World Light (50 page)

“You’re quite right; the battle for justice
will
call forth Armageddon,” said the visitor.

“Justice is a cold virtue,” said the poet, “and if that alone is victorious, there will be little left to live for in the world. Man lives first and foremost by his own imperfection and for it.”

“Man lives by his own perfection and for it,” said Örn Úlfar.

“You cannot deny, Örn, that man is by nature indigent,” said the poet.

“Man is by nature rich,” said the visitor.

“Look at that little child lying there between us . . .”

Örn Úlfar did not look at the child, but replied at once: “There is nothing so inevitable and natural as dying. Death should be as welcome to man as everything else that comes at the right time. A normal person isn’t afraid of death, either. Christian cynics who maintain that man is sinful have used death to frighten him with Hell; that is the propaganda of misanthropy. You said just now that man was a creature of dust, but that, too, is a Christian vulgarity, a Christian superstition, a depraved, perverted attitude. Man is first and foremost the being that has raised himself above the dust. Burying people in the earth isn’t hallowed by someone believing that man is related to earth, but because those who bury people despise man and equate him with the basest thing they know. Physically, man is mainly water; although twenty per cent of him is a compound of other earthly substances, he is in a certain sense a water-being; but his vitality depends primarily on air. But in the first and last instance, man is a fire-being. He is the being which stole fire from the gods, and whatever he is, he is because of fire.”

Outside the night wind whispered at the eaves and doorways, the intended’s light snoring was a voice from another sphere, the child slumbered on in her deep coma and the poet bent over her bed, his thick red-gold hair flowing over his brow and cheeks. And when he looked with tired eyes at his friend sitting on the other side of the sickbed, he felt as if Örn were talking to him from an infinite distance, the gap between them mystical and unbelievable, beyond measurement, unrelated to exterior proportions, and yet the two of them were an indispensable condition for one another, two poles. The poet said: “Tonight when I listen to our voices in this strange calm which is touched with the presence of death, even though the breeze is rustling so innocently at the door and the roof, I feel as if we were two gods on the clouds of heaven, with mankind dying between us.”

Then the poet suddenly noticed that the little girl had opened her eyes and was looking at him. She was awake. There was life and health in her face again, her lips moved, he felt she was going to say something to him. He bent down over her and kissed her once again on the brow.

“Daddy,” she suddenly said aloud in a clear voice which went through the house like a ray of sunshine and summoned everything to life and lit up the shadows of night after the long whispered conversation of the two friends, the toneless susurration of the wind. “Daddy and little Maggie will go down to the beach . . .”

“Soon the spring sun will be shining through the window, my darling, ” said her father. “And then we’ll get up early one morning and go down to the beach to look for shells: broad cockleshells, and narrow mussels, and fine pink scallops, perhaps even sea snails.”

Then she smiled at her father in deep joy and said nothing more, because now everything was complete and perfect. How rich she was, how profoundly happy to have him still and to know he was beside her, loving and wonderful, to feel his soft, kind hand on her brow and his dear eyes shining upon her; and to have this wonderful journey to look forward to with him one sun-bright morning. Her eyes grew heavy again, certainly, but the smile never left her lips any more. Then there was silence for a long time. Örn Úlfar sat motionless on the other side of the bed and gazed into the distance without expression as if none of this concerned him at all; or as if it concerned him too much for him to want to see it. A little later a few spasms went through the child’s body once again; and then nothing more. The poet took his hand from her brow. Her eyes were only half-closed, and the smile was still on her lips. The poet looked at her and her smile for a while and whispered to himself over and over again, nodding his head a little as if in agreement: “I bid him welcome, I have always known he is a good friend.”

Then he closed her eyes with his slender poet’s fingers.

