8
That winter, when Ólafur Kárason had become bedridden for good and the parish was paying maintenance for him, they started looking around for an extra hand to see to the barn and carry water and tend the sheep on the foreshore. So one day at the end of October an old pauper was brought to the farm; he, too, was alone in the world, and his name was Jósep. He had red-rimmed eyes and a thin nose, with a white beard rimming his chin and white hair that covered his ears; his clothes were made of canvas, and they shone like a mirror, particularly at the knees and elbows. He had also some personal possessions which he carried in a kerchief; they made a small, flat bundle. He put this bundle on his knee when he sat down, and he trembled a little. He had greeted everyone, but contrary to custom no one had asked him what the news was. He was given some pickled tripe in a bowl, and he put his package under his thigh while he ate. His hands shook all the time.
Had he no luggage?
“I’m wearing two pairs of socks,” he said apologetically.
Did he not have an overcoat?
“Oh, I don’t really need an overcoat,” he answered politely. “My clothes are wind- and water-proof; I’ve had them for more than ten years and they’re still as good as new.”
“I don’t call that having clothes,” said the housewife, Kamarilla. “I thought I deserved better of the parish officer than to have his paupers sent to me naked.”
“It’s not his fault, no one can help that—these are my clothes and no one has to wear them except me.”
He seemed inclined to the opinion that in accordance with some special higher decree it had been ordained that these canvas clothes were the only clothes he was to have; in other words, that He who ruled the world seemed to have shown him some special consideration in this respect.
He was now told to go and fetch some water. The barn was needing water and the kitchen barrel was almost empty; it was best to get a move on; it was getting late. He stood up with the characteristic movements of the rheumatic, not quite straight in the back or the knees. He held his package awkwardly in his gnarled hands and shot a sideways glance at the invalid, as if asking a question.
“What’s in the handkerchief?” asked Kamarilla.
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” he said.
“I’ll look after it for you,” said Kamarilla.
“Oh, there’s no need, thank you,” he said, and finally stuck the package inside his jacket.
He was extremely taciturn, and so fastidious that there was never a speck of dirt to be seen on him. When he came in that evening he sat down on the bed opposite the invalid’s bed and picked pieces of moss out of his socks and shredded them between his trembling fingers. He was very decrepit. He was given wool to wind, so that he should not sit idle-handed; but he was not very adept at winding wool, and his balls of yarn became rather tangled. No one told him to take off his wet clothes. He said nothing. Then it was bedtime. He took his package out of his jacket and put it carefully under his pillow. He looked at the invalid, and the invalid looked at him, but they did not exchange a word. It was not the custom in that house to bid one another good-night. Soon Kamarilla put the light out.
The first time they talked together was on a Sunday morning just before breakfast. They were alone in the loft. Then the old man said, as if he were talking to himself, and without looking at the boy: “Oh, you’re not having a very cheerful childhood, somehow, poor soul.”
“No,” said Ólafur Kárason. “I’m like any other of our Lord’s crossbearers; most of the time there’s little respite for me.”
“I know all about it,” said the old man. “I, too, was in bad health when I was a youngster.”
“So you understand ill health, then?” asked the boy.
“Usually you get a little better for a time, if you don’t die young,” answered the old man. “It’s best to die young.”
“I’m ready to die when God calls me,” said the boy.
“It’s not at all certain that He will call you,” said Jósep. “I, too, was ready to go at your age, but it’s as if He prefers not to take those who are ready to go. It’s as if the others are more vulnerable.”
They were both silent for a while, and the old man leaned forward in his seat and shredded pieces of moss he had picked from his socks.
“I have the feeling that something must have happened to you sometime, Jósep,” said the boy.
“No,” said Jósep, and looked at the boy suspiciously. “Not that I know of. I can’t really imagine what it is that should have happened to me.”
“No, it just occurred to me,” said the boy.
There was a brief pause.
“Maybe you’re a bit lacking, poor fellow,” the old man then said.
“Eh?”
“I mean, whether you’re perhaps lacking something where the soul is concerned—you can’t read, perhaps, or something like that?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh, it just occurred to me because of the question you asked: you were asking whether something had happened to me.”
“The pastor reckoned I could read,” said the boy. “And I’m quite certain that if I had a book, I’d get better much more quickly.”
“Oh, there’s nothing certain about that,” said the old man. “A book isn’t everything. It requires understanding to read a book.”
