Kristin Lavransdatter (Kristin Lavransdatter, #1-3)

by Sigrid Undset

“Do you think I wish them well because I wish for them something slightly better than the worst?” said Lavrans with a faint smile.

Dragons and all other creatures that serve the Devil only seem big as long as we harbor fear within ourselves. But if a person seeks God with such earnestness and desire that he enters into His power, then the power of the Devil at once suffers such a great defeat that his instruments become small and impotent. Dragons and evil spirits shrink until they are no bigger than goblins and cats and crows.

No one and nothing can harm us, child, except what we fear and love.”

“There is no one, Kristin, who does not love and fear God. But it’s because our hearts are divided between love for God and fear of the Devil, and love for this world and this flesh, that we are miserable in life and death. For if a man knew no yearning for God and God’s being, then he would thrive in Hell, and we alone would not understand that he had found his heart’s desire. Then the fire would not burn him if he did not long for coolness, and he would not feel the pain of the serpent’s bite if he did not long for peace.”

I fear the Devil and love and desire this world like a fool. But I hold on to the cross with all my strength—one must cling to it like a kitten hanging on to a plank when it falls into the sea.

“But can’t you ease Ulvhild’s pain a little? God help us, her moans could arouse pity from the stone inside the mountain.”

They call a man a fool who fritters away his father’s inheritance in order to enjoy himself in his youth. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion about that. But I call him a true idiot and fool only if he regrets his actions afterward, and he is twice the fool and the greatest buffoon of all if he expects to see his drinking companions again once the inheritance is gone.

“It’s good when you don’t dare do something that doesn’t seem right,” said Fru Aashild with a little laugh. “But it’s not so good if you think something isn’t right because you don’t dare do it.”

Then Fru Aashild ran over and helped Sira Sigurd to his feet and wiped the blood from his face. She handed him a goblet of mead as she said, “You shouldn’t be so stern, Sira Eirik, that you can’t stand to hear a joke late in the evening after so many drinks.

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But she refused. “Here sit two priests and Brother Aasgaut and young boys and maidservants. We should stop now before the talk grows indecent and vulgar; remember that these are the holy days.”

But she did not want that kind of faith; she did not love God and His Mother and the saints in that way. She would never love them in that way. She loved the world and longed for the world.

Kristin knelt down on the stone and placed her folded hands on the base. “Holy Cross, the strongest of masts, the fairest of trees, the bridge for those who are ill to the fair shores of health . .

Lavrans looked at his wife; he also glanced at Simon’s face, and then he went over and put his arm around Kristin’s shoulder. “You must remember that she’s his foster sister,” he said. “Perhaps she would like to help Inga attend to the body.” And even though Kristin’s heart was gripped with fear and despair, she felt a warm surge of gratitude toward her father for his words.

Lavrans went over to Inga. She was staring at Kristin and seemed not to hear Lavrans’s words; she stood there with the gifts he had given her, holding them as if unaware that she had anything in her hands.

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it was as if she had water instead of marrow in her bones, she felt so weak.

He grasped her around the knees and lifted her up. She felt a thrill pass through her, sweet and good, because he held her away from himself so carefully, as if he were afraid to get too close to her. Back home they had never paid attention if they pressed her too close when they helped her onto her horse. She felt so strangely honored.

Gradually the glow of the taper seemed to envelop her, shutting out everything else surrounding her and the candle. She felt her heart open up, brimming over with gratitude and promises and love for God and His gentle Mother—she felt them so near. She had always known that they saw her, but on this night she felt that it was so. She saw the world as if in a vision: a dark room into which a beam of sunlight fell, with dust motes tumbling in and out, from darkness to light, and she felt that now she had finally moved into the sunbeam. She thought she would gladly have stayed in the quiet night-dark church forever—with the few tiny specks of light like golden stars in the night, the sweet fragrance of old incense, and the warm smell of burning wax. With herself resting inside her own star.

Kristin lay awake for a long time, but the deep current of sweetness which had borne her as she knelt in the church would not return. And yet she still felt its warmth inside her; she fervently thanked God, and she sensed a feeling of strength in her spirit as she prayed for her parents and her sisters and for the soul of Arne Gyrdsøn.

the memory of his thin, dark face and his quiet voice had hovered somewhere in the shadows, just beyond the radiance of her soul.

He was not as handsome as she thought she had remembered him; the lines in his face seemed to extend so long and somberly down to his soft, small, attractive mouth—oh yes, he was handsome after all.

“Any able-bodied young man has to have a certain amount of defiance in him,”

When I was back home I couldn’t understand how anything could have such power over the souls of people that they would forget all fear of sin, but now I have seen so much that if one cannot rectify the sins one has committed out of desire or anger, then heaven must be a desolate place.

