The Great Weaver From Kashmir

by Halldor Laxness

  And after a short silence:

  “What else might lie before me than to become lost? A man who has spoken to God must become lost. And I yearn to be sucked into the whirlpool of life until I have become a tiny pupil that peeks out along the streets of some huge city, a tiny songbird’s tongue so that I can sing about what I am. When I finally leave this place, I wish that these might be my parting words: ‘What I saw was beyond compare.’

  “Have you heard the story that most suits the calling of the poet? It is the story of Vyasa. Vyasa composed a poem that is seven times more sapient than all the Holy Scriptures. The poem is called the Bhagavad Gita. And it starts out by saying that Vyasa sang this poem, ‘. . . but concerning Vyasa nothing is known, neither when he lived nor where.’ God grant that I might become forgotten and lost like Vyasa, but that my verse might live; that I might be forgotten like the king Shah Jahan, who built for his deceased queen the Taj Mahal palace, the most glorious building in the world. Peace be to Vyasa, peace be to Shah Jahan and his wife. I pray for the same peace. God grant that those of other faiths exalt my verse in the temple while they kowtow in praise of the One who gave me my harp! God grant that the children in the side streets sing my verse in the evenings while they dance beneath the street lamps, Hesperus gleaming beyond the wall. Diljá, we may never see each other again.”

  His last words slipped into her heart like an arrow; she gasped quickly for breath and slowly shut her eyes. Then she moved just a touch nearer to him as if cuddling up to him were foremost on her mind. All that he did was give her a stern, investigative look.

  “Yes, Diljá, I’m leaving,” he repeated, with unswerving emphasis on every syllable, perhaps from premeditated cruelty. And she looked at him in a way that showed her ignorance of the art of language, although the pious sorrow and the anguished affection on her face were mightier than words. And he was suddenly stymied.

  “Diljá,” he said suddenly, “I shall never, ever forget you.”

  His voice burned with passion for a single moment, and it was clear that he had to constrain himself into silence. He looked down at the grass. They sat a little distance apart from each other and did not touch. She also looked down at the grass and said:

  “I’m never going to get married either.”

  It was as if she knew how peculiar and clumsy these words sounded coming from her mouth, because she added, with eager conviction:

  “I made that vow a long time ago.”

  She looked him straight in the eye, and it was apparent that she herself did not know whether she was telling the truth or a lie. She wasn’t about to start carrying on about asceticism in grandiose poetic prattle or mystical exhortation, but the determination and passion in her voice were not affected. In the next instant she cast herself facedown onto the field.

  And she lay there before him young and fair, pressed herself down into the luxuriantly thick spring grass, herself nothing but a personification of the fertile earth. When she drew in her feet her clothing tightened over her hips, revealing their agreeable roundness; this slender, resilient body rested here in the spring grass, and the male partner in the tango could sway like a reed in the dance. She was a woman, fit to become the mother of generations, like Egill Skallagrímsson’s queen at Borg. But the ascetic would not take the opportunity to lift her into his arms in order to kiss her on the eyelids.

  “Arise, Diljá! Take my hand! This hour is holy. I am bidding farewell to my childhood and leaving. And the sun has risen.”

  And he added, as if performing an old ritual bungled together by prelates:

  “Let us pledge to each other to offer our souls and bodies to the truth that is concealed behind creation and that radiates from the visage of things.”

  A moment passed and she did not move. She seemed not to have heard his words. She could just as well have been sleeping or dead. When she finally stood up it was as instantaneously as when she had thrown herself down. Her face was wet. She had been crying, silently, without a sob. She came so near to him at that moment that her face was no farther away than a few inches from his chest. It was as if she were dead drunk. With closed eyes and an exhausted sigh she reached out to him with her warm, damp hands, which she could just as well have folded onto her own naked bosom.

  “Diljá, we call God as witness to this vow of chastity,” said he, in a deep, solemn voice, as he looked at her eyelids. And she let the words echo in her mouth: “We call God as witness.”

