Dr. Sýngmann: No, it changes precisely nothing. On the other hand we don’t need a Jew—and even less do we need those who have stolen God from the Jews, such as the pope and Mohammed.
Pastor Jón: I didn’t know you were against the Jews, Mundi.
Dr. Sýngmann: God is the god of the Jews, say I! That’s why you ought to leave Him alone, John. What you have stolen can never be yours. The Jews could take these god-thieves to court and have them sentenced to prison in accordance with the Berne Convention, which prescribes heavy penalties for the theft of patents and ideas. Not to mention scandals like the one when the Christians without ceremony stole from the Jews their national literature and added to it a piece of Greek overtime-work they call the New Testament, which is mostly a distortion of the Old Testament, and, what’s more, an anti-Semitic book. My motto is, leave the Jews alone. Those who deck themselves out in stolen gods are not viable.
Pastor Jón: How nice that you should come up with the word “viable,” which our motorists have now started using about a new type of antifreeze. Tell me something, Mundi, are we viable, you and I? Is the world we live in viable and genuine?
Dr. Sýngmann: At least I don’t ask the Jews about it; let alone the Mufti of Constantinople or the Vatican or the Patriarch of Antioch. —And at that point the Doctor notices that his cigar has gone out and he starts hunting for matches and is a little clumsy with his hands as if they are numb, and then he says: But someone must have made it all. Don’t you think so, John?
Pastor Jón: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and so on, said the late pastor Jens.
Dr. Sýngmann: Listen, John, how is it possible to love God? And what reason is there for doing so? To love, is that not the prelude to sleeping together, something connected with the genitals, at its best a marital tragedy among apes? It would be ridiculous. People are fond of their children, all right, but if someone said he was fond of God, wouldn’t that be blasphemy?
Pastor Jón once again utters that strange word “it” and says: I accept it.
Dr. Sýngmann: What do you mean when you say you accept God? Did you consent to His creating the world? Do you think the world as good as all that, or something? This world! Or are you all that pleased with yourself?
Pastor Jón: Have you noticed that the ewe that was bleating outside the window is now quiet? She has found her lamb. And I believe that the calf here in the homefield will pull through.
Dr. Sýngmann: I know as well as you do, John, that animals are perfect within their limits and that man is the lowest rung in the reverse-evolution of earthly life: one need only compare the pictures of an emperor and a dog to see that, or a farmer and the horse he rides. But I for my part refuse to accept it.
Pastor Jón Prímus: To refuse to accept it—what is meant by that? Suicide or something?
Dr. Sýngmann: At this moment, when the alignment with a higher humanity is at hand, a chapter is at last beginning that can be taken seriously in the history of the earth. Epagogics provide the arguments to prove to the Creator that life is an entirely meaningless gimmick unless it is eternal.
Pastor Jón: Who is to bell the cat?
Dr. Sýngmann: As regards epagogics, it is pleading a completely logical case. In six volumes I have proved my thesis with incontrovertible arguments; even juridically. But obviously it isn’t enough to use cold reasoning. I take the liberty of appealing to this gifted Maker’s honour. I ask Him—how could it ever occur to you to hand over the earth to demons? The only ideal over which demons can unite is to have a war. Why did you permit the demons of the earth to profess their love to you in services and prayers as if you were their God? Will you let honest men call you demiurge, you, the Creator of the world? Whose defeat is it, now that the demons of the earth have acquired a machine to wipe out all life? Whose defeat is it if you let life on earth die on your hands? Can the Maker of the heavens stoop so low as to let German philosophers give Him orders what to do? And finally—I am a creature you have created. And that’s why I am here, just like you. Who has given you the right to wipe me out? Is justice ridiculous in your eyes? Cards on the table! (He mumbles to himself.) You are at least under an obligation to resurrect me!
The tape ran out at this point, so I did not catch the last arguments about the necessity of juridical quibbles to bring the Creator to his senses, nor did I catch a complete account of the wisdom of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. I changed spools as carefully as I could, trusting that these two oldsters were so advanced in years that they had a buzzing in the ears and would not notice my fidgeting.