“Dear Erlend, did you think that we maidens would forget the man who so magnificently defended our honor?”

“It won’t do much good for us to think about what’s right and what’s wrong,” said Kristin.

And during those brief evening hours when she could be together with Erlend in the poor women’s cowshed, she would throw herself into his arms so ardently, as if she had paid with her soul to be his.

“You, his women, have so little understanding of the kind of man Lavrans is. Trond Gjesling says that he doesn’t keep you all in line. But why should Lavrans bother with such things when he was born to rule over men? He had the makings of a chieftain, he was someone men would have followed, gladly; but these are not the times for such men. My father knew him at Baagahus. And so it has ended with him living up there in the valley, almost like a peasant. He was married off much too young; and your mother, with that temperament of hers, was not the one to make it any easier for him to lead such a life. It’s true that he has many friends, but do you think that any one of them can measure up to him? His sons he was not allowed to keep; it was you daughters who were to continue the lineage after him. Will he now have to endure the day when he sees that one is without health and another is without honor?”

There was no escaping the fact that in this situation, Erlend was left with even less honor than she was.

“You have caused much sorrow and anger with this notion of yours, my daughter, but you know that your welfare is what I have most at heart. God help me, I would feel the same no matter what you did. He and His gentle Mother will help us to turn this to the best. Go now and sleep well.”

“You are the best husband,” she said with a little sob, pressing herself against him. Ardently he embraced her.

Lavrans already had his foot on the stairs up to the loft when he turned back to his wife, who was still standing in the door to the entryway. He pulled her fervently to him one last time and kissed her in the darkness. Then he made the sign of the cross over his wife’s face and went upstairs.

“I won’t help you with this,” said his aunt sternly. “Lavrans has been a faithful friend to us for many years. He and his wife are honorable people, and I won’t participate in betraying them or shaming her.

“I see,” replied Fru Aashild. “Then you have taken a grave sin upon yourself, Erlend. Kristin was happy at home with her father and mother. A good marriage with a handsome and honorable man of good family was arranged for her.”

Then Kristin replied sharply, “I won’t complain about Erlend, no matter what he does. I was the one who took the wrong path, and I won’t moan and feel sorry for myself even if it leads me out over the scree.”

“You say this because I’m old now,” whispered Aashild. Kristin burst into sobs that cut through the room. Rigid and silent, she had been sitting in the corner near Aashild’s bed. Now she began to weep out loud. It was as if Fru Aashild’s voice had torn open her heart. This voice, heavy with memories of the sweetness of love, seemed to make Kristin fully realize for the first time what the love between her and Erlend had been. The memory of burning, passionate happiness washed over everything else, washed away the cruel despairing hatred from the night before. She felt only her love and her will to survive.

“Do you remember, Aunt, you once told me that it’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.”

“You didn’t dare because it was a sin,” said Fru Aashild.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Kristin. “I’ve done many things that I thought I would never dare do because they were sins. But I didn’t realize then that the consequence of s...

“But I know that I won’t let go of Erlend—even if I have to trample on my own father.”

“Perhaps I’ll have the courage to ask the one who created me, such as I am, whether He will have mercy on me when the time comes. For I have never asked for His mercy when I went against His commandments. And I have never asked God or man to return one penning of the fines I’ve had to pay here in my earthly home.”

During those nights he would occasionally talk about one thing or another from the time when the children were small. Kristin would sit there, pale and miserable, understanding that behind his words, her father was pleading with her.

Up near the Saint Thomas altar she saw her father on his knees with his head resting on his folded hands, which were clutching his cap against his chest.

Together they stood and looked out into the bright May night. Warm wind and rain swept toward them. The sky was a heap of tangled, surging rain clouds; there was a seething from the woods, a whistling between the buildings. And up on the mountains they heard the hollow rumble of snow sliding down. Kristin reached for her father’s hand and held it. He had called her and wanted to show her this. It was the kind of thing he would have done in the past, before things changed between them. And now he was doing it again.

And I can’t see that there is anything standing in the way except your pride—and your abhorrence of sin. But in this it seems to me that you wish to be harsher than God Himself, Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn!”

“I don’t understand, Father, what I have done to deserve your willingness to show me such great love.”

“You’re suffering badly, dear Father,” said Kristin with dismay. “It seems that way to me now. But I know it’s because God has made me into a child again, and is tossing me up and down.

But he had taken her, partly by force, but with laughter and with caresses too, so she had been unable to show him that she was serious in her refusal.

Everyone has his sins to answer for; no doubt that is why this misfortune has been brought upon us all.

Jesus, how heavy it was to bear all that silver and gold.