World Light

by Halldor Laxness

  So it was not because the grief-stricken poet was concerned about the present and future state of the village that destiny so arranged things that he should get to know the station owner himself, but for other reasons. He was summoned one day to act as groom for Pétur the manager and the distinguished visitor, who were going to ride over the mountain to pay a visit to the sheriff. The poet was provided with a pair of the manager’s cast-off riding boots and a tattered jacket of unknown origin to make him fit company for the gentry.

  He was to look after the six riding horses which had been thought necessary for the journey, and to hold the stirrup when the gentry mounted. Júel J. Júel had his big hat on, and was in all other respects dressed with such distinction that Ólafur Kárason forgot his cares in amazement at this novel sight—that clothing should exist which did not seem primarily designed to show contempt for the human body, but the contrary. When he looked at this man, he felt in his heart like a wretched and clumsy farm implement beside some rare work of art, a chased and engraved ornament. He had not realized until now that there could be such a difference between two people on this earth. The station owner looked around with magnificent disdain, and smacked the house with his whip as he turned the corner. He lit a cigarette with a grimace of distaste on his handsome, polished face, pulled gloves over his manicured hands and stared at the same time with unqualified disdain and heartfelt boredom at Pétur ríhross as he walked splay-footed and bent-kneed out of his house, wearing his morning coat, celluloid collar, pince-nez and bowler hat, with a half-chewed cigar between his gutta-percha dentures.

  The journey began with Ólafur Kárason having to hold one of the manager’s fiery horses while Júel J. Júel mounted. But no sooner was the station owner in the saddle than he swung his whip with all his might at the horse’s groin, and the fiery beast was seized with panic, knocked Ólafur Kárason down as it reared, and disappeared in a flash up the road, right through the village, out onto the moor, over fences, bogs and earth slips, until it pulled up, trembling with terror, against another fence and looked round wild-eyed, whinnying. Júel J. Júel, on the other hand, had been left behind in the bog, and had lost his hat. He did not stand up when Pétur Pálsson came up to him, but pretended to be dead.

  “A fall means fortune on the way,” said Pétur Pálsson, consolingly, and hauled the station owner out of the bog and laid him on a hummock and began to clean him up.

  “Leave me alone, you damned fool!” said the station owner, when the manager began to scrape the mud off him with his pocketknife. “I’ve got a concussion.”

  “You went off a little too fast,” said Pétur Pálsson.

  “No, it was you who was trying to kill me with that damned hack,” said the station owner.

  “He’s a very fine horse, my dear chap; he just doesn’t take to the whip too kindly,” said Pétur Pálsson.

  “What the hell’s the use of having a horse if you can’t whip him?” said the station owner, and rose angrily to his feet. “I demand that you shoot the damned beast at once.”

  “My dear friend and brother, no bad language,” said Pétur Pálsson. “We must remember to set off more slowly next time.”

  “I’m not moving another step,” said the station owner. “I’ve got a concussion.”

  “If a man’s got concussion, there’s nothing better than cognac,” said the manager.

  “It’s my cognac,” said the station owner. “You don’t have to advise me to drink my own cognac. I decide what I do with my cognac.”

  But Pétur Pálsson had no intention of losing his temper; he handled everything with great adroitness and psychological understanding, fetched the station owner’s hat from the bog, and began to examine it.

  “This is a hell of a fine hat,” said Pétur Pálsson.

  Júel J. Júel pulled out his handkerchief and dried his face sullenly.

  “What did you pay for this hat?” asked Pétur Pálsson, and went on examining this treasure from every angle.

  “Bring me the cognac,” said Júel J. Júel.

  The manager opened a bag, brought out a bottle of cognac, and gave it to the station owner without a word, then continued his examination of the hat. The owner rummaged in his pocket for a corkscrew.

  “Where can one get hats like this?” asked Pétur Pálsson, who had now turned out the sweatband to see how the lining was fastened inside it. “I simply must get myself a hat like this,” he said.

