Independent People by Halldor Laxness

THE BAILIFF came riding into the enclosure on his way home from the coast. He was travelling, as on his last visit, with an escort, but on this occasion his attendants were much more in keeping with his dignity: his son and daughter, both of whom had just returned from the south-Ingolfur Arnarson, the co-operative secretary, and the beautiful, twenty-year-old, newly educated Audur. The folk had been spreading manure on the home-field, but now they stopped spreading manure and, leaning forward on their rakes, stared with marvelling eyes at this portent. Bjartur came home to the croft, leaving his sheep and the helpless lambs they were giving birth to. The daughter refused to step down into the mud and remained sitting on horseback, but the Bailiff dismounted, though obviously bored by whatever was afoot, and the big-booted secretary also dismounted. The Bailiff gave his usual greeting, offering at most two fingers. But for Ingolfur Arnarson a handshake was a very different matter. A representative of the world, of the life of power, privilege, and infinite possibility that those who live in close contact with the government may enjoy, Ingolfur Arnarson was not the man to be shy with the lower orders. He made no bones about wringing Bjartur of Summerhouses' paw; he even went as far as to clap him on the shoulder; for a moment, in fact, it looked as if he was about to fall on his neck, kiss him, and who knows what else. It was his mother coming out in him of course. Nor was he by any means the old irresponsible student whose idea of a good time was to murder the helpless and inoffensive birds that flew over a fellow's marshes on the Sabbath; no, with the passing of the years he had acquired a sober, public-spirited deportment, and he had also developed the corpulence that is so necessary to anyone who wishes his words to carry conviction in an assembly. He had learned to imbue his gestures with authority, to puff out his chest, to hold his head high. But Bjartur of Summerhouses was the man he was in Asta Sollilja's eyes: he had scant regard for his superiors, however public-spirited they might be, and in his shadow they seemed all at once to suffer some incongruous loss of dignity, some deformity even, as if they had suddenly acquired six fingers or even three eyes.

"May I help the young lady down in case she goes bow-legged sticking in the saddle there? " inquired Bjartur politely; but no sooner had he spoken than she hopped down without assistance and made her way on to the paving by herself. She was in breeches and glittering knee-boots, healthy and strong as a plant that grows on sheltered slopes facing the south. Elegant, southern-travelled and blooming she stood before the low door, on the paving that it had taken Gudbjartur Jonsson and his children, both living and dead, twelve years to buy-and eighteen years before that; she who had her home on the smooth pathway leading up to one immortal house half-hidden in flowers.