Chapter 3

Just now, not a living soul looked in--not even those thriftless fellows who lived by chance jobs in the village and met in daily conclave at the store. We had often cursed their lengthy visits, but now that they had hired themselves out during the haymaking, we suddenly realized that they had often been entertaining. They had made many amusing remarks and brought us news of the neighbourhood. And now we cursed them for their absence.

We sat there and smoked, staring vacantly at the half-empty shelves, and all but shivering in the damp room. There was no heater in the store at any season, and the one in the office, if used, emitted spurts of smoke through every aperture except the chimney. It had not been cleaned since sometime during winter, and we were not ambitious enough for such an undertaking in the middle of the summer.

We tried to transfer our thoughts from the store to the world outside. We made clever comments to the effect that the farmers were now getting plenty of moisture for the hay-fields, and that it would be a pity if rain should set in now, right at the beginning of the haying season. We had nothing further to say on the subject, but this we repeated from day to day. In short, we were depressed and at odds with things in general. Until the dry spell.

One morning, about nine o'clock, the bank of fog began to move. First, there appeared an opening about the size of your hand, and through it the eastern sky showed a bright blue. Then another opening, and through it shone the sun.

We knew what this was called, and we said to each other: Merely a 'morning promise'--implying, nothing reliable. But it was more. The fog began to show thinner and move faster along the mountain ridge opposite. Then it gathered in a deep pass and lay there heaped up like newly carded, snowy wool. On either side, the mountains loomed a lovely blue, and in their triumph ignored the fog almost completely. When we ventured a look through the doorway of the store, there was nothing to be seen overhead save the clear, blue sky and the sunshine.

On the opposite shore of the fjord, the people looked to us like the cairns out on the moorlands, only these tiny cairns moved in single file about the hay-fields. I seemed to smell the sweet hay in the homefields, but of course this was only my imagination. I also fancied I could hear the maids laughing, especially one of them. I would willingly have sacrificed a good deal to be over there helping her dry the hay. But of this subject no more; I did not intend to write a love story--at least, not in the ordinary sense of the word.

The dry spell lasted. We, the clerks, took turns at staying out of doors as much as possible, and 'drinking deeply of the golden fount of sunshine'.

In the afternoon of the third day, I dropped in at the doctor's. I felt somewhat weary with walking--and idleness--and looked forward to the doctor's couch and conversation.

A cigar? asked the doctor.

Yes, a cigar, I answered. I have smoked only six today.

Beer or whisky and water? queried the doctor.

A small whisky, I replied.

I lit my cigar, inhaling deeply of its fragrance--then exhaling through mouth and nostrils. I sighed with contentment; the cigar was excellent.

Then we began to drink the whisky and water at our leisure. I reclined against the head of the couch, stretched out my feet, was conscious of a luxurious sensation--and sent my thoughts for a moment across the fjord, where they preferred to remain.

The doctor was in high spirits. He talked about the Japanese and Russians, the most recently discovered rays, and the latest disclosures on how is felt to die.

My favourite pastime is to listen to others speaking. I never seem able to think of any topics worthy of conversation myself, but I am almost inclined to say that my ability to listen amounts to an art. I can remain silent with an air of absorbing interest, and once in a while offer brief comment, not to set forth an opinion or display any knowledge--for I have none to spare--but merely to suggest new channels to the speaker and introduce variety, that he may not tire of hearing himself speak.

I felt extremely comfortable on the couch. I thought it particularly entertaining to hear the doctor tell how it felt to die. There is always something pleasantly exciting about death--when it is reasonably far away from you. It seemed so beautifully far away from the perfume of the tobacco-smoke, the flavour of whisky, and the restfulness of the couch, and when my mind wandered to her across the fjord--as wander it would in spite of my studied attention--then death seemed so far off shore that I could scarcely follow the description of how it felt to others to die.

