Independent People

by Halldor Laxness

  No answer, except that the small stars of heaven smiled with their strange golden eyes upon this mortal man and his enemies.

  Then he said: “Here I have a stone” and under their noses he waved the little stone he had loosened from the gravel—“Here I have a stone. You think I’m going to give you this stone. You say, he must be afraid now that he’s standing there with a stone. You say, he has brought us a stone at last because he’s afraid of losing his Asta Sollilja the same as he lost both his wives. But I say, here stand I, Bjartur of Summerhouses, a free man in the land, an independent Icelander from the day of the colonization till this hour and moment. You may throw the mountain on top of me. But I shall never give you a stone.”

  As proof of this lack of respect he threw the stone into the ravine, and the stone could be heard raising the echoes as it fell on the pinnacles at the bottom, and from below there rose the sound of old apprehensive voices, as if the troll and his family had waked from the sleep of centuries in sudden and startled inquiry. Never had Bjartur been further from seeking anyone’s assistance than at this moment when he had rendered his account. Never had he been more determined to stand alone and unsupported against the monsters of the country and, single-handed, continue the struggle to the bitter end.

  Turning on his heel he strode off, homeward to his valley.

  TO WALK

  BUT country people on their way home from town had called at Summerhouses and learned the news from the children. They bore the tidings up-country to the homesteads, where the story of the ghost was not long in taking legs to itself. By young and old alike it was welcomed warmly in the lack of emotional titillation that is so far-famed a characteristic of mid-winter’s short days; and everyone was the more willing to be convinced of the prowling of ghosts the more sceptically they had queried the scampering of rats, for the soul of man has a liking for the incredible, but doubts the credible.

  Before long the number of visitors had begun to increase. Strange though it may seem, people rarely show such enthusiasm as when they are seeking the proof of a ghost story—the soul gathers all this sort of thing to its hungry bosom. Bjartur, of course, declared that it was just like the dalesmen to froth at the mouth with excitement, then rush scampering after a ghost, but that they had full leave to wear out their shoe leather in whatever way pleased them best. He personally hadn’t the time to answer any of their rubbish about ghosts, but one thing he could tell them was that that blasted tom-cat of his had gone and frightened the sheep through the night so that they had gone mad with terror and, running into the walls and the mangers, had either broken their necks or impaled themselves on rusty nails.

  The children, on the other hand, were eager to entertain the visitors and stood outside against the wall blethering incessantly about ghosts. For the first time in their lives they were persons of importance with a willing audience; Madam of Myri even sent Asta Sollilja some coffee and sugar behind Bjartur’s back, likewise a book called The Simple Life by a famous foreigner of talent and literary genius. It transpired moreover that the boys had actually seen the ghost and talked to him. The eldest and the youngest, particularly, needed only to pop out into the ewe-house and shut the door behind them and the ghost would appear. They could see his eyes shining in the dark, but they could never rightly understand what he said, because he talked with an awful lisp and snuffled a good deal. This much he had nevertheless managed to convey: having long since grown tired of silence and neglect, he was determined to make his presence felt again and wouldn’t behave unless he was treated with proper respect, preferably with songs and sermons, likewise prayers, preferably burial prayers. Several of the visitors went out to the ewe-house to hum a line or two of a hymn or mumble a bit of the Lord’s Prayer. Asta Sollilja had her hands more than full pouring coffee. More visitors, said the ghost, send more visitors tomorrow. He was obviously no false god, but a real god who prayed to men and said: Give us this day our daily prayer. Then he felt much better for it.

  The parish was seething with the most outrageous rumours of this fiend who rode the roofs in the moorland valley and could be seen scurrying up to the top of the thatch and down again in broad daylight, what time he uttered the direst threats of what would befall if he didn’t get his prayer. The little croft that no one had taken any notice of until today had suddenly become the sole topic of conversation in a whole district, even other districts. Men and dogs that had never been heard of before drifted along to the paving and even invaded the living-room. The stories of this ghost, the heated discussions, the various points of view, the theological and the philosophical explanations—it would have been no joke for anyone to have had to write them all up; the result would have been almost as long as the Bible.

  In this, as in other religions, there were various sects. Some folk were convinced that it was a manifestation; others asked: what is a manifestation? A third group maintained, in face of all the facts, that the sheep must have killed themselves. Some people said that the ghost was the size of a troll, some that he was only of average size, while others contended that he was little and thickset. There were various people who advanced historical evidence that he was masculine, others who had equally valid proof that she was feminine, and lastly there were those who had evolved an instructive and highly noteworthy theory that it was neuter.

  Finally someone who was friendly towards the Summerhouses folk went to see the minister about it, for there was a rumour afoot that the ghost intended to destroy the croft at Christmas, someone had had it from the boys, who were in constant communication with the ghost—would the minister be so kind as to visit Summerhouses and hold some sort of small ceremony to see whether this fiend would not yield to the bidding of the Lord? It cheered the minister greatly that there should at last have arisen a situation that reminded his lukewarm flock of the existence of the Lord, for he himself had not dared mention His name out of the pulpit or of his own free will since he accepted the living, as anything spiritual either annoyed them or simply made them laugh.

