World Light

by Halldor Laxness

  “Horns?” asked the poet.

  “Yes, I mean—you didn’t see two old rams with twisted horns on the doorstep outside?”

  “No,” replied the poet.

  “Oh, well, that’s all right then, lad,” said the doctor more calmly, and patted the poet on the cheek. “And drink up now.”

  He raised the glass to the poet’s lips and poured the brennivín into the poet’s nostrils and down the neck of his jersey. Then he started rummaging through his desk again and finally brought out some more papers, this time drawings.

  “These are copies of drawings I have sent to the university for further examination,” said the doctor.

  The poet no longer dared say that terrible word Really, for fear of offending the doctor, and said instead, “Is that so?”

  “I’m going to point out once and for all that I don’t believe in psychic phenomena, whatever Pétur ríhross says,” said the doctor. “As a doctor, a scientist, and a realist I’m not at liberty to hold with any nonsense. In my eyes, all phenomena are scientific phenomena. I was brought up with a scalpel in my hand, and therefore I demand investigation. It’s perhaps a harsh doctrine, but by God I say precisely what I mean. I have no more respect for a ghost than a man, whatever Pétur ríhross says. And even less do I want to hear about any damned spirits. Investigation, investigation, investigation, science, science, science, d’you hear me? Drink up, or else I’ll knock you out.”

  The doctor had another drink in front of the cupboard, turning his back on his visitor while he did so, then came back and went on talking.

  “One night early in spring I was sitting in my surgery doing a urine analysis—that was the start of it. This was just like any other ordinary, routine urine analysis, the sort of analysis one does a hundred thousand times a year or more, by God, without anything to write home about. But what happened? When I began peering through the instrument, suddenly I began to see strange pictures the like of which I had never seen before, pictures which I can safely assert neither I nor any other doctor has ever seen before under similar circumstances.

  “These pictures had not only form and perspective, they also had continuity; they had some sort of time-space characteristics in full accordance with Einstein’s theory, but were in other respects, if I am to liken them to anything, most like a remarkable film, except that in it occurred things which no filmmaker could reproduce. For instance I saw a huge river, both broad and fast-flowing, rather like the Mississippi River; it rushed between wooded banks, as you can see on drawing number one. Suddenly I saw a gigantic beast swimming, with enormous horns such as I’ve never in all my born days seen on any other living animal; they towered to the heavens like fearful, awful pillars, I have them here in a separate drawing, number four. But no sooner had the creature climbed onto the bank and started to shake itself than there was moonlight and hard-frozen snow, and then I suddenly saw a flock of satyrs riding through the forest on unicorns, and in the van rode a woman with twisted horns, God help me, on a green horse, I swear it. Here you can see drawings of this cavalcade in detail, and here you can see a picture of the queen herself; her horns were grooved in exactly the same way as a ram’s, and yet that’s a female horn, I swear it. But what scientific significance these grooves on the horns have in themselves I’m afraid I cannot determine here. I lack all the proper equipment; the university will have to decide on that. The only thing I can assert for the university is this: I have looked at them with my own eyes through scientific instruments; I, a man with my scientific education, I, a man who flatly refuses to acknowledge anything supernatural and could never dream of believing in an afterlife—I don’t care if Pétur ríhross has bought the whole estate himself and can therefore report me to the authorities. They can chop me up into squares if they like; neither heaven nor earth will ever get me to acknowledge the existence of so much as a paltry angel, let alone anything else. But I know you won’t let it go any further, friend, because then Pétur ríhross would go absolutely mad, even though the estate is his only on paper, and obviously the man’s right in one respect—that here on the estate it’s absolutely essential that people believe in ghosts, because what the hell else are they to believe in? The afterlife is a matter of national importance which has significance first and foremost for this life, and that’s why I think, as a member of the nation, that a single Psychic Research Society can’t unfortunately give people this life, to be sure, but someone has to give the people an afterlife instead of potatoes, shoes and peat, since the church is dead and gone to hell. You can quote me on that to anyone you like, even if Pétur ríhross had paid for the estate on the nail, by God, I swear it, say I. Drink up.”

