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

great to make us happy. A flower or a bird could make us merry for several hours, not to speak of the upholsterer bee. I shall never forget what pleasure I had once on his account.

The bee had been in the spiderweb as usual, and the spider had as usual helped him out; but it had been fastened so securely that it had had to buzz a dreadfully long time and had been very tamed and subdued when it had flown away. I bent forward to see if the spiderweb had suffered much damage. Fortunately it had not; but on the other hand a little yellow larva was caught in the web, a little threadlike monster, which consisted of only jaws and claws, and I was agitated, really agitated, at the sight of it.

I knew them, those May-bug larvae, that in thousands crawl up on the flowers and hide themselves under their petals. Did I not know them and yet admire them, those bold, cunning parasites, that sit hidden and wait, only wait, even if it is for weeks, until a bee comes, in whose yellow and black down they can hide. And did I not know their hateful skill just when the little cell-builder has filled a room with honey and on its surface laid the egg from which the rightful owner of the cell and the honey will come forth, just then to creep down on the egg and with careful balancing sit on it as on a boat; for if they should come down into the honey, they would drown. And while the bee covers the thimble-like cell with a green roof and carefully shuts in its young one, the yellow larva tears open the egg with its sharp jaws and devours its contents, while the eggshell has still to serve as craft on the dangerous honey-sea.

But gradually the little yellow larva grows flat and big and can swim by itself on the honey and drink of it, and in the course of time a fat, black beetle comes out of the bee-cell. It is certain that this is not what the little bee wished to effect by its work, and however cunningly and cleverly the beetle may have behaved, it is nevertheless nothing but a lazy parasite, who deserves no sympathy.

And my bee, my own little, industrious bee, bad flown about with such a yellow hanger-on in its down. But while the spider had spun round with it, the larva had loosened and fallen down on the spiderweb, and now the big, orange spider came and gave it a bite and transformed it in a second into a skeleton without life or substance.

When the little bee came again, its humming was like a hymn to life.

“Oh, thou beauteous life,” it said. “I thank thee that happy work among roses and sunshine has fallen to my lot. I thank thee that I can enjoy thee without anxiety or fear.

“Well I know that spiders lie in wait and beetles steal, but happy work is mine, and brave freedom from care. Oh, thou beauteous life, thou glorious existence!”

The Story of a Country House I

It was a beautiful autumn day towards the end of the thirties. There was in Upsala at that time a high, yellow, two-storied house, which stood quite alone in a little meadow on the outskirts of the town. It was a rather desolate and dismal-looking house, but was rendered less so by the Virginia-creepers which grew there in profusion, and which had crept so high up the yellow wall on the sunny side of the house that they completely surrounded the three windows on the upper story.

At one of these windows a student was sitting, drinking his morning coffee. He was a tall, handsome fellow, of distinguished appearance. His hair was brushed back from his forehead; it curled prettily, and a lock was continually falling into his eyes. He wore a loose, comfortable suit, but looked rather smart all the same.

His room was well furnished. There was a good sofa and comfortable chairs, a large writing-table, a capital bookcase, but hardly any books.

Before he had finished his coffee another student entered the room. The newcomer was a totally different-looking man. He was a short, broad-shouldered fellow, squarely built and strong, ugly, with a large head, thin hair, and coarse complexion.

“Hede,” he said, “I have come to have a serious talk with you.”

“Has anything unpleasant happened to you?”

“Oh no, not to me,” the other answered; “it is really you it concerns.” He sat silent for a while, and looked down. “It is so awfully unpleasant having to tell you.”

“Leave it alone, then,” suggested Hede.

He felt inclined to laugh at his friend’s solemnity.

“I can’t leave it alone any longer,” said his visitor. “I ought to have spoken to you long ago, but it is hardly my place. You understand? I can’t help thinking you will say to yourself: ‘There’s Gustaf Alin, son of one of our cottagers, thinks himself such a great man now that he can order me about.’ ”

“My dear fellow,” Hede said, “don’t imagine I think anything of the kind. My father’s father was a peasant’s son.”

“Yes, but no one thinks of that now,” Alin answered. He sat there, looking awkward and stupid, resuming every moment more and more of his peasant manners, as if that could help him out of his difficulty. “When I think of the difference there is between your family and mine, I feel as if I ought to keep quiet; but when I remember that it was your father who, by his help in days gone by, enabled me to study, then I feel that I must speak.”

Hede looked at him with a pleasant smile.

“You had better speak out and have done with it,” he said.

“The thing is,” Alin said, “I have heard people say that you don’t do any work. They say you have hardly opened a book during the four terms