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

you have been at the University. They say you don’t do anything but play on the violin the whole day; and that I can quite believe, for you never wanted to do anything else when you were at school in Falu, although there you were obliged to work.”

Hede straightened himself a little in his chair. Alin grew more and more uncomfortable, but he continued with stubborn resolution:

“I suppose you think that anyone owning an estate like Munkhyttan ought to be able to do as he likes⁠—work if he likes, or leave it alone. If he takes his exam, good; if he does not take his exam, what does it matter? for in any case you will never be anything but a landed proprietor and iron-master. You will live at Munkhyttan all your life. I understand quite well that is what you must think.”

Hede was silent, and Alin seemed to see him surrounded by the same wall of distinction which in Alin’s eyes had always surrounded his father, the Squire, and his mother.

“But, you see, Munkhyttan is no longer what it used to be when there was iron in the mine,” he continued cautiously. “The Squire knew that very well, and that was why it was arranged before his death that you should study. Your poor mother knows it, too, and the whole parish knows it. The only one who does not know anything is you, Hede.”

“Don’t you think I know,” Hede said a little irritably, “that the iron-mine cannot be worked any longer?”

“Oh yes,” Alin said, “I dare say you know that much, but you don’t know that it is all up with the property. Think the matter over, and you will understand that one cannot live from farming alone at Vesterdalarne. I cannot understand why your mother has kept it a secret from you. But, of course, she has the sole control of the estate, so she need not ask your advice about anything. Everybody at home knows that she is hard up. They say she drives about borrowing money. I suppose she did not want to disturb you with her troubles, but thought that she could keep matters going until you had taken your degree. She will not sell the estate before you have finished, and made yourself a new home.”

Hede rose, and walked once or twice up and down the floor. Then he stopped opposite Alin.

“But what on earth are you driving at, Alin? Do you want to make me believe that we are not rich?”

“I know quite well that, until lately, you have been considered rich people at home,” Alin said. “But you can understand that things must come to an end when it is a case of always spending and never earning anything. It was a different thing when you had the mine.”

Hede sat down again.

“My mother would surely have told me if there were anything the matter,” he said. “I am grateful to you, Alin; but you have allowed yourself to be frightened by some silly stories.”

“I thought that you did not know anything,” Alin continued obstinately. “At Munkhyttan your mother saves and works in order to get the money to keep you at Upsala, and to make it cheerful and pleasant for you when you are at home in the vacations. And in the meantime you are here doing nothing, because you don’t know there is trouble coming. I could not stand any longer seeing you deceiving each other. Her ladyship thought you were studying, and you thought she was rich. I could not let you destroy your prospects without saying anything.”

Hede sat quietly for a moment, and meditated. Then he rose and gave Alin his hand with rather a sad smile.

“You understand that I feel you are speaking the truth, even if I will not believe you? Thanks.”

Alin joyfully shook his hand.

“You must know, Hede, that if you will only work no harm is done. With your brains, you can take your degree in three or four years.”

Hede straightened himself.

“Do not be uneasy, Alin,” he said; “I am going to work hard now.”

Alin rose and went towards the door, but hesitated. Before he reached it he turned round.

“There was something else I wanted,” he said. He again became embarrassed. “I want you to lend me your violin until you have commenced reading in earnest.”

“Lend you my violin?”

“Yes; pack it up in a silk handkerchief, and put it in the case, and let me take it with me, or otherwise you will read to no purpose. You will begin to play as soon as I am out of the room. You are so accustomed to it now you cannot resist if you have it here. One cannot get over that kind of thing unless someone helps one; it gets the mastery over one.”

Hede appeared unwilling.

“This is madness, you know,” he said.

“No, Hede, it is not. You know you have inherited it from the Squire. It runs in your blood. Ever since you have been your own master here in Upsala you have done nothing else but play. You live here in the outskirts of the town simply not to disturb anyone by your playing. You cannot help yourself in this matter. Let me have the violin.”

“Well,” said Hede, “before I could not help playing, but now Munkhyttan is at stake; I am more fond of my home than of my violin.”

But Alin was determined, and continued to ask for the violin.

“What is the good of it?” Hede said. “If I want to play, I need not go many steps to borrow another violin.”

“I know that,” Alin replied, “but I don’t think it would be so bad with another violin. It is your old Italian violin which is the greatest danger for you. And besides, I would suggest your locking yourself in for the first few days⁠—only until you have got fairly started.”

He begged and begged, but Hede resisted; he would not stand anything so unreasonable as being a prisoner in his own room.

Alin