Salka Valka by Halldor Laxness

26

At one time, Jóhann Bogesen wrote people's names in the columns of his ledgers, and thereby kept the old and the young of an entire village alive for no more and no less than forty years straight. But what matters most is what people write in the columns of their ledgers in positions higher than Jóhann Bogesen. And now a time had dawned when both debts and assets were canceled by the authorities, and the National Bank was declared bankrupt. The newly elected Alà 3/4 ingi, which convened in the last few days in August, voted by a majority against the bank's request to grant it a state guarantee of thirty-five million krónur to cover its losses. For Óseyri, the result was that the king appointed a man to investigate the bankrupt estate of Jóhann Bogesen and others whom his Company had kept afloat; everything, small and large, was inventoried and sold at a forced auction- with the exception of the white house and its beautiful furnishings, both of which, it turned out, had belonged to Madam Bogesen before her husband became insolvent. In late summer, Steinà 3/4 ór Steinsson bought this house with everything in it. The adventurer knew how to play his cards right; he entered the fishing business at the right time and in the right place, and was said to have made fifty thousand krónur in just that one summer. In accordance with a bill passed by the Alà 3/4 ingi, a new bank was then founded in the capital, called the Fisheries Bank, whose primary share capital came from the state, and whose new managing director was one of Kristófer Torfdal's closest adherents. Kristófer Torfdal himself now assumed the leadership of the newly formed government, and was immediately described in the Evening Gazette as "the most despicable reactionary in Iceland" and "a serpent gnawing at the roots of our economy. " His closing of the National Bank, people thought, was akin to him strangling the economic life out of the country with his own hands. But it was, in fact, at Kristófer Torfdal's behest that the cooperative in Óseyri was granted a new loan. It purchased Jóhann Bogesen's former company buildings for a ridiculous price, and at a Co-op meeting in early September, its most powerful supporter in the village, Steinà 3/4 ór Steinsson, was elected president of the board, and Sveinn Pálsson was appointed manager, with a good annual salary. The Association of Icelandic Cooperatives provided the Óseyri Cooperative with a trained accountant from the capital. Then, people's names were entered into the Cooperative's thick ledgers, and they carried on as before, buying on account and paying with their labor, and life went on as usual in Óseyri in Axlarfjörà°ur.