"My mother dreamed of four horses while she was pregnant with me." "Tell me a story, Paul." "Not now, Svana, later." "Shall I tell you about when Egil the viking raided Norway, ate his fill of food and drink and threw up in the farmers' faces?" "How disgusting..." "You should know all about Egil Skallagrimsson." "He started drinking when he was three years old, wrote his first poem when he was six and killed a man when he was eight after losing to him at football." "Once upon a time there were two brothers:" "one was called earth and the other was called worm." "People called them earthworm." "10 What about them?" "Tell us some more." "Once upon a time there was a woman." "She called out to her son and said" ""Jesse, come in this minute."" "Then the son came in, looked at his mother and said:" ""My name's not Jesse." "My name's Jesus."" "Was Jesus called Jesse for short?" "Oh, Paul has all sorts of ideas." "Thanks." "You're welcome." "I must admit that as time goes by," "Dagny has increasingly become a figment of my imagination." "But once she was a girl in the real world where people are happy and in love." "Your blood is rushing through my veins." "If I could, I'd fill my room with your kisses, lock them inside and throw away the key." "You sound like a poet." "I am a great poet." "Waiting to be discovered." "I'm not human." "I'm the patch of blue sky in the fairy tale." "Not of this earth." "Earth?" "Where's that?" "It's part of reality and that doesn't count." "You know what the philosopher Hegel said when someone claimed that his theories conflicted with reality:" ""Poor reality, it must feel bad."" "But I don't feel bad." "Not if I've got you." "You've got it all worked out." "You know exactly what you want." "I want to capture the wildness, the chaos and landscape inside us, the volcanoes in our souls, the earthquakes when we make" "Iove." "You'll end up being a famous painter." "Crazy, but famous like Van Gogh and Gaugin." "What about you?" "Me?" "I'll end up as a village dentist whose greatest pleasure in life will be pulling teeth out of people who disagree with me politically." "It sounds stupid, I know." "but I'd never have believed I could fall so deeply in love." "Dagny's wonderful." "Don't be so stupid, it's amazing how childish you can be." "Dagny's an upper-class girl rebelling against her background." "One day she'll fly back to the nest." "You wait and see." "Then you'll get the door slammed right in your face." "No, Dagny and I are going to travel the world together." "She'll go crazy." "Just a minute, Mother, I'm just coming." "Mother, this is Paul." "And what family are you from, Paul?" "My father's name is Olaf, and my mother's called Gudrun." "Might I inquire about your father's profession?" "He drives a taxi for the Motorcab Company." "I want to see you upstairs." "You shouldn't have told her your dad's a taxi driver." "She's such a terrible snob." "I thought maybe she just used another cab company." "You never understand anything." "Life is a tale told by an idiot..." "Did I ask the stars for news?" "Did the wind bring me tidings?" "Once, she welcomed me with a smile." "Once she would stand at the door and laugh." "Remember to chew your food well, preferably 36 times." "That's what the homeopaths say." "My brother's been one for years and goes skiing and travels all over the world." "Won't you tell me a story?" "No, my head hurts too much." "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "It's just that this headache is killing me." "Strange about Rognvald." "So much that he said came true." "He seemed to hear for whom the bells of the world toll." "He even heard the ringing of his own church bells." "Come and have a word with me." "You can't stay in your room all day." "You'll become strange." "There was a hermit where I lived in the countryside who always kept to himself." "He ended up being very strange indeed." "I was just passing by." "You're never at home." "I've told you I don't want to be so tied down." "Dagny!" "You know I can't stop thinking about you." "I love you." "I don't feel well." "You know it's over, but you're always coming round here." "I want you to leave me alone." "I'm still fond of you though." "Do you want me to go?" "I can't find anything to explain that headache of yours." "Nothing?" "Couldn't it be that the headache is in your heart, Paul?" "The doctor asked if I hadn't got a headache in my heart." "I think he might be right." "Dagny, there's a dance tomorrow." "I'd like to invite you." "No, I don't want to go." "Why not?" "I just don't like dances." "I don't want to go." "It's a really big event." "Everyone's going." "I don't care, I don't want to go." "That kind of thing bores me." "But I'll go to a movie with you." "You will?" "OK." "What do you want to see?" "I think Chaplin's City Lights is on at the University Cinema." "That's great." "Can't