The Great Weaver From Kashmir

by Halldor Laxness

  In a kind of nervous confusion she touched the hair on the back of his hand without touching his skin. But he did not move.

  “For just one thing, Steinn,” she said. “You can deny me your forgiveness for everything else. The other day when I saw you again I was seized with guilt for this one thing, because I saw that you had never stopped turning your face from God–”

  Finally he shook his head and answered coldly:

  “Man and woman hate each other. It is better that we do not forgive each other.”

  “Steinn,” she wailed again, as if he had hit her with an iron rod. “Try to understand that I am a human being.”

  “God has mercy on people and understands them, not I,” said he.

  She leaned forward in her chair, hid her face with one hand, and with the other grabbed his arm resting on the blanket.

  “When I lost Úlfur, I thought the vow that you had taken from me when I was a girl had called down God’s punishment upon me. I hated you because you’d hidden yourself from me. When I was little I believed in you, Steinn. Don’t be angry with me, even though I’m just a woman. But you are a great man, and there is no God so holy or terrible that your will would not lead you to his footstool.”

  He shook off the chain that she had placed over his arm: her bright, warm, female hand.

  “Stop this!” he said impatiently, and added: “God alone forgives women!”

  She did not extend her hand to him in farewell. But at the door she turned around and looked at him. Her smile was a grimace of pain. Her flowers lay on the floor. The candy that she had brought him stood on the nightstand. The air in the room was still heavy with her perfume.

  “It’s really a shame that I’ve stopped smoking,” he said to himself as he climbed out of bed to open the window. It was certainly her car that he saw disappear around the next street corner.

  Mein Herz pocht wild beweglich,

  es pocht beweglich wild:

  Ich liebe dich so unsäglich,

  du schönes Menschenbild.114

  Oh, this is quite possibly the most beautiful avowal that has ever been made on Earth. But it is still a sin to love a human being for any other reason than its predestination for eternal life. Yes, all love of human beings is sinful except for the love that shines forth in the beneficent act of plying humanity with the blessed formula for the composition of divinity, the profession of faith.

  Ich liebe dich so unsäglich,

  du schönes Menschenbild.

  He sits at the window and looks down at the street, where human children are running races at the street corner. Nothing is at once so painful and so delightful as to love life and the image of man. Such a love is truly lyrical. But the truth makes a man neither blessed nor free. The truth makes a man a pilgrim, a foreign prisoner. The pope is a prisoner in the Vatican. It was almost unbelievable that man should have been created for the truth. God, be not too hard on these souls! Have mercy on men, because they are nothing but wretches! Men cannot help it if they do not care for the truth.

  Mein Herz pocht wild beweglich,

  es pocht beweglich wild–

  And he sits here motionless until the sun sets in the fishing grounds to the west, and the history of mankind once again goes through his mind, everything like a bizarre dream, and he sees everything and knows everything in his imperfection. The perfect were like this from time immemorial. No one but the imperfect saw and knew. The way of perfection is the way of imperfection. “God help me,” he said, “God help me!” because he found himself lacking strength like all perfect men. Thus spoke Yajnavalkya long before the days of the Buddha: “Those who bind themselves to error find themselves in darkness; those who bind themselves to the truth find themselves in even deeper darkness.”

  As happened many times before when he encountered trouble, The Imitation of Christ became his refuge. He turned to Book Three, Chapter Twenty:

  “It is often merely a trifle that leads me into great temptation. Yes, sometimes when I think myself secure I am caught off guard and blown down by the slightest gust of wind,” says the master.

  He still saw in his mind’s eye the young woman who had filled his room with sorrow and perfume, this questioning soul, this weeping human being. And she had held him by the arm as she made her confession, as if she hoped that she would find a redeeming power there. Why is woman made this way?

  He hastened again to the wisdom of the master:

  “Look down, O Lord, upon my weakness and paltriness, which you know through and through. Have mercy on me and lift me up from the mire, so that I do not sink entirely and perish.

