The Snake Pit (27 page)

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.

Equally incomprehensible did it appear to Olav that she should have taken a fancy to this Liv, who had entered her service the year before. For one thing, the girl was almost the ugliest being Olav had ever seen: at the first glance one was tempted to doubt whether she was human—undersized, hugely broad, and notably squat and bandy-legged. Her red hair was thin and straggling, her skin was a reddish grey, with freckles over her arms and hands and down to her chest, and her face was marvellously hideous, with little blinking pig’s eyes, a pointed nose, and no chin—the lower part of her face slanted in and made one with the flabby flesh of her throat. Nor was she of kindly disposition—lazy and
unwilling with Torhild and the dairymaid, and exceedingly stupid. But Ingunn had set her affection on this girl. When it came out that she had gone astray the autumn before, when she was given leave to go home and visit her parents at Michaelmas, her mistress besought Olav not to turn Liv out of the house. Olav had had no such thought; he knew that there was great poverty and many children in the croft from which she came, so it was better for her to stay at Hestviken. But as she was under his roof and very young—fifteen—he thought he would have to try to see justice done to the girl and questioned her about the father. But all she knew was that it was a man who had borne her company a part of the way through the forest, when she was going home at Michaelmas.

“Ay—and did he maltreat you then?” asked Olav.

“Nay, nay”—Liv beamed all over her face. He had been so merry and kind. Jon he said was his name.

“Ay, so every man is called who has no other name.”

Now in any case she would soon be a fit foster-mother for Cecilia. For it would go ill if the sick mother were to nurse this big and greedy child—but hitherto Ingunn had refused to hear of Cecilia being taken from her breast.

Olav had sent for all the men and women of the country round who had a knowledge of sickness and leechcraft. None could say what ailed the mistress of Hestviken—and most of them thought it must be caused by treachery or envy. Olav knew that she had been sick in the same way sixteen or seventeen years before, when she was at Miklebö, and then Mistress Hillebjörg had said it was certain that Kolbein had caused spells or other witchcraft to be put upon her. He wondered whether this might not be true after all, and that she had never been entirely set free from the power of evil.

Then he became acquainted with a German merchant, Claus Wiephart, in Oslo, who was said to be a very learned leech—he had been a captive among the Saracens in his youth and had acquired their knowledge. Olav fetched him, and this man saw at once what ailed Ingunn.

What might have been the origin of it he was not able to say; it might be one thing or another, but most probably it came from the stars: for example, that her husband had first had knowledge of her in an hour when the position of the heavenly bodies was
hostile to them, according to the stars under which they had been born. It might be a question of less than an hour—a little before or a little after, the auspices might have been particularly favourable to them. But this might have had such an effect upon her, who was the weaker, as to disturb the harmony in her body between the solid matter and the humours, so that the solid matter had shrunk and the humours had obtained the mastery—nay, she might even have had a disposition toward this disharmony in her hour of birth, but the disharmony was the especial cause of her weakness. The proof of this was that she had not been able to bear children of the male sex that were capable of surviving, beyond the first one; for man’s body is by nature drier than woman’s and demands from the very beginning more of the solid matter; but a daughter she had been able to bring forth alive. Even so, this child too had absorbed more solid matter than the mother’s body could afford to give up; she was now, Clause Wiephart would say, in a state of decay, as it were; bones and flesh were saturated with humours—even as wood floating in the sea becomes soft and full of water.

In the first place they must see to getting her body drained of moisture, said the German. The child should by no means be taken from her breast; she must be given sudatory and diuretic medicines, she must drink very little, but take burnt and pounded bones and
terra sigillata,
and eat hard, dry food with hot spices in it.

The learned man’s opinion filled Olav with fresh courage. It sounded so reasonable—and the Latin words used by the German came back to Olav from his young days.
Prima causa, harmonia, materia,
and
umidus, disparo, dispono—
these words he remembered to have heard from Asbjörn All-fat, Arnvid, and the friars at the convent, and, as far as he could judge, Claus knew them rightly. And then, even before they were grown up, he himself had noticed that Ingunn’s body was strangely weak and without firmness—it made him think of green corn—surely she had always had too little of the solid matter.
Terra sigillata
must certainly be good for her—it was good for so many things, he knew.

And he had learned about the four elements of which the human body is composed, and had heard that the position of the heavenly bodies influences a man’s destiny. Learned men at home did not know so much about this; Asbjörn All-fat said that Christian men
have no need to inquire what is written in the stars. But the Saracens were said to have more knowledge of the stars than any other

Olav was unspeakably relieved at heart. Perhaps he had been on an entirely false scent all these years—he had always believed it was he who had brought misfortune upon them both, because he dared not break out of the sin in which he lived. He
was
living in sin, there was no doubt of that, so long as he made no offer to atone for that unhappy deed, but God must know that he could not; he could not jeopardize the welfare and honour of his wife and child. In all else he had endeavoured to walk as a Christian man. And God must know even better than himself how unspeakably he longed to live at peace with Him, to be allowed to love Him with his whole heart, to bend the knee in prayer, without grieving at his own disobedience.

But what if he might now believe that all their misfortunes had a natural origin? Cecilia was the pledge that God had remitted his debt—or would give him respite till the hour of death. That the stars had been the cause of Ingunn’s weakness in body and soul—

But
Prima Causa—
that was one of God’s names. He knew that.

