Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

  It turned out that when they met, Simon and Erlend greeted each other openly and without restraint. Simon kept his feelings in check, and Erlend was so unabashed and merry that the other man thought he must have forgotten where they had last met. Then Simon gave Kristin his hand. The two of them were more uncertain, and their eyes barely met for more than a moment.

  Kristin thought his looks had faded a good deal. In his youth, Simon had been quite handsome, even though he was much too stout and his neck was too thick. His steel-gray eyes had seemed small under his full eyelids, his mouth was too little, and his dimples were too big in his round, childish face. But he had had a healthy complexion and a broad, milky-white forehead under his beautiful, curly, light-brown hair. His hair was still curly, and just as thick and nut-brown, but his whole face was now reddish-brown; he had lines under his eyes, heavy jowls, and a double chin. He had become heavyset, and he had a noticeable belly. He didn’t look like a man who would take time to lie down on the edge of the bed in the evening to whisper to his betrothed. Kristin felt sorry for her young sister; she was so lively and lovely and childishly happy about her marriage. On the very first day she showed Kristin all the chests containing her dowry and Simon’s betrothal gifts. And she said she had heard from Sigrid Andresdatter about a gilded chest that was up in the bridal loft at Formo; there were twelve costly wimples inside, and this was what her husband was going to give her on their first morning. Poor little thing, she had no idea what marriage was like. It was too bad that Kristin hardly knew her little sister; Ramborg had been to Husaby twice, but there she was always sullen and unfriendly. She didn’t care for Erlend or for Margret, who was the same age.

  Simon thought to himself that he had expected—perhaps even hoped—that Kristin would look more careworn than she did, after having so many children. But she was glowing with youth and health, her posture was still erect, and her bearing just as lovely, although her step was a little firmer than before. She was the most beautiful mother with her five handsome small sons.

  She was wearing a homemade gown of rust-brown wool with dark-blue birds woven into the cloth; Simon remembered standing next to her loom while she sat and worked on that cloth.

  There was some commotion when they were about to sit down at the table in the loft of the main house. Skule and Ivar began screaming; they wanted to sit between their mother and foster mother, as they usually did. Lavrans didn’t think it proper for Ramborg to sit farther down than her sister’s servant woman and children, so he invited his daughter to sit in the high seat next to him, since she would soon be leaving home.

  The small sons from Husaby were unruly and seemed to have no table manners. They had barely started eating before the little blond boy ducked under the table and popped up on the cushion next to Simon’s knee.

  “Can I look at that odd sheath you have on your belt, kinsman Simon?” he asked. The boy spoke slowly and solemnly. It was the large silver-studded sheath holding a spoon and two knives that he had caught sight of.

  “Yes, you may, kinsman. And what is your name, cousin?”

  “My name is Gaute Erlendssøn, cousin.” He put the scrap of bacon he was holding onto the lap of Simon’s silver-gray Flemish surcoat, pulled a knife out of the sheath, and examined it carefully. Then he took the knife that Simon was eating with, and the spoon, and put them all back in place so he could see how the sheath looked when everything was inside. He was quite earnest, and his fingers and face were very greasy. Simon smiled at the eager expression on the small, handsome face.

  A few minutes later the two oldest boys came over to the men’s bench too. The twins toppled under the table and began rolling around between everyone’s feet; then they went over to the dogs near the fire. There was little peace for the adults as they ate their supper. Their mother and father reprimanded the boys and told them to sit quietly, but the children paid them no mind. And their parents kept laughing at them and seemed not to take their mischievous behavior too seriously—not even when Lavrans, in a rather sharp voice, told one of his men to take the whelps down to the room below so people in the hall could hear themselves speak.

