World Light

by Halldor Laxness

  The manager interrupted and called upon the women not to besmirch this sacred moment by harping on insignificant sorrows of the belly; truly no one needed to complain now about not living grandly enough, eternity itself was standing open before them. But when least expected, the widows’ husbands disappeared and the weak crying of a child began, like an infant’s crying, and Friðrik informed one of the mothers that her son was calling.

  “My darling boy, my boy!” said the woman, and started crying herself.

  “Mama, Mama,” said the child.

  “Oh my darling little boy, I’ve cried so much, but now I know you’re alive.”

  “The grave and death don’t exist, Mama,” prattled the boy, and had suddenly got the voice of a two-year-old.

  “How very small you’ve become again, my little darling, you were fifteen when I lost you,” said the woman.

  “A good boy becomes a little angel,” said the voice.

  “I wish you could come on my knee as you did when you were small,” said the woman.

  “Fly in the light; look after flowers,” said the little angel.

  “Yes, I might have known that you wouldn’t want to come to me any more since you’ve become an angel and are looking after flowers, ” said the woman, a little disappointed. “How much I’ve wept, and weep still when I go to bed at night and start thinking that if only I could have got him that jersey he needed, he wouldn’t have caught a chill at the quarry and got pleurisy.”

  “Tcha, tcha!” interrupted the manager, “don’t start bringing that up again; he’s forgotten all about that long ago. What do angels know about jerseys? Angels don’t even know what jerseys are. It’s you who are foolish and he who is happy, Katrín dear.”

  Then came the little girl, Örn Úlfar’s sister, whom the couple from Skjól had lost early that spring.

  “Oh, it’s so good to be dead!” said the little girl.

  “Yes, I’ve always known that it’s better than being alive, Anna dear,” said the woman. “And how are my two boys and your eldest sister? Are they pleased to be dead, too?”

  “They’re always playing at flying about on their wings.”

  “The darlings,” said the woman. “God bless them. It’s probably wicked of me, then, to be hoping and praying the whole time what I have been hoping and praying.”

  “What is that?” asked little Anna.

  “It’s perhaps not right of me to say it,” said the mother. “But God knows what it is if he has heard me.”

  “I see God every day,” said little Anna, inquisitive. “If you think He hasn’t heard you I’ll pass it on, so you can be sure that it reaches Him.”

  “I wanted to ask if my little órarinn, who is the only one I’ve got left, will also get consumption and be taken from me? But perhaps it’s wicked to ask about that. And perhaps it’s a sin to wish that I may keep him.”

  “God doesn’t want any questions of that sort,” said little Anna.

  “Yes, I always thought so, too,” said the mother, and wept into her apron with deep, pain-racked sobs. “But tell God that if he wants me to bear that burden, too, then I shall bear it like the rest.”

  “You must get more spiritual maturity, Mummy, and get into the habit of seeing the light,” said little Anna. “Your mind is all on base things. To die, that’s just fun and games for those who have spiritual maturity. It’s like taking off your wet things.”

  “This is heavenly!” cried the manager. “More dead children! More dead children!”

  More dead children came and had contact with their mothers, and this went on for a long time with tears and rejoicing in turn. At last the manager began to tire of listening to other people’s proofs and getting none himself. He put a stop to these long-winded exchanges and called Friðrik by name and said, “Listen, why is it that no one wants to talk to me, my dear fellow? Tell them that we’ve had enough of minor proofs. Now it’s Pétur Pálsson the manager who wants proofs, and nothing less than major proofs will do for him.”

  “There’s an old woman standing beside the manager,” said Friðrik the elf doctor. “She is beginning to lose her teeth.”

  “It can’t be my mother,” replied the manager, “because to my certain knowledge she hadn’t lost a single tooth by the time she died, least of all her front teeth.”

  “Nevertheless, this woman is very keen to talk to you, Pétur, but she says she doesn’t understand Icelandic,” said Friðrik.

  “Goo’morning,” said the toothless woman, speaking Danish in a hard, broken, old-woman’s voice.

