The Great Weaver From Kashmir Read online

  HALLDÓR LAXNESS

  The Great Weaver

  from Kashmir

  Translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

  archipelago books

  First published as Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír by Forlagið, Reykjavík, 1927

  English translation copyright © Philip Roughton, 2008

  First Archipelago Books Edition

  Published by agreement with Licht and Burr Literary Agency, Denmark.

  All Rights Reserved, No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Archipelago Books

  232 Third Street #A111

  Brooklyn, NY 11215

  www.archipelagobooks.org

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Halldór Laxness, 1902–1998.

  [Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír. English]

  The great weaver from Kashmir / by Halldór Laxness ;

  translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-9793330-8-8

  I. Roughton, Philip. II. Title.

  PT7511.L3V3713 2007

  839'.6934–dc22

  2008015345

  Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

  www.cbsd.com

  Cover art: Svanasöngur (Swansong), 1966, Jóhannes S. Kjarral (1885–1972)

  This publication was made possible with support from Lannan Foundation, Bókmenntasjóður / the Icelandic Literary Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

  CONTENTS

  Book One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Book Two

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Book Three

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Book Four

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Book Five

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Book Six

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Book Seven

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Book Eight

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  End Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Ma nondimen, rimossa ogne menzogna,

  tutta tua visïon fa manifesta;

  e lascia pur grattar dov’ è la rogna.

  Ché se la voce tua sarà molesta

  nel primo gusto, vital nodrimento

  lascerà poi, quando sarà digesta.

  DANTE ALIGHIERI

  (Par. XVII. 127–132)1

  Book One

  1.

  Once two swans flew overhead, eastward.

  The world is like a stage where everything has been set up for an extravagant musical: the fragrance of birchwood in the lava fields at Þingvellir,2 cold gusts of wind from Súlur, violet light in the Esja sky, the azure deep and cold over Skjaldbreiður, but darkness no longer descends. Nightlessness and insomnia in all directions.

  The basalt Ylfingabúð 3 stands on a grassy strip of land between crevices in the surrounding lava rocks. The wild birch is shaken by the gusts and scrawls invisible signs on the evening sky, and a young girl comes out from the house onto the veranda on the south side. She looks westward beyond the path leading through the copse and leans out upon the railing. She stretches her neck like a mountain grouse, tilts her ear to the west and listens, innocent and bright like a mythic character who has grown up alongside white, wild lambs. The clock inside the house strikes ten.

  An old woman wearing a long, dark dress, her hair beginning to gray and her appearance imposing and distinguished, steps out onto the veranda.

  “Diljá,” she says, “I simply can’t understand why they haven’t arrived yet. I mean, it was nearly eight when Örnólfur called to say that they were leaving. God help Jófríður, to have to board ship tomorrow – didn’t you just hear a clatter?”

  “No, Grandma, not a single clank,” answered the young girl ruefully.

  “Who knows? Maybe something went wrong. Haven’t I always said that those automobiles aren’t very reliable? They’ll probably end up watching the ship sail away from shore from somewhere up on Mosfellsheiði! Run inside, Diljá dear, and fetch my knitting and bring me my shawl. I’m going to sit out here on the veranda for a bit, since the weather’s decent.”

  The girl came back out onto the veranda after a few moments, chewing. She had put on a white flannel jacket, and was holding a half-eaten cookie.

  Although her eyes were young and clear, they were not devoid of a kind of heavy miragelike grayness that is often a sign of hysteria, her lips damp with youth and purity, spongy and red, with lines slightly drawn around her mouth, as if a sculptor used his scraper to shape her head in outline only. The rest of her body was much the same: a seedling, fresh and tender, like an ear of grain in the spring, when the new moon watches over the fields, burnished white and slender. Her hair was the only part of her young body that had volume: it was thick, glossy, and bright, twisted into one braid, with crisp curls hanging down around her cheeks.

  “Imagine it, Grandma,” said the girl, after she’d handed the old woman her things and munched down the rest of the cookie. “It wasn’t until I read about it in Morgunblaðið4 yesterday that I found out the Grímúlfur family was planning to sail away! And Steinn Elliði, who tell
s me everything, didn’t say a single word about it a week ago when we were together in Reykjavík. We walked out to Laugarnes. Why are they leaving so suddenly like that?”

  “They’d been planning it for a long time,” answered the old woman, as she made the first of her stitches. “But folk hardly know about the brothers’ plans until they’re well under way. The last time Örnólfur was abroad he opened a new market, as they’re called. He was in Portugal and southern Italy. One of them’s got to stay down there in the south pretty much all of the time in order to manage the market. One can’t trust foreign office workers to keep things running when so much is at stake. But they kept it fairly quiet that it was Grímúlfur who was going to be moving, until the last minute.”