  Everyone from Husaby was to sleep in the loft of the main house, and after the meal, while more ale was being brought in for the men, Kristin and her maids took the children over to a corner of the hall to undress them. They had gotten so dirty while eating that their mother wanted to wash them up a bit. But the youngest boys refused to be washed, and the older ones splashed the water, and then all of them started rushing around the hall as the maids pulled one piece of clothing after another off them. Finally they were all put into one bed, but they continued to yell and play and shove each other, laughing and shrieking. Pillows and coverlets and sheets were hurled this way and that, making dust fly, and the smell of chaff filled the whole room. Kristin laughed and explained calmly that they were so high-spirited from being in a strange place.

  Ramborg accompanied her betrothed outside and walked with him for a short distance between the fences in the spring night. Gyrd and Geirmund had ridden on ahead while Simon stopped to say good night. He had already put his foot in the stirrup when he turned back to the maiden, took her in his arms, and held the delicate child so close that she whimpered happily.

  “God bless you, dear Ramborg—you’re so fine and so fair—much too fine and fair for me,” he murmured into her mass of curls.

  Ramborg stood watching Simon as he rode off into the misty moonlight. She rubbed her arm—he had gripped her so hard that it hurt. Dizzy with joy, she thought: Now there were only three days left until she would be married to him.

  Lavrans stood next to Kristin at the children’s bedside and watched her tucking in her small sons. The eldest were already big boys with lanky bodies and slender, lean limbs; but the two smallest ones were chubby and rosy, with folds in their skin and dimples at their joints. Lavrans thought it a lovely sight to see them lying there, pink and warm, their thick hair damp with sweat, breathing quietly as they slept. They were healthy, beautiful boys—but never had he seen such poorly behaved children as his grandsons. Luckily Simon’s sister and sister-in-law hadn’t been present tonight. But he wasn’t the one to speak to Kristin about discipline. Lavrans gave a small sigh and then made the sign of the cross over the small boys’ heads.

  Then Simon Andressøn celebrated his wedding to Ramborg Lavransdatter, and it was magnificent and grand in every way. The bride and bridegroom looked happy, and it seemed to many that Ramborg was more lovely on her wedding day than her sister had been—perhaps not as striking as Kristin, but much happier and gentler. Everyone could see in the bride’s clear, innocent eyes that she wore the golden crown of her Gjesling ancestors with full honor on that day.

  And full of joy and pride, with her hair pinned up, she sat in the armchair in front of the bridal bed as the guests came upstairs to greet the young couple on the first morning. With laughter and bold teasing, they watched as Simon placed the wimple of a married woman over his young wife’s head. Cheers and the clanging of weapons filled the room as Ramborg stood up, straight-backed and flushed beneath the white wimple, and gave her husband her hand.

  It was not often that two noble children from the same district were married—when all the branches of the lineage were studied, it was often found that the kinship was too close. So everyone considered this wedding to be a great and joyous occasion.

  CHAPTER 6

  ONE OF THE first things Kristin noticed at home was that all the carvings of old men’s heads which sat carved above the crossbeams on the building gables were now gone. They had been replaced by spires with foliage and birds, and there was a gilded weather vane atop the new house. The old posts on the high seat in the hearth room had also been replaced with new ones. The old ones had been carved to look like two men—rather hideous, but they had apparently been there since the house was built, and the servants used to polish them with fat and wash them with ale before the holy days. On the new posts her father had carved t
wo men with crosses on their helmets and shields. They weren’t meant to be Saint Olav himself, Lavrans said, for he didn’t think it would be proper for a sinful man to have images of the saint in his house, except those he knelt in front of to say his prayers. But they could very well be two of Olav’s men. Lavrans had chopped up and burned all the old carvings himself. The servants didn’t dare. It was with some reluctance that he still allowed them to take food out to the great stone at Jørund’s grave on the evening before holy days; Lavrans conceded that it would be a shame to take away from the original owner of the estate something he had grown accustomed to receiving for as long as anyone had lived on the land. He died long before Christianity came to Norway, so it wasn’t his fault that he was a heathen.