In the midst of this dreamy contentment and deluge of information from the doctor, the door was somewhat hastily thrown open. I was looking the other way and thought it must be one of the doctor's children.

But it was old man Thordur from the Bend.

I knew him well. He was over fifty, tall and large-limbed, with a hoary shock of hair and a snub nose. I knew he had a host of children--I had been at his door once, and they had run, pattered, waddled, crept, and rolled through the doorway to gape at me. It had seemed as hopeless to try to count them as a large flock of sheep. I knew there was no income except what the old man and woman--and possibly the elder children--managed to earn from day to day. My employer in Copenhagen had strictly forbidden us to give credit to such--and of course he now owed us more than he would ever be able to pay.

He does not even knock--the old ruffian, I said to myself.

From his appearance, something was wrong. His face was unnaturally purplish, his eyes strangely shiny--yet dull withal. It even seemed to me that his legs shook under him.

Can it be that the old devil is tipsy--at the height of the haying season--and dry weather at that? I mentally queried.

The doctor evidently could not recall who he was.

Good-day to you, my man, he said, and what matter have you in hand?

I merely came to get those four crowns.

Which four crowns? asked the doctor.

Thordur raised his voice: The four crowns you owe me.

It was now evident that it was difficult for him to remain standing.

I felt assured that the old rascal had been drinking like a fish. I was surprised. I had never heard he was inclined that way. He lived out there on the hillside a short distance above the village. I began to wonder where he had been able to obtain so much liquor-- certainly not from us at the store.

What is your name? asked the doctor.

My name? Don't you know my name? Don't you know me?--Thordur-- Thordur of the Bend. I should best of all like to get the money at once.

Yes, that's so--you are Thordur of the Bend, said the doctor. And you are up? But listen, my good man, I owe you nothing. You owe me a small sum--but that does not matter in the least.

I care nothing about that, but I should best of all like to get the money at once, repeated Thordur.

May I feel your hand for a minute? said the doctor.

Thordur extended his hand, but it seemed to me that he did not know it. He looked off into space, as if thinking of other things--or rather as if he had no thoughts whatever. I saw the doctor's fingers on his wrist.

You are a sick man, he said.

Sick?--Yes--of course I am sick. Am I then to pay you four crowns? I haven't got them now.

It makes no difference about those four crowns, but why did you get up like this? Have you forgotten that I ordered you to remain in bed when I saw you the other day?

In bed?--How the devil am I to remain in bed? Tell me that!

You must not get up in this condition. Why, you are delirious!

What a fool you are--don't you know that there is a dry spell.

Yes, I AM aware of the dry spell.--It was evidently not quite clear to him what that had to do with the case.--Have a chair, and we will talk it over.

A chair? No!--Who, then, should dry the hay in the homefield? I had some of it cut when I was taken down--why do you contradict me? And the youngsters have made some attempts at it--but who is to see about drying it?--Not Gudrun--she can't do everything. The youngsters?--what do they know about drying hay?--Who, then, is to do it?--Are YOU going to do it?

Something will turn up for you, said the doctor, somewhat at a loss.

Something will turn up? Nothing has ever turned up for ME.

Cold shivers passed through me. His remark rang true: I knew that nothing had ever turned up for him. I felt faint at looking into such an abyss of hopelessness. Instantly I saw that the truth of this delirious statement concerned me more than all the wisdom of the ages.

Do I get those four crowns you owe me?--Thordur asked. He was now trembling so that his teeth chattered.

The doctor produced four crowns from his purse and handed them to him. Thordur laid them on the table and staggered towards the door.- -You are leaving your crowns behind, man, said the doctor.

I haven't got them now, said Thordur, without looking back and still making his way towards the door.--But I'll pay them as soon as I can.

Isn't there a vacant bed upstairs at the store? inquired the doctor.

Yes, I answered. We will walk with you down to the store, Thordur.

Walk with me?--Be damned!--I am off for the hay-field.

