World Light (62 page)

11

Next morning he went to see the editor, a short man with a generous paunch, an underhung jaw, a black goatee beard and foxy eyes behind pince-nez. He greeted the editor and said that his name was Ólafur Kárason, but the editor was in some doubt about the attitude he should adopt toward this voter and went on writing for a while behind the shelter of his pince-nez. When it suited him, he laid his pen aside, having decided to be amiable to Ólafur Kárason, said that he knew him by repute, said that he was a poet himself and had had books published. He said he had heard some of Ólafur Kárason’s poetry and rather liked it, but that it would do him no harm to spread his wings a little more vigorously and also, perhaps, apply himself a little more to Egill Skalla-Grímsson’s discipline of form.

“A f–friend of mine suggested to me yesterday that I should call on you and ask how much you think it would cost to publish what I have written,” said Ólafur Kárason.

The editor asked the poet to give him some idea of his works, and Ólafur started to enumerate them: novels, collected poems, biographies, stories of strange men, registers of poets—scores of written volumes, thousands of pages. Finally the editor assumed an extremely mathematical mien and started calculating; the calculations were accompanied by deep sighs and groans and a grave air of quite exceptional responsibility, but eventually he laid aside his pencil, leaned back in his chair, and asked: “Can you put two hundred and fifty thousand krónur on the table?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t find much difficulty in raising that,” said the poet.

“If you really are going around with masses of money in your pocket,” said the other, “then I, as an older and more experienced man, would point out to you that this cash could be used in a much more rational way than for having books published. For two hundred and fifty thousand krónur one could at the very least secure oneself six medium-sized constituencies, build both churches and fish stations, apart from all personal guarantees of loans, and still have money left over. And even if you had brought your gold here in casks to ask me what to do with it, I would advise you to get a boat and row your casks far out to sea and sink them there, rather than to have books printed. To have books printed is to throw money in the fire and lose everything except your shirt. I once had to print two books, a book of poems and a collection of short stories, because I had been given an author’s grant by the state, but if I hadn’t had so-called ownership of a printing plant, I still wouldn’t be free of debts because of these books, even though I am well known not just here in this part of the country but down south too. No, my friend, to have a book published is the last thing you want to do with your money. Would you like a cigar?”

“Thank you,” said the poet, “but I’m afraid I don’t know how to smoke cigars. But there’s something else I’d like to say to you if you’ll allow me to sit with you for a moment. I have come to you in all sincerity, and therefore I beg you not to scoff at me; and I shall not try to hide anything from you. The fact is that a grievous calamity has befallen me; I have been accused of a crime. To be sure, I denied it for a long time, for fear of bringing disgrace and unhappiness upon my wife and children, and upon my mother, apart from the fact that I myself take the view that what I did wasn’t really any more of a crime than anything else I have done in my life. But last night I lay awake and was thinking that if I am found guilty and thereby branded for all time in the eyes of the nation, like Sigurður Breiðfjörð who was sentenced to twenty-seven lashes, it would perhaps help somewhat to rehabilitate me a little in the eyes of posterity if I had a book published just about now, however small.”

At this confidence, the editor’s mathematical mien vanished entirely, and over his face there spread the fat smile of the politician: “Since we’re both poets and therefore brothers,” he said, “I can tell you that in my opinion it’s only natural that men should grow tired of their old women when they reach a certain age and start fancying young girls; but on the other hand I think it was quite unnecessary of you to bother the sheriff for nearly a week with these damned trivialities. Because it isn’t crimes or breaches of the law that cause people’s downfall nowadays, as you know; people fall by being on the wrong side in their views and turning against the National Movement. By the way, Ólafur, how are the prospects for Our Movement up in Bervík?”

“I can’t speak for others,” said the voter, without quite knowing what this was leading up to, and beginning instinctively to feel his way, “but for my own part I can assert that I have always had a very strong desire to be on the right side in my views and support the National Movement to the best of my ability, and to the best of my conscience.”

“As you know,” said the editor confidentially, and leaned forward into the shaft of sunlight with butter in his smile, while the raven-black beard, the underhung jaw, and the pince-nez all glistened—“as you know, we editors and party leaders can whitewash anyone at all if he has the right perception of the right powers.”