“I have a little understanding,” said the boy. “And whenever I have respite from the pain, I think a lot about poetry and that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” said the old man, “you think about a lot of things when you’re ill, and that’s because you don’t know what you ought to be thinking. Have you begun to understand kennings* yet?”
“I can hardly say that,” said the boy, “except for the very simplest ones, such as ‘ring-bearer.’ ”*
“Yes, that’s a very trivial kenning,” said Jósep. “But what do you say about ‘Fjalar’s stream’s bird’?”*
His worn, weather-beaten face brightened momentarily at the kenning; it was something that came from within, a shadow of a smile.
“I’ve never heard such a remarkable kenning in my life,” said the boy in amazement.
“Then what do you say about ‘Hárbarður’s mead-horn’s liquor’*— if I remember rightly, these are both from Pastor Snorri of Húsafell.”
The boy was completely dumbfounded.
“Then I shall teach you a whole stanza by Pastor Snorri,” said the old man, “so that you will have something to think about for the next week.
“ ‘Fjölnir’s cream I make to flow
From Rögnir’s bowl to Boðn’s churn;
Friggja’s fine churn-pump turns the cream
To Billingur’s butter for Suttungur’s cook.’ ”*
They broke off their conversation when the rest of the household came into the loft. But Ólafur Kárason was elated at having had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a man who understood poetic kennings. He resolved to waste no opportunity for learning, now that he had the chance at last. But they were seldom alone, and higher things were frowned upon in that house, because from time immemorial the Icelandic people have had to struggle against men who called themselves poets and would not work for their living. Besides, the old man was inclined to hoard his knowledge and was reluctant to give the explanations of the kennings. Perhaps he had paid dearly for this little learning of his. And perhaps he had also some secret reason for being suspicious; perhaps he had suffered some minor disappointment in life, even if nothing had actually happened to him. He was also afraid of being laughed at, like all old people, and he had difficulty in finding any reason why anyone should want to turn to him in all sincerity. It took him a long time to be convinced that the boy’s hunger for learning was not some concealed plot to pull his leg.
But finally he took his package from under his jacket and asked the boy to look after it for him during the day. In the evening he took it back again and kept it under his pillow during the night. Ó. Kárason of Ljósavík had never been anyone’s confidant before—and now he had suddenly become a sort of bank vault. It was little wonder that he looked upon it as an important task to be entrusted thus with the total wealth of a seventy-year-old man every day.
In his handkerchief were a few tattered books; they contained manuscript copies of ballads, written in a remarkably beautiful Gothic hand, and every page had drawings in the margins. He handed the boy one book at a time, but would not let him handle them for very long.
“These were written out by Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík,” he said solemnly, and ran the edge of his hand over the books, as if he were smoothing out imaginary wrinkles.
In addition there was a large collection of poetry he had copied out himself, remarkable poems and verses of considerable intricacy which he had been collecting all his life; but the book had been filled up some years earlier. He had also scribbled into this book a few ditties and stanzas he had composed himself; for the truth was that he had had an inclination toward becoming a poet in his younger years, and of course had had to go on the parish. Certainly he had never dreamed of calling himself a poet proper, but on the other hand he had made the acquaintance of poets in his day—whether God had sent him poverty as a punishment for that or not. Anyway, he had no regrets about having made the acquaintance of poets. Some men became rich and had fine progeny and retired with dignity in their old age—but they had never made the acquaintance of poets. What was their life worth?
“I have seen all my seven children die; the earth took some, the sea took the others; some were fully grown, some died in childhood. And I have lost their mother, and all my closest relatives, and I myself had to give up my farm and go on the parish after living in the same croft for forty years—but what does that matter? I had Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík for a friend. At any time I was ready to lead my only cow out of the barn and take it to him if he needed it, even if it meant depriving my own children of their sustenance. If I had the chance of living my whole life over again and having all my seven children alive, but doing without the friendship of Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík, I would not accept it. Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík is a master and a sage. He is undoubtedly the greatest living master and sage in Scandinavia. He has written more than two hundred books, including the history of three counties, the biographies of pastors and sheriffs, a seven-volume history of great events of the past, scores of genealogies, several ballads, a hundred and fifty short stories, a book of folktales, a history of the Chinese, and other learned works, as well as four thousand poems, not forgetting his great educational treatise on the vernacular language of the Gascons in ancient times. It was compiled from some tattered old manuscripts he found in an old woman’s cottage up north in Kvifjáryndisdalur when he was a youngster, and it has taken him all his life to master this language. The sheriff was shown his treatise, and he sent it to a world-famous professor in Denmark, and it’s thought that he will get a prize for it sometime, perhaps a gold medal; he has already got five krónur from the sheriff for it.”