you turn that down just a little bit?" "This is not accordion music!" "You're so tense." "We just can't figure you out." "You don't have to figure me out." "I'm leaving." "Paul!" "Don't sulk like that." "Everyone suffers in love." "I told you she was just trying to be a rebel and that one day she'd slam the door in your face." "She'll find herself some rich kid." "But don't worry, there are plenty more fish in the sea." "I was just hoping." "You know." "I can't stand it." "Making me stand outside with both tickets then sit alone in the dark." "And at a Chaplin film too." "It mattered that it was a Chaplin film, and such a sad one at that." "It wouldn't have been so bad if it was some other film." "like Planet of the Apes." "That's what women are like." "Look at this." "Cool knife." "Egil Skallagrimsson wouldn't have had any trouble making it bloody." "Waiter!" "Someone's ejaculated all over my food!" " No pushing in here, friend." " Did you say something?" "I just said you should wait in line like everybody else." "There will be no charges and we'll drive you home." "You ought to take a look at what you get up to." "Seriously." "Somebody was trying to trip me up." "No thanks." "I don't want to sleep with you, however much you try." "Don't make such a noise while you're eating." "Am I making a noise?" "Yes, you are." " Don't do that." " Shut up!" "You're mad." "You know how sensitive Harald is." "I told you to shut up!" "This can't go on." "We must do something." "He's not behaving normally." "So you want to send him to hospital?" "What will he be like there?" "Writhing in a straightjacket, full up with medication." "What will would people say then?" "He's making everyone suffer." "We must think of the other children." "It's the woman from next door." "I will not tolerate this." "I have decided to accept your offer of carnal relations." "You are welcome to come over, though." "Don't worry about your husband." "He is fiction from start to finish." "A written contract is offered if you so desire." "Yours sincerely, Paul." "My parents want to talk to me." "They ask me to come out and have something to eat, talk things over." "They ask me all kinds of things." "And they promise not to do anything." "They promise not to say anything." "We're going for a Sunday drive." "I'll come along." "That house is a funny colour." "It certainly is." "Are you making fun of me?" "It's the same colour as my coat." "How did the newspaper know I'm a painter?" "Did you tell them?" "What?" "What am I supposed to have told them?" "Who's following me around with a camera?" "I know you're all behind this." "Did the sergeant talk to you?" "What are you talking about?" "You pretend not to understand, with your photographers and your journalists." "How much are you paying them?" "This young man wanted to hold an exhibition of his paintings." "at the police station." "Lizards and crocodiles chased me." "Monsters tried to strangle me." "Then God told me I was the last man on earth, and I should begin building, and that I should turn my room into an ark." "You coming on board?" "Paul, Rognvald's on the phone." "Tell him the knife's in the lake." "See, what did I tell you?" "Paul wants to take a look inside your school bag." "Have you two gone mad?" "See, what did I tell you?" "He keeps a gun in his school bag." "Where am I?" "At the Klepp psychiatric hospital." "What about you?" "Are you there too?" "Yes, my name's Brynjolf." "We're supposed to try to sort this business out." "Now I thank my lucky stars Brynjolf was there, not Ludvik." "He's qualified to deal with people like me." "I belonged to the world of madmen." "I was goo-goo and ga-ga, ding-dong, bing-bong, round the bend." "On the eternal last stop, a professional loner." "Don't you get any money?" "Don't you earn royalties for all the Beatles' songs you've written?" "No, they take it all." "I'm locked up in hospital and send them the songs by telepathy." "But the Beatles aren't together any more." "That doesn't matter." "They still receive my telepathic messages and release my songs." "The Beatles are crap." "They're jerks, uneducated dockside kids." "But they're better than Hitler." "Don't you go talking about Hitler." "You talk like a Nazi." "Adolf knew his stuff." "That's why he wanted to exterminate lunatics like you." "Why is he such a Nazi?" "Whenever he comes in here, he thinks he's Hitler." "When he's in the isolation cell he thinks he's in his bunker and demands cyanide for himself and Eva Braun." "He went to university in England." "He's a very clever guy." "He knows all there is to know about medication and literature." "But why Hitler?" "I don't know." "I've never met the old guys, Napoleon and Bismarck." "Only Hitler and Kennedy." "Personally, I'd be quite happy just to be President of Iceland." "Peter!" "Why?" "Why?" "Peter, look at me." "Why are you like