We followed him outside and watched him start out. After a short distance he tumbled down. We got him upstairs in the store.

A few days later he could have told us, if anyone had been able to communicate with him, whether they are right or wrong, those latest theories on how it feels to die.

--But who dries the hay in his homefield now?

Guðmundur Friðjónsson

THE OLD HAY

During the latter part of the reign of King Christian the Ninth, there lived at Holl in the Tunga District a farmer named Brandur. By the time the events narrated here transpired, Brandur had grown prosperous and very old--old in years and old in ways. The neighbours thought he must have money hidden away somewhere. But no one knew anything definitely, for Brandur had always been reserved and uncommunicative, and permitted no prying in his house or on his possessions. There was, however, one thing every settler in those parts knew: Brandur had accumulated large stores of various kinds. Anyone passing along the highway could see that.

Brandur usually had some hay remaining in lofts and yards when spring came, and, besides, there was the immense stack that stood on a knoll out in the homefield before the house. It had been there for many years and was well protected against wind and weather by a covering of sod. Brandur had replenished the hay, a little at a time, by using up that from one end only and filling in with fresh hay the following summer.

Brandur was hospitable to such guests as had business with him, and refused to accept payment for food or lodging; but very few people ever came to see him, and these were mostly old friends with whom he had financial dealings. Brandur was willing to make loans against promissory notes and the payment of interest. There were not many to whom he would entrust his money, however, and he never lost a penny. Whenever these callers came, he would bring out the brandy bottle.

The buildings at Holl were all in a tumble-down state; the furniture was no better. There wasn't a chair in the whole house; even the baðstofa had only a dirt floor, and it was entirely unsheathed on the inside except for a few planks nailed on the wall from the bed up as far as the rafters. The clock was the sole manufactured article in the room. But friends of the old man knew that underneath his bed he kept a fairly large carved wooden chest, bearing the inscription anno 1670. The chest was heavy and was always kept locked. Only the nearest of kin had ever seen its contents.

Brandur was not considered obliging; it was very difficult to get to see him. Yet he was willing to sell food at any time for cash; hay, too, as long as there was still some remaining in his lofts. He would also sell hay against promises of lambs, especially wethers, once it was certain that the cold of winter was past. But his old haystack he refused to touch for anyone.

In this way Brandur stumbled down the pathway of life until he lost his sight. Even then, he was still sound in mind and body. While his vision remained unimpaired, it had been his habit to walk out to the old haystack every day and stroll around it slowly, examining it carefully from top to bottom and patting it with his hands. This habit he kept up as long as the weather permitted him to be outdoors, and he did not give it up even after his sight was gone. He would still take his daily walk out to the haystack on the knoll, drag himself slowly around it, groping with his hands to feel it, as if he wished to make sure that it still stood there, firm as a rock and untouched. He would stretch out his hands and touch its face and count the strips of turf to himself in a whisper.

Brandur still tilled the land, though he kept but little help and was living chiefly on the fruits of his former labours. He had fine winter pastures, and good meadows quite near the house, from which the hay could easily be brought in. The old man steadfastly refused to adopt modern farming methods; he had never levelled off the hummocks, nor drained or irrigated the land. But he did hire a few harvest hands in the middle of the season, paying them in butter, tallow, and the flesh of sheep bellies. The wages he paid were never high, yet he always paid whatever had been agreed upon.

Old Brandur had been blessed with only one child, a daughter named Gudrun. who had married a farmer in the district. Since his daughter's marriage, Brandur kept a housekeeper and one farm hand, a young man whom Brandur had reared and who, it was rumoured, was his natural son. But that has nothing to do with the story.

When Brandur had reached a ripe old age, there came a winter with much frost and snow. Time and again, some of the snow and ice would thaw, but then a hard frost would come, glazing everything in an icy coating. This went on until late in April. By that time, almost every farmer in the district had used up his hay; every one of them was at the end of his store, and nowhere was there a blade of grass to feed the live-stock, for the land still lay frozen under its blanket of hard-packed snow and ice. When things had come to this pass, a general district meeting was called to discuss the situation and decide what should be done. Brandur's son-in-law Jon was made chairman of the meeting.

