Paradise Reclaimed

by Halldor Laxness

  “When I called at your place on my way home from the fishing, and saw you, I could scarcely believe my eyes.”

  “Oh, I’ve probably become a horribly big and ugly fool now. The only consolation is that I’m small inside.”

  “I’ve also got plenty of time left to learn some sense, although I learned a lot from going to the fishing, come to that,” he said.

  “I still believe a lot of things which perhaps aren’t true,” she said. “And the rest I don’t understand.”

  “Listen,” he said, “why don’t you let me have a quick ride on the white horse? Your father can’t see us behind this hillock.”

  “Are you out of your mind? Imagine my letting you have this horse up here on the moors, with lakes all round us! He’s a water-horse.”

  “A kelpie?” he asked.

  “Didn’t you know that?” she said.

  “His hooves aren’t turned backwards, as far as I can see.”

  “I never said he was a kelpie on both sides,” said the girl. “Just a minute, I think someone’s calling us.”

  “I’ll talk to you later. Soon. I’ll come and call on you,” he said.

  “No, please don’t, for heaven’s sake. I’d be much too scared. You don’t know me at all, anyway. And I don’t know you at all, either.”

  “I didn’t mean I was going to come at once,” he said. “Not today, and not tomorrow. And not the next day, either. Perhaps when you’re seventeen. I’ll be nearly of age then. I hope you won’t have sold this colt to Björn of Leirur by the time I come.”

  “I’d be so shy I’d hide in a cupboard,” she said, and with that she turned her horse away from the boy so that she would not have to look at him; and besides, their fathers had just about ridden up to them.

  “We must not let the outside flank of the drive fall behind, my dears,” said her father.

  The other farmer said, “I’d be very surprised if those two haven’t started thinking some rather pleasant thoughts.”

  4

  The pony and fate

  A lamb-drive at midsummer on a pony descended from kelpies, and a breath of air from the glaciers—those who have been on such a journey in their youth dream of it forever afterwards, however long they may live, and finally with the wordless emptiness of regret and resignation to death. She only rode Krapi this once; why not always from that day onwards?

  “I mentioned last year, Steinar, that you should let me have the white horse this summer when I ride west to welcome royalty,” said the sheriff. “It is of no little importance to arrive at Þingvellir* well-mounted on such an occasion—as much to impress other districts as the Danes themselves.”

  Steinar of Hlíðar laughed his high-pitched titter. “I have often admired the sheriff’s horses,” he said. “Wonderfully reliable beasts, and fine at fording rivers, no half-measures about that. I can say nothing about the king, of course, but I would dearly love to see the sheriff in this country who would be better mounted.”

  “Yes or no?” said the sheriff. He was in a great hurry, like all officials, and had no time to listen to evasions.

  “Hmmm,” said Steinar of Hlíðar, swallowing carefully. “The point is, my dear friend, that this pony you refer to is completely untried and scarcely even fully broken in. But it so happens that he has become a fairy-tale horse for the children here, and his value, if he has any, is what he is in the eyes of the children while they are young and small.”

  “It is downright dangerous to let children ride unbroken horses,” said the sheriff. “Children should be strapped on to docile old hacks.”

  “I have not really made much of a habit so far of letting them ride him,” said Steinar. “But, if you will allow me to say so, I like to use our Krapi as a model when I tell them stories of grander creatures, like the horse Grani that Sigurd the Dragon-Killer rode when he went to fight the dragon Fafnir, or the late Hrafnkell Freyr-Goði’s horse Faxi, the beast that the god Freyr inhabited on the strict understanding that whosoever rode him, apart from Hrafnkell himself, should forfeit nothing but his life;* nor am I accustomed to forget Sleipnir,* who pounds along the Milky Way so hard with his eight legs that the stars are sent flying; or else I tell them that the colt is perhaps a kelpie that came straight from the creek there.”

