Read Online The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness - Free Book Online Page B

itself, nor any illuminationother than the light of a dauntless heart, could conquer. Even though he was as purblind as one could reasonably expect of anyone, he invariably polished up the gilt buttons of his finery himself; and if these buttons were not genuine gold, then I have never seen it. By the time others were coming downstairs on New Year’s morning, the Captain was sitting on the edge of his bed resplendent in his blue naval uniform with the gilt buttons, and waiting. The peak of his cap gleamed like a mirror. He would scarcely believe it when he was told that the grey of dawn was not yet showing at the window, and he asked his young attendant to stay beside him and tell him honestly whenever it was light enough for someone with sight to find his way into town.
    When I was six, and indeed for some time afterwards, I was, like the eminent Candide, quite certain that the world we live in is best at home, and I therefore had no enthusiasm for anything beyond the turnstile-gate at Brekkukot; and as is common among primitive people, higher civilization was hardly likely to impress me.
    “Well, well, may God give you all a good day and a blessed and prosperous New Year,” said Captain Hogensen to the maid at the Minister’s house when we went inside. “The Royal Naval Officer Jón Hogensen is here to pay his respects to the Minister.”
    The maid indicated a certain place in the vestibule where we could stand, but said that the public rooms were still being cleaned after the party the previous night and that the government officials were expected to present themselves just before noon, “but I can always try, I suppose, to tell the Minister that you are here, my dear.”
    When we had been waiting for a while in the vestibule, rather solemnly and in absolute silence, a man in shirt-sleeves and a fork-beard suddenly arrived, with his braces dangling behind him like twin tails. He was smoking a cigar.
    “Well, well,” he said, “a very good day to you, Hogensen, old chap, and welcome, we had better say, even though there is no more time to spare for the navy than usual. But we must look into it, as it were. May I offer you a cigar to puff?”
    Captain Hogensen clicked his heels and turned towards the Minister with a salute:
    “I wish the King of Denmark and you, his servant, good health and blessings in the New Year, at the same time as I express to you and His Majesty my wish and hope for improved political conditions for us Icelanders on land and sea in this coming year. And may I at the same time present to you this upright and gifted young lad who stands by my side, Álfgrímur Álfgrímsson, foster-son of that honourable and intelligent gentleman, Björn of Brekkukot.”
    “Quite so, my friend,” said the King’s Minister and came forward and offered us a finger; he even took me lightly by the nape of the neck and drew me across the floor to a double door which he half-opened, and showed me into an exceptionally beautiful room in which house-maids were at work; and then he pointed out to me on one wall a huge portrait which hung beside the portrait of King Kristian, and said to me, “Young man, do you know who that is?”
    And my goodness, if it wasn’t the portrait of that strange person with the Roman nose and the upturned face! And once again I asked myself, but this time at the door of the King’s Minister’s drawing-room: Did this man exist, or was he merely a picture? Or were we who lived at either end of the churchyard perhaps descended from angels when all was said and done? I was dumbfounded!
    “That’s the boy from Hríngjarabær,” said the Minister. “He has carried Iceland’s fame far and wide across the sea. You come from Brekkukot: so give a good account of yourself!”
    It seemed to me that the Minister’s face lit up at this, but Captain Hogensen, on the other hand, continued on his course with that single-mindedness which the blind have:
    “And now,” said Captain Hogensen,