During the discussion it was brought to light that many of the flocks would die of hunger unless 'God Almighty vouchsafed a turn in the weather very soon', or Old Brandur could be induced to part with his old hay. That stack would help, if properly divided among those who were in greatest need. The quantity of hay it contained was estimated, and the general opinion expressed that, if it were divided, the flocks of every farmer in the district could be fed for at least two weeks, even if they could not in that time be put out to pasture.

Jon being chairman of the District Council, as well as Brandur's son-in-law, it fell to his lot to go to the old man and ask for the hay.

So it came about that, on his way home from the meeting, Jon stopped at Holl. The day was cold and clear, the afternoon sun shining down upon the snow-covered landscape. The icy blanket turned back the rays of warmth as if it would have nothing to do with the sun. But wherever rocks and gravelly banks protruded, the ice appeared to be peeled off, for in those spots the sun's rays had melted it, though only at mid-day and on the south. All streams and waterfalls slumbered in silence under the snowy blanket. A chill silence reigned over the whole valley. Not a bird was to be seen, not even a snow bunting, only two ravens which kept flying from farmhouse to farmhouse, and even their cawing had a hungry note.

When Jon rode up to the house at Holl, he found Brandur out by the haystack. The old man was carefully groping his way around the stack, feeling it on all sides and counting the strips of turf in so loud a voice that Jon could hear him: O-n-e, t-w-o, three.

Jon dismounted and, going over to Brandur, saluted him with a kiss.

How are you? God bless you, said Brandur. And who may this be?

Jon of Bakki, replied the visitor.--Gudrun sends greetings.

Ah, yes. And how is my Gunna? Is she well?

She was well when I left home this morning. Now I am on my way back from the meeting that was held to discuss the desperate situation-- you must have heard about it.

Yes, certainly. I've heard about it. I should say so! One can't get away from talk of hay shortage and hard times. That is quite true. Any other news?

Nothing worth mentioning, answered Jon. Nothing but the general hard times and hay shortage. Every farmer at the end of his tether, or almost there, no one with as much as a wisp of hay to spare, and only a few likely to make out till Crouchmas without aid.

Too bad! said Brandur. Too bad! And he blew out his breath, as though suffocating from strong smoke or bad air.

For a while there was silence, as if each mistrusted the other and wondered what was in the air. Brandur stood there with one hand resting on the haystack, while he thrust the other into his trousers pocket, or underneath the flap of his trousers. He always wore the old-fashioned trousers with a flap, in fact had never possessed any other kind. Meanwhile, holding the reins, Jon stood there gazing at the hay and making a mental estimate of it. Then he turned to his father-in-law and spoke:

The purpose of my visit to you, my dear Brandur, is to ask that you let us have this hay--this fine old hay that you have here. The District Council will, of course, pay you; the parish will guarantee payment. We have discussed that matter fully.

When Jon ceased speaking, Brandur blew the air from his mouth in great puffs, as though deeply stabbed by a sharp pain in the heart. For a while he held his peace. Then he spoke:

Not another word! Not another word! What's this I hear? My hay for the district? My hay to supply all the farmers in the district? Do you think for one moment that this little haystack is enough to feed all the flocks in the whole district? Do you think this tiny haycock will be enough for a whole parish? I think not!

But we have calculated it, protested Jon. We have estimated that the hay in this stack will be enough to feed the flocks in the district for about two weeks, if a little grain is used with it, and if the hay is distributed equally among the farmers who need it most. There may be enough for three weeks, should it turn to be as much as or more than I expect. By that time, we surely hope, the season will be so far advanced that the weather will have changed for the better.