“The right perception of the right powers,” said Ólafur Kárason. “That has always been my deepest longing.”

Not only butter but honey as well dripped from the editor’s smile; he patted his visitor on the shoulder, almost kissed him, and said, “Sometime soon you must send me a poem—about the right subject. It doesn’t need to be long—three verses would do—but if I like it, I’ll have it printed in a good position in the paper. And we’ll both be doing ourselves a favor.”

“I have,” said Ólafur Kárason solemnly, “been thinking for a long time of writing an ode to the sun.”

To love the sun, and to praise it above all other things—Ólafur Kárason thought that no one, neither man nor poet, could get much further in having the right views about the right powers here on earth. “But unfortunately,” he added, “I can’t say whether I can get everything I would like to say about this subject into three verses.”

What the poet found most surprising was that the editor seemed suddenly to lose all desire to kiss him; the butter and the honey vanished from his smile as if they were no longer friends. He leaned back in his chair and put on a serious expression.

“If I might give you some good advice,” he said rather distantly, “then I think it would be better for you not to compose a poem about the sun.”

The poet looked at the editor, perplexed. It was obvious he had failed to feel his way towards the glimmer of light in that dark forest which can separate two people.

“You mean . . .” he tried to say, “that–that–that the s–sun is perhaps rather far away?”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” said the editor, and started looking out the window.

“But I still think,” said the poet ingratiatingly, “that despite all the coldness that sometimes seems to reign in the world of men, the sun is nearer to us than everything else, all the same.”

It was now the editor’s turn to be perplexed by the conversation, and Ólafur Kárason saw himself suddenly become a strange animal in the editor’s eyes, some kind of odd species of fish, or even a two-headed calf.

“Are you an idiot, or do you think I’m an idiot?” the editor asked at last.

“God help me!” said Ólafur Kárason.

“Shall we agree to talk like people in their right minds?” said the editor. “Or shall we bring this conversation to a close?”

Ólafur Kárason looked at him in alarm for a little while and could not utter a word; he got the impression that further attempts would be fruitless and said, as he got to his feet, “I–I’ll go now.”

But then the editor was undecided about this confused voter and did not want to let him go. “By the way,” he began, in the tone of voice of a teacher who is making one more attempt to explain to a slow-witted child the mysteries of the multiplication table, “aren’t you acquainted with Pétur Pálsson the manager at Sviðinsvík?”

Ólafur Kárason did not deny this, but said it was now five years since they had had anything to do with one another.

“How did you and Pétur get on while you were living on his estate?”

“I always had a tremendous liking for him,” said the poet. “He’s a very fine person. If any misunderstandings ever arose between us, it was always my fault. He was both an idealist and a national hero at once, while I was never anything more than an insignificant poet.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware of the fact that we’re thinking of making Pétur Pálsson the Member of Parliament for that constituency in place of Júel Júel, who has resigned his seat and is now in charge of the National Bank.”

“I am truly delighted to hear this news,” said Ólafur Kárason. “Pétur Pálsson the manager richly deserves to be made a Member of Parliament. Few men have had so many and varied interests as he. If people were measured by the number and diversity of their interests, I think Pétur Pálsson the manager deserves the highest honor that Iceland can bestow.”

“You have presumably heard that Pétur Pálsson has now decided to clothe all the people of Sviðinsvík, from the ankles to the midriff, free of charge?” said the editor.

“Yes, it’s absolutely astonishing what that man can achieve,” said Ólafur Kárason, and tried to see into the editor’s soul, behind the spectacles and the foxy eyes, in the hope of finding some landmark in this desert.

“He’s decided to bury all great men in the pass behind Óþveginsenni, and is now erecting an imposing sepulcher there,” said the editor.

“I think that no grave is too fine for really great men,” said Ólafur Kárason.

“Many good men have had the idea that he ought to become the president of the republic,” said the editor, and there was butter in his smile again.

“That seems to me only right and proper,” said Ólafur Kárason; but even if his life had depended on it, he could not have said how sincere was this solemn talk about Pétur Pálsson the manager.