13

When the poet Ólafur Kárason begat a child, the first thing he did was to go out and borrow a spring-balance to weigh it. When he lost a child, he went out to borrow a few krónur so that he could buy a small coffin. The two friends parted at the door next morning; the one went off to inspire the poor to do battle for justice so that the children of the future might live, the other set off in search of kind hearts so that he could bury children. But the kind heart that was willing to bury his daughter was hard to find. Several people gave him hot chicory-water and one or two gave him hardtack biscuits, but no one wanted to support the poet’s mission with a cash contribution. On the other hand they offered him the consolation that a new Golden Age was at hand; the station was coming. What did it matter if people had to work for fifty
aurar
an hour if people could protect their nationality? Others were pessimistic and said that Pétur Pálsson’s aura was not worth fifty
aurar.
Both sides had this in common, that they wanted to form powerful coalitions; both sides strove to win the poet over, and forgot that he had to bury a child. When the poet had listened to their overtures for a while he said that if he were given one wish, he would want to be a spirit in the mountains—and made his farewells.

The pastor saw many obstacles to burying a child for the poet under these circumstances; it was out of the question to lend him money for a coffin—it required more than a little impertinence to ask such a thing of a poor servant of the Lord on top of everything else. These were difficult times; there was civil war in the air; and the dust gathered by the pound on the pastor’s nose, as well as all the fluff on his sleeve. He had suffered a great sorrow, in that a large plaid blanket he had placed at the bottom of his silage-pit last autumn, to save pressing and perhaps even cutting off the nap, was found missing that winter when all the hay in the pit had been used up.

“The people no longer walk in Christ,” said the pastor.

When the poet pressed him further, the pastor said bluntly that his conscience as a pastor would no longer allow him to carry out his clerical duties unless he had some guarantee that he would be paid; pastors had to live no less than poets and he was not obliged to bury anyone unless the funeral fee was paid in advance—let alone provide the coffin. The poet looked at the pastor with deep, serious eyes, and asked: “What would Christ have done in your shoes, Pastor Brandur?”

The pastor blew a pound of fluff off his arm and said sharply, “I won’t have that sort of talk in my house! How dare you prattle about God here, my man? I have good reason to believe that you have no faith in God. Those who talk like you have no faith in God.”

But the poet had not the courage to quarrel with the rural dean about God: “I’m afraid I don’t know who has more faith in the other, I in God or God in me,” he said. “But one thing is certain—relations between Him and me have never been other than good. But as regards my worldly difficulties, I feel I have to turn to men rather than to Him.”

“Yes,” said the pastor, “I hear the tone, and I recognize it. It’s the tone of the Russians, that awful, terrible tone. Have no faith in God but demand everything from men; that’s their watchword. Respect for the purses of those who do something for industry simply doesn’t exist. But to compose chronicles about sheep stealers and men who maltreated their wives and were louse-ridden into the bargain, and all sorts of riffraff who never existed here on this estate—that kind of thing calls itself modern literature and expects to be admired! Anything goes if it serves to disgrace the village as much as possible and demean its reputation elsewhere!”

“Really,” said the poet. “Well, I think I’d better be pressing on. My heartfelt thanks and apologies.”

When the pastor saw that the poet was truly humble he softened a little and said, as he saw him to the door: “The only thing that occurs to me, since everything else has failed, is old Jón the snuffmaker on the French site. He’s a splendid and honorable man; the one man, apart from our manager, who has shown how far one can get in life if one makes a practice of never making demands on others. For nearly forty years he has chopped snuff for God and man from six o’clock in the morning until eleven o’clock at night. His reward was that when the Frenchmen left the estate they gave him that large site farther out, along the bay, for having looked after their equipment while they were stationed here. And two years later he sold the land to the Privy Councillor for a fortune. Such men are a model for other people and uphold the good name of the village, and these are the kind of people one should write books and compose poetry about, not dishonest scum and naked vagabonds. It’s about men like our old Jón that the Lord has said, ‘Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.’ ”

The plutocrat allowed himself only one luxury, and that was pitch. He tarred his shack every year while other houses were allowed to become discolored from weathering. Inside there was a stink of lamp smoke and oil, sour snuff and ammonia. The snuffmaker was sitting on his bed under the small window; he was a grimy, gray-bearded man with incipient cataracts in his eyes, dressed in rags, and he was shredding a coil of tobacco with blue, bony hands knotted with veins. At the head of the bed there was a blue coffee pot on an oil stove, and in front of him a four-legged tobacco-cutting table. The plutocrat spat on the floor. Then he reached up to a shelf above him where the tobacco-jar stood, and asked:

“D’you want twenty-five
aurar
or fifty
aurar
worth?”

