Independent People

by Halldor Laxness

  “And how is everything down-country?” asked the grandmother. But instead of retailing the news, he began to speak of the incomprehensible labyrinth of fate that had sent a man of his health on so hazardous an expedition in the depths of winter, after he had dwelt for tens of years in the genial warmth of the world’s clamorous, stove-heated cities.

  “Oh yes,” said the old woman, “but I’ve heard that these so-called stoves are by no means all that they’re supposed to be. I never saw a stove in my day, and yet I never ailed a thing, at least as long as I could really be called alive, except for nettle rash one night when I was in my fifteenth year, though it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t get up next morning and see to my work. It was caused by some fresh fish that the boys used to catch in the lakes thereabouts. This was in the south where I was brought up.

  The man did not answer for a while, but lay pondering in silence the medical history of this incredible old creature who, without ever having set eyes on a stove, had suffered no ailment for the past sixty-five years. At length he replied that when all was said and done, the stove flames of world civilization were probably the very flames that fed the heart’s inextinguishable distress, and it is also an open question, old woman, whether the body itself is not better off in an environment colder than that engendered by the flickering flames of civilization’s stoves. True, the world has great superficial beauty when it is at its best, in the murmuring groves of California, for instance, or in the sun-gilded palm-avenues of the Mediterranean, but the heart’s inner glow grows so much the more ashen the more brilliantly the diamonds of creation shine upon it. But for all that, old woman, I have always loved creation, and always tried to squeeze out of it all that I possibly could.

  “Yes,” replied the grandmother, who had misunderstood what little she had heard of the teacher’s words of wisdom, “and that’s why I simply can’t see what Bjartur means by sending decent folk here in this sort of weather, and making off himself.’

  “Have no fears for me, old woman; the time has come that I must rest awhile from the Elmo’s fire of civilized life,” whispered the visitor meekly. “I have dwelt out in the great world for many years and have long gazed out over the ocean of human life. When a man has suffered what I have suffered, he begins to yearn for a tiny world behind the mountains, a simple and blissful life such as may be found in this loft; but unfortunately it is not everyone who can escape thither, for the world is unwilling to release its prey. I thought I would perish out on the mountains, like those men, spoken of in books, who fled from their enemies into the hands of enemies worse still; that is to say, out of the frying-pan into the fire; and I felt that the least I could expect would be a fatal illness. But now that this slender maiden steps forth like a flowering plant of human life with coffee, I feel that I have yet a little longer to live. No, old woman, a man is never so wholly destitute but that good fortune will not favour him with one more smile before he dies.”

  He sat up gratefully to welcome the coffee and the slender flowering plant of human life, but the booted foot still protruded as stolidly as ever from the bottom of the bed. The boys went on staring spellbound at this distinguished extremity, which, together with the walking-stick, was to remain for them the surest token of the man’s unquestioned nobility. Yes and she had sugared the dripping that she gave him on his rye bread, a thing that she never did for anyone, except for herself sometimes on the sly, which was the highest she ever attained in luxury, this marvel of beauty and talent. And he had never tasted anything half so delicious, and God be praised, he added, that there are still girls who blush, for she blushed every time that he thanked her. How could he really be thankful to a thin girl in a colourless frock, out at one elbow, he who had gazed far out over the ocean of human life? How humble great men always are! With every word of thanks she grew the more determined to do everything to please him, this man who had travelled over snow-clad mountains all the way from the murmuring groves of California and the sun-gilded palm-avenues of the Mediterranean in order to teach them many good things. She who for so long had dreaded the thought of waking was now of a sudden looking forward to rising first thing in the morning to make him pancakes for his breakfast. True, he had not the sort of face that smiles of itself without smiling, which was hardly to be expected, as he was a winter visitor rather than a summer visitor, but he had wise, serious eyes, full of good-natured fun, which gazed in blithe understanding deep into her body and her soul, eyes such as seem capable of solving all the body’s problems and all the soul’s problems, eyes that one thinks about perhaps when one is unhappy, knowing that they can help one; no, she wasn’t really shy of him any longer even though she did blush a little; she even found the courage to ask about Father.

  “Yes, my dear,” said he, “He’s a real viking, that man; but that he should prove to have such a pale little daughter with chestnut hair was more than I would ever have dreamed of.”

  “I hope Bruni has been able to give him something to do,” said the old woman.

  “No, far from it,” was the visitor’s answer; “those days are over. The days of autocracy and monopoly are no more in this district. At last we are mature enough to enjoy the blessings that democracy brings in its train.”

  “Fancy!” said the old woman.

