The Snake Pit

  St. Gregory’s Day6 brought a change of weather, southerly winds and rain—this was thought to presage a good year both on land and on sea.

  On the morrow Ingunn was lying alone in the house early in the day. It was fairly dark indoors, for the smoke-vent was closed; it was raining outside.

  Olav came in. He sat down on the bench, drew off his boots, struggled out of his jerkin and shirt, and opened his clothes-chest to find other garments.

  “Are you asleep, Ingunn?” he asked with his back toward her. “How is it with you?” he said when she whispered in reply, no, she was not asleep.

  “Oh, well. Will you ride out?”

  Olav said yes, the Thing at Vidanes was summoned for today. He came up to the bed, naked to the waist, and put one foot on the step. “Must I change my hose, think you?”

  Ingunn involuntarily drew her head away. “Indeed you must—they smell so ill.”

  “They will scarce smell sweeter, the other men who come there—we have been out seal-hunting day and night of late, all of us.”

  “But if you are to meet strangers from other parts—” suggested Ingunn.

  “Ay, ay, as you will.” He drew off his breeks and hose, stood quite naked, stretched himself and yawned.

  The sight of his faultlessly shaped body hurt her, it made her own ravaged wretchedness so hopeless. That time was so impossibly long past when she had been young and lovely, when they were well matched—but Olav was yet a young man, sound and handsome. His muscles were more knotted than of old, chiefly about the shoulder-blades and upper arms; they moved freely and powerfully as he stretched himself, raising his arms and lowering them. His flesh was still white as milk.

  He came back to his wife when he had put on his red woollen shirt, long hose of black leather, and linen breeks.

  “Then I must wear the blue kirtle too, think you—since you will have me so tricked out?” he asked with a smile.

  “Olav—?” As he bent over her, she suddenly threw her thin arms around his neck and drew him down to her, pressing her face against his cheek. Olav felt that she was trembling.

  “What is it?” he whispered. She only clung to him and made no answer.

  “Are you sick?” He loosed her arms from about his neck; it was so uncomfortable to stand bent double. “Would you have me stay at home today? I can ride to Rynjul and fetch Una to you—at the same time ask Torgrim to speak for me at Vidanes.”

  “No, no.” She pressed his hand hard in hers. “No—there will be no change with me till mid-spring be past. But stay with me a little while”—it came as a faint moan. “Sit here a little while, if you have the time.”

  “That I may well do.” He held her hand, stroking her arm. “What is it with you, Ingunn? Are you so afraid—?” he asked quietly.

  “Nay. Yes. Nay, I know not that I am so afraid, but—” Olav pushed the step out of his way, sat on the edge of the bed, and patted her wasted cheek, time after time.

  “I had a dream,” said his wife softly. “Just before you came in.”

  “Was it an evil dream, then?”

  The tears began to pour down her cheeks, but she wept without a sound; only her voice was more veiled and broken:

  “It seemed not evil while I dreamed it—then it was not evil. I saw you, walking along a path in a forest; you looked happy and seemed younger than you are now; you sang as you walked. I saw you here at Hestviken too, out in the yard, and it was the same, you looked happy and well. I could see it all, but it was as though I myself was not—I was dead, I knew. Children I saw not here—not one.”

  “Ingunn, Ingunn, you must not lie here thinking such thoughts.” He knelt down so that he could get his arm in under her shoulder. “There would be little joy for me here in our house were I to lose you, Ingunn mine.”

  “A joy for you I have never been—”

  “You are the only friend I have.” He kissed her, bending lower over his wife, so that her face was quite hidden against his breast.

  “If now it is as Signe and Una say,” he whispered, hesitating, “that you are to have a daughter this year—They were all sons till now. But a little maid—her maybe God would let us keep.”

  The sick woman sighed: “I am so weary—”

  Olav whispered: “Have you never thought, Ingunn—that maybe I have paid Eirik no more than—the price of his father’s slaying?”

