The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [311]
“But his fur was so soft, and his eyes were so beautiful, and he was so heavy and bearlike, yet withal so graceful that Kari couldn’t endure to give him up, and so he and Hjordis went out of their bedcloset and Bjorn went into it, and he lay there, sometimes all day, reading what books could be had for him.
“Now it happened that one night Kari saw Bjorn roll out of his bedcloset and leave the steading, and Kari followed him. The bear went out to the sheepfold in the moonlight, and he climbed up upon the wall. The sheep, being used to the smell of bear, both of Bjorn and of Kari, whose hands smelled of bear after he had been with Bjorn, were not alarmed, and only went on sleeping or grazing, but Bjorn reached down, as bears do with fish, and swept one into his arms, and broke its neck with his teeth, and ripped it open and ate it. Then he went back into the steading.
“In the morning, Kari came to Bjorn and said, ‘My Bjorn, there is the carcase of a sheep outside the door, one of my best ewes. Know you of this?’
“ ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the bear. ‘This ewe was a tasty morsel for me when I awoke hungry in the middle of the night.’
“ ‘But Bjorn,’ said Kari, ‘you must not eat up my ewes, for they are my wealth and my security.’
“And the bear looked at him for a long time, and he looked at him with the eyes of a wild beast, and finally he said, “But indeed, my father, I was hungry.’ That was all they spoke about it, but the next morning, Kari found another carcase outside the door, and said to the bear, ‘Bjorn, we have spoken of this before. I am seriously displeased.’ And Bjorn said, ‘Indeed, Father, I was hungry.’ And this went on for three more days. Finally, Kari told Bjorn that he must under no circumstances dare to eat another of the ewes, but Bjorn only said to him, ‘Does it not say in old books, Father, that those who are hungry must be fed?’ Now Kari did not know how to reply to this, for he knew nothing of old books.
“That afternoon he loaded himself up with gifts and valuables and he went to the priest and he gave him the gifts and told him the truth of the case, and they put their heads together for most of the afternoon. And after Kari had spoken to the priest, he saw that things could not be as he had hoped them to be, for a bear cannot talk or read his way into knowing what is right for men and what is wrong for them. He will be a bear in the wastelands or he will be a bear in the steading. In any case, he will always be a bear. When Kari returned from the priest’s house, he saw that three more of his best ewes had been killed and eaten, and he was very angry, but when he got into the steading and saw the handsome white bear, with his soft fur and beautiful brown eyes, he said nothing.
“Hjordis and Kari and Bjorn now sat down at their evening meat, and Kari looked about his steading. There was nothing upon the shelves that went around the walls except two small seal oil lamps, although Kari had once been a prosperous man, one of the richest in the western settlement. The priest had everything now, all the tapestries and the cloths with their borders of tablet weaving, and the chess set carved from walrus tusk, and the silver cups from England, and all the other bits and pieces that Kari had once had about him. The three ate from their trenchers—some pieces of dried reindeer meat and some sourmilk and some dried sealmeat with butter spread upon it, and pretty soon Bjorn began to look about, for he was still hungry, but there was nothing left in the house, and only some old, tough, and meatless ewes out in the sheepfold, and still Bjorn looked about, for the meat