  By the time the owner of the cognac had put the neck of the bottle to his mouth and was beginning to drink from it, Pétur Pálsson had become so enamored of the hat that he whipped off his own bowler in order to try on the station owner’s hat. But when the latter saw this he stopped drinking, tore his hat out of Pétur’s hands, and put it on.

  “Let’s go!” he said.

  He caught sight of Ólafur Kárason the poet at a distance, and asked why that good-for-nothing was standing there gaping, and shook his whip at him: “What are you gaping at? Be off with you at once and get the horses, or you’ll know all about it!”

  The station owner was given another horse and they set off. He said he still had a concussion and refused to go at more than walking pace, and took care not to dangle his legs nor touch the pony’s groin, but sat hunched with the cigarette smoldering away in the corner of his mouth, with his hands in his pockets, and let the reins lie loose on the pony’s mane.

  Pétur Pálsson suggested that they should dismount again soon and have a drop from the bottle. When they had ridden a few hundred yards, they halted again in a hollow not far above the village, where the road began to zigzag up into the pass. Júel J. Júel lay down flat on the ground with his hat over his face and began to utter all kinds of expressions of ill-temper and boredom. Pétur Pálsson did not spare the cognac meanwhile. Then Júel J. Júel half sat up and drank. When he had had a pull, and grumbled a little more, and had another pull, he said, “No, let’s be friends again, my dear Pétur,” and offered Pétur Pálsson his hand. Pétur Pálsson was seldom slow to accept a proffered hand when there was alcohol nearby, and indeed the handshake was long and firm and not unlike a betrothal ceremony. Then they drank again. Then Júel said, “Listen, Pétur, why didn’t you bring the damned girl along, too?”

  “We are married men, my dear Júel,” said the manager piously, taking out his upper dentures, spraying snuff over them and thrusting them back into his mouth again. The station owner watched these proceedings with murder in his eyes, despite their newly pledged friendship and the handshakes.

  “Eat shit!” he said.

  “No bad language, dear friend,” said Pétur Pálsson the manager.

  “I don’t call it much of an excursion when there are no women,” said the station owner. “I want that girl, do you hear me?”

  “It’s not quite so easy to have her,” said the manager. “She’s not cheap, old friend.”

  “Yes, perhaps with someone like you who hangs around her all day long and frightens her,” said the station owner.

  “I know her from a spiritual standpoint,” said the manager. “I have been making scientific experiments with her for more than a year, first in private and now, recently, in public.”

  “I would have had her a long time ago,” said the station owner, “if you hadn’t been nosing around in the corridor until all hours. What the devil were you nosing around in the corridor for?”

  “Please don’t talk like that, my friend, we’re not only married men, but what’s more important, we are educated men,” said the manager.

  “I’m turning back,” said Júel J. Júel.

  “No, don’t do that, my dear Júel; I’m sure you wouldn’t treat the poor sheriff like that,” said the manager.

  “To hell with the sheriff,” said the station owner.

  “The roast’s waiting on the other side of the mountain,” said the manager.

  “I want the girl,” said the station owner.

  “The sheriff has a young wife,” said the manager.
/>
  The station owner wavered at that, and he said after a little thought, “Let’s be friends, my dear Pétur. You’re not so stupid as some people think. But that I should drink from the same bottle as you—never!”

  They brought out another bottle and shook hands again for a long time and gazed into one another’s eyes like lovers, and the station owner said, “Grímur Loðinkinni never fails its friends.”

  Eventually the manager leaned over to his friend and asked confidentially, “Has she told you how much she wants for it?”

  “I don’t care a damn,” the other replied. “Money doesn’t matter if you need a woman—just don’t go wandering about in the corridor until all hours; it frightens her.”

  “Are you prepared to pay her price?”

  “Such as what?”

  “Her price is a trip to England.”

  “Yes, you’ve made her take leave of her senses. What the devil does she want to go to England for?”

  “She wants to be world-famous. And I can well believe that she might become just that.”