So! You have already estimated the amount of hay in my stack! said Brandur. You have already divided this miserable haycock among yourselves, divided it down to the very last straw. And you have weighed it almost to a gram. Then why speak to me about it? Why not take it just as it is and scatter it to the four winds? Why not?-- The voice of the old man shook with anger.

No, said Jon. We will not do that. We want to ask your permission first. We had no intention of doing otherwise; we intended to ask you for the hay. And we did not mean to vex you, but rather to honour you in this manner. Is it not an honour to be asked to save a whole district from ruin?

Oh, so all this is being done to honour me! said the old man, roaring with laughter. Perhaps you believe me to be in my second childhood. Not at all! Old Brandur can still see beyond the tip of his nose.

The cold-heartedness shown by the old man's laughter at the distress of his fellowmen roused Jon's ire. He could see nothing laughable about the desperate situation in the district.

Are you then going to refuse to let us have the hay, refuse to sell it at full price, with the Parish Council guaranteeing payment? he asked in a tone that was angry, yet under perfect control?--Is that your final answer?

Yes, responded Brandur. That is my final answer. I will not let the tiny mouthful of hay I have here go while there is still life in my body, even though you mean to insure payment, and even though you actually do guarantee payment. After all, who among you will be in a position to guarantee payment if all the flocks die? The cold weather may not let up until the first of June or even later. In that case the sheep will all die. It won't go very far, this tiny haycock, not for so many. It will not, I tell you.

But what are you going to do with the hay? If everyone else loses his flocks, everyone but you, what enjoyment will there be in owning it? And what benefit? asked Jon.

That does not concern me! replied the old man. That concerns them. It was they who decided the size of the flocks they undertook to feed this winter, not I. Besides, they could have cut as much hay as I did, even more, for they still have their eyesight. Their failure is due to their own laziness and bad judgment. That's what ails them! Ruins them!

But you won't be able to take this great big haystack with you into the life eternal, said Jon. The time is coming when you will have to part with it. Then it will be used as the needs require. And what good will it do you? What are you going to do with it?

I am going to keep it, answered Brandur. I intend to keep it right here on the knoll, keep it in case the haying should be poor next summer. There may be a poor growth of grass and a small hay crop; there may be a volcanic eruption and the ashes may poison the grass, as they have done in former years. Now, do you understand me?

So saying, Brandur tottered off towards the house to indicate that the conversation was at an end. His countenance was as cold as the sky in the evening after the sun has set, and the hard lines in it resembled the streaks in the ice on rocks and ledges where the sun's rays had shone that day and laid bare the frozen ground.

Brandur entered the house, while Jon mounted again. They scarcely said a word of farewell, so angry were they both.

Jon's horse set off at a brisk pace, eager to reach home, and galloped swiftly over the hard, frozen ground. After the sun had gone down, the wind rose and a searing cold settled over the valley, whitening Jon's moustache where his breath passed over it.

Jon's anger grew as he sped along. Naturally hightempered, he had lately had many reasons for anger since he took over his official duties. The people in his district were like people the world over: they blamed the Board constantly, accusing it of stupidity and favouritism. Yet most of them paid their taxes reluctantly and only when long overdue. Sometimes they were almost a year in arrears.

Jon reviewed the matter of the hay in his mind, also the other vexations of the past. He was sick and tired of all the trouble. And now the life of the whole district hung on a thin thread, the fate of which depended upon the whims of the weather. Jon's nose and cheekbones smarted from the cold; his shoes were frozen stiff, and pinched his feet, and his throat burned with the heat of anger rising from his breast.

Jon was rather quiet when he reached home that evening, although he did tell his wife of his attempt to deal with her father.

Yes, said Gudrun, papa sets great store by that hay. He cannot bear to part with it at any price. That is his nature.

Tomorrow you must go, Jon told her, and try to win the old man over in some way. I'd hate to be obliged to take the hay from him by force, but that will be necessary if everything else fails.