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

in despair about herself and about the utter weakness that had come over her since her expectations had been so shattered.

Today Miss Stafva had just come in to say that Hede was getting his pack ready to start. He was not even staying as long as he generally did at Christmas, she said with a reproachful look at Ingrid.

Ingrid understood all they had expected from her, but she could do nothing. She sewed and sewed without saying anything.

Miss Stafva went away, and there was again silence in the room. Ingrid quite forgot that she was not alone; a feeling of drowsiness suddenly came over her, whilst all her sad thoughts wove themselves into a strange fancy.

She thought she was walking up and down the whole of the large house. She went through a number of rooms and salons; she saw them before her with gray covers over the furniture. The paintings and the chandeliers were covered with gauze, and on the floors was a layer of thick dust, which whirled about when she went through the rooms. But at last she came to a room where she had never been before; it was quite a small chamber, where both walls and ceiling were black. But when she came to look more closely at them, she saw that the chamber was neither painted black, nor covered with black material, but it was so dark on account of the walls and the ceiling being completely covered with bats. The whole room was nothing but a huge nest for bats. In one of the windows a pane was broken, so one could understand how the bats had got in in such incredible numbers that they covered the whole room. They hung there in their undisturbed winter sleep; not one moved when she entered. But she was seized by such terror at this sight that she began to shiver and shake all over. It was dreadful to see the quantity of bats she so distinctly saw hanging there. They all had black wings wrapped around them like cloaks; they all hung from the walls by a single long claw in undisturbable sleep. She saw it all so distinctly that she wondered if Miss Stafva knew that the bats had taken possession of a whole room. In her thoughts she then went to Miss Stafva and asked her whether she had been into that room and seen all the bats.

“Of course I have seen them,” said Miss Stafva. “It is their own room. I suppose you know, Miss Ingrid, that there is not a single old country house in all Sweden where they have not to give up a room to the bats?”

“I have never heard that before,” Ingrid said.

“When you have lived as long in the world as I have, Miss Ingrid, you will find out that I am speaking the truth,” said Miss Stafva.

“I cannot understand that people will put up with such a thing,” Ingrid said.

“We are obliged to,” said Miss Stafva. “Those bats are Mistress Sorrow’s birds, and she has commanded us to receive them.”

Ingrid saw that Miss Stafva did not wish to say anything more about that matter, and she began to sew again; but she could not help speculating over who that Mistress Sorrow could be who had so much power here that she could compel Miss Stafva to give up a whole room to the bats.

Just as she was thinking about all this, she saw a black sledge, drawn by black horses, pull up outside the veranda. She saw Miss Stafva come out and make a low curtsy. An old lady in a long black velvet cloak, with many small capes on the shoulders, alighted from the sledge. She was bent, and had difficulty in walking. She could hardly lift her feet sufficiently to walk up the steps.

“Ingrid,” said her ladyship, looking up from her knitting, “I think I heard Mistress Sorrow arrive. It must have been her jingle I heard. Have you noticed that she never has sledge-bells on her horses, but only quite a small jingle? But one can hear it⁠—one can hear it! Go down into the hall, Ingrid, and bid Mistress Sorrow welcome.”

When Ingrid came down into the front hall, Mistress Sorrow stood talking with Miss Stafva on the veranda. They did not notice her.

Ingrid saw with surprise that the round-backed old lady had something hidden under all her capes which looked like crape; it was put well up and carefully hidden. Ingrid had to look very closely before she discovered that they were two large bat’s wings which she tried to hide. The young girl grew still more curious and tried to see her face, but she stood and looked into the yard, so it was impossible. So much, however, Ingrid did see when she put out her hand to the housekeeper⁠—that one of her fingers was much longer than the others, and at the end of it was a large, crooked claw.

“I suppose everything is as usual here?” she said.

“Yes, honoured Mistress Sorrow,” said Miss Stafva.

“You have not planted any flowers, nor pruned any trees? You have not mended the bridge, nor weeded the avenue?”

“No, honoured mistress.”

“This is quite as it should be,” said the honoured mistress. “I suppose you have not had the audacity to search for the vein of ore, or to cut down the forest which is encroaching on the fields?”

“No, honoured mistress.”

“Or to clean the wells?”

“No, nor to clean the wells.”

“This is a nice place,” said Mistress Sorrow; “I always like being here. In a few years things will be in such a state that my birds can live all over the house. You are really very good to my birds, Miss Stafva.”

At this praise the housekeeper made a deep curtsy.

“How are things otherwise at the house?” said Mistress Sorrow. “What sort of a Christmas have you had?”

“We have kept Christmas as we always do,” said Miss Stafva. “Her ladyship sits knitting in her room day after day,