Salka Valka by Halldor Laxness

10

Salka Valka kept this image of Arnaldur Björnsson in her heart all her life - a face shining out of the darkness of the night, radiant with belief in another world. And when she woke from her blissful dreams next morning, after that face had shone on her soul, she found this village beneath winter's chilly rain clouds more mirthless than ever before. That was because she now had another world with which to compare it, that which lay in Arnaldur's breast, the beautiful cities that shone from his eyes, with their abundant plant life and fairytale music. He had come to her as a teacher, but her lessons had been forgotten. Still, these first meetings of theirs were truly edifying, for when the girl looked at her bare feet before slipping them into stockings, she noticed something to which she had never paid attention before: how terribly dirty her feet were. Of course, she couldn't be bothered to start washing her feet on weekday mornings, and, as an act of open defiance of this world and a conscious demand for another, better one, she threw on her tatty skirt, hung the ragged jacket on her shoulders, and girded herself with her string. When, upon coming to the kitchen, she was asked how she liked getting lessons, she did not answer, but instead, took a bowl of water and washed her hands up to her wrists, despite it being midweek, and then carried her milk cans to the village. After delivering them, she went down to Jóhann Bogesen's fish-washing buildings (commonly known as the "washhouses") at the quay, where numerous dexterous women and adolescents in oilskin smocks and rubber boots stood at the fish-washing tubs and tossed fish from one tub into another with a great deal of splashing, while the buildings resounded with loud chattering or even song, for the vocal organs, especially the tongue and lips, are true gifts from God in the doleful and insignificant treadmill of life.