“I’m afraid I don’t take snuff,” said the poet.

“Eh?” said the plutocrat.

The poet repeated his apology.

“Who are you?” asked the plutocrat in surprise.

The poet said who he was.

“No one gets anything for nothing here,” said the tobacco king.

“I’m just paying you a call because the pastor has spoken to me so often about you.”

“The pastor?” said old Jón the snuffmaker, and began to be wary. “Tell him that the church will come when I’m dead, and not before. I want to be left in peace while I’m alive. I don’t want any fuss. It’s becoming impossible to stay here for all the whining and pestering. I’ve never had anything for nothing.”

“Oh, I had no intention of pestering you for anything,” said the poet, “but it occurred to me that you would have many stories to tell, like so many elderly men, and I would very much enjoy hearing a part of your life story some time. Perhaps I could even write something down for you, if you thought it worth preserving for posterity.”

“No,” said the old man, “I don’t want to have anything written up. Everything that needs to be written up has been written already, and that was done by the late Snorri Sturluson. I have my genealogical tree and that’s enough for me. I am a direct descendant from the late King Haraldur
hilditönn
(War-tooth).* These modern people in this country nowadays, they’re nothing but dishonest rogues and idlers. In my heyday I dealt with Frenchmen. Tell the pastor they won’t get a church from me until I’m dead.”

“But you must have some pleasures in life, like other people?” said the poet.

“No one is happy before his dying day,” said the old man.

“I lost my child last night,” said the poet.

“Yes, that may well be so. I’ve never had any children,” said the old man. “I’ve never tied myself to anyone’s apron strings.”

“I didn’t mean to have children either,” said the poet. “I’ve always felt I was a child myself, and still do. And yet before one knows it, one has started to live life nonetheless.”

“I’ve heard you’re a wretch,” said Jón the snuffmaker.

“Yes,” said the poet. “That’s quite true. I’m a wretch. But who isn’t a wretch, come to that. Man is a wretch.”

“Oh, the men of old weren’t wretches. Göngu-Hrólfur (Walker-Hrólfur)* conquered Normandy, I was told that by the Frenchmen. And old Órvar-Oddur (Arrow-Oddur) was eighteen feet tall, and lived for three hundred years.* And I’m kept busy chopping snuff from morning to night despite all the damned whining about starvation in the community, yes, and often have to get up in the middle of the night, what’s more, to get out the snuff-bag. But a church they won’t get before I’m dead.”

“It’s obviously hopeless to suggest that you might give a little help to someone in difficulties,” said the poet. “Perhaps I could pay you back later, if only by composing a poem about you?”

“I never help those who are in difficulties,” said Jón the snuffmaker. “Wretches have never made good, and never manage to make good even if they’re given some help. If I give help to anyone, I give help to people of substance. Then one knows what becomes of the money. Wretches—that’s like throwing money into the sea.”

“But when we stand outside in the winter cold, bent double, and even the earth is locked against our dead children, let alone heaven?”

“I don’t feel sorry for anyone,” said Jón the snuffmaker. “They can die for all I care. It’s only right that those who can’t stay alive should die. I’ll die like a shot the moment I can no longer stay alive. And no one will help me, neither on earth nor in heaven.”

“Then why was Jesus Christ born if we are not to help one another in distress?” said the poet.

“Jesus Christ can help his own wretches himself,” said Jón the snuffmaker. “And He won’t get the church before I’m dead.”

“But what do you say, Jón, to letting Jesus Christ build his own churches when you’re dead, and you use your money while you’re alive to help your fellowmen when they’re in difficulties?”