  “Now it is Ingolfur Arnarson Jonsson who counts, old woman,” said the visitor. “Those who batten on widows and orphans have as last received their just deserts. For lo, a better age is here our woes to assuage and boldly challenges the ancient wrong; cries justice for the poor and those oppressed of yore, and feels itself unfettered, great and strong, as it says in our ‘Ode to the New Century, Power has passed into the hands of those who carry on trade on a healthy foundation. Tulinius Jensen departed with the last ship before Christmas. We have fought for the commercial ideals of Ingolf ur Arnarson and we have won. This young aristocrat who returned to Iceland inspired by the commercial ideals of the world’s humanitarian economists, and who proceeded to break the shackles of debt forged by merchant power, offering credit even to those who for years on end had been denied an ounce of rye meal on their own account—we have placed him in an unassailable position. I know a poverty-stricken father, with a large family, who couldn’t afford a thing because all his inclinations lay towards literature and foreign learning; Ingolfur Arnarson sent him half a firkin of salt mutton in the fall of the year, as well as a large box of colonial goods. What do you think of that? Furthermore, he gave him a fortnight’s employment in the slaughter-house, while many local heroes were out of work and had nothing else to do but hang about on the street corners playing mouth-organs, all because they believed in autocracy and oppression, and thought their salvation lay in the leech that had sucked their own blood. Yes, old woman, Ingolfur Arnarson is a great man, a genius who could twist the whole world round his finger, a philanthropist who gave up his position, which was in close contact with the government, that he might risk his life and his reputation for the sake of the scorned and the neglected. Because they aren’t very particular what they write in the newspapers about anyone who enlists himself on the side of the downtrodden. But in spite of that we have now managed to instal him in Bruni’s abode. And when I last saw him, Gudbjartur Jonsson of Summerhouses was moving Ingolfur Arnarson’s furniture into the Tower House. I understand that when that was over he was to be given some sort of a warehouseman’s job with the cooperative society.”

  “Yes, I know,” said the old woman. “One comes when another goes, as has long been the case. Many people speak ill of the merchants, and it is true that coveted wealth is hard to keep safe. The new one is always thought to be the best, and the last one is always the worst, I have outlived many merchants, bless you.”

  The teacher, realizing that there would be little point in going into greater detail with a woman so ancient, closed this part of the conversation with the remark that tardy though it be, the sun of justice would rise in the end. There’s a better time coming for all of us now.
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  Yes, there’s a better time coming for all of us. This refrain of his, this new motive, rose singing with sudden joy through winter’s sombre music, to warm winter’s chilly hearts, crushed beneath the laws of an inflexible calendar, and lo, festivals were no longer in great demand, and tobacco ceased to be the only conceivable remedy for a Maker whom no one understood. Presently he began to unpack his traps. He allowed the children to stand some distance away in a semicircle.

  Up from the mouth of the sack he drew first of all his own belongings, his own luggage, those possessions which bind a man to life with the strongest ties, or at least make life tolerable for him. And what were those possessions? They were a patched shirt and one solitary sock, heavily darned. He fondled these treasures with mysterious gravity as if they possessed some cabbalistic virtue, then stuck them both under his future pillow without saying a word. The children watched these two articles disappear under the pillow as a proof of how great men reveal themselves in small things. Next he produced those articles which were directly concerned with the children themselves—the educational apparatus that he brought them in the power of his office. And he stroked these rectangular parcels affectionately and said: “Now then, children, here we are: in these parcels lies the wisdom of the world.” And such, indeed, appeared to be the case. From the packages there emerged new, fragrant books, each wrapped in glossy, colourful paper and tied round with white twine; books in all the colours of the rainbow with pictures inside and outside, full of the most incredible reading, one about unknown animal species, another about dead kings and irrelevant peoples, a third about foreign countries, a fourth about the peculiar magic of number, a fifth about Iceland’s long-desired Christianity—everything, everything that the soul thirsts for, regiment after regiment of marvelous tidings to lift the soul to higher planes and banish desolation’s manifold gloom from the lives of men. Yes, there’s a better time coming for all of us.

  They were allowed a little touch at each of the books, but only with their fingertips tonight, literature cannot bear dirty hands; first well have to back each volume with paper, the covers must not get dirty, nor the spines slit, books are the nation’s most precious possession, books have preserved the nation’s life through monopoly, pestilence, and volcanic eruption, not to mention the tons of snow that have lain over the country’s widely scattered homesteads for the major part of every one of its thousand years. And that’s what your father knows full well, hard as his shell may be. And that’s why he’s sent you a special man with these books, and now well have to learn to handle them nicely; and the children thought of their father with a gratitude which almost made them swallow, he who had left them but had not forgotten. So theirs was such a father after all, and Asta Sollilja could not suppress herself and said to the boys there you are, now you see that nobody else has a father like ours, who sends us a special man to teach us about everything.

  “Do the books tell you about the countries, then?” inquired little Nonni.

  “Yes, my boy, of new countries and old; of new lands that rise from the ocean like young maidens and bathe their precious shells and thousand-coloured corals in the summer’s first light, and of old lands with fragrant forests and peacefully rustling leaves; of castles a thousand years old that tower up from the blue mountains in the Roman moonlight, and of sun-white cities that open their arms on green waveless oceans lapping in one perpetual dancing sunlight. Yes, as your sister says, it isn’t everyone who has the good fortune to learn of the great countries of the world from one who has actually been on the spot.”