  “As if Jófríður wouldn’t die of anxiety down there in the south just like anywhere else!” said the girl. “She can’t put up with much for long, what with her consumption and her nerves – I predict that she won’t be able to stick it out very long down there! And what business does Steinn Elliði have down there, when he’s all wrapped up in his art and literature?! And hardly anyone down south can read! As if Steinn wouldn’t miss home, as if he wouldn’t turn right around and come back to see Iceland, that Steinn of ours! Our Steinn, who worships the mountains! I couldn’t see myself going to Italy even if someone invited me. What’s so great about Italy anyway?”

  “The Ylfingur Company doesn’t really concern itself with whatever’s great about Italy, Diljá my dear,” said the foster mother. “Ylfingur isn’t interested in anything but the market. And you should know that the pope can read. But as far as Jófí is concerned, she’s never more contented then when she’s out and about, and I couldn’t wish anything better for little Steinn than for him to leave Reykjavík, so that he can get away for a while from that gang of boys that’s always hanging around him because of his father’s money, not to mention those damned dreams of his of being a poet, which are sure to end up ruining him.”

  Although it was evening, the breeze could not be called cold; in fact it was wholesome and peaceful, and the girl regarded her foster mother, Valgerður Ylfingamóðir. 5 This woman was a superior power: she respected neither youth nor talent, misunderstood Steinn Elliði, and put no stock in poets. She was from an old plutocratic family and thought about things as if she were a bailiff from the days when regents governed Iceland. But tonight the girl was in no mood for submission, and she shook her index finger haughtily at her foster mother as she spoke.

  “No, Grandma, I really must inform you that Steinn Elliði doesn’t have friends just because of Grímúlfur’s money. Steinn has friends for completely different reasons than the fact that Ylfingur sells salt-fish. Because Steinn Elliði is far richer than his father, Grímúlfur, let me tell you, yes, even richer than the Ylfingur Company itself. You’ll see later, when Steinn becomes famous. Yes, just wait a few years, although you might smirk at the thought now. What did his lyceum teachers say? Didn’t they say something along these lines: that Steinn was the most incredibly gifted boy who’d graduated from there in years? Didn’t he graduate with honors in philosophy in the spring, eighteen years old? And what did the German professor say, the one Steinn traveled with up north last year? Weren’t these his exact words: that he’d never encountered such fiery talent in all of Germany? ‘Eine feurige Begabung,’ 6 that’s what he said to Örnólfur, Grandma! And what do his friends say, many of whom are both famous and cultured? They adore him and worship him, because he’s such a great poet, so inspired, so innovative, so astute–”

  The girl was so ardent that from her lips flew words one never sees except in Eimreiðin and Skírnir.7 She was clearly determined to convince her grandmother.

  But Valgerður Ylfingamóðir’s only reply was “Well now.” She glanced sharply at her foster daughter and smiled faintly at her simplistic enthusiasm for the words “innovative” and “astute,” but could not be bothered to make any further reply.

  As she peered down at her knitting her mind was drawn away from her grandson to her sons, those steady, tight-lipped men who had known better how to follow their own lead than even those Icelanders most renowned for innovation and astuteness. The control that they had over the management of the national household determined to a significant extent what might be called the order, the security, or the welfare of Icelandic national prosperity. She was the mother of kings.

  2.

  One of the Ylfingurs’ personal cars, a bulky brownish yellow vehicle, came driving quietly up to the veranda two minutes later, and the fragrance of the copse was blended with the stench of grease and gasoline.

  The director of the fishing company, Örnólfur, sat behind the wheel. He tipped his thin felt hat courteously toward Diljá and his mother, who had come down the veranda steps to smile at the new arrivals. Steinn Elliði was sitting next to Örnólfur and didn’t wait for the vehicle to stop, but instead threw open the car door and leaped out in order to be the first one to greet the women, extending one hand to his grandmother and one to Diljá. Grímúlfur pulled down the handle of the rear door with thin bluish fingers and helped his wife step out. They all kissed each other, except for Örnólfur, who circled the house in order to turn the car around, and then began checking it over like a true chauffeur before going inside.

