The Black Cauldron

By William Heinesen

And now this day, too, the day on which Ivar from Angelica Cottage was buried, must finally suffer the fate of all days: the fate of fading away into darkness. Sooner or later it will be totally forgotten, an indistinguishable layer in the vast deposit of sunken days at the bottom of the ocean of time. But for the time being it will maintain itself in people´s memories. It will not immediately sink to the bottom without further ado; people will catch glimpses of it for a long time, a long time ... like a dead whale floating just below the surface, neither sinking to the bottom nor staying fully in view, kept aloft by exhalations coming from inside ...

Jens Ferdinand sees this whale come drifting along, the black, smooth fish-like body adorned with protruding, light grey lumps of gas-filled gut. In fact there are really two whales: he himself is one of them; he grinds his teeth and laughs bitterly at this latest invention of the demons of retribution, and at the same time, with a mighty effort, he works his way up to the surface.

But here he is confronted with the wicked, raised harpoon of wakefulness, and it is mercilessly planted in a back still smarting from the fall in the sacristy.

... The over-filled church, tapestried with human faces, the oppressive scent of flowers and tepid clothing, the white coffin before which he had stood and shouted his threats, powerlessly, ridiculously, and then the ignominious manner in which he had been thrown out. In grossly exaggerated dimensions he sees it all before him, and the demons are ready with their detailed close-ups from this epic film of idiocy and shame. Faces float past him, faces filled with horror, irritation, pity, disgust, amusement. Pjølle Schibbye bends over him and stifles a laugh in his hat. Inspector Joab Hansen gloats openly as he turns the chewing tobacco in his twisted mouth. Yes, they are all gloating, more or less dishonourably, not least Bergthor Ørnberg: there he lifts his head and raises his eyebrows, while the corners of his mouth curl limply down in a surfeit of goodness, for now he is avenged.

But suddenly there is a huge close-up of Liva, unnaturally big - the black headscarf with its waffle decoration, the strong, dark hair, the pale young face, the naively folded virginal hands, the genuine pain in her eyes... "May Jesus Christ keep thee, my poor dear."

But then comes a yet sharper double portrait of the deacon and bell-ringer, actually two quite decent, ordinary faces, but on account of the profanation of the temple they are both devilish with anger; their eyes reflect a thirst for blood; their throats give birth to obscene and hitherto unknown wolf-like howls, but they keep control of themselves and, in deference to the discipline imposed by the church, content themselves with modest grunts. And then he rolls down those confounded steps while the congregation is like an explosive charge of suppressed amusement and Schadenfreunde, liable to go off at any moment.

Out. Bump. Down into the depths ... to the other mutilated fish, that double of yours, with its unnatural entrail hump. Two identical and equally disgusting deep sea monsters seeking to hide behind each other while they burrow their way down into the mud of forgetfulness on the bottom. The devils of retribution smile to each other and stick their uritiring boxer´s chins forward, ready with new torments.

"But I´ll cheat you, you devils," he hisses. Almost weeping, he raises himself tip in his bed and reaches out with a trembling hand for the bottle standing on the floor. It contains Gordon´s Dry Gin, made milder with vermouth, a sure promise of a few more hours´ respite before the final confrontation.
Soon things are no longer so grotesque, even if, on the other hand, there is not exactly anything to rejoice over.

The really wicked thing is that Ivar died in such a cruel way, and that this age is one that demands such appalling sacrifice ... to the advantage of an unscrupulous or mendacious minority of mankind. And if a drunken typographer put in an appearance in a church where a tragedy was being transformed into a farce ... what then?

But what of Liva, that woman whom he idolised and worshipped? What of her? She was good to look at, and it was devilishly cunning that she should be so religious. Enough of that; she wasn´t his; she was his brother´s. Like hell she was! In spirit she was Simon the baker´s mistress. That was up to them, up to them. And yet ... if he lost her as well - what would be left?

Jens Ferdinand took another deep draught of the kindly, healing drink. He curled himself up on the bed and hissed through his contorted lips down into the pillow: "I love her. I love her. I´ve only got one life, and perhaps I´m wasting it and ruining it. But I have known what it is to fall in love, definitively, violently, terribly and impossibly in love with my mortally ill brother´s fiancée, the sectarian mistress of a mad baker and religious fanatic ... That´s an obvious handicap, old man, but ... in short bloody stupid as it may be: you love her.

Translated by W. Glyn Jones