Paradise Reclaimed by Halldor Laxness

Next day the sea got rougher and the girl asked herself whether she liked the motion or whether she was beginning to feel cold at the temples. But anyway, if one thing were certain, it was that she had completely recovered from that foolishness with complete strangers the night before. Or was emotion just as incomprehensible to her in the morning as it was natural at night? And then without any warning she saw them come bearing down on her from a distance along the deck. Many a girl has asked herself whether it would not be just an act of courtesy and becoming modesty to look away and show no recognition. Finally they were all three at her side, fully refreshed by their sleep. They greeted her with the words that constituted the spiritual connection between them-"One minute"-and surrounded her. Before she knew it, she was once again standing beside the bright-haired goldminer. The other two at once started to perform for the girl to make up for the language deficiency, such as turning somersaults and playing leapfrog, and Blue-Hands tried to trip up the one with the hare-lip, who thereupon dropped down on all fours and bounded about the deck roaring like a wild animal. But the goldminer did not have to do anything, because he had the lump of gold in his pocket. When his rivals had started to stand on their heads and walk on their hands for the girl, he just stood there beside her without a word and put his arm around her waist.

It had become the custom for her to go to see old Þjóðrekur in the morning, after breakfast, and take charge of her son for the rest of the day while she looked after her mother. It had truly been a happy day that dawned in her life, now that she was a fully-grown woman, when she had got to know this little boy whom she had not understood when he was born. And when she got to know him, she felt sorry that she had missed all his first attempts to talk; and she also regretted the tears that she had not been allowed to dry for him. But on this Atlantic morning with storm in the offing and a long slow swell, her new-found friend, the one who wore a frock-coat, had all at once slipped her mind completely. She did not come to until Bishop Þjóðrekur was standing beside her in his topboots and hat, with the boy in his arms. He asked who these nincompoops were who were standing on their heads nearby, but she could give him no answer.