He found it impossible to get to sleep somehow, and lay twisting and turning from side to side, envying his son, who had been snoring for hours now. Time and time again he gave vent to his feelings in a stream of muttered curses, angry that foolish thoughts should be keeping him awake. The fact was that he was dying for a bit of decent tobacco—that damned Wormy, he thought, damned co-op, damned savings bank, damned house. The smell in this new place was enough to stifle anyone. Yes, if one only had some decent tobacco instead of that damned Wormy. How could he get himself off to sleep? It is an old belief that crafty verse is good for insomnia, but after mumbling through one or two favourite quatrains, he found, on searching his mind for more, that the only examples he could remember were the dirty ones. These uninvited verses stormed his mind in invincible hosts, banishing even the finest masterpieces of complex versification.
All the others were bound to be asleep long ago, and there he still lay tossing and turning, cursing, and with a mind now turgid with obscenity, now obsessed with the longing for tobacco—oh, to hell, I think the best thing, if I want any peace, will be to pop out and cut myself a nice plug from that snuff-tobacco. I can always stuff it in my mouth, for the want of something better.
He pulled up his pants, got out of bed, and put on his shoes, being wary to make as little noise as possible. But the autumn night was as black as pitch and he had to grope his way towards the door. As he was fumbling along, his hand passed over a round knob that he did not recognize at first. He felt at it again, then round about it, and his hand went groping over a face; it must have been the knob on her bed that he had touched at first.
“Who’s that?” was heard whispered in the dark.
“Did I wake you up?” he said, for he had thought she was asleep.
“Is it you?” she whispered in reply, and the bed creaked as if she was moving over and raising her head.
“Huh,” he said, “no.”
He felt his way onward along by the side of the bed till he found the door. The fragrance of expensive colonial goods, delicious to the taste, assailed his nostrils, and he forgot his craving for tobacco and remembered one thing only: that this stranger had bought provisions and brought them into his house as if she thought he was a cur and a slave; luxuries; it was the first time that other people’s bread had been borne into his house.
He walked out into the open air of the night. Flakes of snow were drifting lightly earthward and the air was piercing cold, but he paid no heed to it and made his way down to the foot of the home-field, barefooted in his shoes, and in his underwear. It was a relief to breathe fresh air again after the smells of cement and damp in the house. Probably it was an unhealthy house. What the devil had he been thinking of to go and build a house?
Oh, well, now that he’d had a breath of fresh air he’d probably get some sleep. He went back to the house, groped his way up the five steps and into the entrance, once more to encounter the seductive smell of her expensive groceries, delicious in taste, prodigal in quantity, paid on the nail. But nevertheless it would be the last time that into his house was borne other people’s bread.
He was afoot early next morning, and when he had seen to some of his tasks he came in for his morning drink of water. But what did she do then but pour him out a big cup of coffee, the aromatic vapour from the curving jet filled his senses, neither of his wives had been able to make coffee like Brynja, in his opinion she made the best coffee in the parish, everything she touched in the way of food seemed to acquire an attractive and appetizing flavour of its own. She kept her back turned on him except for the moment or two when she was filling his cup—had she answered when he said good-morning, or had he perhaps not said good-morning? For a while he gazed at the coffee in the cup before him, yes, he had always been particularly fond of coffee. Finally he pushed the cup away without having touched the contents and, rising to his feet, said, without warning:
“Brynhildur, you’ll have to go.”
She looked at him then and said: “Go?” Her face was far from being old. And it wasn’t ugly. There was a young woman in her face, and this young woman was looking at him, stricken with terror.
“You seem to think—” she said, and said no more.
It was as if this troll-woman had broken into fragments at one blow. Her features dissolved and she hid her eyes in the crook of her elbow in a deep quivering sob, like a little girl; he closed the door after him and went out to his work. All that day her face was swollen with weeping, but she said nothing.
Next day she was gone.