  Then she looked up. The eyes of this living soul were aglow with suffering. She looked into his face and sighed once more. She tilted her head back, as if she thought that a cup would be raised to her lips.

  “Yes,” she whispered with a shudder, and swallowed the sob that arose in her throat when she started to speak. “We call God as witness. We call Almighty God as witness.”

  They squeezed each other’s hands as hard as they could and gazed with drowning eyes at each other’s lips.

  Book Two

  11.

  Steinn!

  Now winter has come and it’s been almost seven months since you left. You left in July; now it’s Christmas. It was bright then; now it’s dark. But more than likely winter only visits me, not you. You must be so happy there in the south.

  No snow falls to the earth in the south and you never experience a sunless day or a night of storm. Every day there is like a fairy tale, and at night everyone can sleep. The people there think only about God and the solar system and the glory on the visage of things. But at home boats are always sinking and men are always falling off of trawlers. And collections are taken for widows at every church door, burlesque shows are put on, dances and evenings of comic songs are held for the benefit of orphans. And here no one ever talks about the glory on the visage of things; they just insult each other in the newspapers.

  How could anyone possibly believe that you have a thought remaining for the ones you left behind in the cold and polar darkness; how could I be so foolish as to think that? The longer you’re gone the better I see how foolish I am. Forgive me for being such a child! Forgive me for being so paltry compared to you.

  I waited here impatiently for every ship that came, all the summer and all the fall, as if I expected that they would bring me greetings from Steinn. But those huge strong ships that come all the way from the continent never bother to bring me greetings. They rush into the bay like mighty whales and blow their horns in the harbor so loudly that the mountains shake. But I sit fearfully by my window.

  Couldn’t I just as well have assumed that Steinn would forget, forget, and never again remember what once was? Shouldn’t I have known you well enough to know that every past event in your life is like a hundred-year-old old wives’ tale to you? No one was more eager to forget! Your life happens in leaps and bounds. And you never stop anywhere except on mountaintops where the winds of the sky come to meet you. On every peak four winds blow around you. How could you possibly recall what once was?

  12.

  Steinn!

  Have no fear that I’ll ever send you this letter. Never. Just forget, forget, forget! Blessed are those who forget! Never shall a letter from an idiotic girl near the North Pole disturb your peace there in the south. Think in peace about everything great and holy! Think in peace about God, the great God! I congratulate you on your great God who shines like phosphorescence from the visage of things. I hope that you write a beautiful poem about him, much more beautiful than the one you wrote about me. He rewards you much better than I do. Of course he promises you that you’ll reach Heaven. And all that I am is one of his creatures, just a little girl. Forgive me for that.

  No, Steinn, I’m not writing because I think that you or anyone else should read this. In any case you wouldn’t grant my letters such respect as to read them. God wouldn’t allow you to read them. He would call down fire and brimstone over them. There’s no glory shining from them. They’re nothing but the sleepless blabber of a young girl. I write because I feel so bad. I’m so bor
ed. I’m young, weak, scared, and alone. No one understands me. I feel like a little human child raised by trolls, and one of these days the trolls will come and eat me. At night before I go to bed I look at myself in the mirror. And then I pray to God to help me, because I’m afraid. What am I? At night I don’t sleep. I cry.

  Everything is dark and meaningless around me. Tell me, Steinn: is anything worthy of a single daydream? Will you never return?

  It isn’t any fun anymore for me to meet my girlfriends. It’s like they’ve taken sides with the trolls. No one understands me or knows me but you. You made me what I am. I was the clay between your hands. I wanted to be everything and do everything that you wanted. If I never see you again, I’ll never get over having sat with you by the sea. And when I think about all of this I find it simply disgusting to be a girl. Steinn, forgive me. Should I become a nun? Or should I become an actress? Or should I become a dancer? Steinn, I’m nimble and quick. Last evening after my bath I would have dared to let you see me dance.

