The Atom Station

27. Immortal flowers

When I was on my way to the prison in Skolavordustig with my case and my bouquet I happened to pass by the cathedral, and before I knew it I had blundered into the middle of a funeral; the coffin was just being carried out of church. This was no small fry that was being buried, judging by all the ceremonial; as far as I could see it was the overlords of the country, whom I had learned to know by sight last year when I opened the door to them at night, who were now gathered again, dressed in black and white, with tile-hats, in their hands: the Prime Minister and the other Ministers, the sheep-plague director, some Members of Parliament, wholesalers and judges, the mournful lead-grey man who published the paper, the bishops, and the oil-processing plant director. This little group formed a circle round an exceedingly ornate coffin, which was carried by the pick of this corps d’elite, the Prime Minister leading on one side, and on the other side the mournful lead-grey man who had published the paper; next came a handsome, virile man with grey-flecked hair and aquiline nose, horn-rimmed glasses like a mask, snowy-white gloves and a tile-hat in his free hand, quite at ease in this company. Who was he? Could it be true? Was I seeing right? Or was I still dreaming—one of those dreams of uncertain joy?

“All that you ask for, you shall have.” Somehow I had never been able to place it until now, when an old Christian text which I had learned as a child flashed into my mind again: “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down…”

The strangest thing about this ultra-distinguished funeral was that there was no cortege behind the coffin; where now were the Youth Fellowships, the schools, the University Citizens’ Association, the Road Sweepers’ Association, the Women’s Guilds, the Office Workers’ Association, the Artists’ Association, the Equestian Association? No, no people, no bystanders, no mourners; even the solitary dog which in its time had followed a genius of the celestial heights did not consider itself worthy of sniffing along behind this funeral. Was it conceivable that someone had furtively managed to lift up the coffin lid? And seen what? Portuguese Sardines? Or even D.L. itself? And then taken the news straight to the populace? And if so, who? Surely not the Communists yet again?

Ordinary citizens went about their business in the street in complete indifference, without so much as a glance in the direction of this ceremony. But a few paces farther on stood a crowd of street boys who were jeering at the tile-hats as they walked along beneath their burden. One could hear the atom poet’s elegy being hummed:

I looked around for the quickest way to escape from this square, pressed my bouquet closer to me, and took to my heels. What point would there have seemed to be in living if there had not been these flowers?