Sigrid Undset

“ Then she met Nils Berner, who filled her life with fresh happiness and fresh sorrow—and again the children consoled her, inasmuch as they filled the emptiness of her life. The joy of motherhood is bought with too much suffering; it is too actual, when held living in one's arms, for one ever to doubt its existence. To love one's child is so natural that there is no cause for reflection. A mother never doubts that she loves her child, or that she wants it to be happy—that she does her best for it, or that it returns her love. ”

“ One evening in early spring Ragnfrid had to send down the valley to old Gunhild, the widow who sewed furs. The evening was so fair that Kristin asked if she might not go; at last they gave her leave, since all the men were busy.
It was after sunset, and a fine white frost-haze was rising toward the gold-green sky. Kristin heard at each hoof-stroke the brittle sound of the evening’s ice as it broke and flew outwards in tinkling splinters. But from all the roadside brakes there was a happy noise of birds singing, softly but full-throated with spring, into the twilight. ”

“ Of all the men who will love you, one will lie at your feet some day, as I do now, and say that to him it is life itself to be there, and you will think so too. You will understand that to sit thus with him is the only happiness to you, even if it were a brief moment of rest after a day full of toil and hardships, and in the poorest of cottages—a far greater happiness than if you became the greatest artist that ever existed and enjoyed the highest measure of fame and praise. ”

“ Up here on the church-green and in the church yard Kristin was used to come and play near every day but to-day, when she was setting out to go so far, the sight she knew so well—home and all the parish round it—seemed new and strange to the child. The clusters of houses at Jörundgaard looked, as it were, smaller and greyer, lying there down on the flats, courtyard and farmyard. The river wound shining on its way, the valley spread far with broad green meadows and marshes in its bottom and farms with ploughland and pasture stretched up the hillsides under the grey and headlong mountain walls. ”

“ I have only my dream of you, but if I compare my poverty with others' riches it is ever so much more glorious. Not to save my life would I cease to love you and dream of you and mourn you.
Gunnar Heggen did not know that in the great storm of his heart he had lifted his arms towards heaven and was whispering to himself. The anemones he had picked were still in his hand, but he did not know it.
The soldiers on the wall laughed at him, but he did not see. He pressed the flowers to his heart, and whispered gently to himself as he walked slowly from the grave toward the cypress grove. ”

“ The horses wandered, feeding, down the birch-grown slope, and Kristin went with them—she felt there was naught to fear so long as she kept close to Guldsveinen—he had driven off a bear before now, she knew. And the bilberries grew so thick in here, and the child was thirsty now, with a bad taste in her mouth; the beer was not to her liking any more, but the sweet, juicy berries were good as wine. Away, on a scree, she saw raspberries growing too—so she grasped Guldsveinen by the mane, and sweetly bade him go there with her, and the stallion followed willingly with the little maid. ”

“ Dream—oh, dream!
If your child had lived he would not have been what you dreamt when you held him in your arms. He might have done something good and great, or something bad and disgraceful, but he would never have accomplished what you dreamt he should do. No woman has given life to the child she dreamt of when she bore it—no artist has created the work he saw before him in the moment of his inspiration. And we live summer after summer, but not one is like the one we have been longing for when we stooped to gather the wet flowers in the spring showers. ”

“ Kristin was so little used to endearments from her mother now, it comforted her much—she laid her head upon Ragnfrid’s shoulder a moment, but she could not weep.
When they came out of the courtyard, she saw that others were going with them—Halvdan, Jon from Laugarbru, and Simon and his man. It gave her a pang, she knew not why, that the two strangers should be coming with them.
It was a bitter cold evening, and the snow crackled under foot; in the black sky the stars crowded thick, glittering like rime. ”

