“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
CHAPTER 1
ON THE EVE of Saint Simon’s Day, Baard Peters?n’s ship anchored at the spit near Birgsi. Abbot Olav of Nidarholm had ridden down to the shore himself to greet his kinsman Erlend Nikulauss?n 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 M?re, 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.