this?" "Johanna!" "Johanna!" "Wait!" "Don't go!" "Johanna!" "Don't go, Johanna." "I want to talk to Johanna." "I used to be a drummer, now I can hardly lift the sticks." "The sound of drumming is like the warders' footsteps." "When I was a boy, the patients went around in uniforms that looked like canvas bags." "They changed that ages ago." "The policy now is to make hospitals look as much like ordinary homes as possible." "Why do you think that is?" "Because ordinary homes have become so much like hospitals." "Listen, that's the bass drum, the bass drum of life, like blues that can't remember what they're about any more." "Get into your rooms." "Yes, Mr. Hotel Manager, sir." "Can you remember my number?" "Shut up and don't go around pretending to be special." "Do you know how long you're in that place for?" "No." "You'll be back home as soon as you're better." "Yes." "I know you'll recover, Paul." "I remember when you were little and that strange man they called" "Old Baldwin looked into your pram and said:" ""Angels watch over this boy."" "Sit up and look at this." "Here's one of you in your pram and another on that farm." "And all your school photographs." "Do you remember when you came home with your report card?" "Yes." "That was fun." "Yes." "Oskar." "That's right." "His father painted landscapes with the Klepp hospital in them and no one would buy them because the hospital was in them." "People seem to have something against hospitals" "He must be in a bad way, that one." "Well, he's certainly depressed." "Brynjolf the psychiatrist carries us on his shoulders." "Our problems are his problems." "I think he spends more time with us than with people who are are considered to be normal." "I suspect he thinks more of us than of them, that the therapy works both ways." "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." "They toil not, neither do they spin." "And yet I say unto you, that even" "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." "Why aren't you doing vocational training like the others?" "Knitting like an old lady?" "No thanks." "I didn't cut off my ear in a former life to end up knitting socks in a mental asylum." "We have rules here and you have to obey them." "You think you're superior to the others." "You regard yourself as an artist and think a lot of yourself but in here you have to take part just like everyone else." "If I were a woman you couldn't force me to join a women's circle." "At the handicraft sessions I feel like I'm at a women's circle." "But I'm not a woman." "That's nonsense." "Can't you give me a better reason for not joining in?" "A man has seven lives, as many as the days of the week." "How is that relevant?" "Well, in my present life, it's Sunday." "What are you up to, Victor?" "I'm trying to turn myself into the square root of two." "Then I'll possess secrets that will destroy their world." "I'll sweep them away like flies." "Then the trial will recommence." "I thought you were studying at the university." "They came and took me away." "I took a bank loan in the name of the Fuhrer and was celebrating with Himmler when they came." "The bank manager didn't find anything wrong with the signature." "By then I'd moved on to applied pharmacology." "So Hitler took a bank loan?" "You don't get a diploma when you leave that place." "The psychiatric hospital doors close and reality takes over." "This is for you." "Isn't it nice to be back home?" "Yes." "So he goes to the bank and asks for a loan." "Victor's like that, so sophistcated." "And they lend him lots of money." "Then they look at the signature and it says Adolf Hitler." "So they bring him in, totally crazy." "Hello Paul!" "Having a coffee?" "I don't think so." "I'll come with you." "Do you think Jesus was mentally ill?" "No, but I know he'd be put in an asylum if he came now." " Where are you going?" " To see the President." "Don't be so stupid." "Could I see the President?" "What do you want to see him for?" "I need to talk to him." "And your name?" "Oli." "And what do you do, Oli?" "I'm a songwriter." "Who is that?" "His name is Oli and he says he writes songs." "Invite him in." "It's not every day you meet a songwriter." "Welcome, Oli." "Please come inside." "So, you cannot see yourself doing anything else than writing pop songs in telepathic form?" "No, and that's exactly why that I came to see you." "I've often thought, when you leave office, whether I couldn't become the President." "Well, I think you would make a splendid president." "Since I'll be the next President, can't I take the car in advance?" "I suppose so." "I'll stop taking that medication." "It's incredible what a recovery he's made." "He's stopping taking medication." "You see what they do to people." "Making ourselves comfortable, are we?" "It's just like being in Mallorca." "You're looking in good shape these days." "I could swim the