  “No, God be with you, it isn’t old Madame Sophie Sørensen, my grandmother?” said Pétur Pálsson, and practically glowed in the darkness at this proof, and started at once to interrogate his grandmother about her health.

  “Yesyesyesyes,” said the late Sophie Sørensen. “Goo’morning.”

  “Are you not extremely elevated now, grandmother dear?” the manager asked unctuously.

  “I no Icelander,” said the manager’s grandmother.

  “Have you no news to tell me, dearest grandmother?” he asked.

  “S’help me, s’help me,” said the grandmother in Danish.

  “I see,” said Pétur. “And what else can you tell me?”

  “Goo’morning,” said the grandmother.

  The conversation continued like that for a long time with few variations, the manager went on asking for news from eternity with religious unctiousness and invocations to Jesus, and the late Sophie Sørensen went on replying Yes and Goo’morning and S’help me. Finally the guide, Friðrik the elf doctor, became bored with this conversation and interrupted, saying, “Madame Sophie is gone, but another woman has arrived, much older, she’s so old that she can’t stand upright. She says she’s your great-grandmother and comes from France, and that she understands nothing but French. Do you want to speak to her?”

  “Tell her that I’m a bit weak in French, but that I pray Jesus to give her strength, on the other hand I can manage a little English,” said the manager.

  “Bisk-vee,” said Pétur ríhross’s French great-grandmother.

  “Yes,” said Pétur ríhross in English.

  “Sakaria malistua,” said the great-grandmother.

  “Christ,” said Pétur ríhross in English.

  “Bee-bee,” said the French great-grandmother.

  “This is absolutely extraordinary. May the good Jesus give her strength; she must have become a bird,” said Pétur ríhross. “And that reminds me of something, Friðrik. Some time ago, when I went in for shooting birds, I had a Spanish game dog whom I called Snotra, she was so intelligent that she understood human speech and could even read thoughts. I have never missed any living creature so much as I missed that one when she was killed. Now I want to ask you one thing, do the souls of dogs live on after death?”

  He had hardly finished the sentence before a loud barking was heard from somewhere in the next world, and soon a friendly howling was heard in the room.

  “Ah, are you there, poor beast,” said the manager, with a catch in his voice. “Come here to my knee and lick my hand to prove that it’s you.”

  “Bow-wow,” said the dog.

  “Ah, I’ve found you again,” said the manager. “How are you, anyway, beastie?”

  “She hasn’t got so high yet that she can talk,” said Friðrik the elf doctor. “But still, she has begun to see the light.”

  “Does she get enough to eat, poor creature, do you think?” asked the manager.

  “Yes,” said Friðrik the elf doctor. “In the afterlife, people never forget to feed the dog.”

  “Bow-wow,” said the dog, and was gone.

  “This is by far the most remarkable meeting I have ever attended,” said the manager. “Now then, have we all had proofs now?”

  “Mm—I don’t need proofs,” said the secretary. “I know. But there’s still the doctor. And the pastor.”

  “To hell with the doctor,” said Pétur. “Judging by his snores he�
��s in the next world already and no mistake. But there’s our blessed pastor. He certainly deserves to get strong proofs. Now then, my dear Pastor Brandur, isn’t there anyone you particularly want to talk to on the other side, haven’t you lost some loved one?”

  “No,” said Pastor Brandur, “I haven’t lost any loved one. But I believe all the same. Proofs or not, you see, I believe according to the Word.”

  “Yes, you have lost a loved one,” declared Friðrik the elf doctor, in flat contradiction of the pastor. “There is one loved one here on this side who wants to talk to you, but he is so peculiar in shape that I don’t know to what I should liken him, he seems to me to be rather like a very large house in shape.”

  “He can’t be wanting to meet me,” said the pastor, and became evasive. “I haven’t lost any loved ones, luckily.”

