Out of an innate sense of caution, Ólafur Kárason had tried to keep one loophole open: he had always shrunk from actually marrying her. It was as if he had an obscure hope of being able to escape by flight for as long as he could avoid the public seal of society on his cohabitation with her; but when it came to the point of decision in his mind about flight, he always realized only too well that outward ties were chaff and vanities—the real knot was the one he had tied within himself. To break the outward forms was easy, yes, just child’s play; to disengage himself from the fundamental substance of his life was certainly possible in moments of inspiration but, when the intoxication had worn off, the poet discovered that the reality that mattered was not outside himself. It lay within his own conscience, independent of all outward forms, and nowhere but there.
When he awoke in the morning after troublesome dreams, he looked around in anguish and did not recognize his own senses. He felt they were as utterly alien to him as a hideous world of sorcery, and sometimes he felt that no princess could ever release him from this spell, not even the princess of the future land herself, the girl with the banner, the Living Image of Liberty.
Where, oh, where was that free, mad and villainous poet he had taken leave of on the roadway once, long, long ago?
17
Luckily there are not many who are surprised at being human when they wake up in the morning. Most people simply go about it as if nothing could be more natural, even happily, particularly in times like these when there was plenty of work to be had: the prospect of building a pier, a cod-liver oil refinery, a fish-meal plant—in short, a station costing a hundred thousand, a station costing a million, high wages and an abundance of goods in the shop. And only now, when there was work for all and welcome, and no one had to worry about where the next meal was coming from, and there was plenty of money, the poet realized what sort of place Sviðinsvík-undirÓþveginsenni had been in the years gone by, when there was nothing to do and no one had anything and every meal was a blessing of fortune, and those who wanted to could stay at home and compose poetry and write stories about Strange Men. The poet felt that every hour he was away from his writing desk was wasted; but now, after his children were dead, he had no excuse any more for staying at home all the long spring day. But Júel J. Júel seemed to have plenty of money, worse luck, and there was no hope that this tiresome wrangling over work would end in the foreseeable future and poets could turn their minds anew to things that mattered.
One day when the spring was at its brightest, battle was joined once again in Sviðinsvík, this time the election campaign. Two candidates for this distinguished office popped up in the village, and people were rounded up for meetings. Júel brought his motorcar with him, a most magnificent vehicle with a chauffeur, to drive children and old people to and fro about the district as far as the roads permitted. It was also reported on good authority that the airplane that had been promised last year would be coming this summer, if people voted the right way, and the low standard of living of people on this estate would be raised to a higher level at the station owner’s expense. He also donated a thousand krónur to the new church which was to be built here. And now there began in Sviðinsvík a round of parties with cognac, pony excursions and skull-fractures.
But Júel J. Júel’s opponent was also a character, even though he was a more modest one. He was not the man, of course, whom the common people had seen and loved in Örn Úlfar and had been ready to follow to the ends of the earth. Nevertheless, the opponent was said to be the spokesman of the workingman and, furthermore, something which most people found harder to understand, the government candidate. The opponent unfortunately did not have a car, let alone being in a position to make promises about an airplane the way things were in these difficult times; on the other hand he had brought a walking stick. And while Júel made his chauffeur drive children and imbeciles to and fro about the estate, night and day, with frantic hooting and grinding of gears, the opponent, the government and people’s candidate, went from house to house with his walking stick. It was obvious from his demeanor that this walking stick was not just his badge of honor and scepter but also his wealth, and indeed he looked after his stick as if it were the apple of his eye. He carried it carefully in front of himself, and a little to the side, almost upright, and stepped cautiously along as if he were bearing a lighted candle in a slight draft or rather as if he were delivering a magnificent bouquet on some very solemn occasion; in other respects he walked like a man who had lost his toes. The opponent’s solemn, solo progress was bound to earn him respect and confidence. But now it was no wonder that people asked: was the opponent’s walking stick such a treasure that it merited such care, such devoted self-control, such pious and steadfast reverence? There was no easy answer. Perhaps this walking stick was something exceptional in the eyes of God and even in the eyes of the government. But in the eyes of men, this was just an ordinary one-and-a-half-króna stick with a curved handle, and had originally perhaps been painted yellow or even red, maybe with a little tin ferrule at the bottom. But if so, all such superfluous fripperies had rubbed off long ago; the stick had long lost its color, it was worn at the bottom and the handle had become almost straightened by constant use.
Jarþrúður went at once to see the station owner, was given a ride in the car, and used the opportunity to cry a little and say that her house had become a little lopsided during the last storm and could be demolished altogether in the next one. But the station owner had no time to listen to any blethering; he gave her fifty krónur at once and told her to be off. Then she went to the stick-bearer, wept the same tears and repeated the story of the rickety house. The opponent invited her to have a seat and was ready to discuss the matter thoroughly. He said he would think the matter over. He said he would make a mental note of her request. He said he would do everything he could possibly do and everything that could be done as things were in these difficult times. But he said he would need to consult some other more highly placed officials before any final decision could be given. He said he could give an assurance that the government had every intention, if the elections turned out as expected, of increasing the grants to Sviðinsvík for quarry work, so that a new breakwater could be built that would reach even farther out to sea than the existing breakwater. He said that the main thing for the people of Sviðinsvík was to be patient and to work for their objects gradually: in a word, he was determined to take a mental note of it all. And now Good-bye.