When Ó. Kárason of Ljósavík had become acquainted with Jósep’s stock of literature and had found the key to it, his poetic directions changed radically. For a time he had leaned strongly toward the psalm form because his fate was in the hands of God, but more particularly because it was easier for those who were not all that well versed in kennings. But though he had always considered it absolutely vital, when his sufferings were greatest, to compose poems about the mercy of God and the duty of the afflicted to bear their cross patiently, nevertheless he had, deep down, remained convinced that nothing could truly be called poetry if it did not use kennings. Now to his great surprise he suddenly discovered that ballads not only contained kennings, but also that their heroes overcame their enemies not by humility but by fighting them to the bitter end. This made him rack his brains furiously. No, he did not believe he was in any condition to fight; he was bound to God through his illness and his misery; he lived his life in the shadow of another world. But nonetheless he admired the ballads; with their heroes, princesses, battles and sea journeys they signified for him a world he was prevented from enjoying—this world. He pulled the eiderdown over his head.
9
All at once the memory of Guðrún of Grænhóll rose like a sun over his mind. She was on the bank of a clear-water stream early in the spring. She was flushed with walking. He had the feeling that it was early morning, or rather late at night at midsummer when nothing is real, when hill and heath dissolve into a blue unreality, when matter itself becomes almost translucent in this mystical clarity which is neither night nor day; the awareness which is confronted by this sublime wakefulness is neither sleep nor waking. And in the middle of this landscape the girl appeared like some shimmering illusion; her hair shone; he saw her lips moving; he heard the sound of her voice. With a start he sat up in bed—was it possible that anything like that could happen? Did she exist?
He lay there all day, drunk with happiness, thinking about this sight, this vision. But little by little his ecstasy faded. By nightfall he was sad and depressed; the world’s sorrows engulfed him again; he felt that he would never be able to throw off this burden—and besides, he had unbearable headaches. That night he could not sleep because the paralyzing anguish of life was clawing at his heart; he could no longer entice any consoling vision into his consciousness; he felt that God was punishing him for something terrible he had done. Once again he was gripped by that crushing dread of the soul’s immortality, and besought the Lord to extinguish his life forever.
When all was said and done, the unemotional days were the happiest, the days of healthy, natural boredom when sleep did not flee away in the evenings but came as a friend and brought day to a close. On those days he would seize with the curiosity of the idle upon every trivial thing that happened within range of his vision.
He followed closely the cat’s every movement from the moment it began to wash itself, reaching with its paw behind its ear, until it finished washing itself and lay down and went to sleep. He followed the sunbeam which crept slowly up from the floor, across his bed, and all the way up to the sloping ceiling; by then it was six o’clock; the evening ray was very red. Any human speech he heard enchanted him, or at least made him strain his ears to listen; he felt that everything concerned him, he wanted to know everything. Every word he caught gave him food for thought. Many things he had never paid any heed to when he was healthy now aroused his interest and exercised his mind; he listened eagerly for news of any kind, so hungry was his perception, so desperately did his mind crave to be fed.
These were the doldrums of the soul. Magnína moved sluggishly about the loft for most of the day, and in the evening, when it began to grow dark, it was as if the darkness developed around her and then spread out from her, little by little, to the rest of the room. She did not talk to him, but he watched her moving around or being still, and he was aware of her smell. She often had knitting in her hands; never anything downright coarse because she was the daughter of the house, but never anything very fine even though she was the daughter of the house. He often tried to look her in the face, but there was never any joy in her face, nor any sorrow either. There was just obstinate peevishness, often accompanied by a little mumbling; then she would exhale noisily a little and then sniff a little. It was as if she were alternately inhaling and exhaling that smell of hers. If he talked to her without being asked, she would take that as a sign that he was better. He did not talk to her.
