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

became a little confused by all the different rooms that Uncle Theodore had considered necessary to establish on his estate; but her heart was glowing with enthusiasm at the thought of how splendid it must be to have all that to rule over. So she was not tired, although they walked through the sheep-houses and the piggeries, and looked in at the hens and the rabbits. She faithfully examined the weaving-rooms and the dairies, the smokehouse and the smithy, all with growing enthusiasm. Then they visited the big lofts; drying-rooms for the clothes and drying-rooms for the wood; haylofts, and lofts for dried leaves for the sheep to eat.

The dormant housewife in her awoke to life and consciousness at all this perfection. But most of all, she was moved by the great brewhouse and the two neat bakeries with the wide oven and the big table.

“Mother ought to see that,” she said.

In the bakehouse they had sat down and rested, and she had told of her home. He was already like a friend, although his brown eyes laughed at everything she said.

At home everything was so quiet; no life, no variety. She had been a delicate child, and her parents had watched over her on account of it, and let her do nothing. It was only as play that she was allowed to help in the baking and in the shop. Somehow she came to tell him that her father called her Downie. She had also said: “Everybody spoils me at home except Maurits, and that is why I like him so much. He is so sensible with me! He never calls me Downie; only Anne-Marie. Maurits is so admirable.”

Oh, how it had danced and laughed in uncle’s eyes! She could have struck him with her switch. She repeated almost with a sob: “Maurits is so admirable.”

“Yes, I know, I know,” Uncle had answered. “He is going to be my heir.” Whereupon she had cried: “Ah; Uncle Theodore, why do you not marry? Think how happy anyone would be to be mistress of such an estate!”

“How would it be then with Maurits’s inheritance?” uncle had asked quite softly.

Then she had been silent for a long while, for she could not say to Uncle that she and Maurits did not ask for the inheritance, for that was just what they did do. She wondered if it was very ugly for them to do so. She suddenly had a feeling as if she ought to beg Uncle for forgiveness for some great wrong that they had done him. But she could not do that either.

When they came in again, Uncle’s dog came to meet them. It was a tiny, little thing on the thinnest legs, with fluttering ears and gazelle-like eyes; a nothing with a shrill, little voice.

“You wonder, perhaps, that I have such a little dog,” Uncle Theodore had said.

“I suppose I do,” she had answered.

“But, you see, it is not I who have chosen Jenny for my dog, but Jenny who has taken me as a master. You would like to hear the story, Downie?” That name he had instantly seized upon.

Yes, she would like it, although she understood that it would be something irritating he would say.

“Well, you see, when Jenny came here the first time she lay on the knees of a fine lady from the town, and had a blanket on her back and a cloth about her head. Hush, Jenny; it is true that you had it! And I thought what a little rat it was. But do you know when that little creature was put down on the ground here some memories of her childhood or something must have wakened in her. She scratched, and kicked, and tried to rub off her blanket. And then she behaved like the big dogs here; so we said that Jenny must have grown up in the country.

“She lay out on the doorstep and never even looked at the parlor sofa, and she chased the chickens, and stole the cat’s milk, and barked at beggars, and darted about the horses’ legs when we had guests. It was a pleasure and a joy to us to see how she behaved. You must understand, a little thing that had only lain in a basket and been carried on the arm! It was wonderful. And so when they were going to leave, Jenny would not go. She stood on the steps and whined so pitifully and jumped up on me, and really asked to be allowed to stay. So there was nothing for us to do but to let her stay. We were touched by the little creature; it was so small, and yet wished to be a country dog. But I had never thought that I should ever keep a lapdog. Soon, perhaps, I shall get a wife too.”

Oh, how hard it is to be shy, to be uneducated! She wondered if Uncle had been very surprised when she rushed away so hurriedly. But she had felt as if he had meant her when he spoke of Jenny. And perhaps he had not at all. But anyway⁠—yes she had been so embarrassed. She could not have stayed.

But it was not then “it” came, not then.

Perhaps it was in the evening at the ball. Never had she had such a good time at any ball! But if anyone had asked her if she had danced much, she would have needed to reconsider and acknowledge that she had not. But it was the best proof that she had really enjoyed herself when she had not even noticed that she had been a little neglected.

She had so much enjoyed looking at Maurits. Just because she had been a little bit severe to him at breakfast and laughed at him yesterday, it was such a pleasure to her to see him at the ball. He had never seemed to her so handsome and so superior.

He had seemed to feel that she would consider herself injured