Tímarit Máls og menningar - 01.02.2004, Page 16

Halldór Killian Laxness
mertime, he is galloping through the village or having clandestine
appointments with the provincial looking daughter of the clergy-
man, reciting pathetically his poetry for her in the stable. Other
listeners: an old cow, a cat and the ponies, which get excited by the
recitation at the culminating points.
This summer the clergyman’s niece is staying with her uncle,
keeping his daughter company. The girls are frequent guests at Arn-
old’s hut, and these three make excursions in company. The girls are
both in love with him. Galloping through the crooked and untidy
streets of the village, they catch sight of a young prosperous-looking
gentleman walking on the street. He walks down to the pier where
the folks are working. Now the scene is repeated from the opening of
the story. Salka Valka and the unknown meet on the pier. She is
carelessly smoking her pipe. They measure each other’s trousers with
their eyes. Having passed each other, they both turn and measure
each other from top to toe. Then both follow their own course again
without any further intercourse. At the end of the pier she meets
Arnold, and his two girl friends, where they are stopping. The two
girls look at Salka Valka from horseback, with a mixture of curiosity
and contempt. They make grimaces at her as she passes by. When she
is a few yards fforn the triple, she stops, turns, and looks at them.
Arnold takes part in the mockery, laughing and sneering at her too.
She has the same feelings as the little ragged stray girl used to
have long ago.
The same evening.
Salka Valka alone in her hut. A mixture of torturing passions: jea-
lousy, anger, despair. Above all, her feeling of inferiority. From an
old case, she takes out some objects, which she languidly places in
front of her. Chagrin tendre. The objects are the old toys given to
her by Arnold when they were children. She unbuttons her mascu-
line dress and unfastens from her neck a necklace she has always
kept hidden on her bosom - the old necklace with Arnold’s pic-
ture. She picks up one of the objects after another and puts them
on the fire. Finally the necklace alone is left, but when she is on the
point of throwing it the same way, she starts weeping convulsively.
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TMM 2004 • 1