The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Qupperneq 39

SPRING/SUMMER 1995
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
149
have settled here in Minnesota and also in
Canada. Recently I let it be known that I
wanted to be told if an Icelander was trav-
elling in this neighborhood. And now this
has gone according to my wishes. I am go-
ing to ask you to translate into English a
letter in my keeping. The letter was writ-
ten by an Icelander a few days before he
died and it was addressed to his sister who
was in Iceland when the letter was written.
I myself do not have the slightest idea about
its contents, but if there is anything in the
letter that should be kept secret, I will ask
that you do not mention it to anyone but
will try with all your might to help me ac-
complish, as quickly as possible, whatever
is requested by the deceased.” “Whatever
you ask, reverend father,” I said, “I will do
exactly as you wish. I am grateful for the
trust you have placed in me, a stranger. Is
it long since this Icelander died?” “It is now
fourteen years ago,” said the abbot, look-
ing directly at me. “His name was Berg. He
wrote the letter a few days before he died
here in the abbey. He gave it to one of the
brothers, named Bernard. The letter was
in Bernard’s care all the years until last
spring, the twentieth of May, the day
Bernard died. It was found in his cell, along
with a statement he had written himself a
short time before and which was to accom-
pany the letter. I never saw the Icelander
myself because I did not come here until
ten years after he died.” “Is Bernard’s state-
ment in English?” I asked. “No,” said the
abbot, “it is in French but I have translated
it into English myself and it would be best
if you read it before you read the Iceland-
er’s letter so that you can better orient your-
self to various details which are in it.” The
abbot handed me the English translation
of the monk’s statement and I read it very
carefully before I read the Icelandic letter.
Sometime later, I translated the monk’s
narrative into Icelandic and I will now read
it for you. But the contents of the Icelan-
dic letter I cannot, by any means, show you
right now, for it is not in my hands. It is in
a special place far away south in Minne-
sota.”
And Mr. Island opened the little note-
book which he had taken out of his pocket
and read for my cousin and myself, slowly
and distinctly, the Icelandic translation of
the monk’s statement.
Part III, Chapter Three
The Narrative of Bernard the Monk
The night before Ambrosius’ Mass (April
4th) in 1870, a mortally ill man by the name
of H.A. Berg was brought to the abbey and
was said to be a shipwrecked Icelander. Two
young men had brought him by dog sled
all the way from Fort Garry in Canada. One
of them was J. Godson, an English-speak-
ing man, and the other Louis Villon, of
French descent. They had endured ex-
tremely bad weather and hard sledding on
their way from the north and were nearer
death than life when they reached the ab-
bey. At first the plan was to go all the way
to St. Paul, but because the sick man was
getting worse as time passed, there was no
possibility of continuing on with him if such
bad weather and impassable conditions
continued. As soon as he arrived at the
abbey, he was laid in a good, soft bed in
the hospital and looked after as well as
possible. Brother Jean gave him medicine
which lessened his pain, but he quickly re-
alized that the man was suffering from an
incurable disease and had only a few days
to live. It was my lot to attend the patient
most of the day and I did it willingly, to the
best of my strength, and I need make no
apologies about it.
Mr. H.A. Berg was fifty-nine years old,
or thereabouts, because he was born, as he
said himself, on the seventeenth of March
in 1811. He was about six feet tall with a
stout body and powerful shoulders. Per-
haps he looked stouter because he was
puffy due to water retention and he was
badly swollen about the legs. Exhaustion
showed in his face. His hair was blonde with