  “Thanks,” said the poet.

  He spread his drawings over the table and chairs, walked to the cupboard again, turned his back on the poet, and drank. “Now I’m afraid I must be going,” said the poet, and stood up.

  “What nonsense,” said the doctor. “You’re not in any hurry. It’s not so often you’re my guest. We’ll have a game of cards. Knock some of that back and we’ll have a hand of piquet.”

  “I really must go,” said the poet.

  “It’s out of the question until the glass is empty,” said the doctor, and pushed him down into the armchair again. “You’re my guest. We haven’t really started to talk yet. When you’ve finished that glass, then we can first start talking together.”

  “I–I’m afraid I don’t know how to drink brennivín,” said the poet.

  “Then you’ll just have to learn,” said the doctor.

  “I–I’m afraid of alcohol,” said the poet.

  “Then you can’t be a poet,” said the doctor. “Nor a man, either. And least of all an Icelander. Brennivín is the beginning of all life.”

  He stood up with the glass in one hand, and put his other arm round the poet’s neck, thrust his finger in between the poet’s teeth and tried to pour it down his throat. But the moment the brennivín met the poet’s lips he jumped, like a virgin being touched for the first time, and hit the glass with his shoulder so that the doctor dropped it; it fell to the floor and broke. The doctor looked at it for a moment with frozen drunken eyes but said not a word, without a flicker on his face; he went over to the cabinet with measured calm and firmness as if he were going to perform a major operation, took out another glass, filled it, and placed it in front of the patient. All this took time because the doctor did nothing in a hurry, but on the other hand the patient got the opportunity of unobtrusively unfastening the window. When the doctor had put the fresh glass of brennivín in front of him, he examined the gun again with the greatest care. Then he began to shift the chairs out of the way, doing everything with the careful precision of an operating theatre. Finally he took up position against the wall on the other side of the room, raised the gun with one hand, and pointed at the brennivín with the other.

  “Drink up!” he commanded.

  But then something very extraordinary happened in this poet’s life. He jumped to his feet without warning, threw open the window without thinking, and saved his life. He was over the windowsill and out into the darkness before the doctor had time to bring his rifle up to his shoulder and take aim. The shot which blazed through the open window a moment later missed its mark.

  30

  What was the mystical power which saved this destitute poet from sudden death in the doctor’s room? He got to his feet out of the mud below the window and ran as hard as he could from the volley of shots. At the fence of the homefield he paused and looked back. The doctor had stopped shooting and had closed the window. The poet reckoned he was out of danger, and crept between the wires and went on his way.

  He knocked on the kitchen door of the post office and said, “Can one send a letter, please?”

  “Yes,” said the postmistress. “If one has an envelope. And if one has money for a stamp.”

  It so happened that he had fifty krónur in ready cash, but neither an envelope nor change for a stamp.


  “Oh, I don’t think it will do you any good to write letters,” said the postmistress. “People do insist on doing it. But I’ve noticed over and over again that it’s pointless to write letters.”

  “Actually, I wasn’t really going to write a letter,” he said.

  “Well, isn’t everything all right, then?” said the woman.

  “No,” he said. “Unfortunately I have to send a little something to someone.”

  “Can’t you deliver it to her in person?” said the woman.

  “No,” he said. “I’m going away tonight. And she’s not arriving until tomorrow.”

  The upshot was that the postmistress gave him an envelope and promised to deliver the letter free of charge if she came across the addressee in the village. He put the fifty-krónur note in the envelope, stuck the flap down, and wrote on the outside: “The Girl Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir from Gil, expected at Sviðinsvík within a few days, sender Ólafur Kárason, urgent.”

  The woman put the letter on a shelf, and he bade her Good-night.