  As he received no answer, he asked her—and he could not make his voice sound quite firm: “Have you never wondered what became of—that Teit?” She clasped him closer. “I never believed that you did it.”

  The man felt strangely overpowered—as though he had suddenly come into a bright light and were trying to distinguish things in it. She had known it, all the time. But what did that mean—had she guessed what was on his mind, or had she been afraid of his blood-stained hands—?

  Ingunn turned her face to his, clasped his neck, and drew his head down to her. She kissed him on the lips, with a wild gulp. “I knew it. I knew it. Yet I was afraid, sometimes—when things were at their worst with me and I almost lost heart. I could not help it—I thought, what if he were alive and came after me, avenged himself. But indeed I believed you had done it, and I could feel safe from him!”

  Olav had a queer feeling—as though numb or frozen. Was that what she had thought?—ay, ay. Perhaps that was all she could take in, poor thing. He kissed her again, a gentle little kiss. Then he said with a laugh of embarrassment:

  “You must let me go now, Ingunn—you will break my ribs against the bedpost soon.”

  He got up, patted her cheek once more, and crossed the room to his chest, searched among the clothes. Then he asked again:

  “Are you sure, Ingunn—should you not rather I stayed at home today?”

  “Nay, nay, Olav, I will not keep you.”

  Olav buckled on his spurs, took his sword, and threw his rain-cloak of thick, felted homespun over his shoulder. He was already at the door—when he turned and came back to her bed.

  Ingunn could see that a change had come over him and he was not as she had seen him for a long, long time—his face was still as a rock, his lips pale, his eyes veiled, unseeing. He spoke as though in his sleep:

  “Will you promise me one thing? Should it go with you asas you said—should it cost your life this time—will you give me your promise that you will come back to me?” He looked at her, bending slightly toward her. “You must promise me, Ingunn—if it is so that the dead may come back to the living—then you must come to me!”

  “Yes.”

  The man bent down hastily, touching her breast with his forehead an instant.

  “You are the only friend I have had,” he whispered quickly and shyly.

  Olav came riding home late in the evening, wet and cold, so that he could not feel his feet in the stirrups. His horse trotted wearily, splashing the snow-slush over him at every beat of the hoofs.

  Clouds and fog rolled over the landscape, the earth breathed moisture—it was an evening of steaminess and mist, the whole world strangely dissolved, forest and field bare and dark in patches among the melting snow. The fiord spoke in dull surf-beats with long intervals, like a sluggish pulse, but the stream in Kverndal roared with a glut of water. A sigh went through the woods as the firs shed their snow, and water purled and gurgled everywhere in the dusk—the cold scent from the fields and the sea brought the first reminder of springtime and growth.

  On the hillside by the barn a dark figure came toward him—a woman in a hooded cloak.

  “Welcome home, Olav!” It was Signe Arnesdatter; she hurried to meet him as he drew nearer.

  “Ay, now Ingunn is over it for this time—and she does better than we had looked for.” Olav had reined in his horse, and Signe caressed its muzzle. “And the child is so big and fine—none of us has even seen so big and fair a new-born babe. So you must bear with it that ’tis not a son!”

  Olav thanked her for the good news, feeling that, had he been as in his younger years, he would
have leaped from his horse, embraced his kinswoman, and kissed her. He was relieved and he was glad, but as yet he did not feel it to the full. Then he thanked Signe again for the kindness she had shown once more to Ingunn.

  It had come upon her so suddenly, said Signe, that they had not been able to take her out to the women’s house. Olav would have to put up with sleeping in the closet while they had the cradle and kept watch in the great room.

  But in a moment he saw Ingunn herself—her face shone snow-white, she lay on her side with one light-brown plait showing from under her cheek. Una knelt behind her in the bed, plaiting her other thick rope of hair. The other times Olav had seen her lying thus, she had been ugly, swollen and blotched in the face—but now she was unlike herself, marvellously fair, as if an unearthly light were shed upon her white and wasted countenance. Her great dark-blue eyes glittered like starlight mirrored in a well. And the thought sank into the man that a miracle had taken place.