  “It often vexes me and shames me in your sight, how frail I am and weak in my struggle against my passions.

  “Although I do not give in to them entirely, their perpetual pursuit of me is troublesome and grievous, and it wearies me greatly to endure this daily strife.

  “My weakness lies in the fact that foul imaginings are quicker to attack than to retreat.”

  Ich liebe dich so unsäglich,

  du schönes Menschenbild–

  No woman was possessed of a more desirable femininity in the wax of her loins. Her movements were inexpressible. In her breast breathed vitality itself. Deep in her skirts slept the born and unborn, generations that waited to be awakened to eternal life. Her bosom was entirely perfect. Was there a power stronger than the one that feeds the white suckling infant? He looked at his arm, which she had so quickly fettered, and knew that without her there was no work of creation. Woman is not only the mother of men, but also of the saints, even of Jesus Christ himself. Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.

  But when he became aware that the air around him eddied with lustful visions he tried again to sink himself into the book of the master:

  “O mighty Lord of Israel, the goad of faithful souls, behold the sufferings and trials of your servant, and be near to him in everything that he undertakes. Strengthen me with heavenly power so that the old Adam does not prevail, the wretched flesh that I must fight against all my miserable life, until my last breath . . .” 115

  No, thought Steinn Elliði, woman has never been satisfied with the power granted by God to the arm of man. When Adam walked in the garden to rejoice in the Lord’s creation, Eve sat in council with the devil under the tree. Does anyone doubt what happened at this meeting? Bontempelli has the last Eve say this to the fiend Bululu:

  “Qui, qui, in mezzo, sotto questi alberi cosi spessi, tu potresti–”116

  Everything around him was replete with hideous images: naked women with serpents coiled about their hips, Leda with the swan, pelicans feeding their young with their blood –

  “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine,” he prayed. “From the depths I cry out to you, Lord: Lord, hear my voice! Incline your ears to my pleas!

  “When you behold our misdeeds, Lord, Lord, who could withstand your judgment?

  “But your judgments are words of reconciliation, and thus I yearn for your coming, Lord.

  “In his words my soul yearned for its end; my soul awaits the Lord.

  “From dawn until dusk Israel fixed his hope on the Lord.

  “For the Lord is merciful and from him comes a plenitude of redemption.

  “And he will redeem Israel from all of his sins.”117

  “I love him, because the Lord heard the chirrup of my prayers, because he bent his ear to my pleas. And I will call on his name all of my days.

  “The dread of death encompassed me, and the terrors of Hell overwhelmed me.

  “I suffered grief and hardships, and I called on the name of the Lord;

  “O Lord, free my spirit, you who are merciful and righteous! And the Lord has remembered us.

  “The Lord is the defender of the poor; I humbled myself, and he redeemed me.

  “Direct my spirit to your peace, because the Lord is my bliss.

  “Because he freed my spirit from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.

  “And I will rejoic
e, Lord, in the land of the living.”118

  83.

  The next day, when Madam Valgerður came back to check on her patient, he was gone. He had gone east along with some English tourists and a guide. They had taken a large number of horses and planned on being gone for a long time. Hadn’t he left a message for anyone? No, he hadn’t said good-bye at all.

  The summer passed by.

  Mother- and daughter-in-law stayed at Þingvellir at midsummer, as was their custom. The Ylfingabúð was set up as a comfortable residence wherein people sat in deep chairs, read from Tidens Kvinder and the Times Weekly, played instruments, received visitors. On fair days the visitors and residents roamed the paths through the lava and smoked cigarettes in the birchwood copse, discussing their plans for the work of the charitable society during the winter. Polished cars on the highway sparkle in the sunlight. Sometimes the area is shaken by shouts of hurrah and singing from Hotel Valhöll, where banquets are held for foreign and native snobs, but in between everything is quiet, since the temporary residents are for the most part artistic old spinsters, bookish teachers who have lost their femininity, painters with bow ties, and middle-aged ladies who have lost their husbands to the wearisome toil of life. The painters are trying to create moods and stand bent over on the heath, observing the landscape through their legs in order to better collect their thoughts. These people yearn for the theosophical peace of the soul in the groves of the Summerland, and read in Morgunblaðið about the miracles of Conan Doyle and the elf Friðrik, as well as the romances written by Sigurjón in the bank and the holy man Krishnamurti.