She said herself that she was better for these remedies of Claus Wiephart’s. As yet she had not regained sufficient vigour to be able to move her legs, but she felt less of the pain in her back.

He came into the cook-house one evening just before Olav’s Mass
⁷
—there was something he wished to say to Torhild Björnsdatter before he forgot it.

She was baking bread for the holy-day. The flour dust floating in the air was golden in the evening sun as he opened the door and the light filled the sooty little room. A sweet, yeasty scent came from the round loaves that lay baking on slanting stones around the glowing, heaped-up fire—Olav’s mouth watered at the smell. The girl was not there.

Olav was turning to go out when Torhild appeared at the door, carrying a board so heavy that she supported it on her head with both arms. She was obliged to walk even more erect than usual, and in the warm summer evening her light clothing looked but well and suitably free; she was in her working-clothes, a short-sleeved
shift of homespun, and bare legs; she was so deft in her movements, firm and strong.

Olav took the board from her; it was of oak and very heavy. He carried it in and laid it on the trestles. Torhild followed, filled both her fists with chopped juniper from a basket, and spread it over the board. She gave off a fragrance in her rapid movements—of meal and fresh bread, of the healthy warmth of work. Olav threw his arms about the maid and pulled her roughly to him. His chin came near her shoulder—for an instant he pressed his cheek against her skin—her neck was dewy, at once cool and warm. Then he let her go and laughed to cover his confusion and shame at this foolish wantonness that had come over him so suddenly.

Torhild had turned red as blood—and the sight of her added to his embarrassment. But she said nothing and showed no sign of anger—went about quite calmly, moving the loaves that were done from the stones onto the board.

“You can lift as much as a man, Torhild,” said her master. And as she did not answer, but went on with her work, he began again, more seriously: “You support our whole household—do more work than all the rest of us together.”

“I do my best,” muttered Torhild.

“Ay, I know not how you think—perhaps you think we might reward you better—if so, you must tell me; we shall soon be agreed—”

“Nay I am well content with what I have. I have now put out all mine own into the world, save the two youngest—and you have helped me well.”

“Nay, say naught of that—” He gave her the message he had come for, and went out.

Ingunn continued to use the wise German’s remedies, but after a while it was seen that the results were not entirely beneficial after all. She had violent pains in the stomach and burning of the throat from all the pepper and ginger. But she held out as long as she could, struggling to get down the dry and irritating diet, although she seemed to feel the pains even at the sight of the food. She was tortured by thirst day and night; but she bore it all with patience and made little complaint.

Then Olav had to be away from home for a few nights, and
Signe Arnesdatter came to sleep with the sick woman meanwhile. Afterwards Signe told Olav it was quite wrong that Ingunn should still have Cecilia with her at night; the mother no longer had a drop of milk in her breast, and it was hunger and temper that made the child shriek so wildly at night, keeping Ingunn and all awake. Olav had never known any other infant than Audun, and he shrieked almost continually, so the man thought it was the way of little ones. Now Liv had long nursed Cecilia in the daytime, and her own child was lately dead, and the girl was as full of milk as a fairy cow; the only natural thing was to let Liv be Cecilia’s foster-mother and have the child both day and night.

But when they spoke of this to Ingunn, she was quite beside herself with grief. She begged and besought that they would not take Cecilia from her: “She is all that is left of me; I bought you this daughter at the price of lying here powerless and palsied to the waist. If you love her, Olav, have pity on me—take not Cecilia from me, the little while I have left to live. ’Twill not be long ere you be freed from this wretched life with me.”

He tried to make her see reason, but she screamed, thrusting her elbows into the bolster under her, raising her shoulders and struggling, as though she would force her palsied body to rise. Olav seated himself on the edge of the bed, comforted her as well as he could, but it was in vain; and at last she had raged and wept till she was so weary that she sank into a doze, but even in her sleep she gasped and shook.

The end was that he promised she should have Cecilia in bed with her at night, but Liv was to lie on the bench near by, so that she might quiet the child when it shrieked.

When he came to say good-night to her before he went to bed, she put an arm about his neck and drew his head down.

“Be not angry, Olav. I cannot sleep but I have her with me. I have ever been afraid when I had to lie alone,” she whispered; “ever since the first night you slept with me it has seemed as though I could not feel safe unless I had your arm about me. And now that will never be again.”

Olav knelt down, took her under the neck, and let her head rest against his shoulder.

“Do you wish me to hold you thus until you fall asleep?” he asked.

She fell asleep almost at once. Then he arranged the pillows
under her shoulders, stole quietly across the floor and crept in to Eirik in the north bed.

He kept a little charcoal lamp burning on the hearth at night-he had to get up so often, to help Ingunn and turn her. And now he had to get up and take Cecilia too, when she shrieked, and carry her to the girl—Liv never woke.

At last he must have fallen asleep and slept heavily—the child must have been shrieking a good while, so persistently as to succeed in waking Liv. In the feeble light of the little lamp he saw the maid padding about by Ingunn’s bed with Cecilia in her arms. She looked so shapelessly broad and squat that he could not help thinking of tales he had heard of ogres and gnomes. Though he knew how foolish it was, it made him uncomfortable to see Cecilia in the arms of this foster-mother.