Kristin Lavransdatter (45 page)

Married off—that was what had happened to him, practically unconsulted. Friends . . . he had many, and he had none. War . . . it had been a joy, but there was no more war; his armor was hanging up in the loft, seldom used. He had become a farmer. But he had had daughters; everything he had done in his life became dear to him because he had done it to provide for those tender young lives that he held in his hands. He remembered Kristin’s tiny two-year-old body on his shoulder, her flaxen soft hair against his cheek. Her little hands holding on to his belt while she pressed her hard, round forehead against his shoulder blades when he went riding with her sitting behind him on the horse.

And now she had those ardent eyes, and she had won the man she wanted. She was sitting up there in the dim light, leaning against the silk pillows of the bed. In the glow of the candle she was all golden—golden crown and golden shift and golden hair spread over her naked golden arms. Her eyes were no longer shy.

The father moaned with shame.

And yet it seemed that his heart had burst with blood—for what he had never had. And for his wife, here at his side, to whom he had been unable to give himself.

Sick with compassion, he reached for Ragnfrid’s hand in the dark.

“Yes, I thought we lived well together,” he said. “I thought you were grieving for our children. And I thought you had a melancholy heart. I never thought that it might be because I wasn’t a good husband to you.”

Ragnfrid was trembling feverishly.

“You have always been a good husband, Lavrans.”

“Hm . . .” Lavrans sat with his chin resting on his knees. “And yet you might have done better if you had been married as our daughter was today.”

Ragnfrid sprang up, uttering a low, piercing cry. “You know! How did you find out? How long have you known?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Lavrans after a moment, his voice strangely dispirited.

“I’m talking about the fact that I wasn’t a maiden when I became your wife,” replied Ragnfrid, and her voice was clear and resounding with despair.

After a moment Lavrans said, in the same voice as before, “I never knew of this until now.”

Ragnfrid lay down in the hay, shaking with sobs. When the spell had passed she raised her head. A faint gray light was beginning to seep in through the holes in the wall. She could dimly see her husband as he sat there with his hands clasped around his knees, as motionless as if he were made of stone.

“Lavrans—speak to me,” she whimpered.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, not moving.

“Oh, I don’t know. You should curse me—strike me . . .”

“It’s a little late for that now,” replied her husband; there was the shadow of a scornful smile in his voice.

Ragnfrid wept again. “No, I didn’t think I was deceiving you, so deceived and betrayed did I feel myself. No one spared me. They brought you . . . I saw you only three times before we were married. I thought you were only a boy, so pink and white . . . so young and childish.”

“That I was,” said Lavrans, and his voice seemed to acquire more resonance. “And that’s why I would have thought that you, who were a woman, you would have been more afraid of . . . of deceiving someone who was so young that he didn’t realize . . .”

“I began to think that way later on,” said Ragnfrid, weeping.

“After I came to know you. Soon the time came when I would have given my soul twenty times over if I could have been without blame toward you.”

Lavrans sat silent and motionless.

Then his wife continued, “You’re not going to ask me anything?”

“What good would that do now? It was the man who . . . we met his funeral procession at Feginsbrekka, when we were carrying Ulvhild to Nidaros.”

“Yes,” said Ragnfrid. “We had to step off the road, into the meadow. I watched them carry his bier past, with priests and monks and armed men. I heard that he had been granted a good death—reconciled with God. As we stood there with Ulvhild’s litter between us I prayed that my sin and my sorrow might be placed at his feet on that last day.”

“Yes, no doubt you did,” said Lavrans, and there was that same shadow of scorn in his quiet voice.

“You don’t know everything,” said Ragnfrid, cold with despair. “Do you remember when he came out to visit us at Skog that first winter after we were married?”

“Yes,” said her husband.

“When Bjørgulf was struggling with death . . . Oh, no one had spared me. He was drunk when he did it to me—later he said that he had never loved me, he didn’t want me, he told me to forget about it. My father didn’t know about it; he didn’t deceive you—you must never believe that. But Trond . . . my brother and I were the dearest of friends back then, and I complained to him. He tried to threaten the man into marrying me—but he was only a boy, so he lost the fight. Later he advised me not to speak of it and to take you. . . .”