IDEALS FULFILLED
THEN, were Ingolfur Arnarson’s ideals nowhere put into practice? Yes, of course they were. They were put into practice everywhere. In all spheres. The land-development laws had come into force, and men were being rewarded with large sums of money for cultivating extensive tracts of land, yes, quite a few crowns for just a little patch even. Folk received prizes if they built nice stables and hay-barns of concrete, and they were allowed a grant if they wanted to buy costly agricultural machinery such as tractors, ploughs, harrows, mowers, rakes, in fact everything down to sewing-machines. The sewage scheme also was soon in going order; subsidies were granted for the construction of pits and cisterns provided they were substantial enough and sufficiently expensive. The Bank of Iceland opened a department for providing loans for rural house-building. Here the farmers could obtain long-term loans at a low rate of interest and with small capital repayments, but only on condition that good substantial houses were built, the regulations requiring double walls of reinforced concrete, cross-veneer on the panelling, linoleum on the floor, water on tap, sewers, central heating, and electricity if at all possible. Only really first-class houses could be considered, experience having shown that cheap, jerry-built houses were a risky proposition. Laws were also passed dealing with the systematic scaling-down of all large agricultural debts, so there was much rejoicing among those farmers whose property had been colossal enough for them to accumulate colossal debts upon it. And the co-operative society flourished, brotherhood’s own commercial enterprise, into which no middleman or other sneak-thief might ever penetrate to batten on the small producer’s just profits. If the times were prosperous they credited the farmer not only with the value of the produce he had sold them, but also with a bonus, which might be anything from a few crowns upwards, depending on the amount he had had for sale. The Bailiff of Myri’s bonus ran into thousands. He won large cultivation prizes, for he brought extensive tracts of land under the plough and built most impressive stables. He also received a grant from the Implements Fund for the purchase of a tractor, modern ploughs, modern harrows, a modern mowing-machine, a modern raking-machine, and other valuable agricultural requisites, even a sewing-machine. A subsidy from the Sewage Fund was also granted him, and with its aid he built one of the finest manure-cisterns in the district. No sooner was this completed than it was discovered that the house was rotting away from beneath his feet, so he raised a big loan in the Rural Building Loans Department of the Bank of Iceland, and built, in accordance with that department’s regulations, a fine first-class house, with a cellar, two floors, and a third of attics, all of reinforced concrete with double walls, veneered panelling, linoleum on the floors, a bathroom for Madam, central heating, hot and cold water, electric light. Such men are the flower of the nation. Men such as the Bailiff and the speculator who had saved the Fell King by buying his property. Speculator? It wasn’t true he was a speculator, he was simply a modern financier who had decided to take up farming as a hobby. The Fell King had only himself to blame if he had lost all he possessed, anyway, because he had always been a duffer at farming and had never been able to keep within reasonable bounds, in spite of all his talk about the golden mean. He had never been a financier either, and now in his old age he was forced to work as a warehouse drudge down in the town, dependent for his existence on the charity of his son-in-law. No, the new man on the Fell King’s croft was certainly no speculator, he had hardly been in
the district a month before he was elected to the parish council, he received forthwith a grant for the purchase of modern agricultural implements, he built fine stables and was awarded a prize, he was given a sewage grant, he was given a big bonus on his produce, he fitted out the Fell King’s house with electric light; the World War had not been fought in vain as far as he was concerned.
But what of Bjartur of Summerhouses and his friends? How did they fare?