  People didn’t like these changes that Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn had made. That was fine for him, since he could afford to buy his security elsewhere. And it seemed to be equally powerful, because he continued to have the same good fortune with his farming as before. But there was some talk that the spirits might take their revenge when the estate was taken over by a master who was less pious and not as generous about everything that belonged to the Church. And it was easier for poor folk to give the ancestors what they were used to receiving instead of stirring up strife with them by siding too much with the priests.

  Otherwise it was rather uncertain how things would go with the friendship between Jørundgaard and the parsonage after Sira Eirik was gone. The priest was old now and in poor health, and he had been forced to bring in a curate to assist him. At first he had talked to the bishop about his grandson Bentein Jonssøn; but Lavrans had also had a word with the bishop, who had been his friend in the past. People thought this unfair. No doubt the young priest had been overly importunate toward Kristin Lavransdatter on that evening, and he may have even frightened the girl; but it was also possible that she herself might have been to blame for the young man’s boldness. It had later turned out that she was not as shy as she seemed to be. But Lavrans had always believed his daughter to be good, and he treated her as if she were a holy shrine.

  After that there was a coldness between Sira Eirik and Lavrans for some time. But then Sira Solmund arrived, and he was immediately embroiled in a dispute with the parish priest over a piece of land and whether it belonged to the parsonage or to Eirik himself. Lavrans had the best grasp of any man in the district about land purchases and such matters back to ancient times, and it was his testimony that determined the outcome. Since then, he and Sira Solmund had not been friends. But it might be said that Sira Eirik and Audun, the old deacon, practically lived at Jørundgaard now, for they went over there every day to sit with Lavrans and complain of all the injustices and troubles they had to endure from the new priest; and they were waited on as if they were bishops.

  Kristin had heard a little about this from Borgar Trondssøn of Sundbu; his wife came from Trøndelag, and he had been a guest at Husaby several times. Trond Gjesling had been dead for a few years now. But this was not considered a great loss, since he had been like an intruder in the ancient lineage—surly, avaricious, and sickly. Lavrans was the only one who had any patience with Trond, for he pitied his brother-in-law and even more Gudrid, his wife. Now they were both gone, and all four of their sons lived together on the estate. They were intrepid, promising, and handsome men; people thought them a good replacement for the father. There was great friendship between these men and the master of Jørundgaard. Lavrans rode to Sundbu a couple of times each year to join them in hunting on the slopes of Vestfjeld. But Borgar said that it seemed completely unreasonable the way Lavrans and Ragnfrid were now worrying themselves with penances and devotions.

  “He gulps down water during fasts just as eagerly as always, but your father doesn’t speak to the ale bowls with the same heartiness he used to show in the past,” said Borgar. No one could understand the man—it was unthinkable that Lavrans might have some secret sin to repent. As far as people could tell, he had lived as Christian a life as any child of Adam, apart from the saints.

  Deep inside Kristin’s heart, a foreboding began to stir about why her father was always striving so hard to come closer to God. But she didn’t dare think about it too much.

  She didn’t want to acknowledge how changed her father was. It wasn’t that he had aged excessively: he was still slim, with an erect and noble bearing. His hair was quite gray now, but it wasn’t overly noticeable, since he had always been so fair. And yet . . . Kristin’s memory was haunted by the image of the young and radiantly handsome man—the fresh roundness of his cheeks in the narrow face, the pure blush of his skin under the sheen of tan, and the crimson fullness of his lips with the deep corners. Now his muscular body had withered to bone and sinew, his face was brown and sharp, as if carved out of wood, and his cheeks were flat and gaunt, with a knot of muscle at the corners of his mouth. Well, he was no longer a young man—and yet he wasn’t very old, either.

  He had always been quiet, sober-minded, and pensive, and Kristin knew that even in childhood he had obeyed the Christian commandments with particular zeal. He loved the holy mass and prayers spoken in Latin, and he regarded the church as the place where he felt the most joy. But everyone had sensed a daring courage and zest for life flowing calmly in this quiet man’s soul. Now it seemed as if something had ebbed out of him.