She sat in silence for a moment.

“When he came out to Skog . . . a year had passed, and I didn’t think much about it anymore. But he came to visit. He said that he regretted what he had done, that he would have taken me then if I hadn’t been married, that he was fond of me. So he said. God must judge whether he spoke the truth. After he left . . . I didn’t dare go out on the fjord; I didn’t dare because of the sin, not with the child. And by then I had . . . by then I had begun to love you so!” She uttered a cry, as if in the wildest torment. Her husband turned his head toward her.

“When Bjørgulf was born,” Ragnfrid went on, “oh, I thought I loved him more than my own life. When he lay there, struggling with death, I thought: If he perishes, I will perish too. But I did
not
ask God to spare the boy’s life.”

Lavrans sat for a long time before he asked, his voice heavy and dead, “Was it because I wasn’t his father?”

“I didn’t know whether you were or not,” said Ragnfrid, stiffening.

For a long time both of them sat there, as still as death.

Then the husband said fervently, “In the name of Jesus, Ragnfrid, why are you telling me this—now?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She wrung her hands so hard that her knuckles cracked. “So that you can take vengeance on me. Chase me away from your manor . . .”

“Do you think that would help me?” His voice was shaking with scorn. “What about our daughters?” he said quietly. “Kristin, and the little one?”

Ragnfrid said nothing for a moment.

“I remember how you judged Erlend Nikulaussøn,” she murmured. “So how will you judge me?”

A long icy shiver rippled through the man’s body, releasing some of his stiffness.

“You have now . . . we have now lived together . . . for almost twenty-seven years. It’s not the same thing as with a man who’s a stranger. I can see that you have suffered the greatest anguish.”

Ragnfrid collapsed into sobs at his words. She tried to reach out for his hand. He didn’t move, but sat as still as a dead man. Then she wept louder and louder, but her husband sat motionless, staring at the gray light around the door. Finally she lay there as if all her tears had run out. Then he gave her arm a fleeting caress. And she began to cry again.

“Do you remember,” she said in between her sobs, “that man who once visited us while we were at Skog? The one who knew the old ballads? Do you remember the one about a dead man who had come back from the land of torment and told his son the legend of what he had seen? He said that a great clamor was heard from the depths of Hell, and unfaithful wives ground up earth for their husbands’ food. Bloody were the stones that they turned, bloody hung their hearts from their breasts . . .”

Lavrans said nothing.

“For all these years I have thought of those words,” said Ragnfrid. “Each day I felt as if my heart were bleeding, for I felt as if I were grinding up earth for your food.”

Lavrans didn’t know why he answered the way he did. His chest felt empty and hollow, like a man whose heart and lungs had been ripped out through his back. But he placed his hand, heavy and weary, on his wife’s head and said, “Earth has to be ground up, my Ragnfrid, before the food can grow.”

When she tried to take his hand to kiss it, he pulled it abruptly away. Then he looked down at his wife, took her hand, placed it on his knee, and leaned his cold, rigid face against it. And in this manner they sat there together, without moving and without speaking another word.

II: THE WIFE

IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER
INGVALD UNDSET

PART I

THE FRUIT OF SIN

ON THE EVE of Saint Simon’s Day, Baard Petersøn’s ship anchored at the spit near Birgsi. Abbot Olav of Nidarholm had ridden down to the shore himself to greet his kinsman Erlend Nikulaussøn and to welcome the young wife he was bringing home. The newly married couple would be the guests of the abbot and spend the night at Vigg.