“ After a while a strange, unknown sensation took hold of her, an agony that grew and grew—not a fear of anything in particular, but the feeling of an ache round her heart and sickness, as it were. She opened her eyes, but black specks flickered before her sight and she could not breathe. The room seemed to crumble down on her. She tumbled out of bed, tore the door open, rushed up the stairs to the roof, and collapsed on the last step.
Helge had met Gunnar Heggen as he came out of the front door. They had looked at each other, both touching their hats, and passed on without a word. ”

“ But you know that ’twas not loose life only, ’twas life in adultery.”
Kristin spoke low:
“You judged not so hardly of Lady Aashild and Sir Björn.”
“Yet can I not say I would be fain we should wed into their kindred,” answered Lavrans.
“Father,” said Kristin, “have you been so free from sin all your life, that you can judge Erlend so hardly—?”
“God knows,” said Lavrans sternly, “I judge no man to be a greater sinner before Him than I am myself. But ’tis no just reckoning that I should give away my daughter to any man that pleases to ask for her, only because we all need God’s forgiveness.” ”

“ I saw that romantic art had had its day and was on the decline—there was decadence and falsehood all along—and yet in my heart I was devoted to romance, not in painting alone, but in real life. I wanted the Sunday-peasants of romance, although I had lived long enough in the country as a boy to know they did not exist, and when I went abroad it was to the Italy of romance I turned my steps. I know that you and your contemporaries seek beauty in things as they are, tangible and real. To me there was beauty only in the transformation of reality, which had already been done by others. ”

“ Kristin saw it was her mother, and ran to her affrighted, asking if she were ill.
“No, no,” burst out Ragnfrid. “But I could not stay within—go you to bed, child.”
As Kristin turned away her mother called her softly:
“Go back to the room and lie beside your father and Ulvhild—take her in your arms so that he may not roll upon her by mischance; he sleeps so heavily when he has drunk deep. I am going up to sleep in the old loft-room to-night.”
“Jesus, mother,” said Kristin, “you will freeze to death if you lie there—alone, too. And what think you father will say if you come not to bed to-night?” ”

“ Cesca would let one man after another kiss and fondle her, and it made no difference; it merely grazed her lips and skin. Not even Hans Hermann, whom she loved, could warm her strangely thin, chilly blood.
She herself was different; her blood was red and hot, and the joy she coveted should be fiery, consuming, but spotlessly clean. She would be loyal and true to the man to whom she gave herself, but he must know how to take her wholly, to possess her body and soul, so that not a single possibility in her would be wasted or left neglected in some corner of her soul—to decay and fester. ”

“ Isrid and Arne gathered heather and dwarf-birch and cast it on the blaze. It crackled as the fire tore the fresh green from the twigs, and small white flakes flew high upon the wisps of red flame; the smoke whirled thick and black toward the clear sky. Kristin sat and watched; it seemed to her the fire was glad that it was out there, and free, and could play and frisk. ’Twas otherwise than when, at home, it sat upon the hearth and must work at cooking food and giving light to the folks in the room. ”

“ After a while she rose and began walking restlessly up and down the floor—only to sit down again as before. She listened breathlessly to every sound on the stairs. Oh, if only Gunnar would come! And not the other one. But how could he? He did not know where she lived—he might have met somebody who knew and asked. Oh, Gunnar, Gunnar, come!
She would go straight to him, throw herself in his arms.
The moment she had seen Helge Gram's light brown eyes again, her whole past, that had begun under their glance, confronted her. ”

“ Half-way up the hill she met the troop of farmers, coming down. Sira Eirik was with them. The men were all on foot; they walked stoopingly in a dark, shaggy knot, and spoke no word together. They gave back her greeting sullenly, as she went by them.
Kristin thought how far away the time was when every soul in the parish had been her friend. Like enough all men knew now that she was a bad daughter. Perhaps they knew yet more about her. It might well be that all believed now there had been some truth in the old talk about her and Arne and Bentein. ”