  Thus it was that one evening the croft was so crowded that anyone would have thought a feast was to be held in the home-field. The weather was peaceful and the stars bright, the moon near the full, frost. A great crowd of young people had arrived and were standing like dolts on the snowdrift, savouring the tense horror that the night brooded over with its stiff blue light Entertainment was being provided by a jaunty young man from Fjord who worked as a winter help on one of the farms up-country. He knew all these new-fangled tunes that people dance to nowadays in Fjord, and the others tried to join in with him to drive away their apprehension. But there were others besides mere thrill-seekers in the company; there were men of maturity and experience, trusty old acquaintances, among whom was our Fell King, who had secured election to the local board two years ago and was therefore often heavy with the responsibility that burdens the parochial administration in these hard times. And the minister, that baldheaded young man with eczema on his hands, had been persuaded to turn up, and was now observing that the time had come to hold ram-shows in the district and to procure an expert from the south to supervise the arrangements. He quoted the latest words of wisdom on this subject from the Agricultural Journal. Several people drew the boys aside to ask them about the ghost, his appearance and speech, but Bjartur was in a surly mood and scarcely acknowledged his visitors’ greetings. He asked no one up, but stood muttering snatches from the Rhymes into his beard.

  For a while the visitors lounged about from one group to another in idleness, out on the drift or in the doorway, in company with the shadow of the night, many of them with the knowledge that they were only more or less welcome, till finally old Hrollaugur of Keldur, an open, industrious fellow who could never stand the sight of anyone dawdling, called out: “Well, lads, isn’t it about time we were thinking of walking?”

  So it was to be one of those so-called prayer walks round the farm buildings which had now with the passage of time evolved into a definite ritual and
had given the language the term “to walk.” Yes, the others agreed solemnly, it must be about time to walk. The boys were sent for and the young people called back, for some of them had begun to walk in their own way along by the mountain, as the night with its floating blue shadows was very alluring, not only for a ghost, but also for love. The boys arrived with eyes dilated, and the minister, who had been trying to forget occult powers in feverish discussion of the Agricultural Journals theories, gasped for breath and answered Hrollaugur’s summons with “Yes, in God’s name.” The Fell King, Einar of Undirhlith, and Olafur of Yztadale came in single file with their hands behind their backs, each with his own peculiar expression, each with hay in his beard, dogs before and behind, excitedly and importantly conscious of the solemnity of the occasion. Various people offered the girls their support, and the girls were red in the face with ghosts, though Bjartur considered that it was something else they were nosing after, see.

  “Now, then, you kids, just pop into the huts and ask which way we have to walk,” repeated Hrollaugur of Keldur—It was safer to make inquiries first, as sometimes the ghost made them go sunwise round the huts, sometimes contrariwise. Helgi took his brother’s hand and they tiptoed up to the door; no one had permission to interview the ghost but them. After sliding the bar along, they peeped in cautiously. “Shh,” whispered the elder boy, waving the more inquisitive visitors away, “not too near!” The sheep rushed to the far end of the half-empty stalls in unnatural fright. The boys disappeared inside and shut the door after them. A middle-aged woman from the homesteads began singing “Praise the Lord.” Many of the others joined in. But Hrollaugur of Keldur said it would be time enough to sing when they had begun to walk—he managed this affair as he would have managed any other sensible job of work that demanded its own set routine. Suddenly all of them jumped, for the boys shot backward out of the hut and rolled head over heels on the ice as if they had been slung. “The hymn books, the hymn books,” they yelled, still rolling. The ghost required that they should walk nine times round the hut and sing nine stanzas.

  “I suppose he means verses,” said Einar of Undirhlith stiffly.

  Whatever his meaning may have been, the procession now began. The older people hummed the hymn to the best of their ability, the dogs howled too, but the young people did not know the hymn and were thinking of other hymns, and there were small surreptitious squeezes while the moon’s blue shadows floated one into another. Bjartur stood on one side, calling to his dog in case it landed in a fight.

  After a while, however, it became evident that the younger people could not be bothered to do all those circles; a little group detached itself and wandered off along the foot of the mountain to hear once more from the mouth of the singer the newest dance tune from Fjord: “Supple in reels, supple in reels, supple in lancers and reels.” Two brave men popped into the ewe-house without permission, to see the ghost. But they did not stay long there. Hardly had they crossed the threshold before they saw two evil flaming eyes glaring at them from the nook by the hay-barn door, at the far end of the manger. It was as horrible a sight as the dead thrall’s eyes in Grettis Saga; when these men have grown old they will tell a new generation of that night long ago when as young men they looked into the eyes of Icelandic legend. Nor was it a silent regard, for a hellish noise accompanied it, more frightful than the voice of any Icelandic creature and reminiscent of nothing so much as the insane screech of a devilish old door. According to the minister, who himself took a lightning peep into the stalls, it was the voice of a being condemned to eternal despair outside the gates of Heaven, and the greeny-yellow glare was the glare of eyes that had never seen the light of heaven and never would; so he seized the opportunity to offer up a prayer that to us might be opened heaven’s gate, that we might see the light thereof. And at that moment the moon floated angrily behind a bank of clouds, and the pallid blue snow-world passed simultaneously into an obscurity more ghostly even than before. The features of the countryside dissolved; even the people themselves seemed unreal one in the other’s eyes as they stood in the shadows of this unusual night-watch that passed the bounds of all reason. They groped involuntarily for one another’s hand, fearful that they might be alone; what more was it really possible to do? Thus they stood, holding hands and shivering as the moon disappeared into a deeper and deeper gloom; they were wanting coffee, they were cold.

  OF THE SOUL

  YES, 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 small
holders, 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.”