Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

A snipe whinnied close by, a plover replied with a poignant cry. Are you so unhappy?, he asked softly, he asked tenderly. You need to experience happiness to understand unhappiness, and don’t look at me like that, no one needs to comfort me, there’s nothing to comfort, life is either victory or defeat, not happiness or unhappiness, and I’m going to be victorious in my own way. How can you be victorious without happiness?, asked her captain, John Andersen, lifting his thick hands and stroking Geirþrúður’s eyes, stroking tenderly, stroking as a man strokes something that matters a great deal to him, and she took his hand, bit it lightly with her predator’s teeth, I’ll tell you tomorrow, or whisper it to you, but now it’s getting colder. And they both looked up at the sky, the blueness had darkened, the storm pounding Friðrik’s house was approaching. But if you want, she added, and if you can manage again, I’m ready. Only if I may love you, he said.

You may; but then leave your love behind when you sail away, leave it here between the mountains.

Love is not a thing that one lays aside.

Yes, this love is, she said, unbuttoning her blouse. She unbuttoned her blouse and he beheld her gleaming white breasts, those breasts that he could gaze at endlessly, that pursued him far out to sea, all the way to England, those breasts, that skin, that scent, those long legs that locked around him, and the pitch-black hair that flowed like

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