“ He knew no other love than the love which was happiness in itself. Unhappiness in love came from outside, from some relentless fate, or from stern justice as a vengeance for old wrongs. She knew what his fear was—he dreaded that her love would die one day when she saw that he was too old to be her lover, but he never had a suspicion that her love was born a weakling and had in it the germ that would lead to death. ”

“ It blew gustily around her and Arne as they went forward over the mosses, till they sate them down far out on a jutting point, and Kristin gazed with great eyes—never before had she dreamed that the world was so big and wide.
Forest-shagged ranges lay below her on all sides; the valley was but a cleft betwixt the huge fells, and the side-glens still lesser clefts; there were many such, yet was there little of dale and much of fell. ”

“ Remember that I forfeited my own youth when I was much younger than you; the happiness of work and the happiness of love in youth have never been mine, and it was all my own fault. And this was retribution! My dead youth came back to life when I met you; in my heart I did not feel older than you. Nothing is more terrible in life than for a man to be old while his heart is still young. ”

“ Kristin had ever thought that could she but win over the top of the home-fells she would look down upon another parish like their own, with tilled farms and dwellings, and ’twas great wonder to her now to see how far it was betwixt the places where folks dwelt. She saw the small yellow and green flecks down below in the dale-bottom, and the tiny clearings with their grey dots of houses amid the hill forests; she began to take tale of them, but when she had reckoned three times twelve, she could keep count of them no longer. Yet the human dwelling-places were as nothing in that waste. ”

“ Lonely! She had been lonely ever since her mother met Mr. Berner, who worked with her in the same office. She was about ten at that time, but she understood at once that her dead father had departed from their home. His picture was still hanging there, but he was gone, and it dawned upon her what death really meant. The dead existed only in the memory of others, who had the power conditionally to end their poor shadow life—and they were gone for ever.
She understood why her mother became young and pretty and happy again; she noticed the expression on her face when Berner rang the bell. ”

“ They went from house to house and greeted their guests. There were many lights in all the rooms, and everywhere crowds of people drinking and singing and dancing. It seemed to Kristin she scarce knew her home again—and she had lost all knowledge of time—hours and the pictures of her brain seemed strangely to float about loosely, mingled with each other.
The autumn night was mild; there were minstrels in the courtyard too, and people dancing round the bonfire. They cried out that the bride and bridegroom must honour them, too—and then she was dancing with Erlend on the cold, dewy sward. ”

“ What a mighty current of life has washed over this country!—breaking into billows round every spot with town and castle on it. And yet the mountains rise above it bare and desolate. Think of the endless number of ruins here in the Campagna only; of the stacks of books written on the history of Italy—and on the history of the whole world for that matter—and think of the hosts of dead people we know. Yet the result of all these waves of life, rolling one after the other, is very, very small. ”

“ They sang as they went over the bright fields, and the folk they met at the by-ways stood aside and gave them reverent greeting. All round, out on the fields, they could see small groups of men coming walking and riding, for folks were drawing toward the church from every house and every farm. Soon they heard behind them the sound of hymns chanted in men’s deep voices, and the banner of the Hovedö monastery rose above a hillock—the red silk shone in the sun, swaying and bending to the step of the bearer. ”

“ And it should have been given to a woman who could love him in return, who could live with him for those few years the life he had dreamt of, longed and hoped for, would last—live with him so that she would be bound to him by a thousand happy memories when old age came, having been in true love the wife of his youth and manhood, and ageing with him. ”

“ She hung on Sira Eirik’s word that in these days not many miracles come to pass. And yet she felt this evening it was as Brother Edwin said; had a man but faith enough, his faith might work miracles. But she had no mind to have that faith herself, she did not love God and his Mother and the Saints so much, did not even wish to love them so—she loved the world and longed for the world—
Kristin pressed her lips down into Ulvhild’s soft, silken hair. The child slept soundly, and the elder sister sat up restlessly, but lay down again. ”

