They had to go out of the cloister and around to the main entrance; Brother Edvin didn’t dare lead her across the courtyard. He seemed in general quite timid and afraid to do anything that might offend. He had grown terribly old, thought Kristin.
And when she had placed her offering on the altar for the priest of the church and then asked Edvin to hear her confession, he grew quite frightened. He didn’t dare; he had been strictly forbidden to listen to confessions.
“Perhaps you’ve heard about it,” he said. “I didn’t think that I could deny these poor souls the gifts that God has bestowed on me so freely. But I was supposed to exhort them to seek reconciliation at the proper place… Well then. But you, Kristin, you will have to confess to the prior at the convent.”
“There is something that I cannot confess to the prior,” said Kristin.
“Do you think it would benefit you if you confess to me something that you wish to conceal from your proper confessor?” said the monk more sternly.
“If you cannot hear my confession,” said Kristin, “then you can let me talk to you and ask your advice about what is on my mind.”
The monk looked around. The church was empty at the moment. He sat down on a chest that stood in the corner. “You must remember that I cannot absolve you, but I will advise you and I will keep silent as if you had spoken in confession.”
Kristin stood before him and said, “You see, I cannot become Simon Darre’s wife.”
“As to this matter, you know I cannot advise you otherwise than the prior would,” said Brother Edvin. “Disobedient children bring God no joy, and your father has done his best for you—you must realize that.”
“I don’t know what your advice will be when you hear the rest,” said Kristin. “The situation is such that Simon is too good to gnaw on the bare branch from which another man has broken off the blossom.”
She looked directly at the monk. But when she met his eye and noticed how the dry, wrinkled old face suddenly changed and became filled with grief and horror, something seemed to break inside her; the tears poured out, and she tried to throw herself to her knees. But Edvin pulled her vehemently back.
“No, no, sit down here on the chest with me. I cannot hear your confession.” He moved aside to make room for her.
Kristin continued to cry.
He stroked her hand and said softly, “Do you remember that morning, Kristin, when I saw you for the first time on the stairs of Hamar Cathedral? I once heard a legend, when I was abroad, about a monk who could not believe that God loved all of us wretched, sinful souls. An angel came and touched his sight so that he saw a stone at the bottom of the sea, and under the stone lived a blind, white, naked creature. And the monk stared at the creature until he began to love it because it was so small and pitiful. When I saw you sitting there, so tiny and pitiful inside that huge stone building, then I thought it was reasonable that God should love someone like you. You were lovely and pure, and yet you needed protection and help. I thought I saw the whole church, with you inside it, lying in the hand of God.”
Kristin said softly, “We have bound ourselves to each other with the most solemn of oaths—and I have heard that such an agreement consecrates us before God just as much as if our parents had given us to each other.”
But the monk replied with despair, “I see, Kristin, that someone has been telling you of the canonical law without fully understanding it. You could not promise yourself to this man without sinning against your parents; God placed them above you before you met him. And won’t it also be a sorrow and a shame for this man’s kinsmen if they learn that he has seduced the daughter of a man who has carried his shield with honor all these years? And you were also betrothed. I see that you do not think you have sinned so greatly—and yet you dare not confess this to your parish priest. And if you think you are as good as married to this man, why don’t you wear the linen wimple instead of going around bareheaded among the young maidens, with whom you have so little in common now? For now your thoughts must be on other things than theirs are.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking about,” said Kristin wearily. “It’s true that all my thoughts are with this man, whom I yearn for. If it weren’t for Father and Mother, then I would gladly pin up my hair on this very day—I wouldn’t care if they called me a paramour, if only I could be called his.”
“Do you know whether this man’s intentions are such that you might be his with honor someday?” asked Brother Edvin.