Free In the Wilderness by Sigrid Undset Page A

came in from the country and flowed into the Thames, foul and stinking with the refuse that was thrown into it over the city wall. There were but few buildings before this gate, and the ground was marshy along the banks of the brook. But a few steps and they were on a path that led through the swamp. There were little ponds, shining white, and beds of rushes and brushwood on both sides. The low land farther out was dotted with farms and groves and church towers, and the sky, arching wide overhead, was covered with fleecy clouds, streaked with yellow from the setting sun behind.
    The path brought them back to the little stream. The woman said something and pointed to a cluster of houses beyond the meadows. Olav saw the gables of a stone-built mansion among trees and the roofs of outhouses. But they did not approach the place on the side where the stone hall stood; they followed a paling over which hung green thorn bushes, and Olav could smell that the cattle-yard was inside. Then along the bulging wall of a long mud house with a thatched roof. There was a gate in the wall, and the woman unlocked a little wicket in one side of it. A strong, rank smell of pigs met his nostrils, and between the outhouses the passage into which they came was so miry that he walked almost ankle-deep in greasy, black slush.
    They went across a little field in which linen was laid out to bleach, and the woman let Olav into a garden through a gate in a wattled fence.
    The grass was already bedewed under the apple trees, and in the cool air floated the scent of fruit trees and dill and celery and of flowers whose names he did not know, but all seemed bathed and cooled by the evening air. Here in the garden the daylight had already begun to fade.
    The woman led Olav to a corner of the herbary, where bushes grew in a ring; she said something. He guessed that he was to wait here, while she left him and was lost among the apple trees.
    Close by grew a cluster of tall white lilies that shone in the gathering dusk and breathed out their heavy, over-sweet scent. Then he saw that the lilies stood at the entrance to an arbour which was half-hidden among the bushes. Olav went a few steps toward it and looked in. Just inside the entrance hung a wicker birdcage; there was a bird in it and it hopped silently up and down between two perches. Within the arbour he saw that there was a bed prepared.
    His heart hammered and hammered in his breast; he stood motionless. A moth fluttered against his face, making him start.
    There she came across the grass among the fruit trees; she walked with bent head, holding up her light gown before her with one hand. Her cloak was thrown back over her slender shoulders, and Olav saw that she wore nothing but the thin yellow undergarment—with a gasp and a thrill of happiness he knew that in a moment he would clasp her tender, pliant body under the thin silk.
    She bore a silver goblet in the other hand. Now she stood straight before him, bending her head yet deeper. Then she raised the cup and drank to him. Olav accepted it and drank—there was wine in it, so sweet as to be mawkish.
    He handed her back the cup. The young woman paused for a moment with it in her hand; then she let it fall on the grass. And now she raised her face and looked into his. The great eyes, the wide nostrils, and the half-open mouth were like chasms of darkness in the pale oval. Olav took a step forward and threw his arms about the slender, silk-clad wife.
    She sank into his embrace, with her ice-cold fingers claspedabout his neck. Olav bent the crown of her head to his lips; first of all he would drink in the scent of her—and found with a shock of aversion that she smelt of unguent, a luscious, oily scent. Nevertheless he kissed her on the hair, but the mawkish smell of her ointment filled his senses with repugnance, as though he had been deceived; he had thirsted for a breath of young hair and skin.
    Unconsciously he turned his head away. He knew well