  Then there came a voice that sounded hollow, as if from inside an empty barrel: “Yes, you have certainly lost me, Pastor Brandur, no longer ago than last winter. Am I to believe that you have forgotten how much you missed me, you who took to your bed when you lost me?”

  “This must be some sort of misunderstanding,” said the pastor, “I never took to my bed. And if I did take to my bed, it must have been with a cold.”

  “Ah, do you no longer remember the little shed that stood at the south side of your house?” said the voice. “Don’t you remember how I was torn away in that great storm in the middle of March, and my debris was blown all the way out to sea, and no one ever saw a splinter of me again?”

  “Isn’t this absolutely wonderful?” said the manager. “There one can see that inanimate objects, too, have a soul. Everything God creates has a soul.”

  “Pastor Brandur, I have become a palace in the next world, and rest on golden pillars,” said the shed.

  “This is contrary to God’s Word,” said the pastor, feverishly brushing the fluff off his nose in the darkness.

  “May I make a short observation?” said the manager then, formally. “According to old theology and pure Lutheranism, only human beings have souls; that is not my view, to be sure, but it is the pastor’s view as such, and therefore I take the liberty of proposing that he should get proof which is in accordance with his doctrine and can bring him joy and encouragement in his responsible task. Accordingly I want to raise a highly important point with you, Friðrik. As you must know full well from English and American spiritualist writings, it has frequently happened in Great Britain and America, when men of true doctrinal faith were present at a seance, that the Father of the spirits himself has looked upon them in his mercy and sent them a few words of encouragement directly through the medium. Do you think you can arrange it that He might look upon us in His mercy at this crucial moment of our lives?”

  “It is undoubtedly extremely difficult,” said Friðrik.

  “Yes, but nothing is impossible for God,” said the manager. “And think how often He has revealed Himself to people in various ways, both natural and supernatural.”

  “God is everywhere near,” said Friðrik, “but those who live in darkness and have little spiritual maturity and lack the right current, they cannot hear him.”

  “Are we then so much worse than people in England and America?” asked the manager. “I have difficulty in believing that, at least as far as our Pastor Brandur is concerned.”

  “You could try singing ‘Praise the Lord,’ once,” said Friðrik.

  When “Praise the Lord” had been sung yet again there was a brief silence, and then a little whispering sound began to be heard, accompanied by strange rattling noises as in an old, asthmatic gentleman who had lost his voice. For a long time no words could be distinguished. “How should one live in order to achieve spiritual maturity?” whispered the manager, deeply moved.

  “One should p–pay,” said the voice, stammering and hesitating, from the great distance, and so low that it could scarcely be heard. “One should pay in money.”

  “Yes, isn’t that what I’ve always said?” said the manager. “And what else?”

  “One shouldn’t interfere with girls who don’t concern us,” said the voice a little more firmly, “they can become pregnant and who is to look after the child?”

  “Hmmm,” said the manager. “Quite so.”

  “One shouldn’t drink too much, either,” said the voice.

  “Quite so,” said the manager, and was obviously a little disappointed. “That, too, is something I have always maintained. But can’t we expect anything, even if it’s only a couple of words, which could bring to the public joy and encouragement in the battle of life?”

  At that the voice spoke plainly and directly, almost peremptorily: “The public is to have enough money and live a healthy life and get plenty to eat, meat six days a week and fish one day . . .”

  “Huhuhu, that cannot be correctly reported,” the rural dean was heard to mumble, “it cannot be the highest powers who say that the public is to eat meat every day, the public has to get into the habit of diligence, thrift, and saving in all things, and never to make demands upon others . . .”

  But now God was annoyed that one miserable early wretch of a pastor should dare to interrupt Him with trite and captious wrangling, and He suddenly raised His voice and said angrily, “I won’t hear any drivel about thrift. I have created enough for everyone; my world is full of the good things of life I created. Everyone can live well on my earth; all paupers could become wealthy if they had the sense to get rid of the thieves and plunderers and murderers . . .”

  “Tcha, tcha, tcha,” said the manager. “It can’t be the Lord who has begun to talk like this; this is undoubtedly some stray spirit, probably from the underworld, who is trying to make a fool of us.”