Erlend led his deathly pale and miserable young wife along the dock. The abbot bantered about the wretchedness of the sea voyage; Erlend laughed and said that his wife was no doubt longing to sleep in a bed that stood firmly next to a wall. And Kristin tried to smile, but she was thinking that she would not go willingly on board a ship again for as long as she lived. She felt ill if Erlend merely came close to her, so strongly did he smell of the ship and the sea—his hair was completely stiff and tacky with salt water. He had been quite giddy with joy the entire time they were on board ship, and Sir Baard had laughed. Out there at Møre, where Erlend had grown up, the boys were constantly out in the boats, sailing and rowing. They had felt some sympathy for her, both Erlend and Sir Baard, but not as much as her misery warranted, thought Kristin. They kept saying that the seasickness would pass after she got used to being on board. But she had continued to feel wretched during the entire voyage.

The next morning she felt as if she were still sailing as she rode up through the outlying villages. Up one hill and down the next, carried over steep moraines of clay, and if she tried to fix her eyes up ahead on the mountain ridge, she felt as if the whole countryside was pitching, rising up like waves, and then tossed up against the pale blue-white of the winter morning sky.

A large group of Erlend’s friends and neighbors had arrived at Vigg that morning to accompany the married couple home, so they set off in a great procession. The horses’ hooves rang hollowly, for the earth was now as hard as iron from black frost. Steam enveloped the people and the horses; rime covered the animals’ bodies as well as everyone’s hair and furs. Erlend looked as white-haired as the abbot, his face glowing from the morning drink and the biting wind. Today he was wearing his bridegroom’s clothing; he looked so young and happy that he seemed radiant, and joy and wild abandon surged in his beautiful, supple voice as he rode, calling to his guests and laughing with them.

Kristin’s heart began quivering so strangely, from sorrow and tenderness and fear. She was still feeling sick after the voyage; she had that terrible burning in her breast that now appeared whenever she ate or drank even the smallest amount. She was bitterly cold; and lodged deep in her soul was that tiny, dull, mute anger toward Erlend, who was so free of sorrow. And yet, now that she saw with what naive pride and sparkling elation he was escorting her home as his wife, a bitter remorse began trickling inside her, and her breast ached with pity for him. Now she wished she hadn’t held to her own obstinate decision but had told Erlend when he visited them in the summer that it would not be fitting for their wedding to be celebrated with too much grandeur. And yet she had doubtless wished he might see for himself that they would not be able to escape their actions without humiliation.

But she had also been afraid of her father. And she had thought that after their wedding was celebrated, they would be going far away. She wouldn’t see her village again for a long time—not until all talk of her had long since died out.

Now she realized that this would be much worse. Erlend had mentioned the great homecoming celebration that he would hold at Husaby, but she hadn’t envisioned that it would be like a second wedding feast. And these guests—they were the people she and Erlend would live among; it was their respect and friendship that they needed to win. These were the people who had witnessed Erlend’s foolishness and misfortune all these years. Now he believed that he had redeemed himself in their opinion, that he could take his place among his peers by right of birth and fortune. But he would be ridiculed everywhere, here in the villages, when it became apparent that he had taken advantage of his own lawfully betrothed bride.

The abbot leaned over toward Kristin.

“You look so somber, Kristin Lavransdatter. Haven’t you recovered from your seasickness yet? Or are you longing for your mother, perhaps?”

“Oh, yes, Father,” said Kristin softly. “I suppose I’m thinking of my mother.”

 

They had reached Skaun. They were riding high up along the mountainside. Beneath them, on the valley floor, the leafless forest stood white and furry with frost; it glittered in the sunlight, and there were glints from a little blue lake down below. Then they emerged from the evergreen grove. Erlend pointed ahead.

“There you can see Husaby, Kristin. May God grant you many happy days there, my wife!” he said warmly.

Spread out before them were vast acres, white with rime. The estate stood on what looked like a wide ledge midway up the mountain slope. Closest to them was a small, light-colored stone church, and directly to the south stood all the buildings; they were both numerous and large. Smoke was swirling up from the smoke vents. The bells began to chime from the church and people came streaming out toward them from the courtyard,
¹
shouting and waving. The young men in the bridal procession clanged their weapons against each other—and with much banging and clattering and joyous commotion the group raced toward the manor of the newly married man.