The Great Weaver From Kashmir by Halldór Laxness Read Free Book Online Page B

Forgive me for being such a child! Forgive me for being so paltry compared to you.
    I waited here impatiently for every ship that came, all the summer and all the fall, as if I expected that they would bring me greetings from Steinn. But those huge strong ships that come all the way from the continent never bother to bring me greetings. They rush into the bay like mighty whales and blow their horns in the harbor so loudly that the mountains shake. But I sit fearfully by my window.
    Couldn’t I just as well have assumed that Steinn would forget, forget, and never again remember what once was? Shouldn’t I have known you well enough to know that every past event in your life is like a hundred-year-old old wives’ tale to you? No one was more eager to forget! Your life happens in leaps and bounds. And you never stop anywhere except on mountaintops where the winds of the sky come to meet you. On every peak four winds blow around you. How could you possibly recall what once was?

12.
    Steinn!
    Have no fear that I’ll ever send you this letter. Never. Just forget, forget, forget! Blessed are those who forget! Never shall a letter from an idiotic girl near the North Pole disturb your peace there in the south. Think in peace about everything great and holy! Think inpeace about God, the great God! I congratulate you on your great God who shines like phosphorescence from the visage of things. I hope that you write a beautiful poem about him, much more beautiful than the one you wrote about me. He rewards you much better than I do. Of course he promises you that you’ll reach Heaven. And all that I am is one of his creatures, just a little girl. Forgive me for that.
    No, Steinn, I’m not writing because I think that you or anyone else should read this. In any case you wouldn’t grant my letters such respect as to read them. God wouldn’t allow you to read them. He would call down fire and brimstone over them. There’s no glory shining from them. They’re nothing but the sleepless blabber of a young girl. I write because I feel so bad. I’m so bored. I’m young, weak, scared, and alone. No one understands me. I feel like a little human child raised by trolls, and one of these days the trolls will come and eat me. At night before I go to bed I look at myself in the mirror. And then I pray to God to help me, because I’m afraid. What am I? At night I don’t sleep. I cry.
    Everything is dark and meaningless around me. Tell me, Steinn: is anything worthy of a single daydream? Will you never return?
    It isn’t any fun anymore for me to meet my girlfriends. It’s like they’ve taken sides with the trolls. No one understands me or knows me but you. You made me what I am. I was the clay between your hands. I wanted to be everything and do everything that you wanted. If I never see you again, I’ll never get over having sat with you by the sea. And when I think about all of this I find it simply disgusting to be a girl. Steinn, forgive me. Should I become a nun? Or shouldI become an actress? Or should I become a dancer? Steinn, I’m nimble and quick. Last evening after my bath I would have dared to let you see me dance.
    Sometimes I feel like it’s nothing but an illusion that I exist. When have I ever had any inkling of whatever it is that’s called reality? Remember when you taught me the poem about “the painted veil, that those who live call life”? 11 What is reality? Sometimes I feel like death is the only reality, and the rest an illusion! My mother died giving birth to me. Isn’t it horrible that I should have been born to kill my mother? Why wasn’t I allowed to die, and my mother to live? I never asked to be born, and my mother was happy. I’m always full of fear and despair, but there’s nothing wrong! I woke up one Sunday last summer at Þingvellir and saw that my life, sixteen-and-a-half years, had been nothing but a dream. I