The Great Weaver From Kashmir (47 page)

Once again dawn breaks over the tribulations of mankind. Once again the dim blue morning sky proclaims the victory of day over night, and the ghosts thrust themselves head down into their graves.
At the time when the March sun starts to redden the tallest towers, the woman wanders among massive columns set in four rows in a semicircle around a paved square. She stands beneath the columns, which in ancient drama mark the stage of tragedy, and looks out over the square, which in ancient drama marks the stage of comedy. The square is deserted and empty, because the actors are not yet awake; they still have a long time to sleep. In the background towers a great church, Saint Peter's Basilica, the terror-laden monument to God's Christians.

How he is holy and terrible in his Church, this God! His Church is even more powerful than the laws of nature and calls to itself the souls of men from east and west, north and south, calls them from all directions to rise against the nature of the created and lift themselves from the dust to eternal life. Jesus Christ is a comical tyrant: his enemies crucified him, and he crucifies his friends in turn. The Church is the kingdom of the crucified. What power did the love of a wretched created woman have against the holy Church of Jesus Christ, which is more powerful than all of creation?

She sat down on the steps of the colonnade to the left of the main doorway, leaned her back against a column, and looked wearily at the facade of San Pietro; she was staring straight into the face of Catholicism. And there, written in huge letters, stand these words:
TU ES PETRUS: ET SUPER HANC PETRAM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM
. Which means: “You are Steinn, and upon this Steinn I will build my Church.”
¹⁴⁰
The yearning of the imperfect for perfection is the earthly foundation of the Lord's Church.

The first trams clatter in nearby streets. A car rushes madly around a corner. Farmers drive horse-drawn wagons loaded with vegetables
to market. And the bells begin to ring; the Catholic world wakens. The first clapper strokes are weak and mild, and in the intervals the air is filled with gentle resounding. But the chiming gradually gains strength until it sounds like a deafening crash of surf. Presently the bells stop ringing; everything quiets down and the sounds of the bells dwindle into the distance in calm, harmonious echoes.

Two maidens of Christ who have set out early on a trip to market appear between the columns with their baskets, just as the echoes of the bells begin to dwindle away. They stop here to recite the Angelus face-to-face with San Pietro, cross themselves hurriedly, and begin now to mutter these divine mysteries of the Holy Spirit and the maiden Mary:

Their voices as one ring out their string of rhymes with the word “Amen!” which means: Yes, yes, let it be. Finally they cross themselves quickly, hitch up their skirts a bit, and then waddle out through the Porta Angelica, bearing their baskets.

Taormina, summer 1925

Pronunciation of Icelandic Letters

The modern Icelandic alphabet consists of thirty-two letters, many of which do not appear in modern English; however, the sounds that these specifically Icelandic letters make all have near-equivalents in English:

ð, known as “eth” or “crossed d,” is pronounced like the (voiced)
th
in
mother
þ, known as “thorn,” is pronounced like the (unvoiced)
th
in
thin
æ is pronounced like the
i
in
time
á is pronounced like the
ow
in
town
é is pronounced like the
ye
in
yes
í is pronounced like the
ee
in
green
ó is pronounced like the
o
in
tote
ö is pronounced like the
u
in
but
ú is pronounced like the
oo
in
loon
ý is pronounced like the
ee
in
green

au has no English equivalent; it can be approximated by an exaggerated slurring of the
oay
sound in
sway
. Perhaps closer is the
œ
sound in the French
œil

ei and ey are pronounced like the
ay
in
fray

1
The quotation is from the third book of Dante Alighieri's (1265–1321)
The
Divine Comedy, Paradise
, and is spoken by Dante's ancestor Cacciaguida (giving Dante advice on how to act after he is exiled from Florence, in response to Dante's suggestion of prudence): “But none the less, put every lie aside,/and make thy vision clearly manifested,/letting them scratch who have an itching hide;/For, though thy word be grevious, barely tasted,/it will at length become a vital food/nutritious, so it be but well digested” (trans. Melville B. Anderson,
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Vol. III, The Paradiso
(London: Oxford University Press, 1921), p. 173; this is the edition of Dante that Halldór Laxness had at his home at Gljúfrasteinn).

2
Þingvellir: The site of the Alþingi, the general assembly that was held for two weeks in June throughout most of Iceland's history (it was held for the last time at Þingvellir in 1798; after being held in Reykjavík in 1799 and 1800 it was abandoned, until it was reconvened in Reykjavík starting in 1845). At the Alþingi lawsuits were settled and laws enacted beneath the cliffs of Almannagjá, a dramatic ravine formed by the separation of tectonic plates. Súlur (or Botnssúlur) and Skjaldbreiður are the names of two mountains that can be seen from Þingvellir. Esja is the name of a mountain close to Reykjavík (to the west of Þingvellir).

3
Ylfingabúð is the name of the summer house of the “Ylfingurs,” that is, the brothers Grímúlfur and Örnúlfur Elliðason. (The word “ylfingur” is a diminutive form of the word “úlfur,” “wolf,” the second element in both brothers' names. Ylfingabúð means, literally, “the booth of the Ylfingurs”). Many Icelanders have summer homes and cottages in the area around Þingvellir and Þingvallavatn (“Þingvellir Lake,” a huge lake just south of Þingvellir).

