velvet-smooth clouds off the coast, the uninterrupted sound of birdsong, a thrush up on the hillside. The flowers would be blossoming in the homefield. And no one would be up and about except him, so unsullied was this morning; no one had set foot in the dew of this morning, no one; no one had seen this morning except him. Glorious vistas opened their arms to him alone; and he walked smiling towards the beauty of this day.
Yes, one spring morning he would wake up early.
10
Some people from another district who had got themselves ferried over the fjord brought a letter and a small parcel for the moribund soul who lay yearning in the corner under the sloping ceiling. “My dear son . . .” It was a letter from his father, writing to him from a distant fjord. So after all it was his father who remembered him even though he had once deserted his mother. His father told him to be of good heart. Unfortunately, his father said, he could not come to see him, but he said he was asking God to be with him. His father said he was in great difficulties himself, from poverty and ill health, and that he was in receipt of parish support himself, but he said that God was with him. That was why he was thinking about his son. On the other hand his mother was now an important person at Aðalfjörður and did not remember him at all, and the boy was angry with his mother and wished he could have some other mother, sometime; it could still make him weep to think that his very own mother should have sent him away in a sack in the middle of winter.
In the parcel there were three books. One was a book of poems by his father, called
New Poetics
, a little book, all in ballad form. There were poems about skippers, congratulatory odes to merchants and pastors, verses on tobacco and the weather, as well as a narrative poem about a remarkable and unusual drunken brawl that took place in Aðalfjörður some years back in which one man lost his front teeth, and so on. The second book was the
Núma Ballads
by Sigurður Breiðfjörð, printed in the old Gothic lettering.* And finally there was a notebook with a hundred blank pages, a penholder, three pen nibs, and a little bottle of ink.
At first glance, the writing materials were to him the most precious of these gifts. With them he was at last given the long-desired opportunity of becoming an intellectual and making his words immortal. Thereafter, when he himself was dead, he imagined that his poems would be published in some mysterious way, and the nation would read them for comfort in adversity, as it had read the poems of other poets before him; it was his highest wish that his poems could help those as unfortunate as himself to have patience to endure. They would say, “He has bequeathed to us sublime psalms with kennings, so that we could find the spirit.” Perhaps even his mother would then begin to feel fond of him, although it would be too late then.
It was not until he began leafing through the
Núma Ballads
that he began to feel doubt about the value of his own unwritten books. Acquaintaince with Sigurður Breiðfjörð’s poetry brought a new dawn of experience, brighter than any that had been before. The artificial vocabulary of the kennings in the
Ordeals of Johánna
and the other masterpieces by Pastor Snorri of Húsafell, which the late Jósep had liked best, at once seemed poverty-stricken and dreary now, compared with Sigurður Breiðfjörð’s pure Eddaic style and his clearly comprehensible subject matter, and above all that enchanting gift of expression that roused in the heart an incurable awareness of beauty and sorrow. Previously he had thought that all poets were glorious and that all poetry was of equal worth provided that it dealt chiefly with heroic exploits, or especially with Jesus Christ’s feats of redemption, in either a sufficiently intricate or a sufficiently religious way. “The motherland where men were born”—now he discovered in a flash that there were
Yes, one spring morning he would wake up early.
10
Some people from another district who had got themselves ferried over the fjord brought a letter and a small parcel for the moribund soul who lay yearning in the corner under the sloping ceiling. “My dear son . . .” It was a letter from his father, writing to him from a distant fjord. So after all it was his father who remembered him even though he had once deserted his mother. His father told him to be of good heart. Unfortunately, his father said, he could not come to see him, but he said he was asking God to be with him. His father said he was in great difficulties himself, from poverty and ill health, and that he was in receipt of parish support himself, but he said that God was with him. That was why he was thinking about his son. On the other hand his mother was now an important person at Aðalfjörður and did not remember him at all, and the boy was angry with his mother and wished he could have some other mother, sometime; it could still make him weep to think that his very own mother should have sent him away in a sack in the middle of winter.
In the parcel there were three books. One was a book of poems by his father, called
New Poetics
, a little book, all in ballad form. There were poems about skippers, congratulatory odes to merchants and pastors, verses on tobacco and the weather, as well as a narrative poem about a remarkable and unusual drunken brawl that took place in Aðalfjörður some years back in which one man lost his front teeth, and so on. The second book was the
Núma Ballads
by Sigurður Breiðfjörð, printed in the old Gothic lettering.* And finally there was a notebook with a hundred blank pages, a penholder, three pen nibs, and a little bottle of ink.
At first glance, the writing materials were to him the most precious of these gifts. With them he was at last given the long-desired opportunity of becoming an intellectual and making his words immortal. Thereafter, when he himself was dead, he imagined that his poems would be published in some mysterious way, and the nation would read them for comfort in adversity, as it had read the poems of other poets before him; it was his highest wish that his poems could help those as unfortunate as himself to have patience to endure. They would say, “He has bequeathed to us sublime psalms with kennings, so that we could find the spirit.” Perhaps even his mother would then begin to feel fond of him, although it would be too late then.
It was not until he began leafing through the
Núma Ballads
that he began to feel doubt about the value of his own unwritten books. Acquaintaince with Sigurður Breiðfjörð’s poetry brought a new dawn of experience, brighter than any that had been before. The artificial vocabulary of the kennings in the
Ordeals of Johánna
and the other masterpieces by Pastor Snorri of Húsafell, which the late Jósep had liked best, at once seemed poverty-stricken and dreary now, compared with Sigurður Breiðfjörð’s pure Eddaic style and his clearly comprehensible subject matter, and above all that enchanting gift of expression that roused in the heart an incurable awareness of beauty and sorrow. Previously he had thought that all poets were glorious and that all poetry was of equal worth provided that it dealt chiefly with heroic exploits, or especially with Jesus Christ’s feats of redemption, in either a sufficiently intricate or a sufficiently religious way. “The motherland where men were born”—now he discovered in a flash that there were
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