seven seas." "But don't you want to get a job?" " I'm thinking of writing a book." " You write a book?" "I could just imagine Halldor Laxness sitting in his garden reading a porno magazine." "Laxness." "Who's that?" "I need some money." "You're not getting a cent." "I'm not getting what?" "Didn't you hear what I said?" "You've got no use for money." "What would you do with money?" "I'm going away." "You've got no use for money." "If you don't give me some money, I'll kill you." "Come on, that's enough." "I'll call the police to come and get you." " You're not calling anyone." " Start behaving civilized then." "You get free board and lodging, but you can't have money when you feel like it." "I can't what...?" " Let me have some money!" " How much do you need?" "How much have you got?" "You coming along?" " Where to?" " America." "What am I supposed to do there?" "You could hold the radio." "Leave that alone!" "I hope you can eat this, Paul." "What have you done to him?" "Done to him, what do you mean?" "He's on so much medication he can hardly speak." "It's Easter and a lot of the staff are on holiday." "We have to keep the patients sedated or we wouldn't be able to get on with our work." "I've come to fetch the genius." "Hello, Rognvald." "I decided to visit you." "They are letting me take you for a drive." "What's it like in there?" "It's okay." "Just like any other job, except that you're not allowed to go on strike." "So you did it, you're a dentist." "But I wish you'd been a psychiatrist instead." "You do?" "I think you might have been able to cure me." "It's hard enough to keep myself on the right side of the line." "No, Rognvald, I can't imagine anything healthier in our society than a wealthy dentist driving a jeep." "At least, there's no room for them at the madhouse." "Just remember the madhouse exists just about everywhere." "It doesn't matter which way you look at psychiatrists." "They're just not like most other people." "Check." "Well, my shift's over now." "But our game isn't." "We'll finish the game then." "Check, and mate." "Exactly." "Well, bye then." "Great guy, that new warder." "Not a bit like Silly Willy." "Where do you think you're going?" "I've just finished my shift." "Will you unlock the door for me" " That shift finished ages ago." " Come on, I'll miss the bus." " So you think you work here, do you?" " I just started." "That's what they all say." "Come along with me, my lad." "I travelled the solar system and saw all the colours that ever were." "I went to China and wrote my doctoral dissertation." "It's just as good as any of that crap you've read, Victor." "It's about Schiller and I keep on phoning China to get a copy of it." "But no one takes any notice of you when youre like this and you're like this because no one takes notice of you." "God, you lot have travelled all over the place, but I've never been farther than the airport." "Are people in China very interested in Schiller?" "Yes, people in China are very interested in Schiller." "In China, nothing's irrelevant." "You're no better than them." "You don't believe me either." "You just believe what you say and it's no better than what I say just because you say it." "Perhaps the LSD turned the world upside down inside his head." "I can't see that it matters which way the world turns." "He's got China on the brain." "That's because he's got such a big brain." "I flew." "I really flew." "I threw myself out because I knew I could fly." "I jumped out of the window and I just flew." "But I still fell." "Hey, Peter" "We ought to get that new warder to take us up to the University to check out about your thesis." "I'm sure they've sent it there." "We can see your daughter too." "You're a schizophrenic and I think schizophrenia is deeply rooted in the Icelandic character." "Look at all that belief in elves and spirits, ghosts and trolls." "It's evidence of a split personality." "NATO made me crazy." "I was born on the day Iceland joined NATO." "Every year the communists protest against my birthday." "Isn't that going a bit far?" "No, it's all the same thing." "The mental hospital and society." "What?" "Just read the NATO treaty." "I never did get round to doing that." "No, you lot can never be bothered to think about such things." "We are given medication to keep us under control." "Big doses to counteract the symptoms of insanity, with high protein binding and a strong effect on signals to the brain." "But societies use weapons to defend themselves against all the madness in the world." "So the world's a madman in microcosm, deranged, a split personality with chronic psychosis." "That's why I say that when Iceland joined NATO, the chaos inside my head was ratified by this country's government." "You ought to write a book about these ideas of yours." "I might just do that." "But tell me, what do you think about Southern Sausages?" "SS, you