  Sometimes I feel like it’s nothing but an illusion that I exist. When have I ever had any inkling of whatever it is that’s called reality? Remember when you taught me the poem about “the painted veil, that those who live call life”? 11 What is reality? Sometimes I feel like death is the only reality, and the rest an illusion! My mother died giving birth to me. Isn’t it horrible that I should have been born to kill my mother? Why wasn’t I allowed to die, and my mother to live? I never asked to be born, and my mother was happy. I’m always full of fear and despair, but there’s nothing wrong! I woke up one Sunday last summer at Þingvellir and saw that my life, sixteen-and-a-half years, had been nothing but a dream. I feel that whatever time I have left to live will be uninterrupted sleeplessness. Then death will come.

  Sometimes I look forward to dying because then the illusion will come to an end. Sometimes I shudder at the thought of being buried. Imagine it, Steinn, letting your body be buried in the earth! Often when the terror overcomes me I get up out of bed at night, and I take out my picture of Mother. I kiss it and cry. And then I hate my own body, Steinn, because it cost my mother her life. God grant that I never have a child! I’m afraid of my body, afraid of my soul, afraid of myself, afraid of everything. And you’re gone.

  13.

  Steinn!

  Since you’ll never see this letter then I might as well write everything. Everything? No, so little can be put in words. Words can never reveal the heart. Words are wise, precise, and strict like teachers, and I’m afraid of them, but the heart is none of these things. I usually stayed quiet when you were around because I felt that words couldn’t say what was in my heart. I want to speak a completely different language than the one contained in words. As if I could put into plain words how I felt in my heart that day in the summer when you left!

  I went to bed and fell asleep after you drove away. When I woke up it was pouring rain. I got up out of bed and went to the window. And Ármannsfell, where the sun had come up in the morning, was covered with clouds. And huge drops fell outside my window. And oh, how everything was dreary! I woke up alone in the wilderness, and your ship had put out to sea seven hours before. And I listened to the rain fall, and memories rained down in my mind. I recalled your words and everything that had happened. Your words are beautiful and terrible. I tremble when you start to speak. Everything that you say and do is beautiful and terrible. Maybe you’ll get up without any warning, come straight over to me, plunge your hand into my breast, and take away my heart.

  I felt that the farther away you went, the more beautiful and terrible everything that you had said would become, the more beautiful and terrible everything that had happened. Tell me why we swore oaths! Were we serious? Steinn, is it true that you’re going to try to become so perfect? Isn’t that just poetic fancy like so much else? How can anyone become so perfect? I’m positive that I can never become perfect. I’m so frightened. Steinn, don’t ask me to become perfect, because I don’t want to, but tell me that I can believe in you, because that’s the only thing that I want to be allowed to do.

  Your name was in the paper the next day:

  “Gullfoss sails today for Leith and Copenhagen. Among the passengers: Director and Mrs. Grímúlfur Elliðason, Steinn Elliði Grímúlfsson, cand. Phil. . . .”

  Every time I see your name in print, Steinn, it’s as if something seizes my heart. Strangers had printed your name there in black, lifeless letters, people who couldn’t care less about you, people who had no clue as to what you’d said before you left, where you’d been your last night here, how you were completely smitten with grandiose plans, how your voice was passionate and inspired, your eyes bright. And you had held the hands of your little tearful girl and made her swear an oath. Steinn, what did we mean? I don’t dare to think about you becoming so perfect!

