Salka Valka by Halldor Laxness

This poor, unfamiliar sister had now converted swiftly and unexpectedly to Jesus, and, this being the case, it was understandably impossible to refuse her and her child the Army's shelter, at least for tonight. She and her child were thus tucked into the bed of one of the facility's maids. Next morning, when she paid, she asked whether there might be a spot free there for a hard-working housemaid, but she was told that adding more staff was impossible and advised to look for work elsewhere, for instance with the merchant, the dean, or the doctor. Moreover, she was told that if there were any real chance of work to be had, it would probably be washing fish for Jóhann Bogesen as soon as the fishing season began. But today the woman was confident and hopeful, both because her seasickness had passed, for the most part, and because she was convinced that Jesus would help her. She was joyful of her Redeemer and felt truly as if it no longer mattered whether the world was a bit cruel, for she had been saved from its terrible torments and deceptions and had learned the wonderful song about the pure grapevine, which sounded in her ears day and night and paved her path with its perfume.

The air was frosty, the snow had blown into drifts, the village was bleak with cold. The workers' huts, many of which were refitted sheds from the fishing station that was the village's predecessor, ungainly abodes with one or two turf walls still standing from those days, a fish hung to dry on the gable and leafless, flowerless houseplants closer to death than life in rusty pots in the windows, or else old women's time-worn faces, huddled together along a semblance of a street, completely indifferent to any and all passersby except when one of their doors was opened now and then by a curious housewife who kept her hands, swollen with cold, tucked beneath her apron, and gawked in astonishment at this wayward female whom no one knew and who had nothing, apart from Jesus and a child. There was almost no level ground here, and in some places the village branched off straight up toward the mountainside, which lay so close against it. On the opposite side of the fjord were precipitous peaks, and at its head a few farmhouses. Backing the valley were rugged, snow-covered heaths. Down by the quay stood Jóhann Bogesen's store, its main door facing the street, and a cluster of irregular fish sheds behind it. The store itself was a two-story building, surrounded by the smells of kerosene, creolin, fish, tobacco, and colonial goods. The storekeeper lived on the upper floor, while on the other side of the street, a little way up the slope, stood the showy stone house of the merchant himself, Jóhann Bogesen, white as new-fallen snow on the heaths, attic-less, with countless square merlons at the roof's edge, like the battlement of an old castle wall. There was not a trace of frost on the windowpanes, and yellow silk curtains were drawn halfway over the windows on both floors. In the center of the house's facade was a great, noble, oaken door fronted by broad stone steps, similar to those in Bible illustrations, but the woman was not the sort to head straight for the main door of such a house; instead, she went round to the back in search of an inferior entrance. Shortly afterward, mother and daughter found themselves in a large, bustling kitchen where two singing girls were attending to the housework, enwrapped in the scent of a beautiful brown roast. One of them stopped singing and asked the visitor her business, but Sigurlína asked to speak to the madam.