“Do you want to know how it happened that she took her life?” Kristin was now so full of despair that she spoke quite calmly. “We were together at Haugen, Erlend and I, when she arrived. She had brought along a drinking horn, and she wanted me to drink with her. I now see that she probably intended it for Erlend, but when she found me there with him, she wanted me to . . . I realized it was treachery—I saw that she didn’t drink any herself when she put the horn to her lips. But I wanted to drink and I didn’t care whether I lived or died when I found out that she had been with him here at Husaby the whole time. Then Erlend came in—he threatened her with his knife: ‘You must drink first.’ She begged and begged, and he was about to let her go. Then the Devil took hold of me; I grabbed the horn—‘One of us, your two mistresses,’ I said—I egged Erlend on—‘You can’t keep both of us,’ I said. And so it was that she killed herself with Erlend’s knife. But Bj?rn and Aashild found a way to conceal what had happened.”
“So Aunt Aashild took part in this concealment,” said Gunnulf harshly. “I see . . . she played you into Erlend’s hands.”
“No,” said Kristin vehemently. “Fru Aashild pleaded with us. She begged Erlend and she begged me so that I don’t understand how I dared defy her—to step forward in as honorable a manner as was still possible, to fall at my father’s feet and implore him to forgive us for what we had done. But I didn’t dare. I argued that I was afraid that Father would kill Erlend—but oh, I knew full well that Father would never harm a man who put himself and his case into his hands. I argued that I was afraid he would suffer such sorrow that he would never be able to hold his head high again. But I have since shown that I was not so afraid to cause my father sorrow. You can’t know, Gunnulf, what a good man my father is—no one can realize it who doesn’t know him, how kind he has been to me all my days. Father has always been so fond of me. I don’t want him to find out that I behaved shamelessly while he thought I was living with the sisters in Oslo and learning everything that was right and just. I even wore the clothing of a lay sister as I met with Erlend in cowsheds and lofts in town.”
She looked up at Gunnulf. His face was pale and hard as stone.
“Do you see now why I’m frightened? She who took him in when he arrived, infected with leprosy . . .”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” the priest asked gently.
“Of course, of course, of course.” A shadow of that wild, sweet smile of the past flickered across the woman’s ravaged face.
“But Erlend wasn’t infected,” said Gunnulf. “No one except Father ever thought that Mother died of leprosy.”
“But I must be like a leper in God’s eyes,” said Kristin. She rested her face on the priest’s arm which she was gripping. “Such as I am, infected with sins.”
“My sister,” said the priest softly, placing his other hand on her wimple. “I doubt that you are so sinful, young child, that you have forgotten that just as God can cleanse a person’s flesh of leprosy, He can also cleanse your soul of sin.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she sobbed, hiding her face on his arm. “I don’t know—and I don’t feel any remorse, Gunnulf. I’m afraid, and yet . . . I was afraid when I stood at the church door with Erlend and the priest married us. I was afraid when I went inside for the wedding mass with him, with the golden crown on my flowing hair, for I didn’t dare speak of shame to my father, with all my sins unatoned for; I didn’t even dare confess fully to my parish priest. But as I went about here this winter and saw myself growing more hideous for each day that passed—then I was even more frightened, for Erlend did not act toward me as he had before. I thought about those days when he would come to me in my chamber at Skog in the evenings. . . .”
“Kristin,” the priest tried to lift her face, “you mustn’t think about this now! Think about God, who sees your sorrow and your remorse. Turn to the gentle Virgin Mary, who takes pity on every sorrowful—”
“Don’t you see? I drove another human being to take her own life!”
“Kristin,” the priest said sternly. “Are you so arrogant that you think yourself capable of sinning so badly that God’s mercy is not great enough? . . .”
He stroked her wimple over and over.
“Don’t you remember, my sister, when the Devil tried to tempt Saint Martin? Then the Fiend asked Saint Martin whether he dared believe it when he promised God’s mercy to all the sinners whose confessions he heard. And the bishop answered, ‘Even to you I promise God’s forgiveness at the very instant you ask for it—if only you will give up your pride and believe that His love is greater than your hatred.’ ”