Let us consider first Thorir of Gilteig, the father of sprightly daughters who at one time had had a weakness for silk stockings of inordinate length. Actually things had turned out much better for them than had seemed hkely; the youngest was even married to a fellow of some means in town. And as for Thorir, he hadn’t owed so much that he could become a great man on the strength of his debts, nor had he owed so little that there could be any question of declaring him bankrupt. At the end of the war he could describe himself as a middle-class farmer. He was chosen as Fell King for the parish. The purging of the dogs fell to his lot, along with the responsibilities and the emoluments pertaining thereto. He was chosen parish clerk. He kept well in with both sides, ceased complaining about the flightiness of women and was said to be not averse to a seat on the parish council, if one should ever come his way. Remarkable though it may seem, that which saved him in these days of high wages was his erring daughters, who, compelled by special circumstances to remain under their father’s roof, not only worked for him through the years of the war, but saw to it that their children helped as well. Nor had he risked building a house for the people on his croft; he had built only for the sheep, and, as most people have bitter reason to agree, it is safest for one’s future welfare to do as little as possible for the people.
And the others? They slaved on now the same as before, crushed beneath the burdens of parish rates, debt, worms, illness, and death, while Ingolfur Arnarson’s ideals achieved fulfilment, and prizes and grants and subsidies and liberal terms were showered on the well-to-do. Olafur of Yztadale had entered on a contract to buy his croft, but he was still living in the same turf hut that had been the death of his wife and all his children—human life isn’t long enough for a peasant to become a man of means—a fact that is said to have been conclusively proved in a book by a famous foreign scientist. As for Hrollaugur of Keldur, he had decided, at the end of the war and its concomitant prosperity, to purchase the croft he had rented for so long from the Bailiff, and now it was taking him all his time to keep up the interest. No, he had not been able to build a house, that would have to wait till next war. By that time, probably, the Bailiff would have taken the hut from him again in settlement of unpaid interest; but the future would have to take care of itself for the present, and Hrollaugur, who had never learned to distinguish between the natural and the supernatural, but always took everything in its turn, would take that also in its turn when it came.
And what of Einar of Undirhlith? Though for the space of a year or two he had been able to watch his debts slowly diminishing in size, he had managed neither to buy his farm nor to renew his buildings, and now his debts were once more piling up and he would be lucky if the sheep he had for sale that autumn brought in enough to pay the taxes and the fodder. The doctor’s bill would have to wait, likewise the refuse fish; human life is human life; but he wrote nice memorial poems the same now as before whenever anyone died, and he was as steadfast as ever in his hope that the Lord would be more favourably disposed towards the peasants in the next life than He was in this, and would allow them to profit from the fact that they had immortal souls.
Then did all the grants and the subsidies, the benefits and the bargain offers pass over these poverty-stricken peasants when Ingolfur Arnarson’s ideals were at last brought to fruition? What is one to say? It so happens that it signifies little though a penniless crofter be offered a grant from the Treasury towards the cost of tractors and modern ploughs. Or a forty years’ loan to build a concrete house with double walls, water on tap, linoleum, and electric light. Or a bonus on his deposits. Or a prize for cultivating a large expanse of land. Or a princely manure-cistern for the droppings from one or one and a half cows. The fact is that it is utterly pointless to make anyone a generous offer unless he is a rich man; rich men are the only people who can accept a generous offer. To be poor is simply the peculiar human condition of not being able to take advantage of a generous offer. The essence of being a poor peasant is the inability to avail oneself of the gifts that politicians offer or promise and to be left at the mercy of ideals that only make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Bjartur was now spending his second winter in the house he had built. It was the worst house in the world and unbelievably cold. Shortly before Advent the old woman began to keep to her bed, though without being able to die, so Bjartur decided to move her into the empty stall in the cow-shed, seeing that she couldn’t die of cold. Even Bjartur himself was so much affected by the cold in the house that he began to have fears that he was growing old, but there was comfort in the reflection that his son, in the flower of life, could not stand it either. The walls of the room sweated with damp and were covered with a veneer of ice during frosty weather. The windows never thawed, the wind blew straight through the house, upstairs there was snow lying on the floors and swirling about in the air. Father and son saw to the cooking themselves that winter, and in no spirit of great cheerfulness; there was not even a grumble to be heard on the farm these days, no one seemed to be in the right about anything any longer.
