Forced, as one of the terms of his release, to forfeit his estate at Husaby, Erland, Kristin and their sons now live at Jorundgaard, the estate Kristin inherited from her father. Simon Andresson and his family have become very dear to Erland and to Kristin. The two families are bound ever more tightly by many shared experiences, not only Erland's rescue from prison, but also by Kristin's care of her nephew Andres, Simon and Ramborg's eldest child, when he was deathly sick.
The years pass and it becomes apparent that Ramborg has begun to resent Kristin, sensing that Simon has never stopped loving her - as indeed he has not. Despite Simon's pains to conceal his feelings, Erland, too, recognizes them, and the two men have a final falling out. Their enmity puzzles and distresses Kristin and her family, but Kristin will not gainsay her husband, who declines to discuss the matter, so the families no longer share visits.
As their sons grow up and become involved with girls, Kristin and Erland have many arguments. Erland accuses Kristin of smothering them; Kristin accuses Erland of being too lax. Tensions build, and at last there is a terrible confrontation during which Erland's resentment of having to live on Kristin's land bursts out. The upshot is that he removes himself to a small property he owns in the mountains. For many months, although their sons try to broker a peace, the two pridefully remain at a standoff.
Kristin is called to Simon's deathbed, but her knowledge of herbs and cures cannot save him. At the end, he extracts from her a promise to journey to her husband's retreat and make up the quarrel. She makes good her promise, and is reconciled to Erland. An ecstatic few days ensue, during which an eighth child is conceived. Kristin leaves believing that Erland will soon come down the mountain to live with the family, but Erland believes she will come to live with him. He considers the older boys capable of going out into the world to make their own ways, and expects Kristin to bring the two youngest ones with her.
When Kristin's pregnancy becomes obvious, there is gossip in the village concerning Kristin and Ulf, Erland's kinsman and the manager of Jorundgaard. The baby is born, but is very weak, too weak to eat properly. Despite Kristin's efforts, he dies before he is three months old. An angry priest accuses Kristin of adultery and neglect of the child. The bishop, who is called in, believes in her innocence, but wants to know why her husband has not come forward to defend her. One of the sons rides secretly to his father, and Erland rushes to testify for Kristin - but a confrontation with the crowd when he arrives erupts into violence, and Erland receives a mortal wound.
A year later, in the spring, Munan, her youngest surviving son, also dies.
The other sons go their ways, except for Gaute, the third born, who is now manager of Jorundgaard. As the years pass, he, who is most like Kristin's father, Lavrans, shows himself to be a good guardian of the estate. His two older brothers, Nikulaus and Bjorgulf, have gone to a monastery, and given up their claim to the land. When Gaute brings home a woman whom he will make his wife, Kristin agrees to turn over the running of the household to her new daughter-in-law.
After the first child is born, the tensions between old mistress and new make it clear to Kristin that she must move on. She is not embittered by her situation, realizing that the young people need the opportunity to have their turn at life, but her departure is a very poignant moment for all of them. She goes to a convent near the monastery where her oldest sons are novices, and lives there as a lay sister, intending eventually to take the vows. The year is 1349, the year of the Black Plague. In 1350, the plague reaches Norway. Kristin puts her medical skills to use, but nothing can stop the spread of the disease. Having cared for others, heedless of her own well-being, she finally succumbs to the Black Death herself.
To say that these are great books is pathetically inadequate. Herewith, a passage that shows better than any outside comment can indicate, the depth and pertinence of this tale. Kristin's grown son, Ivar, has offered her a home with him, now that she has given over her role at Jorundgaard to her daughter-in-law.
"Kristin sat with her little grandson in her lap, and thought that it would not be easy for her at either place. It was a hard matter, growing old. It seemed that she herself was the young woman, just lately ... Now she had drifted into a backwater. And not long ago her own sons had been like this child on her knee ... Recently, the thought of her own mother rose often in her mind - her mother that she could only remember as an aging, heavy-hearted woman. Yet she had been young, once; she, too, lay and warmed her baby girl with her body's warmth. Her mother too had been marked in youth, body and soul, by the bearing and nourishing of children; and she had thought perchance no more than Kristin herself, when she sat with that sweet young life at her breast, that so long as they two lived, each single day would lead the child farther and farther from her arms.
"'When you yourself had borne a child, Kristin, I thought you would understand,' her mother had said once. Now, she understood that her mother's heart had been scored deep with memories of her daughter, memories of thoughts for her child from the time it was unborn and from all the years a child remembers nothing of, memories of fear and hope and dreams that children never know have been dreamed for them, until their own time comes to fear and hope and dream in secret."
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