  I look out over the lava, gray in the rain, toward the wilderness, and think about you who are gone. And it’s like I’m reading a big book. I don’t recall anything before you. Once you had a straw hat with a wide brim and a red walking stick with a crook. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting on someone’s lap, and you walked with your stick straight through and into the next room. That’s my first precise memory of you, because I thought it extraordinary how big you were, with your hat and stick. You’re the big boy and I’m the little girl, just a little speck next to you. I’ve always looked up to you with awe and admiration, and the same went for the last time, when you drove away from the Ylfingabúð, you sitting behind the steering wheel with your parents in back. A cloud of blue smoke trailed behind the car as it rushed west over the ridge; in the next moment it had vanished into Almannagjá. The last thing I saw was when you grabbed your hat with one hand and pushed it down over your forehead so that it wouldn’t fly off in the wind. Now I’ve been dreaming of you for seven months. I can meet your eyes in the stars, because they’re all that we can both see at the same time. But that only awakens an even deeper longing to see you. The language that you speak today is completely different from mine. And your thoughts are like earthquakes.

  14.

  Do you remember when we went up to Mosfellssveit with your mother and grandmother? Our maid was with us, and a boy from the company drove. It was on a warm, sunny day in the middle of the week, the channel as blue as Esja, the hayworkers with their long wagons on the road. Everything was calm, pure, and blue. Don’t you remember how our summer joy was deep and sweet when we were little? We didn’t stop until we were a long way out in the countryside; we parked the car on a gravel bed just off the road and hiked up to the foot of a mountain. The boy brought our lunches. We chose a grassy spot by a little stream. The maid heated cocoa; we ate eggs and bread, crackers and fruit. Oh, how hungry we were! Don’t you remember how exciting that was?

  But suddenly you were lost. You had hiked up along the stream and disappeared behind a hill. A long time passed, and you were lost. Then I hear a shout, and I look up. And you’re standing up on the hill, making a trumpet with your hands around your mouth and calling to me. I ran to you as I always did whenever you called. And you took me by the hand and led me to a little field between two stony hills. You could be so serious and solemn when you were a boy, and I was always scared. “Diljá,” you said, “come here and listen to something!”

  And there was a tiny hole in that hard field. It was so narrow that you couldn’t stick your foot in it. And grass grew over the opening, making it almost unbelievable that anyone should have been able to find it. And it was so deep that I thought it went all the way through the Earth. And then you said: “There’s a dwelling down there, and folk talking.”

  We threw ourselves down flat and put our ears close to the hole. And it was true! We could hear people’s voices far, far down in the Earth. I still remember how serious you were, but I was scared. “Almighty!” I said. “What if it’s spirits? We should get out of here! Come on!”

  But you weren’t scared; you just wanted to listen longer. And I was tempted to
listen again. At first we heard the same murmur of calm, strange speech, as if someone were speaking in the other world, or in his sleep. But the longer we listened, the more eerie the things we heard became. Finally we heard an instrument being played. Someone had brought out a guitar and was plucking the strings gently, as if playing for a small child. And far, far away it was answered with the deep, deep tones of an organ. We stood up and looked at each other: they played instruments in the other world!

  15.

  In the summer of 1914 you were twelve, and I was ten. You had gone abroad with your mother, and you didn’t plan to be back until the fall. And then the war started. And the sea was filled with mines, and ships were blown up. Good gracious me, I was scared! No, you could certainly never suspect just how scared a little girl can be!

  Every night I prayed to God to keep your ship from being blown up. And I said that he could let all the other ships be blown up if he would just protect your ship. And I said to him that even if he had never heard my prayers before, it didn’t matter: I could forgive him everything if he would hear my prayer just this once. “Keep watch over them, my dear God,” said I. “Don’t let them perish!”

  Every morning I asked: “Did a ship come from abroad today?” But my blessed father was serious and strict, much like your father, and he had a lot to think about. That summer Örnólfur was home on his last summer holiday from the university. And Örnólfur was always so kind, the only one at home who had a soul. No better man exists than Örnólfur. He was always willing to talk to me. I often felt like Örnólfur was a little boy, he was so sincere and humble. He always went and got a copy of Morgunblaðið when I asked, and checked on the ships. And ship after ship came, but some were blown up. And finally I started thinking that your ship had sunk.