  One evening shortly before mid-August several guests had gathered at the Ylfingabúð, acquaintances who were spending their summer holidays at Hotel Valhöll, several elderly ladies and young women, as well as a spiritualist businessman from the north. They talked back and forth about the new movements, as they are called in Iceland, even if they had become passé in England twenty years earlier. Everyone agreed that Ford’s autobiography had many exceptional qualities, but were reluctant to take sides with Dr. Helgi Pjeturss concerning bioinduction.119 But if the solution to the mystery of existence was not that the Earth stands on an elephant and the elephant on a tortoise, as is taught in Indian mythology, then it was certainly very likely that Dr. Helgi Pjeturss was right, that men go to other stars and propagate there. Unfortunately, however, it was a waste of time to invent a new religion that was not based on paranormal Americans or lamas in Tibet. The demand for homegrown truth was constantly waning. From the next room came the sounds of the Serenata by Toselli.

  Madam Valgerður generally never contributed to the conversation when it focused on religious matters, because it is best not to concern oneself with things that are both insignificant and sacred at the same time.

  “By the way, Madam Valgerður,” said one of the women, “I’ve heard it said that your grandson, the poet, has become a Catholic.”

  “So he says,” replied Madam Valgerður, as if she still had some doubts as to whether that was anything but pretense.

  “How does he like being a Catholic?” asked another woman.

  “Do you think that there are actually great differences between all of these religions?” answered Madam Valgerður. “I imagine that their God is neither better nor worse than other gods.”

  “It takes an incredible amount of courage to take such a big step,” said the spiritualist businessman from the north. “Now that’s what I call conviction!”

  “Have they stopped excommunicating people in Catholicism?” said a divorced minister’s wife softly.

  “No,” shouted the businessman, “of that you may rest assured, madam; they haven’t stopped excommunications. They would excommunicate you in a living flash. They excommunicate, excommunicate vigorously. Now those are what I call men!”

  “But the granting of indulgences was surely done away with a long time ago,” ventured another woman.

  “Indulg–, no dear young lady, you can name a dog after me if they’ve stopped granting indulgences!”

  “And I wonder, do they still charge for them?”

  “Charge for them!? Yes, of that you may rest assured! They accept all types of payment, either on account, or up front in butter or livestock, exactly as they have for ages. They would pick your bones clean, my dear! – Those indulgences are no laughing matter, any more than they ever were!”

  “It is truly sad that the Catholic Church is so narrow-minded,” said one of the women. “It recognizes absolutely none of the new movements.”

  “New movements! No! That’s something else entirely! They’re not going to get caught making a fuss about those new movements there, no, ma’am! They believe in God and Saint Columba just as they did in the old days. They’re not about to eat their words!”

  “But their ceremonies are incredibly beautiful,” said one of the women, and the others chimed in: “The ceremonies, yes, the ceremonies, ceremon, cere . . .”

  “I’ll never forget one Sunday last year,” said the first woman, “when I and another woman went together to the church at Landakot. It was around midafternoon, and the sun shone on Jesus Christ. The nuns sang in Latin, and the altar boys swung the censers, and at the front of the church a few Catholic individuals were kneeling in prayer. Don’t you find it wonderful to see folk kneeling? And the sun shone on Jesus Christ. I felt that God was much nearer to those people than to us.”

  “Conviction is nowhere but there!” howled the businessman. “But there’s nothing enviable about getting caught in their claws.”

  In the next room Dvor˘ák’s Humoresque was being played as if it were the accompaniment to a prankish kiss of gloom.