  The sheriff lit his pipe. “It is no use serving up old legends for me, my lad,” he said. “I can invent my own fairy-tales, thank you. You peasants always forget that Sigurd the Dragon-Killer went to hell a long time ago with the dragon and all the rest of the paraphernalia. But you allow Björn of Leirur to rob you of anything he likes, even your souls if you had such things and he happened to want them.”

  “I cannot say I had thought of letting old Björn ride very far on our Krapi,” said Steinar. “Not but what Björn has deserved nothing but good as far as I am concerned.”

  “The day may come, my friend, when you will part with this pony for less than nothing, and you will have cause to regret your refusal to sell him to me,” said the sheriff, and mounted.

  Steinar of Hlíðar once again laughed his squeaky titter as he stood on the paving. “I am well aware that it has never been thought proper for a poor man to own a fine horse,” he said. “And I realise that this is why you important people are now making so much fun of me, bless your hearts. One must just take it as it comes. But the fact of the matter is that it may not be so very long before this horse ceases to be more remarkable than any others; and perhaps that day has already arrived, even though I am reluctant to believe it.”

  Once again it was borne out that the more insistent the demands on Steinar of Hlíðar became, the more amiable became his falsetto giggles; but the Yes which was anyway the most alien of words to him always withdrew farther and farther until it disappeared entirely into that infinity where the word No belongs.

  But Steinar of Hlíðar liked to have his little joke just as much as the eminent did. There were more than a few smiles when word got around that he had refused to sell both to the sheriff and to Björn of Leirur a pony for riding to Þingvellir—but was now letting it be known that he intended to ride there himself after the hay-making in order to pay his respects to the king.

  It had long since been decided what gentry from the district were to ride west in the sheriff’s party, and it goes without saying that Steinar of Hlíðar was not one of them; but he seemed to have no misgivings about going on his own.

  It was undeniable that there was something about this horse which contrasted sharply with other horses and made them look inferior: something about his gait, his bearing, the look in his eyes and the quality of his responses which at the very least suggested that it was not quite right to say that the horse, as a species, had ceased to evolve ever since the unicorn’s horn was lost . . . that its development was not entirely finished even though there had evolved on it just about the most perfect form of foot ever known, one toe in a fixed shoe. This particular horse was at least in his own way rather like the Pope: not only above other horses, but above all his surroundings—meadows, waters, mountains, everything.

  There was no doubt at all that this was the horse that Steinar of Hlíðar was going to ride to see the king—or rather, as he put it to his neighbours with his usual modesty, “Our Krapi is going to Þingvellir to greet the king, with the fellow from Hlíðar on his back.” But there was no lack of wits in the district to turn the phrase round and say that the white horse from Hlíðar was going to ride on his master’s back to Þingvellir to see the king.

  Although Krapi was as gentle as a babe in the farmyard, and felt quite content when he was haltered in the home-field, he was a very different creature when it came to catching him out in the pastures. Near the farm he behaved like a model prisoner who deserved every privilege, even the privilege of being released at the earliest opportunity. But out in the open spaces he was his own master. If anyone tried to fetch him from the grazing down by the sands when he was with the other ponies, he would glide away from his pursuers like a
breath of air; the more they tried to approach him, the farther he left them behind; and the faster they came at him the more he resembled the wind itself and went sweeping away over scree and mud, water and earth-slips, as if they were level plains; and when he grew bored with the game he would head straight for the mountains. And that was how it was on the day that Steinar of Hlíðar went out to the pastures with a bridle behind his back to catch the colt unawares on the day before he was due to set off. The pony bolted, tossing his head in all directions as if something had frightened him, then galloped perilously up the steep mountain-slope and disappeared over the ridge. It meant that Steinar now had to comb the mountains with the help of his family to drive all the ponies down so that Krapi could be captured in the corral. When they had chased the pony up over the Brows they saw him standing alone high on a knoll, looking towards the glacier and neighing loudly.

  “Have a good long neigh at the glacier, my lad,” Steinar shouted at him, “for you may be having a change of scenery soon.”

