“I have done, lady, with such carnal vanities. What use in cleansing that body which is itself unclean, and whitening the outside of this sepulchre? If I can but cleanse my soul fit for my heavenly Bridegroom, the body may become—as it must at last—food for worms.”
“She will needs enter religion, poor child,” said Gyda; “and what wonder?”
“I have chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from me.”
“Taken! taken! Hark to her! She means to mock me, the proud nun, with that same ‘taken.’”
“God forbid, mother!”
“Then why say taken, to me from whom all is taken?—husband, sons, wealth, land, renown, power,—power which I loved, wretch that I was, as well as husband and as sons? Ah God! the girl is right. Better to rot in the convent, than writhe in the world. Better never to have had, than to have had and lost.”
“Amen!” said Gunhilda. “‘Blessed are the barren, and they that never gave suck,’ saith the Lord.”
“No! Not so!” cried Torfrida. “Better, Countess, to have had and lost, than never to have had at all. The glutton was right, swine as he was, when he said that not even Heaven could take from him the dinners he had eaten. How much more we, if we say, not even Heaven can take from us the love wherewith we have loved. Will not our souls be richer thereby, through all eternity?”
“In Purgatory?” asked Gunhilda.
“In Purgatory, or where else you will. I love my love; and though my love prove false, he has been true; though he trample me under foot, he has held me in his bosom; though he kill me, he has lived for me. What I have had will still be mine, when that which I have shall fail me.”