  Since she had come home, she hadn’t seen him drunk except on one occasion—an evening during the wedding celebration at Formo. Then he had staggered a bit and slurred his words, but he hadn’t been especially merry. She thought back to her childhood, to the banquets and great ale drinking on feast days, when her father would roar with laughter and slap his thighs at every jest—offering to fight or wrestle with any man renowned for his physical strength, trying out horses, and leaping into dance, but laughing most at himself when he was unsteady on his feet, and lavishly handing out gifts, brimming over with good will and kindness toward everyone. She understood that her father needed this sort of exhilaration from time to time, amidst the constant work, the strict fasts he kept, and the sedate home life with his own people, who saw him as their best friend and supporter.

  She also saw that her husband never had this need to get drunk because he put so few restrictions on himself, no matter how sober he might be. He regularly gave in to his impulses, without brooding over right or wrong or what was considered good and proper behavior for sensible people. Erlend was the most moderate man she had ever met when it came to strong liquor. He drank in order to quench his thirst and for the sake of camaraderie, but otherwise he didn’t particularly care for it.

  Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn had now lost his old sense of enjoyment for the ale bowls. He no longer had that craving inside him that needed to be released through revelry. It had never occurred to him before to drown his sorrows in drunkenness, and it didn’t occur to him now—he had always thought that a man ought to bring his joy to the drinking table.

  He had turned elsewhere with his sorrows. There was an image that had always hovered dimly in his daughter’s memory: Lavrans on the night when the church burned down. He stood beside the crucifix he had rescued, holding on to the cross and supporting himself with it. And without thinking it through, Kristin had the feeling that what had changed Lavrans was partly his fear for the future of herself and her children with the husband she had chosen, along with the awareness of his own powerlessness.

  This knowledge secretly gnawed at her heart. And she had returned home to Jørundgaard, worn out by the tumult of the previous winter and by her own rashness in accepting Erlend’s nonchalance. She knew he was wasteful and always would be, and he had no idea how to manage his properties, which were slowly but constantly diminishing under his control. She had been able to get him to agree to a few things which she and Sira Eiliv had advised, but she didn’t have the heart to speak to him about such matters time and again. And it was tempting simply to be happy with him now. She was tired of arguing and fighting with everything both outside and inside her own soul. But
she was also the kind of person who was made anxious and weary by such heedless behavior.

  Here at home she had expected to rediscover the peace from her childhood, under the protection of her father.

  No, she felt so uneasy. Erlend now had a good income from his position as sheriff, but he also lived with greater ostentation, with more servants and an entourage befitting a chieftain. And he had begun to shut her out of everything that didn’t concern their domestic life together. She realized that he didn’t want to have her watchful eyes on what he was doing. With other men he would talk willingly about all he had seen and experienced up north—to her he never said a word. And there were other things as well. He had met with Lady Ingebjørg, the king’s mother, and Sir Knut Porse several times over the past few years. But it had never been opportune for Kristin to accompany him. Now Sir Knut was a duke in Denmark, and King Haakon’s daughter had bound herself to him in marriage. This had aroused bitter indignation in the souls of many Norwegian men; measures had been taken against the king’s mother which Kristin did not understand. And the bishop in Bjørgvin had secretly sent several chests to Husaby. They were now on board Margygren, and the ship was anchored at Nes. Erlend had been given boxes of letters and was to sail to Denmark later in the summer. He wanted Kristin to go along with him, but she refused. She could see that Erlend moved among these noble people as an equal and a dear kinsman, and this worried her—it wasn’t safe with such an impetuous man as Erlend. But she didn’t dare travel with him; she wouldn’t be able to advise him in these matters, and she didn’t want to run the risk of consorting with people among whom she, a simple wife, could not assert herself. And she was also afraid of the sea. For her, seasickness was worse than the most difficult childbirth.

  So she spent the days at Jørundgaard with her soul shivering and uneasy.