord admonishes us, of forgetting, our lives of hunger, debt, and consumption even at such a serious moment?”

“I didn’t begin it, so you needn’t blame me,” retorted Olafur. “Anybody will tell you that I’m the sort of chap who is prepared at any time to dismiss all frivolity and concentrate on serious matters; but it isn’t so very easy to talk with authority, or even knowledge, when you’re so poor that you’re completely cut off from all cultural communication with the outside world, and when in addition you have to suffer the same home conditions as I have, the children consumptive as everybody knows, and the wife practically
on her last legs, not that she has anything to do with the question. It’s just ten years since I was forced to resign from the Patriots’ Association, the only society that I ever managed to be connected with. And that so-called reading club that we used to have here at one time has long since gone completely to rack and ruin. Some folk say the rats have got into it. Whether that’s true I don’t know, but it’s an undisputed fact that no one has dared to open the cupboards for the past five years, so personally I don’t see how anyone in this part of the country can possibly have anything to say with very much sense in it, the way things are now.”

Einar of Undirhlith felt that we ought in that case to make good use of the present moment, for we were now in the company of educated men, the minister for instance, “and the minister, if I know him at all well, is the sort of gentleman who I am sure will readily excuse my lack of learning, despite the fact that the Reverend Gudmundur of blessed memory went to his grave without ever forgiving me for my ignorance. But the question I was wanting to ask was this: How does it come about that certain souls can never find peace, either on the heights, on the surface of the earth, or in the depths of the ocean?”

“Why, I expect it’s because there’s a devil in them,” replied Krusi of Gil briskly, long before the minister had managed to decide on a suitable answer. Several of the others countered with their opinions, though without shedding much light on the problem, and Olafur of Yztadale even referred to a book, several pages of which a friend of his had once obtained as wrapping-paper around some cups, in which it was flatly denied, according to evidence furnished by foreign scientists, that evil so much as existed.

“Now, really, Olafur, really,” said the Fell King, “that’s an assertion I would never dream of making, at least in the present circumstances. I for one have always believed that both good and evil exist, and, as the Mistress of Myri, a highly educated woman as everyone knows, has constantly emphasized in speeches both private and public, a belief in the existence of good and evil is said to be part of the Persian religion also. On the other hand, I consider that the world’s invisible powers are not nearly so good in their main points as they are usually reputed to be, and probably not nearly so evil either. Don’t you think they’re more likely to be somewhere more or less half-way between, Olafur?”

The minister, who had now had time to think things over, suggested that it was more in conformity with modern thought to
suppose, as he had already pointed out during the procession, that they were here dealing with unhappy souls that were driven from one world to another like outlaws.

But now it was Einar of Undirhlith who had had more than he could stand.

“No, your reverence,” cried he, “this is where I am not afraid to tell you, on my own conscience and responsibility, that you have gone too far. It may be true that the late Reverend Gudmundur was never very friendly towards me and that he paid little or no attention to the poor religious verses that I wrote, not for praise or fame, but for my own spiritual solace; but though he was very severe on uneducated men, no one needed to be in any doubt as to his creed: he wasn’t the man to lend an ear to any sort of balderdash simply because it was supposed to be modern, and he would certainly have been the last person on earth ever to soil his lips with the statement that Satan and his missionaries were nothing worse than unhappy souls. Though he had good rams and fat sheep, he never got muddled up between unrelated objects; he knew who it was he believed in, which is maybe more than can be said for some of you young clergymen who believe in anything as long as it’s new-fangled.”

The Reverend Teodor then had to try to convince Einar that the modern theologians also knew whom they believed in, though possibly they worded their ideas rather differently from the old theologians.

“May I ask the minister one question, then:” said Einar, gradually growing bolder. “Do you believe everything it says in the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike?”

The minister: “You may rest assured, Einar, that I believe everything in both Testaments. I believe in the New Testament. And I believe also in the Old Testament.”

Einar of Undirhlith: “Might I then ask you another question? Do you believe for instance that Jesus, God’s Son, raised Lazarus from the dead after he had begun to rot in the grave?”

The Reverend Teodor bethought himself for a moment, wiped the sweat from his brow, and finally said with great conviction:

“Yes, I believe that Jesus, God’s Son, raised Lazarus from the dead after he had lain at least three days in the grave. But naturally I am of the opinion that in that time he hadn’t really rotted very much.”

“Oh, what’s it matter whether the poor old devil had begun to jot or not,” cried Olafur in his piping gabble. “I should have
thought the main thing was that he came back to life again. Anyway, since the minister is one of the company and we’re waiting for a drop of coffee and I don’t suppose I'll get to bed much before daylight in any case, I’d like to profit from the opportunity the same as Einar and ask the minister a little question. What exactly are your views about the soul, Reverend Teodor?”

The minister shook his head with a tortured smile, then said that on the whole he had no special views about the soul, only the good old views, the soul yes the soul, the soul naturally was in a way immortal, and if it wasn’t immortal, well, it wouldn’t be a soul.

“Oh, I know that already,” said Olafur, quite unimpressed by this answer. “That’s exactly what they told Jon Arason just before they chopped his head off. But now I’m going to tell you something that I have on the authority of a reliable southern newspaper which a friend of mine lent me last year; and that is that they reckon it’s nothing unusual nowadays for dead souls to enter into the furniture in the houses of highly placed men in Reykjavik.”

Good old Olafur, always the same, no end to the claptrap he would believe as long as he saw it in print. Some of the crofters shook their heads and laughed.

“Yes, laugh,” he cried, “laugh if you want to. But can you point to one single instance where I’ve made any assertion without having the best possible authority for it? Of course they enter into famous people’s furniture in Reykjavik, and that’s as true as I’m sitting here. The funny thing about you folk hereabouts is that you refuse to believe anything that happens more than a hundred yards from your own cow-shed door; you credit not a single solitary thing, physical or spiritual, except what you either see or don’t see in your own wretched cow-barns.”

The minister was inclined to back Olafur up. In apologetic tones he said that, much as it was to be regretted, eminent men in the south had undoubtedly noticed some rather strange things about their furniture lately, but whether it was correct to say that souls were the cause of it was another question altogether. Some authorities suggested that they might possibly be vagrant spirits who had not been allowed to see the light of heaven.

Olafur, passionately: “Now I’d like to ask the minister one thing. What is a soul? If you cut the head off an animal does its soul rush out of the top of its spine and wing its way up to heaven like a fly? Or is the soul like a pancake which you can roll up and swallow again like Bjarni the Liar is supposed to have done? How many souls has any one man? Did Lazarus die a second time?
And how does it come about that souls, or whatever they ought to be called, behave politely to important officials in Reykjavik while they do nothing but molest poor peasants in the valleys?”