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about a horse trailer, about kittens and about Jupiter, which
is a very big planet yet is still just a tiny speck of light in the
sky. I also think about rain in China, I’m sure you’re
familiar with it.
Helga bristles when he returns; what’s the meaning of
disappearing like that?, there are things needing doing
here, the boy replies with an indecipherable mutter, so pale
and muddleheaded that Helga says, well then, and sends
him to the café. It’s as if she knows how he feels, as if she
understands his sensitivity. Sensitivity is my truest dream,
says an old poem, a line that shines through time, and it’s
true, the essence of man is sensitivity, we feel it so
desperately in the spring when existence is at the
needlepoint of life and death. The song of the plover, that
poignant sound, reminds us of it and now and then we’re
startled to hear it, it’s why Ólafur sat down up on the
mountainside, in sleet, and wept; he had to weep, he sensed
man’s truest dream while realizing how much distance
there is between his dream and the world that he’s created.
And then it’s evening.
It’s evening, and the weather is bad, those who are able to
be at home are at home, listening to the wind, reading
The
Will of the People
; Icelanders, it says, appear to have
stepped up and sworn a solemn vow to live beyond their
means, under the control of merchants, and then die in
debt. Merchants rule our days, because we allow them to.
People believe that it’s an unconquerable law.