The following summer Bjartur once more engaged workpeople and once more made hay for his Icelandic sheep, even though no consumer in the world would degrade himself by touching Icelandic sheep, with the exception of foxes and lung-worms. The market fell still further that autumn. No one has any use for Icelandic sheep and never has had; and finally the Government was forced to sell the nation’s right to its principal source of wealth, the fishing grounds, in return for the purchase by a foreign country of a few casks of foul salt mutton, which was then allowed to rot in distant harbours and finally taken out to sea and jettisoned. All that Bjartur felt he could spare for sale that autumn went in wages and taxes, leaving nothing for the interest and capital repayments on his loans—had he sold the whole lot it would have been but a drop in the ocean, anyway. He went down to the savings bank to see if he could come to some arrangement about his debt, but the only person to be found on the premises was a limp, consumptive-looking wretch who languidly turned the leaves of a ledger and informed him that he had no power to make any reduction. It had been decided to open a branch of the Bank of Iceland at Vik shortly and the Fjord savings bank was to be merged with it, so the only person who had power to modify existing terms of savings-bank loans was the governor of the bank himself, Ingolfur Arnarson. The manager listlessly advised Bjartur to go and see Ingolfur in Reykjavik and try to come to some arrangement with him there. Bjartur went home and thought the matter over. Perhaps he didn’t even bother to think the matter over; it’s all the same whether one thinks or doesn’t think, they are all thieves, every one of them. And while he was busy thinking things over, there spread like wild-fire throughout the land the news that Ingolfur Arnarson Jonsson had temporarily given up his position as governor of the bank; he had been appointed Prime Minister of Iceland that autumn.
DOGS, SOULS, ETC.
MORTGAGEE’S SALE. Notice is hereby given that on the petition of the Vik Branch of the Bank of Iceland, the Farm of Summerhouses in the Parish of Rauthsmyri will be sold at auction on the 29th day of May next, in settlement of debts, interest on debts, and the cost of the sale. Sale to begin at 3 p.m. at the property to be sold.
JON SKULASON, Sheriff
This advertisement was pinned up in both Vik and Fjord and published in the Gazette from mid-winter onwards. Some time later, notification to the same effect reached Bjartur himself. He said nothing. It had never been a habit of his to lament over anything he lost; never nurture your grief, rather content yourself with what you have
left, when you have lost what you had; and fortunately he had had the sense to hang on to the sheep as long as possible. Of these he still had something like a hundred left, as well as one cow, three old hacks, and a yellow bitch, the fourth generation in direct female line from his first bitch.
That evening, when Bjartur went into the cow-shed, he halted by the old woman’s bedside and stood for a moment looking down at her.
“Perhaps you remember that hut of yours away up north on Sandgilsheath, Bera?” he asked at length.
Hut? She couldn’t say really, her memory had given out ages ago, she remembered nothing about anything these days.
“Huh, I imagine it’s still there in spite of that,” he said.
“It was a good hut,” she said. “I lived there for forty years and nothing ever happened. But here there always seems to be something happening.”
“Oh, well, I’m leaving here now,” he told her. “They’re forcing me to sell up.”
“And I’m not surprised,” she replied. “It’s that dirty old devil again, he who haunts Summerhouses and always has. And always will. Kolumkilli has rarely allowed anyone who lived on this croft to escape scot-free. I say for my part that I have never made this place my home. I have been nothing more than a lodger for the night.”
But the crofter did not wish to discuss ghosts; he had never believed in ghosts, or on the whole in any form of superhuman being except those that one meets in poetry, so he came straight to the point and said:
‘Would you like to lease me Urtharsel in the spring, Bera?”
“The sunsets were lovely at Urtharsel,” she said, “when my dear husband Ragnar had put on his big coat and was riding northwards over the moors in search of his sheep, to clip them wherever he found them. And he had fine dogs too. We always did have fine dogs.”
Independent People Page 59