Summer was on the way and everyone was out-of-doors except his foster mother, who did the cooking and seldom came upstairs to the loft except for a short nap at noon. The midsummer days were very still. He heard the faint murmur of summer birdsong through closed windows; it was impossible to open a window there. Whenever he felt quite safe he would try, despite unbearable suffering, to creep out of bed and over to the window and look out over the calm fjord and the mountain beyond it, mirrored in the water. There was a glitter of white birds’ wings over Ljósavík, a flock of terns. He was amazed at how tranquil and sublime the life of midsummer was, how calm and dignified its movements were. He imagined that eternal bliss, if it existed at all, would be like this—just like this midsummer. Then summer was over, and the evenings drew in again.
As autumn passed, the old man was often in a difficult mood. He would sulkily brush the splashes of mud off his clothes or angrily shred the pieces of moss he picked from his socks, and mumble inaudibly into his beard, and the brothers jeered at him as they wolfed their supper at the other end of the loft. The trouble was that just about this time the old man had stopped obeying orders and had started doing things his own way, especially when he was given contradictory orders from opposite sides. One day in October there was a furious rainstorm, as often happens in autumn, the clouds black in the sky and mud everywhere. The boy Ólafur Kárason lay staring up at the sloping ceiling in a trance of monotony; perhaps he was also thinking that on such an autumn day of glowering skies, drenching rain and endless mud, no one should be pitied for being on the outside of earthly life. Then suddenly, in the middle of the day, the old man came up the stairs, soaking wet and without his cap. But the really unusual thing about him at that moment—this fastidious man who was always cleaning his canvas clothes, who would not even tolerate a bit of moss on his socks—was that he was covered with mud on one side, all the way up to the cheek. There was mud also on those silver-white locks which were his ornament and badge of dignity. And he was weeping.
No one who has heard an old man weeping can ever forget it, and Ó. Kárason of Ljósavík, who only a moment ago had been standing on the outside of earthly life, suddenly found himself in the middle of it. He listened appalled to this broken, feeble sobbing. He had always imagined that old men could not weep, but from that moment on he knew the opposite: that no one can weep more bitterly; that the weeping of old men is the only true weeping. He propped himself up on one elbow to look.
“What’s wrong, Jósep?” he asked finally.
The old man answered through his sobs (he still had not recovered sufficiently to clean up his clothes): “I was struck,” he said. “I was pushed.”
A younger child would have said of other children, “They hit me; they pushed me,” and would have named names. But after having been a luckless poet, after having lived forty years on a croft and lost seven children to the earth or to the sea, he only said, “I was struck; I was pushed.” He did not accuse anyone. The power that governed his life was impersonal.
Yes, he had been struck down into the mud in front of the barn, this fastidious man, this elderly poet. The boy pulled the bedclothes up over his head and trembled a little. He at once realized in his heart that he did not possess the kind of strength required to console an old man. One can commit misdeeds against a child and justify them in the eyes of oneself and God and the world, for life itself justifies everything and reconciles youth to everything; but nothing can make up for all the wrongs that have been committed against old people in Iceland. When the boy looked out from under the bedclothes again the old man had gone; he had only come to fetch his kerchief.
That evening the boy heard the old man’s departure being discussed up in the loft. He heard the brothers over and over again petulantly mentioning the nether regions. The housewife, Kamarilla, said that they might just as well have led out their best cow and drowned her in the deepest part of the ocean as drive away the only person on the farm who brought any appreciable amount of money into the house. Magnína was furious and snorted and sniffed in turn, until she said aloud that there would have been a lot more sense in driving away some people who were less useful guests in the larder than the old man had been.
Some
people, she said. The conversation quickly reached the level which was customary in that place.
Next morning the mountains were white all the way down to the sea; a bitterly cold storm was blowing, with heavy snow showers. That day the parish officer came on a visit. He brought Jósep with him, mounted on a pony he was leading by a halter. The old man had taken refuge with the parish officer the night before and asked to be transferred to another farm; but the parish officer unfortunately could not possibly think of any better place than the one where he had already been deposited. He invited his elderly visitor to stay overnight, then set him on a horse the following morning and led him to this proper place. The housewife, Kamarilla, had a drop of brennivín.* The parish officer needed capable men for his boat that winter. Magnína had a wash and combed her hair, in order to wait upon the visitor. There were cheerful sounds of welcome from the room below.
