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

about and dreaming. I should like to know what would have happened if you had not taken the poor thing in. I suppose she would have been running about with those acrobats, and have died in the streets, like any other poor wretch.”

A man from Dalarne came across the yard; he had his pack on his back, although it was Sunday. He came very quietly through the open kitchen-door, and curtsied when he entered, but no one took any notice of him. Both the mistress and the maid saw him, but as they knew him, they did not think it necessary to interrupt their conversation.

The Pastor’s wife was anxious to continue it; she felt she was about to hear what she needed to ease her conscience.

“It is perhaps as well she is gone,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” the servant said eagerly; “and I am sure the Pastor thinks just the same. In any case he soon will. And the mistress will see that now there will be more peace in the house, and I am sure the master needs it.”

“Oh!” said the Pastor’s wife, “I was obliged to be careful. There were always so many clothes to be got for her, that it was quite dreadful. He was so afraid that she should not get as much as the others that she sometimes even had more. And it cost so much, now that she was grown up.”

“I suppose, ma’am, Greta will get her muslin dress?”

“Yes; either Greta will have it, or I shall use it myself.”

“She does not leave much behind her, poor thing!”

“No one expects her to leave anything,” said her adopted mother. “I should be quite content if I could remember ever having had a kind word from her.”

This is only the kind of thing one says when one has a bad conscience, and wants to excuse one’s self. Her adopted mother did not really mean what she said.

The Dalar man behaved exactly as he always did when he came to sell his wares. He stood for a little while looking round the kitchen; then he slowly pushed the pack on to a table, and unfastened the braces and the straps; then he looked round to see if there were any cats or dogs about. He then straightened his back, and began to unfasten the two leather flaps, which were fastened with numerous buckles and knots.

“He need not trouble about opening his pack today,” Lisa said; “it is Sunday, and he knows quite well we don’t buy anything on Sundays.”

She, however, took no notice of the crazy fellow, who continued to unfasten his straps. She turned round to her mistress. This was a good opportunity for insinuating herself.

“I don’t even know whether she was good to the children. I have often heard them cry in the nursery.”

“I suppose it was the same with them as it was with their mother,” said the Pastor’s wife; “but now, of course, they cry because she is dead.”

“They don’t understand what is best for them,” said the servant; “but the mistress can be certain that before a month is gone there will be no one to cry over her.”

At the same moment they both turned round from the kitchen range, and looked towards the table, where the Dalar man stood opening his big pack. They had heard a strange noise, something like a sigh or a sob. The man was just opening the inside lid, and out of the pack rose the newly-buried girl, exactly the same as when they laid her in the coffin.

And yet she did not look quite the same. She looked almost more dead now than when she was laid in her coffin. Then she had nearly the same colour as when she was alive; now her face was ashy-gray, there was a bluish-black shadow round her mouth, and her eyes lay deep in her head. She said nothing, but her face expressed the greatest despair, and she held out beseechingly, and as if to avert their anger, the bouquet of myrtle which she had received from her adopted mother.

This sight was more than flesh and blood could stand. Her mother fell fainting to the ground; the maid stood still for a moment, gazing at the mother and daughter, covered her eyes with her hands, and rushed into her own room and locked the door.

“It is not me she has come for; this does not concern me.”

But Ingrid turned round to the Dalar man.

“Put me in your pack again, and take me away. Do you hear? Take me away. Take me back to where you found me.”

The Dalar man happened to look through the window. A long row of carts and carriages was coming up the avenue and into the yard. Ah, indeed! then he was not going to stay. He did not like that at all.

Ingrid crouched down at the bottom of the pack. She said not another word, but only sobbed. The flaps and the lids were fastened, and she was again lifted on to his back and carried away. Those who were coming to the funeral feast laughed at the Goat, who hastened away, curtsying and curtsying to every horse he met.

V

Anna Stina was an old woman who lived in the depths of the forest. She gave a helping hand at the Parsonage now and then, and always managed opportunely to come down the hillside when they were baking or washing. She was a nice, clever old woman, and she and Ingrid were good friends. As soon as the young girl was able to collect her thoughts, she made up her mind to take refuge with her.

“Listen,” she said to the Dalar man. “When you get onto the highroad, turn into the forest; then go straight on until you come to a gate; there you must turn to the left; then you must go straight on until you come to the large gravel-pit. From there you can see a house: take me