The intended could not find enough words of derision for the opponent, for his mental note-taking, for his walking stick and government rock, and prayed to God that the one who suffered defeat in the elections would be him. But Júel Júel, she said—what a glorious and darling man! To think that people existed on earth who carried fifty-krónur notes in thick bundles like Bibles in their pockets, and built churches for a thousand and stations for a million—that was something no one would ever have believed where she had learned her catechism! She looked upon the station owner as yet another proof of the glory of God.
“Jarþrúður dear,” said the poet, very seriously, “I want to warn you that if you vote for Júel in this election, you are voting against me.”
“I know,” said the intended. “It’s just like you to say that one should obey that Skjól fellow who tried to incite the accursed mob to plunder and murder, rather than to obey those in whom God is pleased.”
“Poets and mobs are always friends,” said Ólafur Kárason. “And it’s an old story that when there’s trouble, they are one.”
On a Sunday in June, polling day, the poet was standing with a group of laborers outside the primary school, watching people coming to vote. The clear solstice sky arched over the village by the mirror-smooth sea, and once again there reigned in Nature that mood of delight and tranquility which makes sorrows and cares so improbable in Iceland.
Júel J. Júel’s shining luxury car drove up to the door of the polling station with yet another load of True Ice
landers who were to be allowed to rule the country for a while. The car doors opened, the chauffeur called on some of the others to help him unload the car, and some True Icelanders were hauled out from the luxurious comfort of the seats. It was old uríður of Skálholt with her people. Gísli the landowner was the first to be pulled out. Although this landowner had now been bedridden for many years, he still had enough life left in him to open one eye and wave one fist angrily in the air and shout defiantly: “It’s I who owns the estate!”
Behind the landowner, Jón Einarsson the heathen was carried into the building, slobbering with delight over the sunshine, the car ride, the elections and Christian people in general. “Vavva-vavva,” said the heathen, and laughed. “Vavva-vavva.”
Finally the Creature was hauled out of the station owner’s luxury car, Hólsbúðar-Dísa, who had for long been kept in Jón the Murderer’s bait shed but who had of late been hidden behind a partition in the living room at Skálholt. It was this creature whom Örn Úlfar once, long ago, had regarded as the image of the estate. She, too, had now come here to support the cause of the True Icelanders. She was carried in a sack from the station owner’s luxury car to the polling booth. From out of the sack there peered a demented face without human features, no longer emaciated but shapelessly swollen from dropsy, framed by black hair which once had been wispy but now was matted. The mad, long-frozen eyes stared blankly at the clear sky.
And when these three True Icelanders had been pulled out, who should bring up the rear, dressed to the nines in her Sunday skirt, and a new cardigan under a fichu, combed and washed, with a tassel-cap, ready to take her place in the ranks of the True Icelanders against the unpatriotic? None other than Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir, the poet’s intended. She walked with firm, solemn, determined steps into the polling station, looking neither to left nor to right. A few unpatriotic youngsters greeted the True Icelanders with jeers.
Other spectators joined the crowd from all directions when word went round that the inmates of Skálholt were out for a drive; people crowded round the door of the polling station and waited impatiently to see them emerge again after doing their civic duty. After a moment a commotion was heard from within the building. Suddenly the Creature appeared in the doorway on all fours; in the polling booth she had escaped from the sack and slipped out of people’s grasp. She had eaten both the voting paper and the pencil and was uttering dreadful cries. It took a little time to catch her and cram her back into the sack.
A little later the intended from The Heights came out of the polling booth again, her eyes aglow with that inner peace, that embrace of mercy which characterizes a communicant who has been granted communion on the Day of Resurrection itself. In this state of bliss she went back into the car without seeing anyone. And the honest voters were escorted back home from this luxury car ride which was to last them until the next elections.
When the spectacle was over and the shining vehicle had driven away, Ólafur Kárason came to his senses again. He shook off this appalling sight and was about to take to his heels—he did not know where to, just away, as far, far away as possible. But then a hand was laid on his shoulder, and the young girl was standing by his side again; he met her smile and those warm, bold eyes under the solstice sky.
“Ljósvíkingur,” she said. “Which way are you going?”
And at the same moment he had changed his mind about running away.
“With you,” he replied, and gazed entranced at how well the solstice sky became her.
Then they linked arms and walked away together.
