The priest came up to him, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“My young friend,” he began—he was fifteen years older than Ørlygur himself—“I can well understand how you must feel the loss of such a father—a man of rare virtue in this wicked world. Yet it should be a consolation to you to know that he died at peace with God.”
Ørlygur looked at him, thinking still. Here was this man pouring out a stream of words over him. It was horrible to hear. “God” in his mouth sounded worse than devil.
“We should all remember,” the priest went on, “that however much we may grieve at losing the dear departed, there is comfort in the thought that they are beyond the power of evil—that death is but the gateway to the Kingdom of Glory. And to these two especially, death must have come as a blessed deliverance.”
Ørlygur looked at him without speaking. “He thinks he is much wiser than I,” was his thought.
“The burial of the dead,” went on the priest, “should really be an occasion for rejoicing. In any case, the dominant feeling in the hearts of the bereaved should be one of joy at the thought that those who have left us have passed to their true home. And be sure that God looks with more approval on such a thought than on any outburst of uncontrolled grief, which is really nothing but selfish sorrow for the loss we have sustained through His will, and rebellion against His decrees. All is according to the will of God, and we should cheerfully and gladly bow to His divine pleasure.”
Ørlygur let the priest run on. “He is a fool,” he thought. “He means well, no doubt, but is none the less a fool. This is one of his stock prescriptions for cases where some formal consolation has to be delivered. He is a sort of spiritual quack. When a man loses his father, he pours out a dose from a bottle—a big bottle, but containing only a very ordinary mixture. As a student of the human heart, he is ignorant to a degree. He cannot imagine that a mourner standing by a grave should have any other feeling than that of loss. He sees it merely as an ordinary case, calling for the usual nostrums. And he talks of a wounded heart as if it were inflammation of the lungs. What does he know of the range of feeling in a human heart?”
The priest went on in the same tone as before. Ørlygur said nothing.
“He wants me to say something,” thought Ørlygur. “But what am I to say? Tell him it is a fine day? I wonder if he would go away if I did? I wish I could get rid of him somehow; he tires me. I would rather climb a mountain than listen to more of this. Look at Borgarfjall there, lofty and steep. I would sooner climb it to the top than listen to this priest for half a day.”
Suddenly he turned to the man, with a smile, and said: