Kristin curtseyed and kissed her hand. Then Fru Groa told Kristin to follow an execeptionally fat old nun, whom she called Sister Potentia, over to the nuns’ refectory. She invited the men and Fru Gyrid to dine with her in a different room.
The refectory was a beautiful hall. It had a stone floor and arched windows with glass panes. A doorway led into another room, and Kristin could see that this room too must have glass windowpanes, because the sun was shining inside.
The sisters had already sat down and were waiting for the food. The older nuns were sitting on a stone bench covered with cushions along the wall under the windows. The younger sisters and the bareheaded maidens wearing light homespun dresses sat on a wooden bench in front of the table. Tables had also been set in the adjoining room, which was intended for the most distinguished of the corrodians1 and the lay servants; there were several old men among them. These people did not wear cloister garb, but they did wear dark and dignified attire.
Sister Potentia showed Kristin to a place on the outer bench while she herself went over to a seat near the abbess’s place of honor at the head of the table, which would remain empty today.
Everyone rose, both in the main hall and in the adjoining room, as the sisters said the blessing. Then a young, pretty nun came forward and stepped up to a lectern which had been placed in the doorway between the rooms. And while two of the lay sisters in the main hall and two of the youngest nuns in the other room brought in the food and drink, the nun read in a loud and lovely voice—without pausing or hesitating at a single word—the story of Saint Theodora and Saint Didymus.
From the very first moment, Kristin thought most about showing good table manners, for she noticed that all the sisters and young maidens had such elegant comportment and ate so properly, as if they were at the most magnificent banquet. There was an abundance of the best food and drink, but everyone took only modest portions, using only the tips of their fingers to help themselves from the platters. No one spilled any soup on the tablecloth or on their clothes, and everyone cut up the meat into such tiny pieces that they hardly sullied their lips; they ate so carefully that not a sound could be heard.
Kristin was sweating with fear that she wouldn’t be able to act as refined as the others. She also felt uncomfortable in her brightly colored attire among all the women dressed in black and white. She imagined that they were all staring at her. Then, as she was about to eat a piece of fatty mutton breast and was holding it with two fingers pressed against the bone while in her right hand she held the knife, trying to cut easily and neatly, the whole thing slipped away from her. The bread and the meat leaped onto the tablecloth as the knife fell with a clatter to the floor.
The sound was deafening in that quiet room. Kristin blushed red as blood and was about to bend down to pick up the knife, but a lay sister wearing sandals came over, soundlessly, and gathered up the things. But Kristin could eat nothing more. She also noticed that she had cut her finger, and she was afraid of bleeding on the tablecloth, so she sat there with her hand wrapped up in a fold of her dress, thinking that now she was making spots on the lovely light-blue gown that she had been given for her journey to Oslo. And she didn’t dare raise her eyes from her lap.
After a while she started to listen more closely to what the nun was reading. When the chieftain could not sway the maiden Theodora’s steadfast will—she would neither make sacrifices to false gods nor let herself be married—he ordered her to be taken to a brothel. Furthermore, he exhorted her along the way to think of her freeborn ancestors and her honorable parents, upon whom an everlasting shame would now fall, and he promised that she would be allowed to live in peace and remain a maiden if she would agree to serve a pagan goddess, whom they called Diana.
Theodora replied, unafraid, “Chastity is like a lamp, but love for God is the flame. If I were to serve the devil-woman whom you call Diana, then my chastity would be worth no more than a rusty lamp without fire or oil. You call me freeborn, but we are all born thralls, since our first parents sold us to the Devil. Christ has redeemed me, and I am obliged to serve him, so I cannot marry his enemies. He will protect his dove, but if he would cause you to break my body, which is the temple of his Holy Spirit, then it shall not be reckoned to my shame, as long as I do not consent to betray his property in enemy hands.”
Kristin’s heart began to pound, because this reminded her in a certain way of her encounter with Bentein. It struck her that perhaps this was her sin, that she had not for a moment thought of God or prayed for His help. Then Sister Cecilia read about Saint Didymus. He was a Christian knight, but he had kept his Christianity secret from all except a few friends. He went to the house where the maiden was confined. He gave money to the woman who owned the house, and then he was allowed to go to Theodora. She fled to a corner like a frightened rabbit, but Didymus greeted her as a sister and the bride of his Lord and said that he had come to save her. Then he talked to her for a while, saying: “Shouldn’t a brother risk his own life for his sister’s honor?” And finally she did as he asked; she exchanged clothes with him and allowed herself to be strapped into his coat of mail. He pulled the helmet down over her eyes and drew the cape closed under her chin, and then he told her to go out with her face hidden, like a youth who was ashamed to be in such a place.