18
No one had much doubt who would win the seat in this election; but even so, interested voters stayed up through the night while the counting of votes continued, waiting for the result. Some people had been lucky enough to get hold of brennivín, and there was cursing and swearing, shrieks, vomiting, fighting, broken bones and other amusements. Many were lying helpless in the ditches by the road. Júel and Pétur Pálsson walked up and down in a zigzag along the main road with the stick-bearer between them, all drinking from the same bottle, while a few sober anti-patriots watched the Fatherland owners for a while, one lesson the wiser—or the unwiser. They all knew now that it had just been a joke when the station had opposed the stick-bearer and the stick-bearer opposed the station—because where did Júel get his money from? From the stick-bearer, of course. The stick-bearer was both the government candidate and the spokesman of the common people, and the money came from the common people and was put into the state bank for Júel to build stations, erect churches and buy constituencies. The necessary arrangements had already been made to unite the Laborers’ Union and the Society of True Icelanders under the leadership of the parish officer. There was really nothing left but to let the station go bust, and everything would be perfect. The opponent went on carrying his stick as if it were a cross between a candle and a bouquet, and Júel J. Júel and Pétur Pálsson the manager bent over him in turn as they led him along, and kissed him behind the ear where the mental notes of Jarþrúður ’s request were kept.
“They thought I was an Icelander!” said Pétur Pálsson the manager, and roared with laughter. “But I’m no Icelander, s’help me! My name is Peder Pavelsen Three Horses. And my grandmother was Madame Sophie Sørensen.”
And the village went on celebrating.
The sun was high in the sky and the shadows were beginning to shorten when the poet got home to his shack. He made as little noise as possible in the hope that he would not wake his intended. But it was to no avail; she heard him come in—perhaps she had been lying awake for him. He went straight to his writing desk and took out his writing materials in the rays of the morning sun. She half sat up in bed and started abusing him at once; there was a dangerous glint in her eyes.
She said she had taken him under her wing wet from the seashore, defiled by whoredom; she had nursed him, given him life, rehabilitated him, made a man of him again when it was obvious that neither God nor man thought him worth helping. For all that, she said, she was ready to endure whiplashes. She said she had also borne him two children and aborted a third; she had sacrificed her virtue and honor to him in sin and shame and thereby put the salvation of her soul in eternal jeopardy; she had endured without complaint all his evasions to avoid making an honest woman of her and calling in the pastor. And on top of all that she was ready to endure as many whiplashes as need be. Whiplashes, whiplashes, she repeated greedily over and over again, as if such a treat were some sort of blessing. Hunger and cold she was also ready to endure. With gladness of heart, she said, she had watched her children give up the ghost after protracted tuberculosis; she had stood calmly over their clay as she commended their souls and hers to the Savior’s almighty mercy and grace. Even her own death she was ready to endure at the hands of this dreadful man, Ólafur Kárason. She was even ready to forgive him when he stole a glance at women here in the village, as long as they were respectable. But though she could endure from him whiplashes, hunger, cold, sin, death and respectable women, there was one thing she could not endure, and that was that he should lie with whores all through a bright spring night and come home in the morning with syphilis.
The poet looked up from his writing while she ranted on, but did not straighten up and made no attempt to interrupt. His expression betrayed nothing beyond a hint of amazement at this extraordinary eloquence, and curiosity about what would come next or how long she could keep it up. Like a man who knew he was innocent, nothing was farther from his mind than trying to excuse himself. Perhaps his silence hurt her more than words; she raged more and more furiously; finally her speech was nothing but incoherent curses, dire prophecies and oaths, and ended in a loud storm of weeping. He was not moved. She writhed about on the bed for a while, howling, then the paroxysm left her and at last she lay face down, exhausted, racked by sobs, with the corner of the pillow crammed into her mouth. A long time afterwards, when her sobbing had begun to subside, he laid his pen aside and calmly put his manus
cripts tidily away in his writing desk; and a voice which he himself really did not recognize, even though it came from his own larynx, said these words: “Jarþrúður dear, we won’t be staying together any longer now. Tell me where you want to go, and I shall take you there.”
For a long time after these words had been spoken she went on lying as before, face down, motionless except for the sobs, with the pillow in her mouth. But when she did not reply and he had begun to doubt whether she had heard what he had said, he asked: “When do you want to leave?”
At last she raised her head warily and peered at him with the eyes of a cornered prey that knows the wild beast is standing over it, ready to tear it to pieces. But when she saw how calm he was, how far removed from letting emotion affect his decision, she slid very gradually under the eiderdown and pulled it over her head without answering him. He waited for a long time yet, but she did not stir, and when he had completely given up hope of a reply he wrapped the blanket around himself and lay down on the floor to sleep without taking off his clothes.
He awoke at nine o’clock in the morning to the smell of pancakes.
Now, it so happened that hot pancakes were the greatest delicacy which this poet knew, the pinnacle of epicurism, and he sat up amazed in this aroma, and in his half-awake, half-asleep state he did not know where he was.
She was standing behind the cooking stove, baking, looking at him tenderly as if nothing had happened, searching for a conciliatory gleam in his eyes. Then she made the coffee and brought it to him with hot pancakes. But sleep had not melted him; his resolution was not to be shaken. He drank the coffee without a word, but did not touch the pancakes. It was as if he had changed completely; he was suddenly a totally different person from the Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík whom Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir had known before.
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