Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

“Do you think I wish them well because I wish for them something slightly better than the worst?”

“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.”

“But she also learned her prayers before she understood them. At those times when one needs either prayers or advice, one usually has no mind to learn or to understand.”

And if the man had allowed himself to be ruled and commanded by others, at least he had never been aware of this himself.

May God reward you, brother-in-law!”

was too bad their father hadn’t given them advice on how to forget as well—when the friendship was broken and the honor dead and the faithfulness a sin and a secret, disgraceful torment, and there was nothing left of the bond but the bleeding wound that would never heal.

Many a man is given what was intended for another, but no one is given another man’s fate.

But don’t you think she’s . . . worth thinking about for twenty years?”

“I’m not to blame, Ramborg, if a man’s heart is created in such a fashion that whatever is inscribed on it when it’s young and fresh is carved deeper than all the runes that are later etched.”

“Haven’t you ever heard the saying that a man’s heart is the first thing to come alive in his mother’s womb and the last thing to die inside him?” replied Ramborg quietly.

“Not with food,” said Naakkve eagerly. “Anyone will tell you that—any man or woman who has ever served on our estate. Mother is the most generous of women when it comes to food. In that regard she’s no different now from when we were rich. She’s never happier than when she can set some special dish on the table, and she makes such an abundance that every servant, right down to the goatherd and the beggar, receives his share of the good food.”

Surely she had never asked God for anything except that He should let her have her will. And every time she had been granted what she asked for—for the most part. Now here she sat with a contrite heart—not because she had sinned against God but because she was unhappy that she had been allowed to follow her will to the road’s end.

“He belongs to Christ. Better for all of us to perish than for us to harm one of his children.”