  “You must be out of your mind,” said Júel J. Júel.

  “She has the most remarkable talents,” said the manager.

  “It would be unthinkable in any civilized country to pay her more than five krónur,” said the station owner, and suddenly caught sight of the poet Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík.

  “What’s that boy doing hanging around here, may I ask?”

  “He’s a versifier and a harmless wretch I’ve taken under my wing,” said the manager. “Pay no attention to him.”

  “He’s eavesdropping,” said the station owner. “If he doesn’t hop it to the horses at once, he’s going to catch it.” And he grabbed the whip, so that the poet jumped to his feet in alarm and hurried over to the horses.

  It was noticeable that the more often the gentry halted for refreshments and shook hands and became better friends, the more of an irritant Ólafur Kárason became in the station owner’s eyes. About the time they had got as far up the pass as they were far down the second bottle of cognac, the station owner announced that he could not bear to have that jackass near him, least of all sober, and that they would have to pour some cognac down his throat.

  “He doesn’t understand that sort of thing,” said Pétur Pálsson. “He’s in bad health, poor creature. He has enough difficulty keeping the horses together even when he’s sober.”

  “It’s none of your business what I do with my cognac.”

  “It’s not that I grudge the cognac,” said Pétur Pálsson. “But as everyone who knows me knows perfectly well, I have always believed in teetotalism for others, particularly for youngsters.”

  “Yes, you’ve always been a damned socialist all your days,” said Júel J. Júel. “Grímur Loðinkinni Ltd. won’t have anything to do with fellows of that sort. Fetch me the boy at once; that cognac is going into him.”

  “No, thank you,” said Ólafur Kárason from a distance. “There’s really no need.”

  “Leave the poor wretch alone, my dear Júel,” said Pétur Pálsson the manager.

  “The cognac’s mine and I decide what I do with my own cognac. If I say he must down my cognac, then my cognac he must down,” said the station owner.

  “Run and fetch the horses, friend,” said Pétur Pálsson.

  “Stand still,” said Júel J. Júel.

  Everything began to go black before Ólafur Kárason’s eyes. Nothing had such a paralyzing effect on this poet as when the authorities of the nation went to the trouble of fighting over his soul. But Providence so willed it that Pétur Pálsson should stand up and stagger in pursuit of the owner of the cognac and grab him by the arm. They scuffled a little over the poet’s soul, and the station owner said that Grímur Loðinkinni Ltd. would not have anything to do with notorious damned socialists, while the poet took the chance to make his escape and went to fetch the horses.

  With every halt for refreshment, it became more and more difficult to get the gentry back into their saddles, particularly the station owner, for he was lanky and swayed inordinately, and the horses were nervous. Ólafur Kárason was full of foreboding about the rest of the journey; it was already late in the day, and they still had not reached the highest point of the pass where the mountain path proper began.

  It was one of those quiet late-summer days, with white sunshine and no birdsong, like a young girl who has become old. He tried to forget his companions and life as a whole, and to listen to the late-summer stillness that seemed to have no limits. Nature herself hesitated, at once amazed and questioning, in memory of the sounds that had died away.

  Up in the pass there was a cairn where for the past two hundred years had rested two luckless people who had been executed there in their time. The fanatical and intolerant mood of the age, which could neither understand nor forgive, had grudged them the pleasure and satisfaction of being allowed to lie in consecrated ground. These two long-dead corpses, which had to face the afterlife so high above sea level, had during their lifetime borne the name Sigurður Natan and Móeiður, but a prejudiced and coarse populace had distorted these names and called them Satan and Mósa. This was the cairn of Satan and Mósa.

