The Snake Pit

by Sigrid Undset

  He accompanied her as far as Oslo and stayed in the town a few days, buying and selling. One morning Ingunn was sitting in the inn when Olav entered hastily. He searched in their leather bags, did not find what he wanted, and opened another bag. There he came upon some little garments—they might have fitted a child of four years. Unconsciously his eyes fell upon his wife—Ingunn’s head was bent and her face was red as fire. Olav said nothing, packed the bag again, and went out.

  6 Little Snake.

  7 Erik Glipping.

  6

  HAAKON GAUTSSON had bought Berg after the death of Lady Magnhild Toresdatter. Now Tora Steinfinnsdatter had dwelt there as his widow for over a year. Ingunn guessed from her talk that she had had a good life with Haakon, but she lived well without him too. She was a very capable woman. Ingunn never ceased to marvel at her sister, who busied herself deftly, promptly, and shrewdly both indoors and out, although her bulk was prodigious. She still preserved her fair red and white complexion and her regularity of feature, but her cheeks and chin were grown to an immense size and her body was so unwieldy that she could scarcely sit on horseback; even her hands were so fat that the joints only showed as deep hollows—but Tora could make full use of them. Wealth and prosperity surrounded her, and her children were handsome and promising. She had had six, and all were alive and thriving.

  On the third evening the sisters were sitting together in the balcony before going to rest. Ingunn sat in the doorway listening to the stillness—far away in the woods the cuckoo still called now and again, and the corncrake chirped in the fields. But she had now lived so long in a place where the very air seemed always to be full of voices, the soughing of the wind, the roar of the sea dashing against the rocks below: under this clear and silent vault the little sounds of birds seemed only to make the stillness more audible—to Ingunn it was as though she drank deep draughts of refreshment. The bay was so small and so dear; bright and smooth it lay, with dark reflections of the wooded headlands. The last banks of cloud had settled upon the distant hills—the day had been showery with gleams of sunshine, and a sweet scent came up to them from the hay spread out below.

  Her longing would not be kept back—all at once, without thinking, Ingunn declared the purpose for which she had come. She had fought with herself these two days, now to speak out, now to hold back the question:

  “Do you ever see aught of my Eirik?”

  “He is well,” said Tora, with some hesitation. “Hallveig says he is thriving and promises well. She comes hither every autumn, you know.”

  “Is it long since you saw him?” asked her sister.

  “Haakon was so much against my going there,” said Tora as before. “And since then I have put on so much flesh that I am little suited for such a journey. But you know that he is with honest folk, and Hallveig has naught but good news to tell of him. I have much upon my hands here at home—and little time to wander so far afield,” she concluded, with some heat.

  “When saw you him last?” Ingunn asked again.

  “I was there in the spring after you left home; but then Haakon would not have me go thither any more; ’twas only keeping the gossip alive, he said,” Tora replied impatiently. “He was a fine child,” she added, more gently.

  “Then that is three years ago?”

  “Ay, ay.”

  The sisters were silent awhile.

  Then Tora said: “Arnvid went to see him—many times—in the first years.”

  “Has he too given up, Arnvid? Has he too forgotten Eirik now?”

  Tora said reluctantly: “You know—folk could never find out who was the father of your child.”

  Ingunn was silent, overcome. At last she whispered: “Did they believe then that Arnvid—!”

  “Ay, ’twas foolish to make such a secret of the father, since the child could not be hid,” said Tora curtly. “So they could but guess the worst—a near kinsman or a monk.”

  There was a little pause. Then Ingunn said impulsively:

  “I had thought of riding up their tomorrow—if the weather suits.”

  “I think it unwise,” said Tora sharply. “Ingunn, remember we have all had much to suffer for your misdeeds—”

  “You—who have six. How think you it feels to have but a single one, and to be parted from him? I have longed and longed for Eirik all these years.”

