Salka Valka by Halldor Laxness

The pockmarked sailor with smoldering eyes sat across several of the rickety chairs in the Army's dining room, spat this way and that and mocked a piss-drunk man who sat reciting poetry in one corner. He did not shift position when mother and daughter walked in, did not greet them, but acted mainly as if he did not see them and continued to address the drunkard in the same way one might speak to a parrot, and received the most incredible answers, in the form of either proverbs or verse. Despite the boiled fish having grown cold, mother and daughter dug into the meal, hungry after the morning's adventures. The captain himself appeared in the room to wish them a pleasant repast in the name of Jesus and to ask the news. The pockmarked man made no move to return the host's greeting, but instead looked contemptuously at the Danish Bible thumper, while the drunkard struggled to his wobbly feet out of respect for the captain and recited this verse with pious verve:

My love for you let me impart: at times it can both fill my heart, be overwhelming, burning hot, just a speck and - not a jot.