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Authors: Halldór Laxness
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And you fed them from the palms of your hands.
âThose damned cats were nothing but trouble,â you said. âTheyâve been set free. I had a fellow from the countryside get me these finches. Thereâre seven of them. Theyâre picky about their food and impatient, just like me. They long to be out in the open air just like me. But theyâre not any worse for wear by being exposed to human life.â
Steinn, where were your little birds the next time I came to visit you? Why didnât you invite me to come and have a look in the basement? Why did you ignore it when I asked about your pets? Youâd decided to become a musical virtuoso. Up until then youâd been too lazy to practice. Now you practiced from morning till night, said your mother, and took a lesson every day. No one said anything about your birds.
It wasnât until the fall that I found out everything. Sigga P. and I were out taking a walk at the southern end of Tjörnin 12 in the moonlight. We walked back and forth over the bridge ten times or more. She heard the story from her motherâs maid, who had heard it from your maid:
âHe said that he was completely bored with pampering the creatures. The cats continued to roam around the house, skinny and starving and an embarrassment to the household. And sometimes three or four days in a row would pass when he wouldnât bother to feed the birds, but instead wandered around God knows where with the key to the room in his pocket. And those poor little things cheeped all day from hunger and thirst, and no one could get in togive them something to eat. And one night when he came home the housekeeper started scolding him for how he treated the poor creatures. And what did Steinn Elliði do? He went and rounded up all of his cats and took them to the basement. He didnât come up to go to bed until after midnight. Next morning the bird room was open, and there were bird feathers scattered all over the floor, along with half-eaten bones. Heâd been amusing himself the night before by letting the cats hunt, thought the housekeeper. But what had become of the cats? That wasnât discovered until a week later when they went to do the laundry. In the laundry room was a tub full of water, and down in the water was a sack full of something, with the head of a sledgehammer tied to it. After he had finished amusing himself watching the cats hunt he stuck them all in the same bag and sank it. Then he went to bed. And after that he decided to become a musical virtuoso.â
You probably think that because of this I started thinking: Steinn Elliði is a scoundrel whom I donât want to know anymore! No, Steinn, nothing is further from the truth. In my heart I pitied those blessed birds and those poor cats, but nothing was further from my mind than to blame you. I just saw you in a new light, mightier than before, savage, horrible, and at the same time raised above everything that has the name of good and right, the laws that others obey. I saw you as mysterious, incomprehensible, and limitless. No one but Grettir Ãsmundarson 13 or Steinn Elliði could have come up with that. I thought the same thing on our last night at Ãingvellir when you told me everything . . .
When I see you walking down the street, itâs like seeing a phantom;when you recite your poems, your voice gushing with passion, or even if you do nothing but lift your head and look at me, itâs like lightning â I get frightened and know only this: youâre from a world that nobodies like me canât measure.
When I do something bad itâs because Iâm imperfect and lack the strength to do whatâs good. And when I do something good itâs because I lack the nerve to do something bad. But even your sins are enchanting, like in a myth. Even over your sins there burns an awful beauty, like cairn-fire.
18.
You often told me, Steinn, that I was the only soul in the
âThose damned cats were nothing but trouble,â you said. âTheyâve been set free. I had a fellow from the countryside get me these finches. Thereâre seven of them. Theyâre picky about their food and impatient, just like me. They long to be out in the open air just like me. But theyâre not any worse for wear by being exposed to human life.â
Steinn, where were your little birds the next time I came to visit you? Why didnât you invite me to come and have a look in the basement? Why did you ignore it when I asked about your pets? Youâd decided to become a musical virtuoso. Up until then youâd been too lazy to practice. Now you practiced from morning till night, said your mother, and took a lesson every day. No one said anything about your birds.
It wasnât until the fall that I found out everything. Sigga P. and I were out taking a walk at the southern end of Tjörnin 12 in the moonlight. We walked back and forth over the bridge ten times or more. She heard the story from her motherâs maid, who had heard it from your maid:
âHe said that he was completely bored with pampering the creatures. The cats continued to roam around the house, skinny and starving and an embarrassment to the household. And sometimes three or four days in a row would pass when he wouldnât bother to feed the birds, but instead wandered around God knows where with the key to the room in his pocket. And those poor little things cheeped all day from hunger and thirst, and no one could get in togive them something to eat. And one night when he came home the housekeeper started scolding him for how he treated the poor creatures. And what did Steinn Elliði do? He went and rounded up all of his cats and took them to the basement. He didnât come up to go to bed until after midnight. Next morning the bird room was open, and there were bird feathers scattered all over the floor, along with half-eaten bones. Heâd been amusing himself the night before by letting the cats hunt, thought the housekeeper. But what had become of the cats? That wasnât discovered until a week later when they went to do the laundry. In the laundry room was a tub full of water, and down in the water was a sack full of something, with the head of a sledgehammer tied to it. After he had finished amusing himself watching the cats hunt he stuck them all in the same bag and sank it. Then he went to bed. And after that he decided to become a musical virtuoso.â
You probably think that because of this I started thinking: Steinn Elliði is a scoundrel whom I donât want to know anymore! No, Steinn, nothing is further from the truth. In my heart I pitied those blessed birds and those poor cats, but nothing was further from my mind than to blame you. I just saw you in a new light, mightier than before, savage, horrible, and at the same time raised above everything that has the name of good and right, the laws that others obey. I saw you as mysterious, incomprehensible, and limitless. No one but Grettir Ãsmundarson 13 or Steinn Elliði could have come up with that. I thought the same thing on our last night at Ãingvellir when you told me everything . . .
When I see you walking down the street, itâs like seeing a phantom;when you recite your poems, your voice gushing with passion, or even if you do nothing but lift your head and look at me, itâs like lightning â I get frightened and know only this: youâre from a world that nobodies like me canât measure.
When I do something bad itâs because Iâm imperfect and lack the strength to do whatâs good. And when I do something good itâs because I lack the nerve to do something bad. But even your sins are enchanting, like in a myth. Even over your sins there burns an awful beauty, like cairn-fire.
18.
You often told me, Steinn, that I was the only soul in the
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