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

thinks of nothing but her son, and does not even know that it is a festival. Christmas Eve we allowed to pass like any other day⁠—no presents and no candles.”

“No Christmas tree, no Christmas fare?”

“Nor any going to church; not so much as a candle in the windows on Christmas morning.”

“Why should her ladyship honour God’s Son when God will not heal her son?” said Mistress Sorrow.

“No, why should she?”

“He is at home at present, I suppose? Perhaps he is better now?”

“No, he is no better. He is as much afraid of things as ever.”

“Does he still behave like a peasant? Does he never go into the rooms?”

“We cannot get him to go into the rooms; he is afraid of her ladyship, as the honoured mistress knows.”

“He has his meals in the kitchen, and sleeps in the menservants’ room?”

“Yes, he does.”

“And you have no idea how to cure him?”

“We know nothing, we understand nothing.”

Mistress Sorrow was silent for a moment; when she spoke again there was a hard, sharp ring in her voice:

“This is all right as far as it goes, Miss Stafva; but I am not quite satisfied with you, all the same.”

The same moment she turned round and looked sharply at Ingrid.

Ingrid shuddered. Mistress Sorrow had a little, wrinkled face, the under part of which was so doubled up that one could hardly see the lower jaw. She had teeth like a saw, and thick hair on the upper lip. Her eyebrows were one single tuft of hair, and her skin was quite brown.

Ingrid thought Miss Stafva could not see what she saw: Mistress Sorrow was not a human being; she was only an animal.

Mistress Sorrow opened her mouth and showed her glittering teeth when she looked at Ingrid.

“When this girl came here,” she said to Miss Stafva, “you thought she had been sent by God. You thought you could see from her eyes that she had been sent by Our Lord to save him. She knew how to manage mad people. Well, how has it worked?”

“It has not worked at all. She has not done anything.”

“No, I have seen to that,” said Mistress Sorrow. “It was my doing that you did not tell her why she was allowed to stay here. Had she known that, she would not have indulged in such rosy dreams about seeing her beloved. If she had not had such expectations, she would not have had such a bitter disappointment. Had disappointment not paralyzed her, she could perhaps have done something for this mad fellow. But now she has not even been to see him. She hates him because he is not the one she expected him to be. That is my doing, Miss Stafva, my doing.”

“Yes; the honoured mistress knows her business,” said Miss Stafva.

Mistress Sorrow took her lace handkerchief and dried her red-rimmed eyes. It looked as if it were meant for an expression of joy.

“You need not make yourself out to be any better than you are, Miss Stafva,” she said. “I know you do not like my having taken that room for my birds. You do not like the thought of my having the whole house soon. I know that. You and your mistress had intended to cheat me. But it is all over now.”

“Yes,” said Miss Stafva, “the honoured mistress can be quite easy. It is all over. The young master is leaving today. He has packed up his pack, and then we always know he is about to leave. Everything her ladyship and I have been dreaming about the whole autumn is over. Nothing has been done. We thought she might at least have persuaded him to remain at home, but in spite of all we have done for her, she has not done anything for us.”

“No, she has only been a poor help, I know that,” said Mistress Sorrow. “But, all the same, she must be sent away now. That was really what I wanted to see her ladyship about.”

Mistress Sorrow began to drag herself up the steps on her tottering legs. At every step she raised her wings a little, as if they should help her. She would, no doubt, much rather have flown.

Ingrid went behind her. She felt strangely attracted and fascinated. If Mistress Sorrow had been the most beautiful woman in the world, she could not have felt a greater inclination to follow her.

When she went into the boudoir she saw Mistress Sorrow sitting on the sofa by the side of her ladyship, whispering confidentially with her, as if they were old friends.

“You must be able to see that you cannot keep her with you,” said Mistress Sorrow impressively. “You, who cannot bear to see a flower growing in your garden, can surely not stand having a young girl about in the house. It always brings a certain amount of brightness and life, and that would not suit you.”

“No; that is just what I have been sitting and thinking about.”

“Get her a situation as lady’s companion somewhere or other, but don’t keep her here.”

She rose to say goodbye.

“That was all I wanted to see you about,” she said. “But how are you yourself?”

“Knives and scissors cut my heart all day long,” said her ladyship. “I only live in him as long as he is at home. It is worse than usual, much worse this time. I cannot bear it much longer.”⁠ ⁠…

Ingrid started; it was her ladyship’s bell that rang. She had been dreaming so vividly that she was quite surprised to see that her ladyship was alone, and that the black sledge was not waiting before the door.

Her ladyship had rung for Miss Stafva, but she did not come. She asked Ingrid to go down to her room and call her.

Ingrid went, but the little blue-checked room was empty. The young girl was going into the kitchen to ask for the housekeeper, but before she had time to open the door she heard Hede talking. She stopped outside; she could not persuade herself