  “It is too late now, sister,” said Tora. “Now you must remember Olav—”

  “I do remember Olav too. He has had four dead sons by me. He claimed his own, the child I deserted and betrayed—he claimed his mother; he has sucked at me without ceasing, he almost sucked the soul out of my body, and he sucked the life out of my children while they were yet unborn, the outcast brother. There was yet a little life in the first son I bore to Olav, they say, when he came into the world—he died before I could see him, unbaptized, nameless. You have seen all your children come living into the light of day, and grow and prosper. Three times have I felt the child quicken within me and grow still and die again. And I knew I had nothing to hope for, when the pains came upon me, but to be quit of the corpse that burdened me—”

  After a long silence Tora said:

  “You must do as seems good to you. If you think the sight of him will make it easier for you, then—”

  She patted her sister’s cheek as they went in to bed.

  It was drawing near to midday when Ingunn halted her horse at a gate in the forest. She had refused to listen to all Tora’s prayers, but had ridden off alone. No worse thing had befallen her but to mistake the road; first she had come to a little farm that lay high up the slope on the other side of a little river. The people who lived there were the nearest neighbours to Siljuaas, and two children from this croft had gone with her down the hillside to a place where she could cross the river.

  She stayed awhile sitting in the saddle and looking out over the country. The forests rolled endlessly, wooded ridge behind ridge into the distant blue—toward the north-west there was a gleam of snow under the shining fine-weather clouds. Deep down and far away she saw a small stretch of the surface of Lake Mjösen glittering beneath the foot of wooded hills, and the land on the other side lay blue in the noontide heat, with its green patches of farms and crofts.—From Hestviken one could not see a scrap of cultivation beyond the fields of the manor itself.

  Homesickness and yearning for her child united in a feeling of crying hunger within her. And she knew she had but this one little hour in which to assuage it, for once only. Then she must turn back again, bow her neck, and take up her burden of unhappiness.

  It seemed to her that in the south, by the fiord, the sunshine was never so clear and deep as here under the blue sky. It was glorious to be up on a high ridge once more. Below and to the right of her she had the dark, steep wooded slope, up which she had toiled on foot, leading her horse. The roar of the stream at the bottom of the ravine came up to her, now louder, now softer. Right opposite, on the other side of the secluded little valley, lay the croft that she had come to first, high up under the brow of the hill, and between her and it the air quivered in a blue haze over the hillside.

  Before her was the clearing. The houses stood on a little knoll of rock-strewn, tussocky turf—they were grey and low, not more than a couple of logs high. The little patches of corn lay for the most part at the foot of the knoll, toward the fence.

  Ingunn dismounted, pulled up the stakes of the gate—and a group of grey-clad little children came in view on the knoll. Ingunn was unable to move—she was trembling all over. The children kept as still as stones for a few moments, watching her; then they whisked round and were gone—not a sound had she heard from them.

  As she walked up the knoll, a woman appeared at the door of one of the little houses. She seemed rather scared at sight of the stranger—perhaps she took her for something other than human, this tall woman with the snow-white coif about her heated face, and the sky-blue, hooded mantle and silver brooch, leading a great sorrel horse by the bridle. I
ngunn hastened to call out, greeting the woman by name.

  They sat indoors for a while, talking, and then Hallveig went out to fetch Eirik. The children could not be far away, she thought—they were scared of the lynx; it was abroad and had been sitting on the fence that morning. But they were shy of the visitor, for lynxes were more common than strangers here.

  Ingunn sat and looked about her in the tiny room. It was low under the gabled roof and darkened by smoke; tools and earthen pots lay all about, so that there was scarce room to turn. A baby was asleep in a hanging cradle, snoring soundly and regularly. And then she heard a fly buzzing somewhere with a high, sharp, piercing note, incessantly, as though caught in a cobweb.

  Hallveig came back, dragging with her a very small boy who had nothing on but a grey woollen shirt. Behind them swarmed the whole flock of the woman’s own children, peeping in at the door.

