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

man. He understood that it was the end of him, on this Christmas Eve. Hunger and cold would destroy him, for he understood nothing, was good for nothing and had no friends.

The sledge stops, and suddenly it is light about him, and he hears friendly voices, and there is someone who is helping him into a warm room, and someone who is pouring warm tea into him. His coat is pulled off him, and several people cry that he is welcome, and warm hands rub life into his benumbed fingers.

He was so confused by it all that he did not come to his senses for nearly a quarter of an hour. He could not possibly comprehend that he had come back to Löfdala. He had not been at all conscious that the stable-boy had grown tired of driving about in the storm and had turned home.

Nor did he understand why he was now so well received in Liljekrona’s house. He could not know that Liljekrona’s wife understood what a weary journey he had made that Christmas Eve, when he had been turned away from every door where he had knocked. She felt such compassion on him that she forgot her own troubles.

Liljekrona went on with the wild playing up in his room; he did not know that Ruster had come. The latter sat meanwhile in the dining-room with the wife and the children. The servants, who used also to be there on Christmas Eve, had moved out into the kitchen away from their mistress’s trouble.

The mistress of the house lost no time in setting Ruster to work. “You hear, I suppose,” she said, “that Liljekrona does nothing but play all the evening, and I must attend to setting the table and the food. The children are quite forsaken. You must look after these two smallest.”

Children were the kind of people with whom little Ruster had had least intercourse. He had met them neither in the bachelor’s wing nor in the campaign tent, neither in wayside inns nor on the highways. He was almost shy of them, and did not know what he ought to say that was fine enough for them.

He took out his flute and taught them how to finger the stops and holes. There was one of four years and one of six. They had a lesson on the flute and were deeply interested in it. “This is A,” he said, “and this is C,” and then he blew the notes. Then the young people wished to know what kind of an A and C it was that was to be played.

Ruster took out his score and made a few notes.

“No,” they said, “that is not right.” And they ran away for an A.B.C. book.

Little Ruster began to hear their alphabet. They knew it and they did not know it. What they knew was not very much. Ruster grew eager; he lifted the little boys up, each on one of his knees, and began to teach them. Liljekrona’s wife went out and in and listened quite in amazement. It sounded like a game, and the children were laughing the whole time, but they learned.

Ruster kept on for a while, but he was absent from what he was doing. He was turning over the old thoughts from out in the storm. It was good and pleasant, but nevertheless it was the end of him. He was worn out. He ought to be thrown away. And all of a sudden he put his hands before his face and began to weep.

Liljekrona’s wife came quickly up to him.

“Ruster,” she said, “I can understand that you think that all is over for you. You cannot make a living with your music, and you are destroying yourself with brandy. But it is not the end, Ruster.”

“Yes,” sobbed the little flute-player.

“Do you see that to sit as tonight with the children, that would be something for you? If you would teach children to read and write, you would be welcomed everywhere. That is no less important an instrument on which to play, Ruster, than flute and violin. Look at them, Ruster!”

She placed the two children in front of him, and he looked up, blinking as if he had looked at the sun. It seemed as if his little, blurred eyes could not meet those of the children, which were big, clear and innocent.

“Look at them, Ruster!” repeated Liljekrona’s wife.

“I dare not,” said Ruster, for it was like a purgatory to look through the beautiful child eyes to the unspotted beauty of their souls.

Liljekrona’s wife laughed loud and joyously. “Then you must accustom yourself to them, Ruster. You can stay in my house as schoolmaster this year.”

Liljekrona heard his wife laugh and came out of his room.

“What is it?” he said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she answered, “but that Ruster has come again, and that I have engaged him as schoolmaster for our little boys.”

Liljekrona was quite amazed. “Do you dare?” he said, “do you dare? Has he promised to give up⁠—”

“No,” said the wife; “Ruster has promised nothing. But there is much about which he must be careful when he has to look little children in the eyes every day. If it had not been Christmas, perhaps I would not have ventured; but when our Lord dared to place a little child who was his own son among us sinners, so can I also dare to let my little children try to save a human soul.”

Liljekrona could not speak, but every feature and wrinkle in his face twitched and twisted as always when he heard anything noble.

Then he kissed his wife’s hand as gently as a child who asks for forgiveness and cried aloud: “All the children must come and kiss their mother’s hand.”

They did so, and then they had a happy Christmas in Liljekrona’s house.

Uncle Reuben

There was once, nearly eighty years ago, a little boy who went out into the marketplace to spin his top. The little boy’s name