“ I want to go up in the mountains. I must recover myself. I want to be your Jenny, as I was in Rome. I do want it, Helge, but I am so confused now. When I am myself again I will write you to come, and I will be your own Jenny again—yours only."
"I am my mother's son," said Helge quietly. "We have got estranged from one another. Will you not convince me that I am everything in the world to you, the only man, more than anything else?—more than your work and your friends, to whom I felt you belonged more than to me—just as you feel a stranger among the people I belong to." ”

“ She said when she had seen Simon:
“’Tis a good match, Kristin; this Simon will go forward in the world—you will be spared many cares, and he will be good to live with. But to my mind he seems something too fat and too cheerful—Were it now in Norway as it was in days gone by, and as it is still in other lands—that folk were not more hard to sinners than is God himself, I would say you should find yourself a friend who is lean and sorrowful—one you could have to sit and hold converse with. Then would I say, you could not fare better than you would with Simon.” ”

“ Love of one's children did not exclude any other love; one or two mothers among her acquaintances had lovers, and believed that the children did not know. Some were divorced, and found happiness in new ties; only if the new love brought disappointment did they ever complain or regret. Her own mother had idolized her—yet there was room for Berner in her heart too, and she had been happy with him. Gert had been fond of his children—and a father's affection is more understanding, more a matter of reflection and less instinctive than a mother's—yet he had scarcely thought of Helge all last winter. ”

“ She sat herself down on a log that lay by the green, and drew Kristin down beside her.
“You know, surely,” said she then, “that it has ever been held seemly and honourable, that a man should not talk overmuch of love to his betrothed maiden—nor sit with her much alone, nor woo too hotly—”
“Oh!” said Kristin, “much I wonder whether young folk that love one another bear ever in mind what old folk count for seemly, and forget not one time or another all such things.” ”

“ So Helge is at work again?"
"It is only natural, my dear, that an experience like yours should leave deeper traces in a woman."
"Oh yes, yes—a woman; that is the whole misery of it. It is just like a woman to become uninterested and utterly lazy because of a love that does not even exist."
"My dear Jenny," said Gram, "I think it quite natural that it should take some time for you to get over it—to get beyond it, as it were; one always does, and then one understands that the experience has not been in vain, but that one's soul is the richer for it in some way or other." ”

“ A very poor sort of happiness, I should say, to love when your love is not returned."
He sat quiet for a while, looking down; then said almost in a whisper:
"Great or small, it is happiness to know somebody of whom one thinks only good, about whom one can say: God give her happiness, for she deserves it—give her all that I never had. She is pure and beautiful, warm-hearted and sweet, talented and kind. It means happiness to me, dear Jenny, to be able to pray like this for you. No; it is nothing to be afraid of, little one." ”

“ Give me a few of the flowers; I will be satisfied with much less than I wanted in the beginning of life. But I will not die as you did, because you could not be content. I will remember you, and kiss your bead and your golden hair and think: She could not live without being the best, and claiming the best as her right; and maybe I shall say: Heaven be praised that she chose death rather than living content.
Tonight I will go to Piazza San Pietro and listen to the wild music of the fountain that never stops, and dream my dream. For you, Jenny, are my dream, and I have never had any other. ”

“ Everything about you is lovely; it is heavenly to be with you. I wish I could be with you always."
She took his face between her two hands.
"Jenny—you wish it—that we could be always together?"
She looked into his beautiful brown eyes:
"Yes, Helge; I do."
"Do you wish that this spring—our spring—never would end?"
"Yes—oh yes." She threw herself suddenly into his arms and kissed him; her half-open lips and closed eyes begged for more kisses; his words about their spring, that should never cease, awoke a painful anxiety in her heart that the spring and their dream would come to an end. ”

“ For her sake I have held on to my faith in the purity of the human soul, in its beauty and its strength—and in love, and I know, too, that the remembrance of me inspires Helene with the strength to struggle on and to suffer because she loves me today as she did in our childhood, and believes in me, in my talent, my love, and that I was worthy of a better fate. I am still something to her, don't you think?"
Jenny did not answer.
"The happiness in life is not only to be loved, Jenny; the greatest happiness is to love." ”