mean the hot dogs?" "Precisely that, SS." "Don't you think it's outrageous for the largest food producer in Iceland to have the same name as Hitler's stormtroopers?" "If you carry on like that, you and I will have to swap seats." "You and Peter can go into town with Eysteinn." "That's my daughter." "You know you're forbidden to come round here." "If you're seen around here again, we'll call the police." "Use the saucer." "Have you heard the story about Marco Polo and the saucer?" "The Chinese visited by Marco Polo put a bowl over their tea cups which is logical, because the bowl kept it warm." "At sea the ship pitched and rolled so much that the bowl ended up under the cup, and it's been there ever since." "There's so much in our culture that's based on misunderstanding." "Wait for me here." "They couldn't find anything." "Peter!" "Help!" "Help!" " Where's the other loony?" " I don't know..." "Shut up!" "You were trying to escape." "You idiots!" "Stay here and don't move." " He's escaped." " I know." "Police." "Aren't we going to the funeral?" "Not me." "Why not?" "What would I do there?" "As far as I can see, this is all one big funeral." "Peter was our friend." "I miss him." "So what?" "If you went to the funeral of every patient here, you'd spend your whole life sitting on a church pew." "Besides, funerals bore me." "You can't only do things you like." "I'm not going." "It's just one patient less." "Don't talk like that." "We're all equal before God, even if we are ill." "We're angels." "Angels of the universe." "God's not interested in us, nor in anyone else." "He's dead." "Nietzsche killed him." "How did he go about that?" "With a single sentence." "He just said "God is dead."" "And people realized that's what it's all about." "I know Peter was fond of us." "We were friends." "Nonsense." "The fact that we're friends is the best proof that we haven't got any friends." "But we're human beings too." "Look at that bunch in parliament." "People like that are two a penny, but you can't find people like us anywhere except in asylums." "Stop that nonsense." "Human beings?" "I can't think of anything more revolting." "We're not bloody human beings!" "What are we then?" "Walking shadows!" "Death!" "You talk about death!" "Funerals!" "Friendship!" "It's all crap." "All that our deaths mean is a saving for the health system." "If you want to do the taxpayers a favour, go and hang yourself." "You're a complete fascist." "I know old Adolf killed lunatics, but don't forget he was just putting into practice what a lot of people think." "Is anything wrong?" "We're just talking things over." "I've been listening to you." "Even when I'm writing songs I still hear what people say." "I'll tell you one thing, Victor, despite all those books you've read you are wise because reading books doesn t make you wise." "I can't read more than two lines before I give up." "But I do know that Buddha said:" ""It's better to know little about the holy writings and live by them than to know a lot about the holy writings but not live by them."" "That's my boy, Oli!" "That's bullshit." "You and your stupid Beatles." "We'll all go to the funeral, but that doesn't mean to say that we actually need to attend it." "It's not that Peter wasn't our friend." "We just don't want to get in the way." "As they say in the Icelandic Sagas:" ""We really took Russia by storm."" "For a long time afterwards, we were banned from going to town." "I want emphasize to you that you are being trusted." "But I'm not sure we would have wanted to miss any of this." "You may go the funeral alone, without a warder." "The point is that you're being trusted." "But you have to prove that you are worthy of such trust." "We could go to a caf'." "That would be fun." "I think we should go to the Hotel Grill." "What Grill?" "The Grill at Hotel Saga." "It's the only decent restaurant in town." "I can't afford that." "Nor me." "This is on me." "Take off those stupid headbands and everything will be fine." "I was asked to bring you this." "You'd think that Victor came here every night." "It's all right." "I told the waiters you were some relatives from some remote valley up in the north of the country." " Did they believe you?" " Yes." "I told them you rarely came to town and" "I've been helping you to sell your farm." "Did they ask what you do?" "No, but I said I'm in the property business." "Your table is ready." "You just think about the food." "I'll choose the wine." "I'll just have the same as you." "Yes, I trust you Victor." "I'll have grilled lobster tails as a starter." "Then for the main course, roasted loin of beef." "Amazing." "Unbelievable." "Oli, this is just like going out for dinner with the President." "We'll have Marquis de Riscal with the starter" "and the Fontareque de Chose vintage with the main" "So that's all settled, lads." "It should be like