  For a while longer they continued to play with the books, but they mustn’t look at all the pictures at one go, only one from each book tonight—the picture of Rome for instance, which is nearly as big as the mountain above the croft here, and the giraffe, which is so long in the neck that if it was standing down in the doorway there, its head would stick up through the chimney, for it’s to be hoped there’s at least a chimney on the place. And what do you think, the evening was over already; never in the mind of man had an evening passed with such speed. The books were carefully wrapped up in their papers again; no, no more tonight, when they had been thinking of asking him a hundred questions. He was tired and wanted to go to sleep, and they did not dare to be prodigal in the expenditure of his wisdom.

  The boys stood reverently over him while he undressed, watching his manner of undressing, but Asta Sollilja turned her back and went along the loft to her grandmother. He laid his stick beside him in bed and covered it up with the clothes, maybe the stick had a soul. Finally he began to unlace the boot on his right foot. Every movement seemed to cost him considerable exertion. Sometimes he reminded one of the Bailiff; sometimes, much more rarely, of the bookseller; oh, what nonsense, he often coughed very loudly into his handkerchief, everything bore witness to the fact that he was a very special kind of person. And what ultimately emerged from this inanimate right boot? A foot. But it was no ordinary foot, no work of creation, like ours, with a white or at least a light-coloured skin and little hairs on it; rather was it a special foot, a dark-brown, highly polished product of the workshop, without flesh or blood, carpentry. And now it was little Nonni who could no longer suppress his feelings and cried: “Ooh, come and look at the man’s foot, Sola!” But Asta Sollilja, of course, did not wish to look at a man’s foot, such an idea offended her sense of modesty, as was only natural. “You ought to think shame of yourself, the way you behave,” she replied without turning round. But out in the huts next morning she could not help asking the brothers what sort of foot it had been, and whether there had been anything queer about the foot. They discussed this foot from every possible angle, over and over again, after they had finished feeding the sheep, and then they discussed the whole man: what a marvellous person he was, and what rapture it would be to have him teaching them, and what a lot they would know in the spring, when he had finished teaching them. He was an inexhaustible theme of debate for them when they were alone; everything about him was individual and veiled in mystery, everything from his whispering voice down to his carpentered foot, not excepting the stick which was allowed to sleep with him, as if it had a soul. The Summerhouses children were lucky indeed to get such a man. And then they somehow had the idea that it was he who had taken the Tower House away from Bruni and handed it over to Ingolfur Arnarson Jonsson so that poor people might be allowed an ounce of rye meal on their own account. And isn’t it strange that men of handsome, dignified appearance who come from large indeterminate places should all be wearing light-brown shirts?

  Now he was lying here in their little room, he who had seen new countries and old bathing themselves in the morning’s first sunshine and in the moonlight of abroad; yes, and such a lot and such a lot. If only one could remember what he said and could repeat it afterwards; no one had such a golden tongue. Yes, and he was lying there with that look of wise seriousness in his eyes, and he had pulled the coverlet up to his neck and was resting beside them, under their roof, after a hazardous journey over the heath, all for their sake, he who had been reared in rustling groves; oh, if only we could repay him and could show how much we appreciate him! When the children went to bed that night, they felt they could easily live to be a hundred, without tobacco, like Grandmother, and without ever growing tired of undressing the same body night after night and dressing it again next morning. And to be able to look forward to the morrow in joyful expectation is good fortune indeed.

  “Yes,” he whispered, “this is the kingdom of innocent hearts. Strange that I should still have had this in store for me, especially when one had seen the world’s gaudy show in great places, as I have.” Then he sighed and added: “Yes, yes, yes, my foot has travelled distant lands and clambered up steep slopes of dissension in a densely populated world of self-love where the fluttering wings of the human spirit find little rest; where the glacier cold of solitude hovers over the moss-grown tracts of the everyday life, without innocence or rest; without love. Asta Sollilja, da
rling, I wonder if you would be sweet as to leave a drop of coffee standing beside me here, in case my heart should affect me tonight. But I feel that tonight my heart will not affect me.”

  And now the boys had gone to bed and the wall-lamp had been extinguished. The only light was the glimmer from the little candle burning on the grandmother’s shelf. Yes, and then the girl remembered that she had not washed herself since her father went away, so she gave herself a little wash and combed her hair a little, on the sly, before taking her clothes off. Then she came down the room again to her bed, she was little Gvendur’s only bed-mate now, and her frock squeaked complainingly as she persuaded it over her head. It was really nothing but a rag now and far too tight for her. She did not dare take off her slip for fear the teacher saw; rather slipped stealthily in beside her brother in the bed opposite. At the same moment the grandmother put out the candle.

  “Good night.” whispered the teacher in the dark, but Asta Sollilja did not know how to answer such courtesy, and her heart began to hammer, but after a little cogitation she whispered in reply: “Yes.”