  Their story, briefly, was this: At Kirkjuból, to the west of the heath, there lived fully two hundred years ago a couple named Jón and Móeiður. Jón was a prosperous farmer, but was thought to be less doughty in more manly exploits. His wife Móeiður was said to be a very energetic and hard-bitten woman. Their marriage was thought to be a somewhat precarious one. It is said that one autumn, the farmer hired a young and able fellow called Sigurður Natan or Natansson, who hailed from the south. Sigurður Natan, according to those who knew, was a very artistic fellow, an excellent carpenter, a good singer and versifier. But it was rumored that he was not quite such a faithful servant, and he was thought somewhat fickle in his love affairs. To cut a long story short, early that winter the housewife and the farmhand fell in love so desperately that neither felt able to live without the other. They agreed to get rid of Jón the farmer, seize his money, and then go abroad where they could enjoy their love in peace. They both attacked Jón one night when he was asleep in bed; the wife undertook to hold him down while the farmhand struck. This done they emptied his money chest, and to hide the evidence of their handiwork they thought it best to set fire to the house and burn it down. All the buildings burnt to ashes during the night with everything they contained, both the living and the dead, including five servants, four cows, three children, two old women and a dog, in addition to the farmer. Satan and Mósa were convicted at the ingskálar Assembly next spring and executed up in the pass on Midsummer Day and buried under a cairn. They were both said to have walked a great deal after death, and for more than two hundred years they had been considered the worst ghosts in the district.*

  “Poor blessed creatures,” said Pétur Pálsson thickly. He sat down beside the cairn overcome with grief, took off his pince-nez, and wept.

  “Eat shit!” said the station owner.

  “The love was nothing, my friend, compared with burning down the house,” said Pétur Pálsson, and shook his head in despair as if all were lost. “My dearest Júel, it’s so dreadful to burn down a house.”

  “What the devil does it matter! What was the house worth?” said the station owner.

  “Oh, it was a lot of money, Júel, and no insurance in those days,” said the manager.

  “Haven’t I told you over and over again that money is worthless if you need a woman?” said the station owner. “Either you’re going where you’re going, or you’re not going where you’re not going; a hundred thousand million, what do I care?”

  “Yes, but the people, dear friend: four cows, three children, two old women, and a dog, what d’you say about that?” said the manager.

  “You should deny facts if they’re inconvenient,” said the station owner.

  “People are still people,” said the manager thickly, and he went on shaking his head over all this los
s of life.

  “People!” said the station owner. “What do I care? Grímur Loðinkinni Ltd. doesn’t stand for any nonsense.”

  “My dear, beloved Júel, my dear friend and loving brother, who’s going to help me and us and this damned estate that neither God nor man wants to own! Forgive me for just this once if I, as an older man and an intellectual and president of the Psychic Research Society, ask you as a five-trawler man and two stations up north: If money’s worthless, and people are worthless, and everything’s worthless, and nothing’s worth anything, what then is worth something?”

  “Fish,” mumbled the station owner and closed his eyes and let his head fall forward, with a newly opened bottle of cognac between his legs. “Fish. Fish.”

  “Fish?” echoed the manager, weeping. “Fish—and nothing else?”

  “Nothing else? Yes, of course,” said the station owner and looked up with a sudden hiccup. “Roe and liver are also worth a lot. Fish offal and whale oil are worth a lot. Even muck is worth a lot. It’s only people who are worthless. And money if you need a woman. Grímur Loðinkinni won’t have any damned socialism.”

  As he threw out these winged words he caught sight of Ólafur Kárason who had forgotten the danger again and was sitting a few yards away. The station owner’s instinctive wrath at the poet flared up anew. He jumped to his feet, this time without any warning, threw himself on the poet, and sat down on him astride his chest with one hand at the neck of his jersey and the bottle of cognac in the other. It was useless now for Pétur Pálsson to beg for mercy for the poet, not even when he let it be understood that this was his own poet whom he had been feeding all summer; the station owner refused absolutely to have any people in full possession of their senses near him: “Poets should be given enough drink to make them mad,” he said, and tried to hold Ólafur Kárason’s head in such a way as to force the neck of the bottle into his mouth. “And if they don’t want to drink, then they can starve; they will be trampled underfoot into the mud.”