Under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen ceiling, mother, as if nothing’s happened.
    The widow started to prepare her soap-water in a tub at the kitchen door, and went on talking from out of the tub: Do you make anything by tramping round the country for bishops, young man?
    Embi: Not a great deal, no, madam.
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen: What are these bishops really for, when they don’t make anything by it? And these professors? It said in the Vísir newspaper the other day that washerwomen make much more than bishops and professors.
    Embi: That’s probably not far off the mark.
    Tumi Jónsen: Yes, it’s no joke.
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen: Obviously it’s for no other reason than that they get neither hourly rates nor overtime. Get up on this chair, mother, and clear the shelves while I’m preparing the soap-water. Yes, just imagine it: the Angler’s back! Who knows, we might get the fishing lodge to do at hourly rates tonight!
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen was still bending over her tub mixing the soap-water at the open door. If your emissary had not been a guest in the house he would have closed the door between kitchen and living room, since he had no desire to gaze too long at the woman’s rump and thighs as she bent over double. He got to his feet and said thank you for the welcome and made ready to take his leave. In confidence to the parish clerk: As you can see, sir, I am rather inexperienced. I don’t fathom much of all this, to be honest. Perhaps I could see you again when I’ve had a word with pastor Jón, if not tomorrow then the day after. But there was one little question on the tip of my tongue just now, perhaps two . . .
    Tumi Jónsen: Go ahead, my boy, ask anything you like. There is no harm in asking questions. But many would say you could not find a more useless respondent at Glacier than Tumi Jónsen.
    Embi: First question—is there any truth in the story that a mysterious casket was taken onto the glacier a few years ago?
    The parish clerk scratched himself under the collar with a finger: Fína, dear, have you heard anything about that?
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen: Heard about what?
    Parish clerk: That something was taken onto the glacier?
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen: How should I know? The nonsense one hears!
    Housewife, also from the kitchen: Has pastor Jón had anything to say about it?
    Parish clerk: It depends on what the bishop thinks.
    Embi: In your letter to the bishop there is a reference to “queer traffic with some unspecified casket on the glacier,” without any explanation.
    Parish clerk: I could not restrain myself from mentioning it in the letter as unbecoming gossip.
    Embi: Before I talk to pastor Jón I would rather have something more to go on than gossip. By the way, what is gossip? Is gossip timely or untimely talk about events that have verifiably taken place? Or is it an out-and-out lie?
    Housewife, mumbling in the kitchen in a rather slow, deep drawl, always on the same note: Could it not be either and both? On the other hand, as the old people used to say, truth should often be left alone. The wild horses and the snow buntings should know best the kind of man pastor Jón is; indeed, these creatures follow him around in droves. Even the ravens join company with him if they see him out in the open; and that I like less, because they have been seen to do wicked things, ravens.
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen, up on the kitchen bench with her floral dress hitched up, having started to scrub the ceiling: I could well believe there are gold coins in that casket. Let’s just hope it isn’t a woman.
    Embi: Is it possible that anyone here knows the name and address of anyone who knows the facts of the matter?
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen: You could try asking Jódínus. That devil must have got his hoard of gold from somewhere or other.
    Embi: Jódínus? Whose son is he, and where does he live?
    Mrs. Fína Jónsen: Jódínus Álfberg, whose son is he? It’s never occurred to me that he had any particular father. He’s just a twelve-tonner darling. And a poet. As