Short Fiction Selma Lagerlöf (best book club books of all time .txt) 📖

a nun, and have taken the vows of chastity. But yet I don’t know who you are.”

She turned her head away a little. Then she said, whispering like one who confesses her first love:

“I am the Bride of Christ.”

He did not laugh. On the contrary, he felt quite a pang in his heart, as from jealousy.

“Oh, Christ!” he said, as if she had thrown herself away.

She heard that his tone was contemptuous, but she thought he meant that she had spoken too presumptuously.

“I do not understand it myself,” she said, “but so it is.”

“Is it an imagination or a dream?” he said.

She turned her face towards him. The blood rose red behind the transparent skin. He saw suddenly that she was fair as a flower, and she became dear to him. He moved his lips as if to speak, but at first no sound came.

“How can you expect me to believe that?” he said defiantly.

“Is it not enough for you that I am here in the prison with you?” she asked, raising her voice. “Is it any pleasure for a young girl like me to go to you and other evildoers in their gloomy dungeons? Is it usual for a woman to stand and preach at the street corners as I do, and to be held in derision? Do I not require sleep as other people? And yet I must rise every night and go to the sick in the hospitals. Am I not timid as other women? And yet I must go to the highborn gentlemen at their castles and reason with them, I must go to the plague-smitten, I must see all vice and sin. When have you seen another maiden do all this? But I am obliged to do it.”

“Poor thing!” he said, and stroked her hand gently⁠—“poor thing!”

“For I am not braver, or wiser, or stronger than others,” she said. “It is just as hard for me as for other maidens. You can see that. I have come here to speak with you about your soul, but I do not at all know what I shall say to you.”

It was strange how reluctantly he would allow himself to be convinced.

“You may be mistaken all the same,” he said. “How do you know that you can call yourself the Bride of Christ?”

Her voice trembled, and it was as if she should tear out her heart when she replied:

“It began when I was quite young; I was not more than six years old. It was one evening when I was walking with my brother in the meadow below the church of the Dominicans, and just as I looked up at the church I saw Christ sitting on a throne, surrounded by all His power and glory. He was attired in shining white garments like the Holy Father in Rome. His head was surrounded by all the splendour of Paradise, and around Him stood Pietro Paolo and the Evangelist Giovanni. And whilst I gazed upon Him my heart was filled with such a love and holy joy that I could hardly bear it. He lifted His hand and blessed me, and I sank down on the meadow, and was so overcome with bliss, that my brother had to take me in his arms and shake me. And ever since that time, Nicola Tungo, I have loved Jesus as a bridegroom.”

He again objected.

“You were a child then. You had fallen asleep in the meadow and were dreaming.”

“Dreaming?” she repeated. “Have I been dreaming all the time I have seen Him? Was it a dream when He came to me in the church in the likeness of a beggar and asked for alms? Then I was wide awake, at any rate. And do you think that for the sake of a dream only I could have borne all the worries I have had to bear as a young girl because I would not marry?”

Nicola went on contradicting her because he could not bear the thought that her heart was filled with love to another.

“But even if you do love Christ, maiden, how do you know that He loves you?”

She smiled her very happiest smile and clapped her hands like a child.

“Now you shall hear,” she said. “Now I will tell you the most important of all. It was the last night before Lent. It was after my parents and I had been reconciled, and I had obtained their permission to take the vow of chastity and wear the dress of a nun, although I continued to live in their house; and it was night, as I told you, the last night of the carnival, when everybody turns night into day. There were fêtes in every street. On the walls of the big palaces hung balconies like cages, completely covered with silken hangings and banners, and filled with noble ladies. I saw all their beauty by the light of the red torches in their bronze-holders, the one row over the other quite up to the roof; and in the gaily decorated streets there was a train of carriages, with golden towers, and all the gods and goddesses, and all the virtues and beauties went by in a long procession. And everywhere there was such a play of masks and so much merriment that I am sure that you, sir, have never taken part in anything more gay. And I took refuge in my chamber, but still I heard laughter from the street, and never before have I heard people laugh like that; it was so clear and bell-like that everyone was obliged to join in it. And they sang songs which, I suppose, were wicked, but they sounded so innocent, and caused such pleasure, that one’s heart trembled. Then, in the middle of my prayers, I suddenly began to wonder why I was not out amongst them, and the thought fascinated and tempted me, as if I were dragged along by a runaway horse; but never before have I prayed so intensely