Independent People by Halldor Laxness

So he had fallen asleep, after all. When he opened his eyes it was broad daylight in the hut, the morning sun shining in through the open door. He got out of bed and looked at the sun, to find that the time must be about six o'clock; he had slept three hours or so. The men were still asleep. The bread and the talk from the night before had lost something of their reality but none of their guilt, as if he had dreamed something that was unworthy of him; it was strange that he should have landed in this mess. His back was aching and he was feeling stiff. The talk wouldn't have mattered, one hears so many things at one time and another-if only he hadn't eaten that accursed bread. Then he remembered that he had given them his son, too. Surely they hadn't put something in his coffee, to deprive him of every vestige of common sense? He stood on the threshold of the barrack, looking alternately in and out of doors, and wondering how he could get Gvendur away from them again. After a few moments' indecision he tiptoed across the room, intending to nudge him and wake him as quietly as possible. There lay the lad, fast asleep between his two mates, big, powerful men all three of them, broad in the chest and with resolute jaws, their hands thick and big-boned; while above them lay several pick-handles. And he felt that his son showed up so well in his sleep among these strong, well-built fellows that he had not the heart to wake him and take him away; he would show up just as well among them when he was awake. He felt that in reality such men deserved to own the land and govern it. But if Ingolfur Arnarson's men should bring rifles and kill them, his son included-what then? Wouldn't it be safer to wake the boy and take him away up-country rather than let him be shot like a dog on the street here? He had always thought a lot of the lad, though he had concealed it well. To be sure, he had once been on the very point of sneaking off to America, but his love of independence had won the day and he had decided to overcome the difficulties of life at home here along with his father. "Ah, well," reflected Bjartur, "what does it matter? I suppose I've lost boys before. " For a moment he cast his memory back to the boys he had carried off in a box to bury in the Rauthsmyrians' churchyard; and to those others that he had lost in his struggle for independence. Maybe it's just as well that this one should go the same way, then, he thought. A man is not independent unless he has the courage to Stand alone. Grettir Asmundarson was an oulaw on Iceland's mountains for nineteen years, until he was vanquished in Drangey; but he was avenged in Miklagard for all that, the biggest city in the world. Possibly I too will be avenged, with the passing of the years. Possibly in some big city even. All at once he remembered that the Czar had fallen, and the thought cheered him greatly-what would old Jon of Myri have to say to that? So, having abandoned the idea of waking his son, he left the barrack as quietly as possible.

It was time to fetch the horse from pasture and to make ready for departure, but he showed no signs of wishing to fetch the horse, rather loitered here and there about the sleeping village for a while, answering absently-mindedly the morning greetings of the few old fishermen who were already afoot After a good deal of this aimless wandering he turned his steps with more purpose seaward along the fjord, towards that part of the town where the worst hovels were congregated. This part was called Sandeyri. He had never had occasion to go there before, but he knew various people who lived there. One or two women were up and out of doors, dusting sacks against the wall. A group of working men stood deep in conversation in a garden at the side of one of the huts; none of them paid any attention to Bjartur, it was some sort of meeting.