When the spool turns again and the tape is running, it sounds as if pastor Jón Prímus has begun to challenge epagogics with arguments that are characteristic of him: he makes no distinction between theory and fable, except that fable is for children and theories mainly serve the purpose of convincing God of some absurdity or other, or else are used as an excuse and a stalking horse for shooting.
He goes on talking.
Pastor Jón Prímus: Oh, it’s all the same old hash in the same old dish. Except that in our time, philosophers and preachers have started calling themselves ideologists; theories and religions, and especially fairy tales for children, are called ideologies in every second sentence. I have only one theory, Mundi.
Dr. Sýngmann: Well, that’s something! Perhaps it will save the world one day.
Pastor Jón: It is at least no worse than other theories.
Dr. Sýngmann: Let’s have it, John!
Pastor Jón: I have the theory that water is good.
Dr. Sýngmann: For colds, or what?
Pastor Jón: Unqualified. One doesn’t even have to go by my theory unless one is thirsty.
Dr. Sýngmann: That’s poesy, John, obsolete long ago; it even says in Goethe, grau ist alle Theorie.
There is silence on the tape now. Later one can make out that talking has started again, low and slow; it is pastor Jón. I was hoping he would refer again to the Psalm of David about a flower, which is so good. Such quiet talk with long silences in between reminds you of trout-rings here and there in still water towards evening. But it wasn’t the Psalms of David.
Pastor Jón Prímus: Do you remember when Úa shook her curls? Do you remember when she looked at us and laughed? Did she not accept the Creation? Did she reject anything? Did she contradict anything? It was a victory for the Creator, once and for all. Everything that was workaday and ordinary, everything that had limitations, ceased to exist when she came: the world perfect, and nothing mattered anymore. What does Úa mean when she sends people telegrams saying she is dead?
Dr. Godman Sýngmann has risen to his feet and has folded the seat of his shooting stick. He has started looking out of the window. The ewe lies on the paving and is chewing the cud, and the lamb lies close against her and chews the cud as well, its jaws racing. He answers pastor Jón Prímus with his back turned to him, gazing out of the window: Well, she was your wife.
27
Dandelion and Honeybee
Pastor Jón Prímus: It’s perhaps too much to say that she was my wife, Mundi. Who owns a woman like Úa? Who owns the flower of the field?
Dr. Godman Sýngmann stood in the light from the window looking at the sheep, almost darkening the room with those broad shoulders in that enormous wind-cheater: It’s said that the man who first compared a woman to a flower must have been a genius. The next one who parroted it was undoubtedly an ass. What are we to call the man who utters it a third time?
A rascal, replied pastor Jón Prímus, and shall undertake to be all three at once. But I hope it does not change the psalmist’s words in any way. Has it never occurred to you to think kindly of God for having created the lilies of the field?
Dr. Sýngmann: Flowers? No. I am God-fearing in the fullest sense of the word. I have always been afraid of God. I have been so afraid of Him that no saint in the Middle Ages was ever more afraid of the devil. Terrible is the God who created a woman like Úa. When she had been in charge for th
ree years of a brothel I owned in South America, I sent her to a convent. Next time I met her she had become the mother of many children in North America, separated from the men and the children dead.
Pastor Jón Prímus: Mundi, you who are so good at reading and writing books, there’s one story you ought to read; I’ve always thought it such a good one. It is the story of the dandelion and the honeybee. May I tell it to you?
Dr. Godman Sýngmann turned round and stared at his old friend the parish pastor in amazement with those moist eyes of his with their worn red rims, at once accusing and beseeching, sorrowful and honest, humble and fierce, like the eyes of a bloodhound, that dog which bears such a dreadful name yet is nonetheless the most harmless of dogs.
Pastor Jón Prímus: There was once a dandelion and a honeybee. . . .
Dr. Sýngmann: If you are going to tell me the story of the dandelion and the honeybee, John, I shall hit you. Lyrical poetry is the most disgusting drivel on earth, not excepting theology. I’m going to bed.
Pastor Jón Prímus: When a dandelion calls to a bee with its scent to give it honey, and the bee goes off with the pollen from the flower and sows it somewhere far away—that I call a Supercommunion. It would be remarkable if a more super communion could be established, even though intergalactic communications were put in order.
Dr. Sýngmann had turned away to the window again: Strange that one should never tire of looking at sheep. Why should that be?
