Modern Icelandic Plays Part 37

_Halla._

You know better. You would rather die than have your G.o.d find you guilty of an evil deed. You counted the saving of your soul higher than your life, but I have no G.o.d, and I have never been able to tell my soul from my love. If you had loved me, you would have understood that I was pleading for my soul. You would have heard it in my voice, but you did not hear it.

_Kari._

You forget that it was to save our lives I wanted to go.

_Halla_ (_rises. Her eyes are large and burning_). Why did you not take me with you?

_Kari._

If I had gone alone, I might have come back alive. The two of us would have been sure to perish.

_Halla (kneels)._

I once dreamed of two people. To them their love was the one and only law. When they had lived a long life together, they were thrown into direst need. Hunger drew near to the fine web that time had woven between them and would tear it asunder. Then they looked into each other's eyes, and together they walked out into the snowstorm to die.

_Kari._

It is every man's duty to keep alive as long as he can.

_Halla (rising)._

And why should it be, when life has become an agony to ourselves and of use to no one?

_Kari._

It is the law of G.o.d.

_Halla._

The storm writes many laws in the sand. (_Sits down._) When my strength had given out, you could have left me in the snow.

_Kari._

You know very well that I would never have done that.

_Halla._

That would have been better than to leave me waiting here. And I don't believe that death is so hard. The storm carries you until you drop from weariness, and then the snow comes and covers you up. (_Staring before her with eyes wide open._)

_Kari (is silent for a moment)._

You are bitter, because of our sore plight. Many a time have I told myself that I have been the curse of your life. If you had never known me, you would now be living in peace and quiet. You could have ridden to church every Sunday, if you liked. You would have been the rich and comely widow with all the young men flocking about you. I dare say you have often been sorry that you fled with me to the hills. (_Halla is silent._) I remember once we had been out hunting together all night.

Early in the morning we stood on the rim of the mountain plain looking down upon the fields and the dwellings of men. On some of the farms, the fires were lighted already, and the smoke rose straight up into the blue air, and the streams ran so quietly and pleasantly through the meadows.

I thought then that I could see the homesickness in your eyes.

_Halla (starting up, her voice cold and calm again)._

If I could only have saved my faith in my own love, but I love you no longer, and it may be that I never have loved you. As a child I used to live more in my dreams than in the life about me. When I fled with you to the hills, I thought it was because I loved you, but perhaps it was only my longing for the strange and unknown. Afterwards, when the days became harder and lonelier, my love for you was a shelter which I would seek when sorrow for what I had done came clutching at my heart.

_Kari._

Say no more! You are befouling our love-- yours and mine. You say it was only a longing for the unknown and the free, unfettered life that made you flee with me to the hills. Shame on you! (_His voice is soft and full of sadness._) I know what you have been. No woman was ever greater in her love than you. When the sun strikes the rim of the glacier, it takes on the loveliest hues, though in truth it is nothing but dull, colorless clay. So your love has been the sunlight in my life, and I love you-- have always loved you. When I was away from you even for a single day, I would long to see you and hear your voice as eagerly as I would long for the murmur of a brook when nearly dying from thirst. When I went hunting and had good luck, I always thought of you. When I pictured to myself how pleased you would be, I forgot all about my weariness. But you must not ask the impossible of a man.

_Halla (rising)._

I am cold. Will you fetch some wood?

_Kari._

Yes, indeed. (_Goes to the door; leaves it ajar._) You cannot see a hand before you. (_Goes out and shuts the door after him._)

[_Halla goes to the door, listens, opens the door. A cloud of snow comes whirling in. Outside the storm sweeps past.

She takes a long, lingering look around the hut, goes out into the doorway, throws her head back, and disappears, carried by the storm._

(_The stage stands empty for a moment._)

_Kari returns, covered with snow, his arms full of f.a.ggots._

_Kari._

Why do you leave the door open? (_Sees that Halla is not there, drops the f.a.ggots, goes out hurriedly, calls._) Halla! (_His call is heard outside the hut. He comes back into the doorway, looks in, cries out._) Almighty G.o.d! (_Two heart-broken cries are heard outside, the latter farther away and hushed by the storm._) Halla! Halla!

(_The snow comes whirling into the empty hut._)

THE HRAUN FARM

[_Gaarden Hraun_]

A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

1912

DRAMATIS PERSONae

SVEINUNGI, owner of the Hraun Farm.

JORUNN, his wife.

LJOT, their daughter.

EINAR, a relative of Jorunn.

JAKOBINA, an old woman.