  “I’ve really been wanting to see your grandson, Steinn, Madam Valgerður,” said one woman. “I haven’t actually read his poems, because my understanding of English is limited, but I’ve heard him often spoken of as an entirely incomparable young man.”

  “I’ve read his poems,” admitted another. “And it’s not everyone who can understand them, because they’re both deep and dark, and besides that written in such difficult English that you have to look up every third word. And it always seems that a poet’s brain isn’t put together like regular people’s brains. His harp isn’t tuned to either flats or sharps. You ask yourself involuntarily at every other line: ‘Are these sounds, or what is that I hear?’ I realized only this one thing: the man’s got to be quite exceptional.”

  “I remember when he was a schoolboy here at home,” said a third woman. “He was really a lovely boy. All the young girls had crushes on him, especially since he was raised for some of the time down south in Europe. Isn’t he going to hold a lecture in Reykjavík before he leaves Iceland again, or give a public poetry reading?”

  Madam Valgerður thought this unlikely. “He’s not much of a socialite these days. I’ve always said that the traits he inherited from his family would show up sooner or later. And he takes after his kin more and more with age. His grandfather went on long trips without telling anyone beforehand. Three weeks ago Steinn left town, and I didn’t hear any news of him until he’d reached Skaftafell out east.”

  “Couldn’t we get him to speak at a dinner party for the Twenty-Five-Aurar Society?” said a respectable old madam, the president of a charitable society that funded itself by charging innocent people on the street twenty-five aurar for useless paper stamps. “I’ve actually been given the duty of finding a good speaker for our meeting a week from next Saturday.”

  In the middle of this hubbub Steinn Elliði showed up. Speak of the devil! Outside, bridle bits clinked and horses snorted; in the next moment he was standing in the doorway, wearing a gray sporting outfit covered with loose horsehair and dirty travel boots laced up to the knees, with long gloves, a bare head, a dusty, tanned face, and disheveled hair; 180 centimeters tall. “Good day,” he said, at ten o’clock in the evening. And when he smelled a familiar odor, he asked:

  “Tea?”

  “Steinn! Welcome, child!
” said Madam Valgerður as she got up from the table to go and greet the visitor. “Where have you come from?”

  He had come from Gullfoss, had spent the night at Kjóastaðir, wanted tea.

  Whispers went around the table and greedy, inquisitive eyes fixed themselves on the doorway. The Director’s wife informed everyone that this was Steinn Elliði. Madam Valgerður led him to the table and introduced him to her guests: “My grandson, Steinn Elliði Grímúlfsson–”

  “Was there a wedding here?” he asked.

  He had come all the way from out east in Öræfi, had set out from Reykjavík with three Englishmen but had lost them on the way, no more about that. Beautiful countryside, wonderful weather, excellent haymaking, good milk. Icelanders are akin to the saintly ancient peoples of Asia. “Is there more tea in the pot?”

  Several years ago a French trawler was stranded in Björg. The farmer in Björg is a poor man, but a good fisherman, and he was able to save every last man on the ship. He saved the lives of fifteen men single-handedly. It was written up in French newspapers. He brought them home to his cottage, and the family gave them their beds and slept out in the stackyard. He slaughtered his fattest cow, like a rich man holding a wedding feast. On the next day he set out walking in bad weather to procure tobacco for his guests. But no one in that district smoked, so he had to go to another district, returning home after a twelve-hour journey; and they held a great feast and smoked tobacco.

  Six months later, on a summer day, a French warship dropped anchor out by Björg. They sent for the farmer, and on the ship’s deck a great feast was held for him and his family. And before they left the table, the commander said: “Dear sir, you have saved the lives of fifteen men for a powerful state far to the south. It is called France. And I have been entrusted the duty of offering you anything you might wish, up to fifteen thousand gold-crowns’ worth, or in ready cash if you prefer.”

  But the farmer in Björg tried to excuse himself for a long time and said: “God be praised that the men were able to make it home. They were innocent men.”