  The dust of the delegation of dignitaries and notables had long since settled on all the tracks of Steinahlíðar, and the sound of their hooves had mingled with that of other notables and royalists from farther west. Government officials were to welcome the king when the royal ship docked at Reykjavík, and sheriffs and members of Parliament were self-appointed guests at the forthcoming royal banquets in the capital. On a peaceful late-summer day, when nothing moved except for an occasional tern drowsing on the track and an oyster-catcher stepping elegantly through the meadows, right in the midst of the hush that falls upon those who remain behind when the great have ridden off to their revelry, the farmer of Hlíðar in Steinahlíðar saddled his pony and rode off by himself. Snati the farm-dog was locked indoors. The wife stood on the paving and wiped away a dutiful tear as she watched her husband ride off down the path, and the children stood on either side of her, having put their arms round the pony’s neck and kissed him on his fragrant muzzle for the last time. They did not move until their daddy had crossed the screes and disappeared to the west behind the shoulder of the hill.

  5

  The sacred lava violated

  In Brennugjá (Burning Rift), the place in Þingvellir where people used to be burned at the stake, a small gathering of farmers had collected at dusk that late-summer evening on the day before the king’s arrival. The scree under the cliff was almost hidden by moss, and on one moss-grown block of lava the height of a man someone had clambered up to make a speech to his fellowcountrymen about a matter of no little importance. A few inquisitive souls had drifted up to hear if anything of interest were going on, and among them was Steinar of Hlíðar; he had his riding-crop in his hand.

  As far as he could make out from a distance, it seemed to Steinar that this man was quoting something from the Bible, but he was astonished to note that the pious expressions usually worn by an audience on such occasions were not in evidence now. Indeed, most of the bystanders were looking rather indignant, and there were some who made no secret of their disapproval of what was being said. The speaker was constantly being interrupted, and some of the catcalls were distinctly discourteous; there were other people who just shouted and laughed. But the speaker was never at a loss for an answer and never became confused, although his delivery was by nature a little awkward.

  He seemed to be about Steinar’s age, big-boned and high-shouldered but rather thin, with a gaunt face that was pitted with pockmarks or scored by suffering; his whole appearance bore witness to some exceptional experience. At that time, most Icelanders had rounded cheeks under their whiskers, and their adult tribulations were as natural to them as the sorrows of childhood; even the oldest men had the same expression as children. Many people in Iceland in those days had a sort of pink, transparent skin; their colour varied between a cold blue-red pallor and a deep-blue flush, depending on the weather and the nourishment they were getting. But this man was almost greyish-brown in the face, not unlike the colour of glacier-rivers or warmed-up coffee with skimmed milk added. He had a shock of thick, tousled hair, and his clothes were too big for him, but he was no scarecrow for all that.

  And what was this man talking about at Þingvellir near the Öxará out with the official programme for the great national celebrations, when every honest breast in the land was swelling with pride and the hope of better times to come?

  Steinar of Hlíðar asked who this preacher might be, and received the reply that he was a heretic.

  “Oh really?” said Steinar. “I must say I would not mind having a look at such a person. We see many strangers in Steinahlíðar, but most of them seem to have the right ideas about the Almighty. Excuse me, gentlemen, but what is this man’s heresy?”

  “He’s over from America to preach some revelations from a new prophet who opposes Luther and the Pope, some fellow called Joseph Smith, apparently,” said the man Steinar had addressed. “They have several wives. But the authorities have burned all his pamphlets with the revelations in them, and now he’s come to Þingvellir to see the king and get permission to print more heresies. They immerse people.”

  Steinar moved in closer. By this time there was no longer any question of a formal speech being delivered. The stranger’s preaching had so incensed everyone that he was scarcely given time to finish a sentence before the audience were shouting corrections or demanding further explanations. Some were now so impassioned that they could scarcely find words of sufficient abuse to apply to this heretic.

