Under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness

Pastor Jón the locksmith asks me not to leave until everything has been attended to. The clergyman says yet again that the responsibility of the office weighs heavily upon him. He says he hopes that aeroplanes from the four corners of the earth would arrive soon to quarter Mundi's carcass and remove the parts each to its own continent. Axlar-Björn the highway-man, the most famous man ever known at Glacier, was buried under three cairns, says the parish pastor, and likewise he has heard that kings of the Ming dynasty were each laid to rest in twelve mausoleums.

The day wears on without replies being received from the four widows. The butler drives off to do some shopping in the Imperial limousine; the twelve-tonner with Jódínus the poet follows like a dog. Pastor Jón and I stay behind and await events, and I keep an eye on the winter-pasture shepherds so that they don't take the head off the corpse and shrink it. I say I'm going south because my mission here is finished, and this makes pastor Jón a little depressed, until he gets the idea of inviting me out to the shed, and says that an old woman at Nes had given him some smoked brisket. He cut thick slices from it and we ate it raw and it was a wonderful delicacy and besides I was starving. He put the kettle on and boiled his strong kettle-coffee, and there was plenty of rye bread and butter and moreover dried halibut for all of £20 sterling. Eventually a telegram arrived and we both held our breaths in suspense over what the fourfold woman of the world would say.