“Yes, you are the greatest romantic poet of modern times.” said the organist.
“But Oli Figure! His nose runs with snot,” said the atom poet. “He says, what’s more, that he has an immortal soul. But the worst thing of all is that this disgusting jellyfish from down south should now be in the Cadillac.”
“So the Figure does not have an immortal soul at all, perhaps?” asked the organist.
They rejected this completely.
“Then I think you should not shorten him by a head,” said the organist. “At least, I should think twice before I murdered a man who had no soul. On the other hand it is quite impossible to murder a man who has a soul, for the simple reason that immortality is the essence of the souclass="underline" you kill him, but he lives. And now I must ask you to forgive me for having no time to discuss theology with you any more at present; I need to cull a few flowers for my friend, this lovely young country girl here.”
In Njal’s Saga there is no mention of the soul, nor in Grettir’s Saga either, still less in Egil’s Saga, and these three are the greatest of the Sagas; and least of all in the Edda.[11] My father was never angrier than when he heard talk of the soul; his doctrine was that we should live as if the soul did not exist.
When we children were little we were forbidden to laugh—out loud; that was wicked. It was of course our duty always to be in a good temper, but all cheerfulness that went beyond moderation was of the devil; there were many maxims in verse on this subject: “Walk gently through the doors of joy.” My father was always in a good temper, and no one had a sweeter smile—unless he happened to hear a joke; then his face would stiffen, as if he heard cutting tools being rasped on each other’s edges, and he would fall silent and become distant. No one ever saw on his face an expression of anxiety or grief, not even if the wild ponies themselves froze to death. My mother loved everything, hoped everything, endured everything; even if misfortune struck the cow, she was silent. If we hurt ourselves, we were forbidden to cry; I never saw weeping until I went to the girls’ college: one girl cried because one of her puddings got burned, another cried over poetry, and a third because she saw a mouse. I thought at first they were play-acting but they were not, and then I felt ashamed in the way one feels ashamed for someone whose trousers have fallen down. There was never an occasion on which my father and mother told us children what they were thinking or feeling. Such idle chatter would have been unseemly in our house. One could talk about life in general, and of one’s own life so far as it concerned others, at least on the surface. One could talk endlessly about the weather, about the livestock, or about Nature so far as weather conditions were concerned; for instance, one could talk about dry spells, but not about sunshine. Likewise, one could talk about the Sagas, but not criticize them; one could trace ancestries, but never one’s own mind: only the mind knows what is next the heart, says the Edda. If the story was no longer a story, but began to concern oneself alone, one’s own self in the deepest sense, then it was wicked to talk; and even more wicked to write. That is the way I was brought up, this is me; no one can get outside of himself.
That is why I am not going to say how it happened or what it was, I can only tell you the external causes until it ceases to be a story.
I knew that he was waiting for me out in the kitchen, like the last time; I could hear him through the wall without listening, and I knew we would be leaving together. Then my half-hour was over and I put on my coat and shook hands with my organist and received my flower. And then the other was on his feet and preparing to leave, and we went out. It was just the same as the last time, except that this time he said absolutely nothing. He walked by my side without uttering a single word.
Say something,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I am walking home with you because you are from the north. Then I shall leave you.”
“Very well, then, my friend,” I said. “You can be as silent as you like; it gives me nothing but pleasure to listen to you being silent.”
Before I knew it he had taken hold of my arm and drawn me close to him and was walking me arm-in-arm; he walked me quickly, perhaps too quickly, but without haste; and silently; he was holding my upper arm and his hand was touching my side, right up against my breast.
“Are you used to walking with a man?” he asked.
“Not one with a vocation,” I said.
“Talk as if you were from the north and not from the south,” he said.
We walked on and on, until he said bluntly, “You’re cross-eyed.”
“Is that so, indeed?” I said.
“It’s quite true, so help me,” he said. “You’re cross-eyed.”
“Not one-eyed, though,” I said.
“It’s quite true,” he said. “If one looks at you closely, you’re cross-eyed. Sometimes I think you’re not, but now I’m quite sure you are. Listen, you’ve no idea how appallingly cross-eyed you can be.”
“Only when I’m tired,” I said. “On the other hand my eyes are much too wide apart, just like the owl that I am.”
“Never in my whole life have I ever seen anything so cross-eyed,” he said. “What am I to do?”
He said all this in a gruff monotone that never undulated, but was hot through and through, and something started up in me at hearing him speak; yet I was not afraid, however, for the difference between this one and the other was still locked in my own knees. And when we arrived at my house and I began looking in my handbag, there was no key there; not a trace of a key; and it was past midnight. I had been given keys to both the back door and the front door, and I had never forgotten to take these keys with me when I went out, knowing perfectly well that otherwise I would not get in; and their place was in my handbag; and now of course I had forgotten them, or perhaps lost them; or they had shed their substance and turned into nothing, through miracle or magic. I picked every scrap and tatter out of the handbag, turned it upside down, and searched the lining to see if the keys had crept behind it, but it was no use. I was out on the street.
“Can’t you rouse the people?” he asked.
“In this house?” I said. “Certainly not. I would rather spend the night out of doors than make such people open up for me.”
“I have a skeleton key,” he said. “But certainly I haven’t much faith that it would fit these locks.”
“Are you mad, man?” I said. “Do you imagine I would enter this house with a skeleton key? No, I’ll wait a little. One or other of the family may not be home yet and can let me in.”
He looked at me. “I could imagine you’d be in trouble,” he said, “You say yes and no to the same thing in the same breath. You had better come home with me.”
And that was how it came to pass. And it was not until dawn next morning, when I was leaving him to go home and had put on my coat, that I happened to put my hand in my pocket, and there of course was the key.
He owned nothing except a trunk; the bed, chair, and table went with the room; but the piano was on hire, for he was so far ahead of me in music that he could think of a piano when I could think no further than a harmonium. Everything was in neat order and array. There was a smell of soap. He offered me the chair to sit on, and opened the trunk and brought out a flask of schnapps, just like any other shrewd and provident country person.
“Perhaps you’re going to offer me a bite of tobacco too?” I asked.