  “What proof does this fellow you mentioned have that people ought to be immersed?” yelled one heckler.

  “Was the Saviour himself not immersed, then?” replied the speaker. “Do you think the Saviour would have let himself be immersed if the Lord had acknowledged child-baptism? In the Bible there was always baptism by immersion. There is no child-baptism in God’s Word, no sirree. It never occurred to anyone to sprinkle water on infants before the third century, at the beginning of the great Apostasy, when unenlightened and ungodly people got the idea of cleansing children who were to be sacrificed to a copper god, yes sirree. They called themselves Christians but they worshipped the fiend Satan. Then the Pope adopted this perversion, of course, like all other heresies; and Luther followed him, even though he boasted he knew better than the Pope.”

  One person asked, “Can Joseph Smith perform miracles?”

  The speaker retorted, “Where are Luther’s miracles? And where are the Pope’s miracles? I’ve never heard anything of them. On the other hand, the whole existence of the Mormons is a miracle, from the moment when Joseph Smith spoke to the Lord for the first time. When did Luther speak to the Lord? When did the Pope speak to the Lord?”

  “God spoke to the Apostle Paul,” said one learned man.

  “Oh, that was rather a brief interview,” replied the speaker. “And God never bothered to give the fellow more than the one audience. On the other hand, the Lord spoke to Joseph Smith not once and not twice and not thrice but one hundred and thirty-three times, not counting the principal revelations themselves.”

  “The Bible is God’s Word here in Iceland,” said the earnest theologian who had spoken previously. But the preacher was quick to reply: “Do you think that God was struck dumb when He had finished dictating the Bible?” he demanded.

  A witty heckler shouted, “Not dumb, perhaps, but at least dumbfounded at the thought that Joseph Smith was going to come along and bastardize it.”

  “Dumb or dumbfounded, I’m not going to argue the point with you, my friend. But I get the impression that you believe that God is utterly silenced? That He has not opened His mouth for nearly two thousand years?”

  “At least I don’t believe that God talks to fools,” said the heckler.

  “Quite so,” said the heretic. “I suppose He is far more likely to talk to respectable farmers and sheriffs, and perhaps a pastor or two? But allow me to add one word, if I may, since you were asking about miracles: what miracles do you have to set against the fact that God led Jos
eph Smith to the golden plates on the Hill Cumorah, and then by direct revelation showed the Mormons the way to the Promised Land which is God’s home and the kingdom of the Latter-Day Saints in Salt Lake Valley?”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” said the heckler. “Since when has America with all its hordes of gangsters and beggars become God’s Kingdom?”

  Now the Mormon had to swallow carefully once or twice.

  “I must admit,” he said at last, “that one’s tongue can sometimes get tied in knots here in Iceland, and it takes an effort for unlettered folk like myself to untie it. There’s only one thing I want to say to you, because I know I am speaking the absolute truth: everything the Saviour and the Pope’s saints tried to do but couldn’t, even though all your Lutheran kings tagged along behind them, Joseph Smith and his disciple Brigham Young achieved when they, at God’s express wish and command, led us Mormons to God’s own city of Zion descended upon earth; and over that country there shines a glorious light. There you will find God’s Valley of Bliss and His millennium on earth. And because this valley lies far behind the mountains, moors, deserts and rivers of America, and secondly because America preserved the Lord’s golden plates that Joseph found, the mere name of America is sufficient praise.”

  “Yes, and of all the swindlers and vagabonds in America, Joseph with his plates was the worst,” shouted one of the crowd.

  “Where is your promised land?” retorted the speaker.

  “In heaven!”

  “Ah yes, just as I thought. Is that not pretty high up in the stratosphere?”

  Another said, “It would be fun to have a look at these golden plates. I don’t suppose you have a fragment of them handy? Even just a list of the natural resources in Zion?”

  “In Salt Lake Valley it’s quite usual for any one farmer to own ten thousand ewes in addition to other livestock,” said the Mormon. “How are the prospects in your millennium?”