Independent People by Halldor Laxness

BUT in spite of the potent medicines that Bjartur had offered to procure her from Dr. Finsen's, what happened was that his wife's nerves, instead of improving, grew steadily worse and worse. At night she would give him his bread and cold fish, but would boil some thick oatmeal porridge for herself, standing bent over the range, stirring away with the ladle while the smoke from the half-dried brushwood filled the whole room. Bjartur would pick the bones out of the fish, then, after laying the two halves together so that each thick part covered each thin part in compensation, would bite into it as if it were a slice of bread, and all the while continue eying his wife from beneath his brows. Twelve months ago she had been a girl with a fresh complexion who used to change into her best frock in the evenings and wash herself, a girl who could laugh in her own way at whatever she considered amusing. Suddenly this girl had become a middle-aged woman, a slattern in an old sackcloth apron that she had worn for milking at Myri. She had grown grey and flabby in the face, the light had gone from her eyes, the colour from her cheeks, the grace from her carriage. Thus quickly was this flower of his fading in spite of plenty of fish, bread, and porridge, potatoes up to a week or two ago-and rye biscuits, which were actually Continental confectionery. "It looks to me as if she's grieving for some damned sweetheart," he said to himself-she could hear if she liked. One thing was certain: she shrank away from him so much that she took good care never to go to bed before he was asleep, and if her movements as she climbed in woke him up, she would be quick to turn her back upon him; and if he whispered in her ears, she would lie like a corpse, and all desire would leave him. He wasn't so damned frisky himself, either-always that tired, done-up feeling, somehow. He cursed it silently; the best years of his life, eighteen of them, gone to the Bailiff and his crew, and now a fellow couldn't get some enjoyment out of marriage when at last he had become his own master. When he fell asleep he would see cows cropping his grass. The cows were bad-tempered and made a rush at him, frightening him in dreams as much now as in childhood. He would start up with a jump and, still dazed, mutter: "Sooner a coffin than a cow. " And in the mornings when he went outside and round the corner to relieve himself, he would cross himself to the east and mutter: In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: sooner a coffin than a cow. For ever and ever, amen."

And there she was standing over her porridge, sticking more and more brushwood under the pan; it crackled and crackled, and steadily the smoke grew thicker and thicker.