  “So you’re not going to the Churchyard Ball tonight like the rest of the youngsters?” asked the postmistress kindly; she would probably have given him coffee if he had shown any inclination to hang around. But he was in a hurry; he did not reply, and was gone. There was no doubt about it, he was eccentric all right. Perhaps he had not even heard the Churchyard Ball mentioned. Jarþrúður Jónsdóttir— how had this parish pauper come by so much money to send to a woman? Was it true then that he had set fire to the building and robbed the safe? At all events, there had certainly been a fugitive look in his eyes. And he was on the run. And said he was going away.

  Early that morning he had chosen for himself a little bay between the cliffs down by the sea, where the sand was smooth. When he had come this way that day the tide had been out. It was bound to be low tide now; after an hour or so it would be coming in. His idea was to drink the sleeping draught, then lie down on the sand, fall into a deep sleep, and let the tide come in over him; and this wretched mortal life would be ended.

  The autumn darkness was like tar, heavy rain, the sound of the sea. He sat down on the wet sand. His consciousness was in darkness; he was in that state of mind when every word of comfort is like a mutilated corpse washed ashore; no memory was beautiful any more, but sore and bleeding, every recollection like being clawed to the quick. From out of the deadly darkness of the future there gleamed not even a single feeble star. At such a moment you do not draw up a balance sheet of your past life, as on a peaceful deathbed: what was good, what was evil, what was beautiful and what ugly. At such a moment you have only one enemy, and you know nothing else. That enemy is your own life. He put the bottle to his lips and drank.

  Originally he had intended to drink it all down in one go, in order to fall asleep both quickly and soundly, but he had not allowed for how vile the medicine would taste. He had to force it down with pauses between each gulp; he felt sick so that he almost vomited, again and again, and broke out in a cold sweat. Finally he had to stop drinking, even though he was scarcely halfway down the bottle. I hope it works all the same, he thought, remembering that the doctor’s wife had even suggested that one spoonful would do. Then he lay down on the sand, with his cap under his cheek.

  Strangers have the idea that a Churchyard Ball is a dance that is held in a churchyard among the graves, but that is not so. The Churchyard Ball is a dance that the pastor holds in the village hall every autumn, in aid of the churchyard. But not everyone went to the Churchyard Ball this autumn who had looked forward to it in spring.

  When everything was said and done, youth is beautiful nonetheless. You realize it by the light of an oil lamp and the sound of a harmonica one autumn evening; life is wonderful, beyond all words. Young hearts, two pairs of enchanted eyes which discover one another during the dance, two inexperienced lovers who meet for the first time—is that not marvelous? Is anything more marvelous than that? But unfortunately we all have too little money. If it is God’s will that we should have money, then someone has stolen our money.

  And while the youngsters danced away, the poet lay on the beach and waited for death. He had not expected that it would take so long. It is both more difficult and more complicated to die than people think. Even though the soul craves for nothing but extinction and oblivion forever, the body is a conservative master which will not give up until the very end. He had expected to fall asleep from the drug in two or three minutes, but now he grew terribly cold without becoming drowsy, and it was unfortunately the sharp cold of life, not the dulling cold of death. Seldom has any person been so wide awake as the poet Ólafur Kárason after this medicine.

  For a long time he tried to lie motionless on the wet sand, but when the side on which he was lying got pins and needles from numbness, he turned over. Time passed. Death would not come. Eventually, however, he thought he heard a sound of singing above the sound of the sea, and his heart rejoiced in his breast, for he had never lost the idea from his childhood learning and the Book of Sermons at Fótur-undir-Fótarfæti that when one died one was welcomed to heaven with singing. But when he started to listen more carefully, he realized that the singing was not in heaven but here on earth. It was the Churchyard Ball. Unfortunately the singing of this world refused to leave his ears, even though he tried filling them with sand; again and again he sensed the notes from an old, familiar dance tune mingled with the sounds of the autumn night—

  D’you think that Gróa’s got some shoes,

  Got some shoes, got some shoes?

