Independent People by Halldor Laxness

AND SO, to the ever increasing prosperity of the land and its inhabitants, the World War proceeded. For four lucrative years and more it went on, and the longer it lasted, the greater was the gratification it aroused in the hearts of the community. All good men hoped and prayed that it might go on till doomsday. Many, especially those of a nice ingenuous nature, never called it by any other name than the Blessed War, for Icelandic goods were still rising in price abroad, and on the Continent whole nations were fighting, among other things, for the honour of importing them. These gifted but singular belligerents who hitherto had been content to turn a blind eye upon an Iceland racked with famine, slavery, merchants, and every other scourge conceivable, were now of a sudden falling over themselves in the rush to buy our exports and to help us onward and upward along the road to wealth and happiness. Many tenant farmers undertook the task of purchasing from their landlords the land they held, and those who already before the outbreak of hostilities had gone through fire and water to acquire theirs began now to think of renewing their buildings. Those who were in debt were given opportunities of incurring greater debts, while upon those who owed nothing, but who might be likely to require a loan for extensions, the banks smiled with an incredibly seductive sweetness. Folk began to farm on a larger scale, folk increased their livestock, folk even sent their children to be educated. In some houses there were to be seen not one but as many as four china dogs of the larger size, even musical instruments; womenfolk were walking about wearing all sorts of tombac rings, and many persons had acquired overcoats and Wellington boots, articles of apparel that had previously been contrabrand to working people. The government embarked upon a huge program of public works, and those who were fortunate enough to have an energetic idealist like Ingolfur Arnarson as their representative in Parliament were granted roads and bridges throughout their constituency. A highroad was built from Fjord up through Bjartur of Summerhouses' valley all the way to the homesteads around Rauthsmyri, and soon the first automatic carriages were thundering along this road at unbelievable speed, scaring everyone's horses so that they bolted under them.

Now, in this welter of money and joyous prosperity that had burst like a flood upon the country's scattered homesteads, some, it was to be regretted, appeared to have lost their powers of sound judgment, for there was no disguising the fact that holdings were being bought at prices which were ridiculously high, that the passion for building was exceeding the bounds of good sense, and that many children were returning home from school both hurriedly educated and over-educated. There were, however, those who preserved their sanity, men who took everything with the greatest calm. Such men made no changes in their mode of living, neither did they buy china dogs. They spent nothing on the education of their sons, rather increased their stock by steady degrees, exercised moderation in the improvement of their property, and kept jogging quietly along towards the higher goals they had set themselves. One such was Bjartur of Summerhouses. He was no fonder of needless luxuries now than he had ever been, but with every year that passed he was spending more and more money on the hiring of work-people and the buying of sheep. Time was when he had based his calendar upon the arrival of an old bitch named Fritha, as grim a misfortune as any that had to do with a cow, but those days were over now; in less than no time he had reached two hundred and fifty sheep, two cows, and three horses and was employing hired labour, male and female, in the summer, and a housekeeper and a herd in the winter. Furthermore, to house all these new people he had adapted the old stable under the living-room, and where once there had been a hole in the wall as an exit for the dung, there was now a little window with four panes. Many a little makes a mickle, as the saying goes, and this was the sure and trusty growth that proceeds without revolution, without noise, and as if of itself alone, the healthy development. The man himself remained unaltered. He allowed himself no greater luxury in his mode of life than that of sprawling on a haycock for four minutes during the daytime, in the hope that he would soon roll off, preferably into a puddle. Of his work-people he demanded a suitable degree of exertion in their labours winter and summer, and he still had the habit of muttering crafty verse to himself on any occasion when he was alone.