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

his heart which gnaws and longs to be satisfied with someone else’s suffering. She had always had a strange feeling that it would have been better for her if he had been so enraged that he had struck her. Then, perhaps, things could have come right between them. All these years he had been morose and irritable, and she had become frightened. She was like a horse between the traces. She knew that behind her was one who held a whip over her, even if he did not use it; and now he had used it. He had not been able to refrain any longer. And now it was all over with her.

Those who were about her said they had never seen such sorrow as hers. She seemed to be petrified. The whole time before the funeral it was as if there were no real life in her. One could not tell if she heard what was said to her, if she had any idea who was speaking to her. She did not eat; it was as if she felt no hunger. She went out in the bitterest cold; she did not feel it. But it was not grief that petrified her⁠—it was fear.

It never struck her for a moment to stay at home on the day of the funeral. She must go to the churchyard, she must walk in the funeral procession⁠—must go there, feeling that all who were present expected that the body would be laid in the family vault of the Sanders. She thought she would sink into the ground at all the surprise and scorn which would rise up against her when the gravedigger, who headed the procession, led the way to an out-of-the-way grave. An outburst of astonishment would be heard from everybody, although it was a funeral procession: “Why is the child not going to be buried in the Sanders’ family vault?” Thoughts would go back to the vague rumours which were once circulated about her. “There must have been something in them, after all,” people will whisper to each other. And before the mourners left the churchyard she would be condemned and lost. The only thing for her to do was to be present herself. She would go there with a quiet face, as if everything was as it ought to be. Then, perhaps, they might believe what she said to explain the matter.⁠ ⁠…

Her husband went with her to the church; he had looked after everything, invited people, ordered the coffin, and arranged who should be the bearers. He was kind and good now that he had got his own way.

It was on a Sunday. The service was over, and the mourners had assembled outside the porch, where the coffin was standing. The bearers had placed the white bands over their shoulders; all people of any position had joined in the procession, as did also many of the congregation. She had a feeling as if they had all gathered together in order to accompany a criminal to the scaffold.

How they would all look at her when they came back from the funeral! She was there to prepare them for what was to happen, but she had not been able to utter a single word. She felt quite unable to speak quietly and sensibly. There was only one thing she wanted: to scream and moan so violently and loudly that it could be heard all over the churchyard; and she had to bite her lips so as not to cry out.

The bells commenced to ring in the tower, and the procession began to move. Now all these people would find it out without the slightest preparation. Oh, why had she not spoken in time? She had to restrain herself to the utmost from shouting out and telling them that they must not go to the grave with the dead child. Those who are dead are dead and gone. Why should her whole life be spoiled for the sake of this dead child? They could put him in the earth, where they liked, only not in the churchyard. She had a confused idea that she would frighten them away from the churchyard; it was risky to go there; it was plague-smitten; there were marks of a wolf in the snow; she would frighten them as one frightens children.

She did not know where they had digged the child’s grave. She would know soon enough, she thought; and when the procession entered the churchyard, she glanced around the snow-covered ground to see where there was a new grave; but she saw neither path nor grave⁠—nothing but the white snow. And the procession advanced towards the small mortuary. As many as possibly could pressed into the building and saw the earth cast on to the coffin. There was no question whatever about this or that grave. No one found out that the little one which was now laid to rest was never to be taken to the family vault.

Had she but thought of that, had she not forgotten everything else in her fear and terror, then she need not have been afraid, not for a single moment.

“In the spring,” she thought, “when the coffin has to be placed in the ground, there will probably be no one there except the gravedigger; everybody will think that the child is lying in the Sanders’ vault.” And she felt that she was saved.

She sank down sobbing violently. People looked at her with sympathy. “How terribly she felt it!” they said. But she herself knew that she cried like one who has escaped from a mortal danger.

A day or two after the funeral she was sitting in the twilight in her accustomed place in the dining-room, and as it grew darker she caught herself waiting and longing. She sat and listened for the child; that was the time when he always used to come in and play with her. Why did he not come that day? Then she started. “Oh, he is