  Signe came with a little bundle—white swaddling-bands wound crosswise about the leaf-green woollen wrapper. She laid the child in Olav’s arm. “Have you ever seen so fair a maid, kinsman?”

  And again it was as though he had fallen among incredible things—a girl’s face, impossibly small, but perfect, the fairest! A new-born life, and it could look like that. Her eyes were open; dark they were and bottomless—and she was red and white like a brier-rose and had nose and mouth like a human being, but so small that he could not understand it.

  Signe drew the swaddling-cloth aside so that the father might see that she had fine hair too. Olav cupped his hand under the delicate, round head: it lay in his palm no larger than an apple and as sweet and soft to hold.

  Olav still held his little daughter in his hands—a gift, a gift she was. It softened him—so grateful beyond measure he had never been before. He laid his face against the baby’s breast—her face was so pure and fine that he durst not touch it.

  Una leaped to the floor, arranged Ingunn on her back, with the plaits over her bosom. They took the child from him, and he sat down on the edge of the bed by his wife. He held her hand in his for a while and took up one of her plaits; neither of them said anything.

  Then a maid came in with food and drink for him, and afterwards they said that he must go into the closet and lie down—Ingunn needed sleep. Then she called to him softly.

  “Olav,” she whispered, “there is one thing I would beg of you, husband”—at other times she never called him that—“will you do what I ask of you?”

  “I will do all you ask of me.” He smiled as in pain, so unmanned was he by his joy.

  “Promise me that she shall not be called after my mother. Cecilia I would have her named.”

  Olav nodded.

  He lay awake in the darkness—against the wall Eirik was sleeping like a stone. Through the door opening he could see the reflection of the fire flickering on the logs of the wall; it rose and sank. But the holy candle burning beside the mother and child shed a mild and golden light.

  The watching women whispered and went about their work, clattering with the kettle and the pot-hook. Once the new-born child began to cry—and her cries called to his heart; he listened to her and was tender and happy. The women got on their feet; the cradle was set rocking, and Signe sang softly.

  Here he lay before her door; it seemed as natural as a dream that he should lie and listen while they watched over her sleep. Ingunn slept sweetly now; she had given birth to a child, and now she was to take a long rest, which would make her young and healthy and happy again. A child had been born here in his house, the first one. All that had gone before had been as one endless, unnatural sickness—an uncanny spell upon the unhappy woman. The little lifeless deformities that the women had brought to him that he might see them, though he was so loath to do so—the sight of them had filled him with infinite disgust; and the poor little abortion that had lived his brief, tormented life, until God had pity on him and took him to Himself—in his heart he had never been able to acknowledge that these were his children—the fruit of his and Ingunn’s bodies.

  Never had he known how it felt to be a father—till now, when he had a daughter, a treasure like this little, little—Cecilia.

  4 February 3.

  5 February 22.

  6 March 12.

  13

  CECILIA OLAVSDATTER grew and throve so that the neighbours’ wives said they could see a difference in her from day to day. What fattened her none could guess, for the mother would nurse her at her own breast, and there she could hardly suck many drops of milk. But that she grew more in one month than other infants in three was the boast of Signe and Una. Now and then they poured cream into her, or let her chew at deer’s marrow in a cloth.

  Folk who came out to Hestviken asked to see this little maid whose fame was already abroad—she was so peerlessly fair. They let it be seen that they wished Olav and his wife well of their happiness. True, there was none who liked the Hestvik folk very well. Olav was strangely reserved, a man of few friends—folk thought it a trouble if they had to be in company with this cross-stick—but no doubt this was mostly his manner: one had to admit that in his actions he had always shown himself an upright and pious man, by no means unhelpful either. The wife was incapable and weak-minded, but indeed she wished nobody ill, poor thing. So it was a happy thing after all that at last they had gotten a child that looked as if it would grow up.

  But Ingunn continued poorly for a long time—she must have suffered some hurt in her back, and she could not regain power over her legs, when at last she was up again.

