Free World Light by Halldór Laxness Page B

of thing,” she said, and pondered again for a long time. “Where do you feel it?”
    “In my whole body,” he said, “but especially in the head, chest, back, and belly. You can safely say that I’m not too bad in the arms and legs. But you’d better say that the worst pains are in the head, and that it’s as if something in my head were broken.”
    “How do you think I can write when you speak so quickly? And if you’re going to suggest that someone in our house, where everyone’s so good to you, has broken your skull, then I might as well tell you that it’s no part of our job to write out a description of that kind.”
    “No, I had no intention of doing that, Magnína. How can you believe anything so wicked of me? Here in this house where everyone’s so good to me! I just meant that my head feels as if my brain had begun to grow out into one ear. But if you don’t want any mention of the head, we can just take the chest and those parts.”
    “I could always mention the head, I suppose,” she said drily, “but I don’t want to make all that much of it. I can say that the brain has started to grow out into the ear at one place, because that’s like anything else which comes from inside and therefore can’t give rise to any misunderstanding. But even so I think it would be best for all concerned if we confine ourselves to the chest.”
    “Yes, you can feel for yourself how my breastbone is sticking out,” he said.
    She felt his chest and noticed at once that the breastbone was sticking out a lot.
    “In fact it feels as if there must be a cyst under the breastbone,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if everything there has congealed into a malignant tumor—cyst, liver, lungs, and pericardium. At any rate the cyst’s in a dreadful place. But as far as the lungs themselves are concerned, it’s no exaggeration to say that one can hear the rattling of the tubercles from far away.”
    When the chest ailments had been recorded as accurately as possible, it was the turn of the belly complaints; that was another long and complicated story.
    The preparation of the whole catalogue took the best part of the day; then it was sent to the doctor at Sviðinsvík at the first opportunity, with a request to send medicine as soon as possible.
    The doctor at Sviðinsvík sent back word that for illnesses of this kind there were no effective medicines in the accepted sense of the word. He said that to cure illnesses of this kind there was nothing for it but to consume a whole pharmacopoeia costing up to two thousand krónur—and who could afford that in these difficult times? The doctor said he had never heard of anyone, man or woman, as ill as this boy was. If he had to give his honest opinion, he reckoned there was no hope for him at all; more than anything else, he would like to do an autopsy on him, he said.

8
    That winter, when Ólafur Kárason had become bedridden for good and the parish was paying maintenance for him, they started looking around for an extra hand to see to the barn and carry water and tend the sheep on the foreshore. So one day at the end of October an old pauper was brought to the farm; he, too, was alone in the world, and his name was Jósep. He had red-rimmed eyes and a thin nose, with a white beard rimming his chin and white hair that covered his ears; his clothes were made of canvas, and they shone like a mirror, particularly at the knees and elbows. He had also some personal possessions which he carried in a kerchief; they made a small, flat bundle. He put this bundle on his knee when he sat down, and he trembled a little. He had greeted everyone, but contrary to custom no one had asked him what the news was. He was given some pickled tripe in a bowl, and he put his package under his thigh while he ate. His hands shook all the time.
    Had he no luggage?
    “I’m wearing two pairs of socks,” he said apologetically.
    Did he not have an overcoat?
    “Oh, I don’t really need an