Kristin looked up at the man with pleading eyes; it cut her to the heart to listen to him, even though Simon was speaking in such a calm and even voice. And she was so worn out after keeping vigil all these nights; she realized that it would not be good for her to begin weeping now.
Simon stuck the amulet back inside his shirt. “Ah, well. I will give a three-year-old ox to the church on the eve of Saint Michael’s Day every autumn for as long as I live if he will wait a little longer to come for this soul. He’d be no more than a bony chicken on the balance scale, Andres, as small as he is—” But when Simon tried to laugh, his voice broke.
“Simon, Simon!” she implored.
“Yes, things will happen as they must, Kristin. And God Himself will decide; surely He knows best.” The father said no more as he stood gazing down at his son.
On the eighth night Simon and one of the maids kept watch as Kristin dozed on a bench some distance away. When she woke up, the girl was asleep. Simon sat on the bench with the high back, as he had on most nights. He was sitting with his face bent over the bed and the child.
“Is he sleeping?” whispered Kristin as she came forward.
Simon raised his head. He ran his hand over his face. She saw that his cheeks were wet, but he replied in a calm, quiet voice, “I don’t think that Andres will have any sleep, Kristin, until he lies under the turf in consecrated ground.”
Kristin stood there as if paralyzed. Slowly her face turned pale beneath the tan until it was white all the way to her lips.
Then she went back to her corner and picked up her outer garments.
“You must arrange things so that you are alone in here when I come back.” She spoke as if her throat and mouth were parched. “Sit with him, and when you see me enter, don’t say a word. And never speak of this again—not to me or to anyone else. Not even to your priest.”
Simon got to his feet and slowly walked over to her. He too had grown pale.
“No, Kristin!” His voice was almost inaudible. “I don’t dare . . . for you to do this thing. . . .”
She put on her cloak, then took a linen cloth from the chest in the corner, folded it up, and hid it in her bodice.
“But I dare. You understand that no one must come near us afterward until I call; no one must come near us or speak to us until he wakes up and speaks himself.”
“What do you think your father would say of this?” he whispered in the same faint voice. “Kristin . . . don’t do it.”
“In the past I have done things that my father thought were wrong; back then it was merely to further my own desire. Andres is his flesh and blood too—my own flesh, Simon—my only sister’s son.”
Simon took in a heavy, trembling breath; he stood with his eyes downcast.
“But if you don’t want me to make this last attempt . . .”
He stood as before, with his head bowed, and did not reply. Then Kristin repeated her question, unaware that an odd little smile, almost scornful, had appeared on her white lips. “Do you not want me to go?”
He turned his head away. And so she walked past him, stepped soundlessly out the door, and closed it silently behind her.
It was pitch dark outside, with small gusts of wind from the south making all the stars blink and flicker uneasily. She had reached no farther than the road up between the fences when she felt as if she had stepped into eternity itself. An endless path both behind her and up ahead. As if she would never emerge from what she had entered into when she walked out into this night.
Even the darkness was like a force she was pressing against. She plodded through the mud; the road had been churned up by the carts carrying unthreshed grain, and now it was thawing in the south wind. With every footstep she had to pull herself free from the night and the raw chill that clung to her feet, swept upward, and weighted down the hems of her garments. Now and then a falling leaf would drift past her, as if something alive were touching her in the dark—gentle but confident of its superior power: Turn back.
When she came out onto the main road, it was easier to walk. The road was covered with grass, and her feet did not get stuck in the mire. Her face felt as rigid as stone, her body tensed and taut. Each step carried her mercilessly toward the forest grove through which she would have to pass. A feeling rose up inside her like an inner paralysis: She couldn’t possibly walk through that patch of darkness. But she had no intention of turning around. She couldn’t feel her body because of her terror, yet all the while she kept moving forward, as if in her sleep, steadily stepping over stones and roots and puddles of water, unconsciously careful not to stumble or break her steady stride and thus allow fear to overwhelm her.