  One Sunday when Olav came home from church, it was such fine weather—that day summer had come. In the fair-weather breeze the leaves and green meadow’s gleamed with light, and every puff of air was like a warm and healthy breath from the growing grass and the new foliage and from the earth, which still had the moisture of spring within it. When he entered the house and saw Ingunn lying outstretched on the bench, he was a little uneasy; then he said that when they had broken their fast she must go out with him and look at the “good acre,” the corn there was coming up so thick and fine this year again.

  This was the field that lay farthest out toward the fiord under the crags; Olav had a peculiar affection for it and always chose the best and heaviest corn to sow there. He had fishes’ heads and offal from the quay brought there, and it suffered less from drought than was to be expected—for the mould was not very deep—but it was ready for reaping before any of the other fields of Hestviken.

  Olav had to carry Ingunn over the threshold, and when he had set her down outside the door, he saw that she walked as though she could not lift her feet—she slid them along the ground in short, uncertain jerks, and at the slightest obstacle she nearly fell forward. He took her by the waist and she leaned heavily against him, with one hand on his shoulder; at every third or fourth step she had to pause, and he noticed that she was sweating profusely and trembling with fatigue.

  On arriving at the look-out rocks Olav spread his fur-lined winter cloak, which he had brought with him, in a hollow among the rocks. There she could lie in shelter and watch the breeze caressing the young blades of corn as though currying them, sending flames of light down the green slope.

  Sea and land were all aglitter; the summer waves ran in toward the rocks, splashed, and trickled back with the pebbles of the beach—the sound of the surf was a gentle murmur; but farther off under the Bull the spray was thrown higher; the wind was going round to the south-west now. Olav sat following with his eyes a heavily laden trading vessel that was making her way up the fiord, rather fast. He was lost in thought; old memories floated before him of the time when he was an outlaw and free as a bird—knew nothing of bearing another’s burdens. Alone he had been, one man among many others, who were never so near to him that he felt their pressure—it was strangely far away now, after all these years he had had the whole of Hestviken depending on him, and his sick wife as close to him as his own flesh. He had strugg
led on with her, who was always infirm and suffering; it was like fighting with one arm hanging broken and useless. Nevertheless he did not feel unhappy as he sat here in the midday sun—he did not think of the old days in such a way that he wished himself away from the present or fretted at his lot with Ingunn. He sat and took his rest-in a kind of melancholy, but even that which oppressed him was his infinite affection for her; it seemed too great for him to carry it alone.

  He turned to Ingunn, was going to say something about the vessel; then he saw that she had fallen asleep. She looked like one dead.

  He felt with wonder that he was even fonder of her now than he had ever been before—just because he could see that every trace of her beauty was so utterly destroyed. No one who had not seen her in her youth could imagine that this middle-aged, faded wife had once been fair. She had been lovely, as a pure and delicate flower is lovely—now the yellow skin, flecked with brown patches, was drawn tightly over her hollow-cheeked and long-chinned face. Her tall and slender form had long lost its willowy suppleness: she was flat as a board over the narrow chest, heavy and shapeless about the waist—looked like an aged and worn-out cottar’s wife who has borne many children.

  The husband sat and looked at her—not daring to touch her; she must be in need of sleep. He merely took the ends of her linen coif and tucked them in, lest the wind should blow them in her face, and wrapped the cloak better about her—she looked so bloodless that he must not let her take cold.

  Both Olav and the house-folk saw that she was less able to walk day by day, and about the time of St. John’s Mass she could not get up from her seat without help, nor push one foot before the other without someone to support her. But still they dressed her every morning; it was Torhild who had to do this now, for Liv, Ingunn’s own maid, was fit for nothing at this time.

  Olav had never been able to understand Ingunn’s obstinate dislike of Torhild Björnsdatter in all these years. Torhild was a woman whose match was not often to be met—loyal, capable, and strong—and however unreasonable Ingunn might be with the housekeeper, Torhild remained as patient and attentive as ever toward her sick mistress.