  “Yes,” said the pastor. “It is not the Father of the spirits who speaks like that. Let us say the Lord’s Prayer a few times to drive this evil spirit away from us.”

  So a few Lord’s Prayers were recited to purify the air, but it was easier said than done to get rid of the dreadful currents which had accompanied the evil spirit, and the medium was ill at ease for a long time. Eventually, however, Friðrik said that the right light was approaching; gradually the meeting managed to free itself from the influence of the Evil One and introduce an atmosphere of peace and love anew. Finally he announced that it was safe to bring the Lord’s Prayers to an end—a blonde and blue-eyed woman had arrived from the fair country.

  “Whom has she come to meet?” asked the manager.

  “She is standing beside Ólafur Kárason,” said Friðrik. “She loves him. She says that his blue, clear, kind eyes are her eyes. She asks whether he doesn’t remember the sunny days when the two of them were alone in the fair country long, long, long before he was born?”

  “Do you remember, my dear?” asked a tender and lyrical woman’s voice from outer space, but not entirely free of affectation.

  Ólafur Kárason was as unprepared for this sweet address as he was deeply moved by the secret, distant memory of the fair country, and for a moment he was quite incapable of finding a suitable answer.

  “M–my mother isn’t dead,” he said at last. “She lives in Aðalfjörður.”

  “You must be mistaken, Friðrik,” said the manager. “The description of this fair-haired woman fits perfectly my late mother, and the voice was quite clearly her voice.” Then he called out, moved, “Mummy, mummy, come and kiss your darling little boy, who will never, never disobey you again.”

  But scarcely had the manager finished speaking before the medium suddenly started up from her trance and screamed, “Light the lamp quickly; I’m suffocating; where am I?”

  The secretary lit the lamp at once.

  órunn of Kambar stood in front of her chair, drenched in sweat and dishevelled, with distaste on her face as after a bad dream, and holding one of her shoes in her hand; the sheriff rested his paunch on his thighs and his cheeks on his shoulders and continued to twiddle his thumbs; the pastor took the opportunity, once the lamp had been lit, of brushin
g from his sleeve the fluff that had gathered there while the seance had been in progress; the doctor snored powerfully with his head on his wife’s lap; but Pétur Pálsson the manager sat with his false teeth in one hand and his pince-nez in the other, ready to kiss his mother. The widows and mothers were moist-eyed.

  órunn put a hand to her eyes as if the sudden brightness caused her sharp pain, and with the one hand shielding her eyes she turned first towards Pétur the manager and struck him a swinging blow on the face with her shoe, and said, “You beast!” Then she stormed across the room and struck Ólafur Kárason a similar blow and said, “You’re even more of a beast!”

  “Eh? Eh?” said the sheriff, and his thumbs suddenly stopped twiddling.

  “They have bad currents,” said órunn of Kambar. “They have currents that clash.”

  16

  Sunday morning. Örn Úlfar knitted his brow and looked fiercely at the Ljósvíkingur.

  “Hallo,” said Ólafur Kárason.

  He did not return the greeting. He stopped in the road in front of the poet and looked him up and down with hatred, contempt and disgust.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” asked the Ljósvíkingur.

  “Unscrupulous dog!” said Örn Úlfar, and thrust out his chin. “You took part in mocking my mother!”

  “Örn?” said the Ljósvíkingur.

  “I could forgive you anything,” he said. “You can join the criminals and liars any time you like. But this one thing, making fun of my old mother who has lost everything—that I can never forgive.”

  The poet’s heart leapt into his mouth at this sudden and unexpected accusation, and he started to excuse himself at once: “God himself knows,” he said, “that I have never knowingly made fun of any person, and never will. But if you mean the seance last night, I want to ask you one thing: Do you dare to assert that the soul doesn’t exist? And do you dare to assert that God doesn’t exist? I think that a man should investigate what he doesn’t understand, I. . . .”