  Eirik struggled to be free, but Hallveig pushed him forward and held him in front of the strange woman. Then he raised his head for an instant, glanced in wonder at this splendidly clad person—crept back behind his foster-mother and tried to hide.

  His eyes were a yellowish brown, the colour of bog-water when the sun shines into it, and the long, black eyelashes were curled up at the end. But his hair was fair and curled about his face and neck in great glistening ringlets.

  His mother stretched out her arms and drew him onto her lap. With a voluptuous thrill she felt the hard little head on her arm, the silky hair between her fingers. Ingunn pressed his face to hers—the child’s cheek was round and soft and cool; she felt the little half-open lips against her skin. Eirik resisted with all his force, struggling to escape from his mother’s impetuous embrace, but he did not utter a sound.

  “It is I who am your mother, Eirik—do you hear, Eirik?—it is I who am your real mother.” She laughed and wept at once.

  Eirik looked up as if he did not understand a word of it. His foster-mother corrected him sharply, bidding him be good and sit still on his mother’s knee. Then he stayed quietly in Ingunn’s lap, but neither of the women could get him to open his mouth.

  She kept her arm about him and his head against her shoulder, feeling the whole length of his body. She passed her other hand over his round, brown knees, stroked his firm calves and his dirty little feet. Once he plucked a little at his mother’s hand with his grimy little fingers, playing with her rings.

  Ingunn opened her bag and took out the gifts. The clothes were far too big for Eirik—he was very small for his age, said his foster-mother. That these fine shirts and little leather hose were for him seemed quite beyond Eirik’s comprehension. Not even when his mother tried on him the red cap with the silver clasp did he show any sign of joy—he only wondered, in silence. Then Ingunn took out the loaves and gave Eirik one that he was to have for himself—a big round wheaten cake. Eirik seized it greedily, clutched it to his chest with both arms, and then ran out—to all his foster-brothers and sisters.

  Ingunn went to the door—the boy was outside with the cake held tightly in his arms; he thrust out his stomach to support it and straddled with his bare brown legs. The other children stood round in a ring staring at him.

  Hallveig produced food for her guest—cured fish, oaten bannocks, and a little cup of cream. The children outside were given the pan of milk from which the cream had been skimmed. When Ingunn looked out again, they were sitting round their food; Eirik was on his knees, breaking off big pieces of the cake and passing them round.

  “’Tis his free-handed way,” said the foster-mother. “Tora gives me a cake for him every year when I go down to Berg, and Eirik always shares it and nigh forgets to eat any himself. ’Tis such things, and others too, that show the boy comes of gentle kindred.”

  Now that all the children were sitting in a ring in the sunshine, Ingunn saw that Eirik’s fair hair was quite different from the coarse flaxen shocks of the others; Eirik’s was curly and shining, all unkempt as it was, and it was not yellow, but more like the palest brown of a newly ripened hazelnut.

  Ingunn had to set out for home about the hour of nones, to be sure of reaching Berg before evening. She had not been able to conquer Eirik’s shyness of the strange woman, and she had scarce heard his voice, except when he spoke to the other children out of doors. It was so sweet, so sweet.

  Now Eirik was to have a ride on her horse as far as the forest. Ingunn walked, leading the horse and supporting the child with one arm, while she smiled and smiled at him, trying to coax forth a smile on his pretty little round and sunburned face.

  They had passed through the gate: here no one could see them. She lifted the boy down, hugged him in her arms, kissed and kissed again his face and neck and shoulder, while he struggled, making himself long and heavy in her embrace. When he began to kick her as hard as he could, his mother took a firm hold of his smooth bare calves—feeling with painful joy how firm and strong his little body was. At last she sank into a crouching attitude, and as she wept and muttered wild endearments over the child, she strove to coax and force him to sit in her lap.

  When she was obliged for a moment to loosen her grip of him, the boy managed to wriggle away from her. He darted like a hare across the little clearing, was lost among the bushes—then she heard the gate close.