Long silence except for the whirring of my spool, which could just as well be a buzzing in the ears. The Doctor turned from the window and prepared to leave: an ageing giant worn out from living in mountain peaks and wading home through torrential rivers, his chest heavy, and perhaps with a pain at the heart. He stopped talking as the inventor of epagogics and his voice became gruff and brittle.
Dr. Godman Sýngmann: I’m going out to the hut to snatch a few hours’ sleep before we start for the glacier. John, will you say a prayer with me?
Pastor Jón Prímus: I’d rather not, my friend. I’m completely away from all that sort of thing. Modern times brush their teeth instead of saying their prayers at night.
Dr. Godman Sýngmann: Perhaps it isn’t right either. It just sort of occurred to me. Because we have both known Úa. Dandelion and honeybee, you say. That’s just it, dandelion and honeybee. That’s all there is to it. And yet I thought we could have said this prayer together.
Pastor Jón Prímus: What prayer?
Dr. Sýngmann: Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps that thing by pastor Paul.
Pastor Jón: “Ever trusting”! How is it possible to remember that after having gone so far and been away so long?
Dr. Sýngmann: I don’t know, John. Perhaps I’m a little tired. I hope you don’t hold it against me, John.
Pastor Jón Prímus: I gave it up so long ago. The late pastor Jens of Setberg never said a prayer, but then he was a holy man and a soothsayer. God would burst out laughing if I started saying prayers.
Dr. Sýngmann: Once again forgive me, John. And let me know if you need any trifling thing that is unobtainable here in Iceland. I’ll buy it and send it to you by post.
Pastor Jón Prímus: That’s a kind offer and it’s just like you, Mundi, old friend. But I can easily let you have the money, you know. The trouble is I’m not short of anything. Still, it occurs to me that if you ever come across a good-quality horse-scratcher anywhere abroad, do buy it and send it to me by post. Here at home they have nothing but plain cow-scratchers.
Dr. Sýngmann: Horse-scratcher, yes, yes. I’ll try to remember that, John. Good night, John. And you, my young friend, you who are about to launch out into the deep: launch out into the deep.
Exit Dr. Godman Sýngmann, closing the creaking door behind him.
28
The Glacier
When one is describing Christianity at Glacier one must never forget the glacier, at least not for long. Perhaps some of the undersigned’s continuous reflections on this subject, as follows, are not entirely out of place even though they do not perhaps pertain to this particular day; but all other days have been this day at one time or another, just like those that are still to come.
This glacier is never like an ordinary mountain. As was said before, it is only a bulge and doesn’t reach very high into the sky. It’s as if this mountain has no point of view. It asserts nothing. It doesn’t try to force anything upon anyone. It never importunes you. Skilled mountaineers come straight here to climb the mountain because it is one of the most famous mountains in the world, and when they see it they ask: Is that all there is to it? And they can’t be bothered going up. In the mountain range that continues to the east of the glacier there are innumerable mountains as varied as people in a photograph; these mountains are not all-or-nothing like the glacier, but are endowed with details. Some are said to swell up and start booming when the wind is from the north. Some skilled mountaineers say that the glacier isn’t interesting but that Helgrindur is interesting and the people should rather climb Helgrindur, which means the Gate of Hell.
It is often said of people with second sight that their soul leaves the body. That doesn’t happen to the glacier. But the next time one looks at it, the body has left the glacier, and nothing remains except the soul clad in air. As the undersigned mentioned earlier in the report, the glacier is illuminated at certain times of the day by a special radiance and stands in a golden glow with a powerful aureole of rays, and everything becomes insignificant except it. Then it’s as if the mountain is no longer taking part in the history of geology but has become ionic. Wasn’t the fairy ram that Hnallþóra saw actually the glacier? A remarkable mountain. At night when the sun is off the mountains the glacier becomes a tranquil silhouette that rests in itself and breathes upon man and beast the word never, which perhaps means always. Come, waft of death.
29
Miracle Postponed
It must now be related that your emissary is roused from his sleep early in the morning, after having been witness the previous evening to the conversation that was cited above. There was a hammering with clenched fists on my door—not with the knuckles, however, but with the side of the hand, the way women use their fists for hitting.