“I’ve never had any fellowmen and don’t want any; you won’t catch me out that way,” said the old man. “They’re all the same damned rabble; the one’s as bad as the other. I don’t care a damn what happens to them.”

“Who knows but that I’m a man of substance when everything’s said and done, Jón?” said the poet. “Who knows but that I could pay interest if you lent me, say, ten krónur?”

“Oh, no,” said the old man, “you’re not the man for me. My man has always been my ancestor, the late Sigurður Fáfnisbani (Fáfnir’s-Slayer).* He was really rolling in it, that fellow! On the other hand I reckon that Grettir Ásmundarson was just another damned wretch, and Gunnar of Hlíðarendi* was never anything but a layabout and a good-for-nothing. But if there’s anyone worth calling a man here in Sviðinsvík, it would be poor little Pétur Pálsson, I suppose. I was a shipmate of his father, old Palli, for many years a long time ago. He was both a thief and a liar, and was said to have killed a man, so the family wasn’t particularly distinguished. But it’s better to be a scion of an undistinguished family than a page-boy in a great one, and if I were to give help to anyone in this place, I might possibly help poor little Pétur. You can have one pinch of snuff free of charge, but that’s all you’re getting. And you can tell that fool of a pastor they’re not getting any church before I’m dead!”

It was now late in the evening, and the poet had drunk enormous quantities of chicory-water, but his child was just as far from getting into the ground as in the morning. On his way home that night he thought back over the events of the day. He knew quite well that he had now looked for help in every place except where he was certain of getting it. But he did not trust himself to produce that salty nectar which nourished Pétur Pálsson’s heart, and yet there was one other place where he felt still less able to divest himself of the rich man’s dignity and sybarite’s cloak—Jórunn’s house. The man without a coffin went home. He had no illusions about the reception he would get when he arrived, but he was so dulled after a day-long humiliation on top of his sleepless vigils that he dreaded nothing any more. He saw clearly the same solution for this problem as for many others: tomorrow his intended would go to Pétur Pálsson and cry for a while—and a coffin would come as a matter of course.

In a shed beside the road, at the foot of the hillside, there were often clothes hanging out to dry, which fluttered in the night breeze and made the people of The Heights even more afraid of the dark. The poet walked past unsteadily, defeated, without looking around. Then suddenly a creature loomed up before him from the direction of the shed, well wrapped up and with a shawl round her head, and confronted him.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“What do you want with me?” he said.

“Why do you go to everyone except us?” she said. “Are we so much worse than everybody else?”

“I had no business at your house,” he said.

“Don’t be so silly,” she said. “I know perfectly well you need money. That sort of thing gets around. People are glad to see others in need of help—like themselves.”

“We mustn’t be seen here,” he said. “Come into the shadow.”

“I have nothing to hide,” she said. “Here’s some money; I’m sorry it’s so little. And promise me never to go from door to door again if you need something. I can’t bear it.”

“I can go cap in hand to everyone in the world except you, Jórunn,” he said. “Everyone, everyone can despise me except you. Only in your eyes do I want to appear rich. Why wouldn’t you let me live on in the delusion that you thought me rich? By handing me these alms you take from me the last thing I had left. You help to bury my little girl, of course, but into that same grave disappears my last vestige of manly pride . . .”

“You have fettered youself of your own free will, man—break the fetters!”

With this harsh order she broke through his despair, and he felt her strong hands on his thin arms, and her impassioned breathing on his face.

“Pity is man’s nobility,” he said. “Suppose I wanted to cast her out, this woman to whom I am betrothed—call her what you will—do you really think it would make me free? No, I would never see a happy day again. If she were young and beautiful and rich, if she had family and friends and the capacity to get a lover, the capacity to make others feel fond of her, in a word, if she were endowed with all the world’s graces, that would be another matter, because everything is safe that God protects. But she has nothing—nothing. She is the human being in all its nakedness: ill, defenseless, without a friend, without anyone to feel fond of her or give her a helping hand and thrust a nail between her teeth when she has a fit. God and men and Nature have taken everything from her . . .”