Finally the editor said, “Have you considered whether it wouldn’t be advisable for you to compose a few verses about the old fellow sometime?”

The poet realized with a shock that he had fallen into a trap.

“Is there any hurry for it?” he asked.

“Oh, no, not really, at least not as far as Pétur’s concerned,” said the editor. “But for various other reasons it might perhaps be advisable if you did it fairly soon, before sentence is pronounced. I hope now you realize that I’m doing you a good turn?”

“Yes,” said the poet, with emotion in his voice. “I feel that I’ve found a good friend.”

“It also occurs to me that it wouldn’t do any harm either if you were to write a nice article in
The Alfirðing
about the nation’s most distinguished man and Iceland’s greatest leader of the modern era.”

“Yes, excuse me, who would that be, again?” asked Ólafur Kárason, scratching himself behind the ear.

“Who would that be?” asked the editor in amazement. “Who do you think it is? Our new National Bank manager, of course!”

“Of course, how silly of me!” said the poet. “It’s quite true, too. Of course I ought to write something about Júel Júel. It’s a disgrace that I’ve never written anything about him.”

“And it wouldn’t do any harm,” said the editor, “if you gave the Russians and the Danes a little dig in the ribs, and also those poets who in fact don’t belong in Iceland but in other countries. All voices that aim at strengthening the Security of the Nation in these critical times are gratefully accepted.”

“I’ll do what I can,” said the poet.

“When you bring the poem we can have another word about the most practical way to work for Our Movement in your part of the world,” said the editor.

“And we’ll just forget that thing about the sun?” asked the poet as he took his leave.

“Anyone who has the nerve to write about the sun in these critical times for the nation is against Pétur
ríhross,” replied the editor. “He is against the Bank; he is against the National Movement; he is in danger of being judged.”

12

One day in midsummer when the heat-haze made even what was near look distant, so that the stones at the roadside had also become blue (that was the extent to which distance and unreality were mingled in everything), three people were on a journey, a man, a woman, and a child, leading a horse along the route over Kaldsheiði. They took turns at riding with the child.

There was a heavy fragrance of ling and brushwood and precious mountain plants. The chirping of the birds was quiet and soothing in the summer stillness; all Nature lay in an uninterrupted trance of bliss.

Sometimes it is as if man is the poorest of all the things in Nature; but today all cares were dulled; today their journey lay not through human life but through a dreamland. And this blue, shimmering dream, this almost airborne blissfulness where the next bend in the road held all the enchantment of a distant mirage, gave no sustenance to grief.

And the poet was wearing a new suit. His wife, Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir, had said that no one from this part of the country had ever been known to go south without a Sunday-best suit; she had suddenly become very proud on behalf of this part of the country, and she said that that rabble in the south, the same slaves who in their time had almost tormented the life out of our late blessed Hallgrímur Pétursson, would have to find something other to laugh at than a man from Bervík without his Sunday-best. She had got hold of a jacket off an old man who had died in the district last year; it had been his Sunday-best jacket for more than forty years and he had never worn it. True, the jacket was both too short and too wide for a tall, thin man like Ólafur Kárason, but who could say what the fashion might be down south? One thing was certain—well-fitting jackets are never in fashion with the well-dressed, they are always too long or too short. The origin of the trousers, on the other hand, was shrouded in some mystery, but even so the poet had a suspicion that they had come from afar. They were gray in color, of a material which was not above criticism, certainly, wide where they should have been narrow and narrow where they should have been wide. When one put them on, some of the most important seams burst, and when they were buttoned up for the first time, the buttons fell off. By accident, shortly after the trousers arrived, the poet happened to meet a traveler from Sviðinsvík who was wearing trousers of the same make, and then it dawned on him that these would be National and Cultural Drawers from Pétur Pálsson the manager, sepulcher-owner and prospective president of the republic. But wherever these trousers might have come from, the poet was grateful for the advantage of having a prudent and resourceful wife in these critical times for the nation.

And when they reached the trading station she did not stop at jacket and trousers, but went into a shop and bought him a pair of boots; and that was not all: when he had put on the boots she also bought a stiff collar, a dummy shirt-front, and a tie, which she got the shopkeeper to fasten round her husband’s neck. Never in all his life had Ólafur Kárason been so well dressed.