Embi jumps out of bed in alarm, half-naked: What’s wrong?
Woman’s voice: The Angler cannot be woken up.
Embi: I’m a guest here. Better have a word with pastor Jón.
Woman: He was called away to Nes to break open a lock.
Embi: Is that Miss Hnallþóra?
Woman: My name is Mrs. Fína Jónsen from Hafnarfjörður and no damned Hnallþóra.
Embi: What do you want with me?
Mrs. Fína Jónsen: Well, the man’s got to be woken up.
Embi: Wasn’t there a twelve-tonner here last night?
Mrs. Fína Jónsen: Jódínus, you mean? To the best of my knowledge I’ve had him between my knees most of the night. I’ve got nothing more to say to that wretch. And besides he’s now on his back underneath the truck and has started tinkering.
Embi: And the winter-pasture shepherds?
Mrs. Fína Jónsen: The ones with the hair and the beards? They’re in fits of laughter out in the homefield beside the calf. The English chauffeur, he knows you’re a bishop and he sent me to fetch you.
Embi: Where’s the man from Langavatnsdalur? He’s nearer to being a bishop than I.
Mrs. Fína Jónsen: Helgi of Torfhvalastaðir has been out looking for horses all night. There’s no one around here in his right mind.
The professor’s shiny black Imperial stands on the overgrown path to the church, gathering dew in the fog.
Your emissary had thought that Godman Sýngmann would be lying in his bed, seeing that he was to be woken up, but the professor had got no farther than the sitting room. He had not had time to take off his big jacket, managed no more than to loosen the collar of his shirt. The crumpled old hat lay in the middle of the floor as if it had been thrown, festooned with flies and colourful tin bait. The man
had lowered himself onto a twin settee, had presumably felt a pain, and started to swallow tablets he had in his pockets, because on a small table by his side stood two open phials, the one containing yellow tablets, the other brown. He sat slumped with his head lolling to one side, his eyes screwed up and his mouth slack. The man was dead. In death, the wig had fallen off his head and lay on the floor.
The “chauffeur” turned out to be the man who saw to the housekeeping for the expedition. He greeted me and introduced himself as Mr. James Smith, the Butler. This butler wanted the corpse moved to the bedroom off the sitting room. In the country, the telephone doesn’t open until 0800, so a doctor could not be contacted immediately in order to certify the death. The undersigned asked this butler if it would not be right to summon the professor’s three colleagues.
Butler James Smith: Who are they?
When I had managed to make him understand whom I meant, he says: They’re not asked. If they come in, I go out.
Embi: All the same, it would be a courtesy to talk to them!
Butler: On your head be it!
But it wasn’t right to say that the winter-pasture shepherds were in fits of laughter; in point of fact they were out in the homefield doing morning exercises in accordance with hatha yoga, which consists of raising the god Kundalini who lives in the tailbone and reigns supreme over a man’s life and soul if he is correctly tamed. The men alternately sat in Buddha postures or went down on their knees and bowed incessantly so low that they struck their foreheads on the ground, or lay flat, face-down; and this was what Mrs. Fína Jónsen had taken to be falling about in fits of laughter.
When these men heard what had happened, and that they were expected to carry their master’s body a few paces from one room to another, Saknússemm II, who spoke on their behalf, said that he and his brothers took no account of death and would not lend a hand to the work that was required of them; that sort of thing wasn’t in their sphere. This spokesman for the winter-pasture shepherds said it was high time their lord and master, Lord Maitreya, started attending to his work at home in that heaven where Buddha the fifth dwelt and where there was more to be done than here; he had now abandoned the carcass of an American businessman that he had been using for a while as a casing. The three of them, on the other hand, had undertaken this journey to this North Pole here for the purpose of raising from the dead a high female reincarnation who slept in the snow, and they would attend to no other work until that task was completed. For these men the most urgent need was to strengthen their omnipotence with that fire that lies hidden at the bottom of the spinal cavity in human beings, the snake-fire Kundalini. The lute-player for his part wanted to make up for the indifference that could be inferred from the pronouncement made by the leader, Saknússemm the Second, and began to mutter something, a bit feebly, in rather bad English mixed with Spanish phrases:
Under the Glacier Page 12