  Then I think she won’t have much to lose

  When she starts to marry.

  In the midst of this earthly singing he was suddenly seized by a dreadful suspicion. Surely the sleeping draught had not been adulterated? In panic he grabbed the bottle with his frozen fingers, put it to his mouth, and drank that fearful poison to the dregs. Then he lay down to sleep again. But he was so convulsed by shivering spasms after the drink that it was practically impossible for him to lie still on the sand; his body demanded movement despite everything, life. Again and again he was on the point of jumping to his feet and beating his arms to get warm. And when this struggle was at its height, a wave suddenly washed over him, submerged him and lifted him up and dragged him out with it, all at once, but only to leave him lying there on the beach facing the opposite way as it fell back. The next moment Ólafur Kárason was on his feet. He ran as hard as he could farther up the beach to escape the next wave. Soon he was so far up on land that he was in no further danger from the sea. It is as it says in an old proverb—no one is drowned whom the scaffold awaits. This was the second time in one evening that the body had taken over and saved him from the dark decisions of the soul.

  Drenched with salt and fresh water, with a sleeping draught in his nerves and sea in his nostrils, frozen hands thrust deep into soaking pockets, he shambled up to the road in the autumn darkness. Perhaps he was dead and was walking again, a ghost. He bumped right into a man who was also doddering around in the darkness. They practically fell over one another; but they did not fall, just came to a halt. Ólafur Kárason’s teeth chattered, but he could not utter a word. The stranger also made several attempts to say something, each more despairing than the last. One could hear the creaking of his jaws, face and throat, but unfortunately without any results. Finally, as a last resort, he started to embrace Ólafur Kárason in the darkness; he laid his wrinkled cheek against the poet’s soaking bosom and said, “My brother!” And Ólafur Kárason did not heed the reek of cough mixture from the man, but was seized with joy and gratitude at having found again this extraordinary mirror of the soul, and embraced him in turn.

  “Heave-up!” said Eilífðar-Daði.

  He had been ill in bed at his sister’s for a few days, but last night he had got to his feet to fetch some cough mixture, and was now back in his proper element again. He was on the way to the Churchyard Ball, like other good men, and took the poet by the arm. Perhaps they were both dead.


  “And to think that I composed an elegy for you!” said the poet.

  Eilífðar-Daði stopped on the road to give the poet a special embrace for such generosity. How many people have to be content with dying nowadays without getting an elegy! Then they turned into the path to the village hall. Two men. And yet in reality the same man. The soul. A refreshing aroma of coffee from the Churchyard Ball met them. Eilífðar-Daði showed the poet the contents of his purse, he had both one-króna pieces and two-krónur pieces. They stood for a long time in the light from the window and listened enraptured to the singing and the sound of the dancing, before they ventured any farther.

  D’you think that Gróa’s got some shoes,

  Got some shoes, got some shoes?

  Then I think she won’t have much to lose

  When she starts to tralalala,

  Got some shoes, got some shoes,

  Tralala ralala ralalala.

  Not everyone went to the Churchyard Ball this autumn who had looked forward to it in spring.

  After all, it was Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík who went to the Churchyard Ball, not in the way it had been decided that summer, certainly, but in a new life, after the Palace of the Summerland had burnt down.

  BOOK THREE

  THE HOUSE OF THE POET

  1

  High up the hillside, where you look out over the roofs of the houses, there crouched a wooden shack with a slanting roof and a porch, one room with a stove, and a little closet; and at the window early in spring a pale man sat lulling his sick child in his arms—the poet Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík. Whoever has a sick child has a house. This house was called The Heights. There was sunshine on the sea, the lagoons dead calm. That morning when the poet’s intended had woken up, she had praised her God as usual and hurried down to the fish yards to earn some money. The poet gazed out over the roofs of the village, over the blue fjord, out towards the mystical haze of the mountains on the other side, and dandled his child. Anything was better than working for money. He bent down over the little girl and kissed her brow, and she smiled at him.