this all the time." "Splendid." "Just think, if we were back there the best we could hope for would be sausage with gravy and canned peas." "The very thought makes me want to throw up." "Cheers for Peter." "Cheers." "You could say this is a kind of a wake." "It is a wake." "This is how we say farewell to our friend." "He's gone and won't come back." "But we sit here and honour his memory." "Cheers." "Can't we ask him just to leave the bottle here?" "No, that simply is not done." "We just order a refill." "I've got some sleeping tablets to have with the brandy, if you like." "No thanks, I prefer ice cream." "Same here." "Could you bring the landowners some more coffee, another cognac and the finest ice cream in the house." "Certainly, sir." "And some cigars and the bill." "And some more cognac!" "Look!" "Nice bill." "Definitely not for people on welfare." "No." "I can't accept this as a cheque." "We're all patients at the Klepp psychiatric hospital." "Please be so kind as to call the police immediately." "It was an exceptionally pleasant meal." "We will certainly consider coming again." "Waiter!" "Would you mind bringing a jug of cold water?" "Are we taking them down to the station?" "No, I talked to the sergeant." "He said to go straight back to the asylum." "So, how was the meal, lads?" "Excellent." "I've never tasted food like that before." " You had wine with it?" " Yes." " And cigars too?" " Yes." "From Cuba, Castro specials." "You don't do things by halves." "You're so smart, aren't you." "The head waiter phoned and told me everything." "It's not you who get into trouble, it's us." "Victor!" "Come in here!" "You deserve a beating." "You lie about going to a funeral and the police bring you back totally drunk from a restaurant where you order the best food but haven't got any money to pay for it." "I see no reason to discuss this with you." "Who do you want to discuss it with then?" " Brynjolf." " Brynjolf?" "Maybe you plan to take him along with you next time?" "Well, I'm not inviting you, that's for sure." "Scum!" "You lot are nothing but scum!" "Help!" "Help!" "Give that bastard a shot of sedative!" "I took it like any other joke, that old cynicism of his." "And I didn't want to die then." "He was a true friend who never forgot me even though I'd been buried alive in that asylum, and no one else cared where" "I was." "It's easy, Paul." "Just put your foot down on the accelerator..." "Poor Rognvald!" "He'd done so well for himself." "He had a house and a car a lovely wife and clever children." "How could he do that to them?" "Yes, Rognvald." "The madhouse is all over the place, not just in the hospital, or the palace, it's also a pattern woven from threads so fine that no one can separate them." "Neither the emperor nor small children." "Not me and not you." "I'm going then." "No one in my position ought to dream about climbing higher in society than the top floor of a rehabilitation block." "This wall might fall down one day, but the walls between me and the world will never fall down." "They stand unbreachable and firm, even though no one can see them with the naked eye." "You haven't looked after your angels." "It's raining." "Any news from the hospital?" "I haven't been there for ages." "It isn't what it used to be." "No one goes there now unless they're in perfect health." "These days you have to go there voluntarily and few people do." "Then when you're ill there isn't any room for you." "There's mainly staff out there these days." "Where are you going?" "Out into the rain." "Leave my hamburger alone." "You owe me some money." "Since when?" "You just do." "You owe me money." "Don't you lie to me." "I don't owe you a thing." "You owe me plenty." "You're lying." "Give me my hamburger." "I'm hungry." "Can't you see I'm eating it?" "You blind or something?" " Got any money?" " No." "Sure you've got some money." "I've only got what's left of my benefit money." "This is DJ Conni's Night Shift." "You can phone in now." "It's so good to talk at night and the songs I play are your songs." "Conni?" "It's Paul here!" "You know me." "I've talked to you before." "I was downtown." "Two guys attacked me and took all my money." "They took my hamburger and ate it." "I'm on welfare benefit." "Not because I've fared well or had any benefit from it." "But because all I can do is be here and phone you." "That's sad." "What can I play for you?" " Am I on the air?" " Yes." "I want to hear "My Way."" "That's me." "I do it all my way." "The caretaker said he put his stuff in there." ""Dreams:" "At the bottom of them we perceive the merciless onslaught of reality."" "No, I'm not dead." "I've gone off to sea." "I am sailing the blue sea in the mansions of the father." "On these fishing banks of the dead there are no restrictions." "Here in the depths of eternity I am lying cold and alone." "I hear the trees rustling."