“You know not all,” said Ragnfrid, cold with despair. “Mind you that he came out to us at Skog the first winter we were wedded—?”
“Aye,” answered the man.
“When Björgulv was dying—Oh, no one, no one had spared me—He was drunk when he did it—afterwards he said he had never cared for me, he would not have me—he bade me forget it. My father knew it not; he did not betray you—never think that. But Trond—we were the dearest of friends to each other then—I made my moan to him. He tried to force the man to wed me; but he was but a boy; he was beaten—Afterwards he counselled me to hold my peace, and to take you—”
She sat a while in silence.
“Then he came out to Skog—a year was gone by; I thought not on it so much any more. But he came out thither—he said that he repented, he would have had me now, had I been unwedded—he loved me. He said so. God knows if he said true. When he was gone—I dared not go out on the fjord, dared not for my sin, not with the child. And I had begun—I had begun to love you so!” She cried out, a single cry of the wildest pain. The man turned his head quickly towards her.
“When Björgulv was born—oh, I thought he was dearer to me than my life. When he lay in the death-throes—I thought, if he died, I must die too. But I prayed not God to spare my boy’s life—”
Lavrans sat a long time silent—then he asked in a dead, heavy voice:
“Was it because I was not his father?”
“I knew not if you were,” said Ragnfrid, growing stiff and stark where she sat.
Long they sat there in a deathly stillness. Then the man asked vehemently of a sudden:
“In Jesu name, Ragnfrid—why tell you me all this—now?”
“Oh, I know not!” She wrung her hands till the joints cracked. “That you may avenge you on me—drive me from your house—”
“Think you that would help me—” His voice shook with scorn. “Then there are our daughters,” he said quietly. “Kristin—and the little one.”
Ragnfrid sat still a while.
“I mind me how you judged of Erlend Nikulaussön,” she said softly. “How judge you of me, then—?”
A long shudder of cold passed over the man’s body—yet a little of the stiffness seemed to leave him.
“You have—we have lived together now for seven and twenty years—almost. ’Tis not the same as with a stranger. I see this too—worse than misery has it been for you.”
Ragnfrid sank together sobbing at the words. She plucked up heart to put her hand on one of his. He moved not at all—sat as still as a dead man. Her weeping grew louder and louder—but her husband still sat motionless, looking at the faint grey light creeping in around the door. At last she lay as if all her tears were spent. Then he stroked her arm lightly downward—and she fell to weeping again.
“Mind you,” she said through her tears, “that man who came to us one time, when we dwelt at Skog? He that knew all the ancient lays? Mind you the lay of a dead man that was come back from the world of torment, and told his son the story of all that he had seen? There was heard a groaning from hell’s deepest ground, the querns of untrue women grinding mould for their husbands’ meat. Bloody were the stones they dragged at—bloody hung the hearts from out their breasts—”
Lavrans was silent.
“All these years have I thought upon those words,” said Ragnfrid. “Every day ’twas as though my heart was bleeding, for every day methought I ground you mould for meat—”
Lavrans knew not himself why he answered as he did. It seemed to him his breast was empty and hollow, like the breast of a man that has had the blood-eagle carven through his back. But he laid his hand heavily and wearily on his wife’s head, and spoke:
“Mayhap mould must needs be ground, my Ragnfrid, before the meat can grow.”
When she tried to take his hand and kiss it, he snatched it away. But then he looked down at his wife, took one of her hands and laid it on his knee, and bowed his cold, stiffened face down upon it. And so they sat on, motionless, speaking no word more.
Colophon
The Bridal Wreath
was published in by
Sigrid Undset.
It was translated from Norwegian in by
Charles Archer and J. S. Scott.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Ben Steinberg,
and is based on a transcription produced in by
Tim Lindell, Barry Abrahamsen, and Distributed Proofreaders
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Winter Landscape with Northern Zealand Character,
a painting completed in by
Johan Thomas Lundbye.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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The League of Moveable Type.
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