Free The Great Weaver From Kashmir by Halldór Laxness Page A

sister Sigga swished up the sunflower and stuck it in her hair. And little brother grabbed up the dandelion and drank all of its milk and got such a terrible stomachache that Mama and Kitty both had to come looking for him out in the homefield. And Kitty went hunting sparrows all over the homefield.
The Crow in the Tower
A F AIRY T ALE FOR C HILDREN
    In a church tower in Spain is a terribly ugly crow. Once an evil robber with a black beard came and tried to do something that he wasn’t supposed to do. Then the crow came, sat down on his hat, and said:
    â€œFie, fie, evil robber, I’ll peck out your eyes if you don’t beat it back up the mountain where you live with all the other evil men.”
    The robber was frightened, because even though he was bad he didn’t want to be blind. And he went back to all the bad men on the mountain and said:
    â€œThere’s a terribly ugly crow in the tower.”
    And the poor ugly crow sang through its rusty windpipe all day, because it was so happy. And the poor ugly crow shall always have its home in the tower.
La pomme qui dort
A F OREIGN S TORY FOR C HILDREN
    On a tree between green leaves hangs a little apple. Its little cheeks are so red that it’s easy to see that it’s sleeping. Under the tree stands a little child, who calls out:
    â€œApple, apple, wake up! You’ve slept enough!”
    Thus begs the little child, but do you suppose the apple woke up? No, the apple didn’t even stir in its air nest between the green leaves.
    Just then the dear, blessed Sun was taking a walk in Heaven.
    â€œOh, listen to me, my dear Sun!” said the child. “Wake up the apple for me; it’s slept enough!”
    â€œWhy not?” answered the Sun, and he shed his rays on the face of the apple and embraced it kindly.
We Send Our Best Wishes
    It is incredibly beautiful up by the stream. And the little trout play in the sunshine, and they are colored so beautifully. And there’s a completely different sound in the brook up on the hill than down in the field. And should I tell you what the brook is saying in the sunshine as it runs down the hill? It’s saying:
    â€œI’m on my way down into the district to have a talk with the bailiff’s children. I’m going to talk to Steini and Little Tobba and LittleImba and tell them the news from the mountains. The elves wear blue jerkins and dance in the dells, and I think that an outlaw lives in the canyon.”
    My dear brook, give our best to Steini and Little Tobba and Little Imba!

20.
    Hotel Britannique, Naples. January 1922. I address these pages to you, dear Diljá, and send them to you. I’m writing to relieve some tension; time is going by too slowly. And I know that you understand me because you’ve turned eighteen years old, as I was when I married, and besides that you are an intelligent girl and keep yourself away from all the disgusting pruderie of a small town; oh, Heaven knows that I have suffered like a fish on dry land in that priggish atmosphere at home, where every woman drapes herself in poésie, lies, and sanctimony, and no one can speak except under the rose for fear that the scandalous stories might lose their sweet savor. Yes, I know that you, a woman who cannot be scandalized by anything between Heaven and Earth, can imagine what I had to put up with, living all those years in the sanctimonious and poetic joylessness of the world of the nineteenth-century woman.
    That does not mean that I am overjoyed to have traveled here to the south; no, nothing could be further from the truth. Because even though all the Pharisaism was crushing me and suffocating me at home, solitude is even worse, when all the things that one knowsare thousands of miles away and those whom one loves are gone. No, I’ve been dreadfully lonesome, and my health isn’t getting any better, always a cough, often blood, my heart either weak or crazed. And always this fear, just as