Independent People by Halldor Laxness

ON Saturday morning the bearers came trudging over the marshes with their dogs. There were four of them, all old acquaintances: the Fell King, Einar, the poet of Undirhlith, then Olafur of Yztadale, friend of the incredible, and lastly the father of the deceased, old Thorthur of Nithurkot. They were walking not in a group, but at a great distance from one another, like men who have set out on journeys of their own to destinations that do not concern the others. The Fell King arrived first, and the others trailed in one by one after him, Thorthur of Nithurkot last. They were all in their Sunday clothes, with their socks turned up over their trouser bottoms.

Bjartur was not the one to harbour his grief; he welcomed his guests in royal style. "Step into the palace, lads," he cried; "it's biting sharp today, but comfort yourselves, the womenfolk have the kettle on. " They took out their knives and began scraping the snow from their clothes. It had been terrible going, they said, hard on top, soft beneath, slippery. The old man, groaning and reluctant in his movements, cautiously took a seat on the doorstep, his joints creaking as if he were about to break in pieces. He seemed all shrunk in upon himself, blue in the face, rime in the tatters of his beard, the lids and corners of his eyes inflamed and the iris colourless with old age. On freshly cut turf between the sheep's mangers stood the coffin, decorated by tufts of wool that had stuck by chance to the tarred planks when the sheep crowded out for their midday drink from a hole broken in the surface of the ice-bound brook. The old man pressed his gnarled blue hands here and there on the coffin, as if to test its strength-or were these his caresses? Carefully and with an innate sense of tidiness he plucked some of the tufts from the wood. This outer part of the stable was reserved for the ewes, the inner part being divided into a pen for the lambs and a stall for the horse. The smell of the horse's urine overpowered all the other smells in the stable, for the drain was out of order.