But the old man dragged himself upstairs to the loft and lay down on his bed. He had arrived at the parish officer’s house the previous day hot from his flight; but there was little warmth in the blankets of the authorities, and he had caught a chill. If anyone thought it odd that the parish officer should have led the old man’s horse on a halter, it was simply because the old man had been trembling so violently that he was unable to hold the reins himself. The widow Karítas had to be summoned to help him off with his canvas clothes. Then he pulled the bedclothes up and turned his face to the wall.
Old people are very little trouble when they are ill. They die without any fuss. In reality there is no creature on earth so alone as an old man. There is no point in fussing around old men who are ill, or trying to help them; and in this respect old men are like animals—they die as helpless as animals. This man, this fastidious old man who owned a few books in a kerchief and seven children in the earth or in the sea, and who had wanted to be a poet—how lonely and helpless he was when he died! Nothing at all was done for him in the last days of his life. And yet his death was considered a loss, for no other creature on that farm provided as much money as he had done; he had provided more than a hundred krónur a year in hard cash.
Some people might think that everything happened in storybook fashion, and that the old man died at once; but that was not what happened at all. He did not die at once, but lingered on for many days, even though he did not quote poetry and intricate kennings very much, under the circumstances. But how incredibly still he lay during those days before he died! And how incredibly little was done for him during those days before he died! Nothing at all, except that Ó. Kárason of Ljósavík propped himself up in bed every now and again and had a look at him.
Once or twice the old man, too, tried to sit up in bed and say something in his delirium. Usually he would be asking whether Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík would not care to read aloud a small section of his
History of the Chinese
or else a brief obituary, because the weather was so good.
“Wouldn’t you like a sip of cold water, Jósep?” asked Ó. Kárason of Ljósavík.
A long time later, the old man tried to lift his head again and said, “Listen, Guðmundur, I can look after the barn for you so that you don’t have to interrupt your work on the
History of the Seven Sages
.”
“You should be thinking about your late wife and children, dear, instead of talking about that devil Guðmundur who never tried to earn a living for himself or others,” said the housewife, Kamarilla.
But the old man probably reckoned that the people the housewife had mentioned could take care of themselves. He was with Guðmundur now, and he fell back against the pillow.
Soon it was Sunday. Old Jósep had lain with scarcely a movement for two days without saying anything worthy of note. Kamarilla brought out the
Book of Sermons
and read the Sunday lesson. “And it came to pass that Jesus said unto his disciples. . . .” Then the lesson came to an end. But when the reading was over and the last psalm had been sung, old Jósep made one more attempt to sit up in bed. His expression now was that of the dying, transfigured and bright, for the sun of another world was rising for him; his tongue, which had been fettered in his mouth for the last few days, was freed again, and his blurred speech was clear and coherent once more.
“Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík is a great poet,” he said. That was all he said. These were his last words. Soon he was dead. Kamarilla the housewife stood beside the bed and watched the man dying. He had said his last words. “Yes,” said Kamarilla, “we shall all have to say our last words some day.” She closed his eyes at once. The weather outside was fine; there was no rain. She wiped one eye with the corner of her apron, for appearance’s sake.
So now Ó. Kárason of Ljósavík had death as a companion in the next bed. There would come moments when this young invalid would have a horror of death, but now he was impressed at how quiet a visitor he was, how natural and straightforward. In reality it seemed as if nothing had actually occurred, it had all happened so politely. Old Jósep’s last words continued to echo through the boy’s mind: Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík. So distinguished was this visitor, Death, that when he approached, people involuntarily blurted out the name they held dearest. For the rest of his life the boy could see in his mind’s eye the old man dying and Kamarilla standing by his bedside, and the name Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík, so hated and so loved, sounding in the air around them. Such has been the conflict over Icelandic poets since time immemorial: some people damned them all their lives, others died with their names on their lips.
But that night the boy could not sleep. It was autumn, and he could hear the storm raging outside. In the bed opposite him lay a corpse. Yes, in his childhood that man, too, had heard the Revelation of the Deity. His whole mind had been directed toward one single harmony. When he was a child, he had lain in a green hollow in springtime and called out to The One. He had been ill, but later he had got better—for a time. Then he had built himself a cottage and had begotten seven children by his wife, but they all had vanished into the earth or the sea before he went on the parish again. No, nothing had ever happened to him; anyone who imagined that something had happened to him must be a bit lacking. Guðmundur Grímsson of Grunnavík had been his life. Now he was a corpse. What—
who
was a corpse?