“ Helge stood in the same spot as the evening before and gazed again at the town, with its background of hills under a sky as clear as the one over the mountain-tops at home. He filled his lungs with the pure, cold air.
"Nowhere in the world, are there such mornings as in Rome," said Jenny. "I mean when the whole town is sunk in a sleep that grows lighter and lighter, and then suddenly awakes rested and fit. Heggen says it is because of the shutters; no window-panes to catch the morning light and throw it on to your face." ”

“ Oh, I think it is sad, Jenny—I mean when once in a while you meet a woman who is really gifted in one way or another and takes a pleasure in developing her gift by energetic work—feels that she is an individual who can decide for herself what is right or wrong, and has the will to cultivate faculties and instincts that are good and valuable and eradicate others which are bad and unworthy of her; and then one fine day she throws herself away on a man, gives up everything, work, development—herself for the sake of a wretched male. ”

“ Jenny shrugged her shoulders:
"Do you really believe in true and great love as you say?"
"Yes, I do. I know that you young people find the expression ludicrous, but I believe in it—for a good reason."
"I believe that every one loves according to his individuality; those who have a greater mind and are true to themselves do not fritter themselves away in little love affairs. I thought that I myself.... But I was twenty-eight when I met Helge, and I had never yet been in love. I was tired of waiting and wanted to try it. He was in love, young, warm-blooded, and sincere—and it tempted me. ”

“ Jenny and Cesca were alone, and they went about by themselves, deep in their own thoughts.
Jenny was convinced now of her condition, but she had not been able to realize what it all meant; if she tried to think of the future, her imagination stood still. She was, on the whole, in a better frame of mind now than in the first desperate weeks when she was waiting anxiously for her suspicions to be disproved.
She told herself that there would be a way out of it for her as for so many other women. Fortunately she had spoken of going abroad since last autumn. ”

“ The shadows fell coal black on to the square in the moonlight. White light and night-black darkness played about ghostlike in one of the arcades. The other lay in complete obscurity but for the row of statues on top. The front of the church was in shadow, but here and there the dome glittered like water. The two fountains sent their white jets sparkling and foaming towards the moon-blue sky. The water rose whirling in the air, splashing down again to the porphyry shelves to drop and trickle back into the basin.
Gunnar and Jenny walked slowly in the shade of the arcade towards the church. ”

“ Jenny had got her to rent a cottage a little way out of town; Bodil and Nils came to school by train every day, and Jenny lived in the studio.
Yet she had never been so fond of her mother and her home as she was now. Once or twice when she had been worried about things, and out of spirits, her mother had tried to help and comfort her without asking any questions. She would have blushed at the mere thought of forcing herself into the confidence of any of her children. To grow up in a home like Helge's must have been a torture. ”

“ When Jenny got tired she lay down by the fence, looking up at the sky and out over the bay; she could not stand for long at a time, but it made her only more eager. Two small pictures painted from the fence were finished, and she was pleased with them; a third one she painted in the village, where the low whitewashed houses with thatched roofs almost covering the windows, and climbing roses and dahlias in the gardens, stood along a velvety green ditch, and a red brick church stretched its gabled tower above the foliage of the vicarage garden. ”

“ Anything that makes Lennert happy is good and beautiful to me. He thinks that I sacrifice myself, but it is no sacrifice—quite the contrary. Oh, I have cried for nights and days in my room because I saw that he was longing for my love, and I have tried to kiss him, but he pushes me away.
"I am very fond of him, Jenny. Tell me, can't one love a man in that way too?—can I not say that I love Lennart?"
"Yes, Cesca."
"You cannot think how desperate I have been. But I cannot help being as I am. When we are out of an evening with other artists I see that he is in a bad humour ”