The Great Weaver From Kashmir Read Online Free PDF Page B

dodges of old bishops. The threat of damnation seemed to me to be nothing other than an invention used to make the guileless rabble bend beneath the pope. Now it’s my opinion that Christianity is the absolute flat-out truth from start to finish. This suddenly occurred to me one night in the spring. I was taken by the scruff of the neck. I was ripped into. Some higher being spoke to me through the mouth of God. And this happened up on Öskjuhlíð, in that scraggly scrap of a wood where no one has ever had a revelation before. Yes, Diljá, now that I’ve started to speak, it would be best if I were to tell you everything and leave no stone unturned.”
    He spoke with feverish passion, in short sentences broken by quick silences.
    â€œYou must remember the spring when Mother and Father went north for ten days. Gone was the taciturn, destitute rigidity that reigns in the house when Father is at home. You yourself know ourhouse and know how high the ceiling in the foyer is. You remember how murky the foyer is: it’s like a countryside church in Spain, where carnal vices have been satiated with pharisaic blessings, clouds of incense, and Latin chant for many hundreds of years. A gleam of light comes down from somewhere above, and the lacquered craft-work, the burnished chairs and the table, are there for nothing: no one ever sits there, much less eats or drinks; and the creepers stretch up over all the walls, blackish green and ugly. There is no human abode as monstrous as the foyer at home.
    â€œAnd for ten days there was no one at home except for myself and Helga, the parlor maid – no one besides the servants in the basement. I was sitting up in my room reading; I hadn’t felt like getting dressed that day, but instead sat in front of the fireplace in my nightclothes and robe. I’d recently bought some voguish novels; I still remember their titles, but we won’t go into that.
    â€œNovels can make one giddy, because they open one to the expansiveness of human life. I didn’t know what I was doing, Diljá. I went and got the keys, snuck down, and opened the wine cellar. And I took a whole armful of bottles up to my room and started drinking. No, Diljá, I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt so fiendishly great. This blissful devilish determination to sin burned in every last little part of my body. The greatest bliss in the world is to sin. The next greatest is to determine to sin. The saints covet sin. I rang the bell. A few moments passed.
    â€œThen the door opened.
    â€œHelga stood in the doorway and waited to hear what it was I wanted, quiet and modest as usual. And when she saw the wine on the table before me she became even shier than usual. That was thefirst time I looked on her in a different way than as a master on his servant.
    â€œâ€˜Helga,’ said I, ‘I would like to offer you a glass of champagne, because I have no one to drink with.’
    â€œBut she didn’t want to take it, said that she never drank, had only tasted alcohol twice or thrice in her life and then only a few drops, didn’t dare it, thought she would get drunk. She looked me straight in the eye and said no. But I kept on nagging her until she gave in and promised to drink half a glass, but absolutely no more. It was out of the question that she would take a seat; no, she would just sip from the glass standing, since I of course needed to drink with someone.
    â€œBut before she knew it she was sitting. Yes, she didn’t realize it until she’d drunk an entire glass filled to the brim. She said she’d never tasted wine so good, in general had never thought that wine could be so good–
    â€œUnder my parents’ roof I beguiled this poor girl disgracefully, deprived her of her virginity, in lustful euphoria made her swear that she wouldn’t betray me, and treated her like a harlot for three whole days and nights.”
    He lit a cigarette