4
Morgunblaðið:
the name of Iceland's main daily newspaper (literally, the “Morning Paper”), founded in 1913.

5
Ylfingamóðir: the mother of the Ylfingurs.

6
Eine feurige Begabung (German): A flashing talent.

7
Eimreiðin:
an Icelandic journal founded by Valtýr Guðmundsson, published in Copenhagen, 1895–1918, and in Reykjavík, 1918–75. The journal published stories, poems, and scholarly articles about literature, but during its final years it focused primarily on politics and government.
Skírnir:
an Icelandic journal, published yearly since 1827 by Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag (The Icelandic Literature Society) in Copenhagen, and from 1890 in Reykjavík. The journal was originally concerned with news and culture in general, but after combining with the
Journal of the Icelandic Literature Society
(
Tímarit Hins íslenzka bókmenntafélags
) in 1904, it has published articles on Icelandic literature, as well as, in recent years, philosophy and other scholarly topics.

8
Karl Finnbogason (1875–1952) was an Icelandic teacher, school principal, and member of parliament. His book
Landafræði handa börnum og unglingum
(
Geography for Children and Teenagers
) was first published in 1907 and reprinted numerous times.

9
Marriage is an ignominious capitulation . . . : This quotation, from George Bernard Shaw's (1856–1950)
Man and Superman
(1902), is given in English in the Icelandic text of
The Great Weaver.

10
Væringjar: A scouting organization run by the Icelandic branch of the YMCA.

11
Painted veil: a reference to a sonnet by the English Romantic Poet Percy
Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), starting with the lines, “Lift not the painted veil which those who live / call life . . .”

12
Tjörnin: “The Pond,” the name of the large pond in central (downtown) Reykjavík.

13
Grettir Ásmundarson: The eponymous hero of
Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar
, one of the medieval Icelandic sagas. Grettir was a poet and an outlaw, and was finally killed by his enemies on the island of Drangey in the north of Iceland.

14
Drápa: A variety of Icelandic skaldic verse, consisting of a series of stanzas (in general, at least twenty) broken by one or more refrains at regular intervals.

15
Lazzaroni (Italian): Beggars.

16
Gotaterri (Italian): Incessant pleading, begging.

17
Vedi Napoli e poi muori (Italian): An Italian proverb: Behold Naples and then (you can) die.

18
Tendresse sans passion (French): Affection without passion.

19
La meta profetata fuori del mondo (Italian): The promised boundary beyond the world.

20
Pricked by a sleep-thorn: A metaphor for “drugged,” referring to a magical technique used by sorcerers and others in Icelandic sagas and legends. Pricking one with a sleep-thorn in the ear or hair caused that person to fall into a deep sleep.

21
H/f Ylfingur: H/f is an abbreviation for “hlutafélag,” or joint-stock company.

22
Einar Jónsson (1873–1954) was an Icelandic sculptor. He bequeathed the Icelandic people his works, and they are now displayed at the Einar Jónsson Museum of Art in Reykjavík.

23
Jón Sigurðsson (1811–1879), an Icelandic literary scholar and politician, was the leading advocate for Iceland in its struggle for independence from Denmark (Iceland was granted free trade in 1854, domestic autonomy in 1874, home rule in 1904, and sovereignty under the Danish Crown in 1918. On June 17, 1944 Iceland became an independent republic, and
Independence Day is celebrated annually in Iceland on this day, the anniversary of Jón Sigurðsson's birthday).

24
Jeg kaldte dig mit . . . (Norwegian): “I called you my messenger of joy / I called you my star.” Lines from the poem “Stambogsrim,” written by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) and put into a musical setting (
Stambogsrim. Op. 25, no. 3
) by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843–1907).

25
Leise flehen . . . (German): “Quietly my songs beckon through the night to you,” the first line of the poem “Serenade,” by the German poet Ludwig Rellstab (1799–1860), set to music by Schubert (“Ständchen,” D. 957 no. 4 (1828), from
Schwanengesang
, no. 4).

26
Heinrich Heine's (1797–1856)
Doppelgänger
reads as follows in the original German:

27
Ô, doux printemps . . . (French): “O sweet springtimes of seasons passed, you have fled forever.” These lines are from Jules Massenet's
Élégie,
published in 1869, and originally written by the French librettist Louis Gallet (1835–1898).

28
Eviva la bandiera rossa (Italian): Long live the red flag.

29
Moine bénédictin (French): Benedictine monk.

30
Johohoe . . . (German): From
Der Fliegende Holländer
(
The Flying Dutchman
), an opera by the German composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883), first performed in Dresden in 1843. (“Yohoho! Yohoho! Hoyohe! Have you seen the ship upon the ocean/blood-red the sails, black the masts?/On her bridge a pale man,/the ship's captain, watches without rest./Hui! How the wind howls! Yohohe!/Hui! How it whistles in the rigging! Yohohe!/Hui! Like an arrow it flies on,/without aim, without end, without rest!”)

31
Panem et circenses (Latin): Bread and circuses.

32
Psalm 143:4.

33
Greif hinein . . . (German): Grab all you can of human life. From Goethe's
Faust
.

34
Deadly mistletoe: An allusion to the killing of the Norse god Baldur with a missile fashioned of mistletoe, an event that heralded Ragnarök and the destruction of the gods.

35
Garçonnes (French): Tomboys; boyish girls.

36
Jóhann Sigurjónsson,
Fjalla-Eyvindur
: Jóhann Sigurjónsson (1880–1919) was an Icelandic writer who lived most of his life in Denmark and wrote mainly in Danish. His works display a great Neoromantic spirit, and he became famous for his play
Fjalla-Eyvindur
, but he is now highly regarded as both a dramatist and a poet.

37
The character is from Marcel Proust's (1877–1922) masterwork,
Á la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past),
published 1913–1927.

38
He weaves . . .: Cited from the chorus of “Atalanta in Calydon” by the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909).