  Ingunn stood up—she wailed aloud with pain. Then she staggered forward, bent double by sobs, with drooping arms. She came to a hedge, saw Eirik running over the turf so fast that his heels nearly reached his neck.

  The mother stood there, weeping and weeping, as she bent over the hedge. The withered, rust-red branches of spruce had been felled to fence in a little field, where the corn had just begun to shoot—still soft and pinched like some kind of new-born life, it appeared ever after to her inner vision, when she thought of her sorrow, though now she had no idea of what her tear-blinded eyes looked upon.

  But at last she had to go back to her horse.

  7

  IN the course of the autumn Sira Benedikt Bessesson fell sick. And one day a message came for Olav of Hestviken—the priest would bid him farewell.

  Sira Benedikt did not look like a dying man as he lay propped up by pillows. But the wrinkles, which had seemed few and shallow in his fleshy, weatherbeaten face, were deeper and there were more of them. Nevertheless he predicted his approaching departure with certainty. When Olav had seated himself on the edge of the bed, as the other bade him, the priest, as though absently, took the riding-gloves out of the franklin’s hand, felt the leather, and held them critically to his nose and eyes—Olav could not help a little smile.

  They talked for a while of one thing and another—of Arne Torgilsson and his daughters. Two of them were now married in the neighbourhood, but Olav had seldom met them or their husbands of late.

  “Folk see less and less of you, Olav,” said the priest; “and many wonder at it, that you always keep to yourself as you do.”

  Olav reminded him that he had been at sea the last few summers, and every winter his wife had been sick.

  Again the priest spoke of his imminent dissolution, asking Olav to be diligent in prayers for his soul. Olav gave him his promise. “But you have surely little need to fear what may await you, Sira Benedikt,” said he.

  “I think there is none of us but needs must fear it,” replied the priest. “And I have always lived negligently, in that I took little thought of the small daily sins—I spoke and acted as my humour prompted me and consoled myself with the thought that it was no great and deadly sin—thinking it could be no such great matter what I did from frailty and natural imperfection, though I well knew that in God’s eyes all sin is more loathsome than sores. And you and I would not like to live with a man and take him in our arms if he were full of sores and scabs all over. Now I have every day partaken of the remedy that surely heals the leprosy of sin. But you know that even the surest remedy and the most precious ointment is slow to heal the sickness if every day a man shall scratch himself again and tear his skin anew. And so it is with us, whe
n our Lord has washed away our sins with His blood and anointed us with His mercy, but we are careless to do the deeds to which we were anointed—thus we scratch ourselves as soon as He has healed us, and we must bide in purgatory, bound hand and foot, until we are cleansed from our scabs and taints.”

  Olav sat in silence, twisting his gloves.

  “Too great love have I borne to mine own, I fear. I thank God I have never been the cause of sin in them or backed them in an unrighteous cause—to that I was never tempted, for they were honest folk. But I ween I have been over-zealous sometimes for their advancement and wealth—it is written in my testament that it is to be given back.—And I have been headstrong with my enemies and my kinsmen’s enemies—hasty and ready to believe evil of every man I liked not.”

  “Nevertheless we others must have worse than ill to fear,” said Olav, trying to smile, “if you think your case stands thus.”

  The priest turned his head upon the pillow and looked the young man in the eyes. Olav felt that he went pale under the other’s glance; a strangely impotent feeling came over him. He tried to say something, but could not find words.

  “How you look at me—” he whispered at last. “How you look at me!” he said again a few moments later, and he seemed to be pleading for himself.

  The priest turned his head again, and now he looked straight before him.

  “Do you remember I always scoffed at Olav Half-priest for his talk of having seen so much of those things of which I had little knowledge? I think now that it may enter into God’s counsels to open the eyes of one man to that which He conceals from another. I was never permitted to see aught of those things with which we are surrounded in this life. But now and again I have had an inkling of them, I too.”