Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

to say that you’ve done quite a good job of this, in some places very finely done indeed, absolutely extraordinary for an uneducated person, I would call that a compliment, wouldn’t you call that a compliment from me, Kolbeinn?, he raised his voice, looked over at the skipper, who said nothing, displayed no reaction; absolutely right, muttered Gísli, you’re not here, what a wonderful talent to be able to vanish like that, a rare talent, you should give me lessons. I didn’t hear it, the compliment, I mean, said the boy apologetically, I just saw that you’d marked up everything, thought that it was no good. Is that so, did you think that? Yes. But what was that smile of yours supposed to mean, then? I was just thinking. Thinking about what, what was so amusing? Well, said the boy, embarrassed, that it would be fun to stuff the pages down your throat, at which Kolbeinn laughed, or at least emitted a noise like an old, grouchy dog that finds something amusing, entirely unexpectedly: a nice piece of meat, an extinguished sex drive. And the boy reads these pages, had managed to rewrite them in time, followed Gísli’s suggestions, corrections, for the most part, reads them as the rain pounds the world, pounds the house, pounds the horses and the wind tears up the sea. He reads and tries to forget that right now the sea is breaching the embankments, flooding the earth in heavy torrents, and to top it off there’s this gale, as if to punish us for having enjoyed the light, the gentleness of summer.

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