A boat had arrived to take the passengers on board the steamer. Down on the quay a few souls had gathered, all wearing their Sunday-best suits, stiff collars and sheepskin shoes, people of the same type as Ólafur Kárason the poet and his wife, people setting off on a journey.

Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir told her husband to give her the boy, and he was really rather relieved to get the child off his arm; but as he handed him over he noticed how unhappy and forlorn he looked, his face almost that of an old man. And when it occurred to him that these little blue eyes would perhaps live a long time without seeing mankind becoming free he grew sad, and all of a sudden he began to feel fond of this boy at the moment of parting and to wish that Jón Ólafsson, too, might have a share of the sun. He kissed the boy in order to ease his conscience, and had forgotten him the same moment. And just when he had kissed the child and forgotten all about him, something unheard of in this household occurred: this poet’s penniless wife brought some money out of her skirt pocket and gave it to him, real bank notes with the king’s portrait on them, no less than twenty-five krónur in ready cash. “Use this to enjoy yourself with,” she said.

He stared in amazement at this huge sum of money and held it tightly between his fingers so that it would not blow away. In the poet’s house, money had never been an everyday sight; for years on end the gleaming metal had been kneaded in places unknown to him; he hardly knew one coin from another. His knowledge of economics consisted of ensuring that what he bought on credit from the merchant did not exceed the pay he could expect as a primary schoolteacher during the winter and for casual labor with the Bervík bailiff in summer. He went on seeing his wife Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir in a new and ever newer light right up to the last moment; on top of everything else she had been hoarding money. He felt that neither he nor anyone else could ever have a more understanding wife or one better qualified to take charge of a difficult marriage in critical times. Men with good-looking wives never had a happy moment, never had a moment’s peace; Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir’s epileptic fits, on the other hand, became milder and less frequent with age; besides which she had undoubtedly been good-looking once, like other women.

“There, put the money in your pocket quickly so that no one sees it, or else it will be stolen,” said his wife. “They’re beginning to call the passengers down on the quay. Ask God to redeem our souls and forgive me, and may Almighty Jesus go with you, and now Good-bye.”

People sail out into the world in different circumstances, but it is always a pleasure, not least the first time, however late one starts; the unknown is itself a promise. The strips of grassland on the mountainsides between the gullies and the gorges reached right up to the sun-gilded cliff-belts; between the mountains lay grassy valleys with lazy rivers, enchanted valleys from the world of myth or fairy tale; the mountain trails entranced the seafarer’s eye. The poet felt completely free now as he stood there on the deck in his collar and boots, sailing past new and ever newer districts; even if he did not own this land’s resources, he owned its beauty. In the distance towered the glacier, his greatest wealth, his thousand, his million. The beauty of things is greater than the things themselves, and more precious; most things are of little or no value in comparison with their beauty, above all the beauty of the glacier. The poet was the wealthiest man in Iceland because he owned the sight of this beauty, and therefore he had no apprehension about the world. He felt he was not afraid of anything. Some people own a lot of money and large estates, but no beauty. He owned the beauty of all Iceland and all human life. He felt kindly towards everyone; he was reconciled with everyone. The music that sustained his soul was the music, along with the nightingale’s, that will triumph when the world destroys itself. Here sailed a wealthy poet. Happy and victorious is the nation which has wealthy poets! He could not understand why the Creator of the world had given him so much. “God, God, God,” he said, and gazed towards the land, and the tears streamed down his cheeks without anyone seeing them. “Thank you for having given me so much!”

Then the storm clouds began to gather and a cold breeze blew up, the ship was out past the headland, out in the open sea; there was even a suggestion of slight rolling. At first the poet found the swell comfortable, but soon he began to feel cold as he stood there at the rail, then he began to feel strange in the head, then he began to feel sick and broke into a cold sweat; finally he leaned out over the rail and vomited. Afterwards he dragged himself, sick and exhausted, down into the hold where he had his bedding, and made his bed with difficulty among other souls in a similar condition, and lay down. Life’s joy had vanished.