  Steinn Elliði acted as spokesman for the new arrivals. “Well, old toughie!” he said to his grandmother. “It’s an old custom that those who go to sea receive the blessing of their matron, and you’ve hopefully remembered to cook some pancakes for us. Twenty-four hours from now we’ll have lost sight of land, heading south, Grandma, south, toward warmer regions. Imagine Leith, that great city on the other side of the sea, where the cargo cranes howl like the elements and giant Belgian hacks thrust out their tongues and snort in the coal dust!”

  And without giving a second thought as to whether his grandmother had heard him or not, he turned to Diljá and continued to speak in the same tone of cavalierish nonchalance:

  “Now then, Diljá! It hasn’t been more than, say, three or four days since I learned what the fates had up their sleeves. Father told us about it at the breakfast table two days before yesterday, almost as an afterthought, just as if it had nothing to do with anything. He said that I could actually decide for myself whether I stayed or went, and I thought about it for two days. Finally I came to the conclusion that I must go. Who else was going to read out loud for Mother from nonsensical theosophical essays and English half-crown novels written for ‘benevolent readers’ with crazy hair and bad teeth, wearing boots with lopsided heels and artsy bow ties? And who was going to lead the missus through the museums in Firenze and show her the masterpieces by Cranach and Michelangelo in the Galeria Pitti? Who, if not me? Isn’t the son born into this world to support and pamper his mother? Diljá, damn it, you should have said you’d come with us! And just look at you! Are you angry?”

  He grabbed her quickly by the shoulder and spun her around like a top; suddenly they were staring straight at each other. Usually they laughed at everything whenever they met, but this time no joy shone in her eyes. And this caught him off guard. Neither of them could manage a laugh. He took his cigarette case out of his trouser pocket and fingered it nimbly for a moment, then stuck it back in again.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said, and they went into the house.

  3.

  He was about eighteen years old, but full grown, big and strong, his body agile and svelte. His disposition revealed itself passionate at times, bearing witness to the intractable power of his soul. He was a stately man no matter how one looked at him: neither timidity nor bashfulness obscured his splendid deportment. His bearing, freewheeling and blustery, had effects similar to sunshine hues: the dashing youngster’s look captivated others like an apparition in the sweltering banality of everyday life. His forehead was particularly high, although not quite as wide, and oddly rounded on top. His hair was reddish blond, dense and firm. It was combed back and swept in long locks down the back of his
head: this splendid mane lent his face a magnificent and imposing quality. Nothing in his person was, however, as charming as his eyes; they had a deviant gleam; they were jewels; it was tempting to stare into their radiant azure; they were deep-set, and their beauty revealed itself best when he glanced upward; they were protected by long eyelashes. His eyebrows were thick and strong; sometimes he knitted them tightly into a ball and looked quickly upward, reminding one of the commander of an army. These eyes either radiated the wild joy of his multifaceted genius’ soul or reflected tranquil refulgence, as if his consciousness were raised in an instant over all visible things and shed light on a hidden world; he had been granted an extra personality that had its home on the other side of everyday life. If one looked, however, from his eyes to his mouth, one noticed something imbalanced in his features. The irregular shape of his mouth drew attention; his upper gums jutted out a little, and his two front teeth were always visible, except when he closed his lips; his mouth seemed fixed in a sneer. At a glance this sneer seemed only to lend a manly look of discontentedness to his face, bearing witness to the easily forgiven complacency of a youth who has the whole world at his feet. On closer inspection, one could read in this look a cold refusal to acquiesce: impudence, even shamelessness. And finally, this sneer could be taken as an outspoken witness to the fact that this man was forever prepared to oppose, to respond mercilessly, savagely. It was just as detrimental to stare too long at his smile as it was comforting to gaze at the psychic beauty of his eyes.

  His hands were small, with thick palms, his fingers short and slender at the tips, the backs of his hands and wrists covered with blond hair all the way up under the cuffs of his sleeves. He appeared to have come directly from a social gathering, clad in a dinner jacket, potato yellow socks and broad-heeled but slender-cut patent-leather shoes, a long muddy-gray overcoat covering the rest of his clothing, a bright hat upon his head. He held snow-white gloves in one hand.

  4.

  The old woman took one of her daughter-in-law’s hands in both of hers and listened compassionately to her despondent complaints about the pressing concerns of the last few days and various other afflictions. She had been struggling to decide on what she did not want to bring with her, to put things in order in trunks and cabinets, and finally to sort out her luggage: pack, pack. No one but God could imagine what a bother all of this had been. Three of the maids had been up to their ears in the work for four days. Finally, however, an end to it had come into sight, thank goodness. But who knows, maybe the girls had skimped on the packing material, and everything would be smashed and shattered to smithereens if the trunks were overturned!