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

She tried, however, to argue with herself. It was not his fault that he was not the one she had been expecting. She must try to do something for him; she must persuade him to remain at home. Before, she had not had such a feeling against him. He was not so very bad.

She bent down and peeped through the keyhole. It was the same here as at other places. The servants tried to lead him on in order to amuse themselves by his strange talk. They asked him whom he was going to marry. Hede smiled; he liked to be asked about that kind of thing.

“She is called Grave-Lily⁠—don’t you know that?” he said.

The servant said she did not know that she had such a fine name.

“But where does she live?”

“Neither has she home nor has she farm,” Hede said. “She lives in my pack.”

The servant said that was a queer home, and asked about her parents.

“Neither has she father nor has she mother,” Hede said. “She is as fine as a flower; she has grown up in a garden.”

He said all this with a certain amount of clearness, but when he wanted to describe how beautiful his sweetheart was he could not get on at all. He said a number of words, but they were strangely mixed together. One could not follow his thoughts, but evidently he himself derived much pleasure from what he said. He sat smiling and happy.

Ingrid hurried away. She could not bear it any longer. She could not do anything for him. She was afraid of him. She disliked him. But she had not got further than the stairs before her conscience pricked her. Here she had received so much kindness, and she would not make any return.

In order to master her dislike she tried in her own mind to think of Hede as a gentleman. She wondered how he had looked when he wore good clothes, and had his hair brushed back. She closed her eyes for a moment and thought. No, it was impossible, she could not imagine him as being any different from what he was. The same moment she saw the outlines of a beloved face by her side. It appeared at her left side wonderfully distinct. This time the face did not smile. The lips trembled as if in pain, and unspeakable suffering was written in sharp lines round the mouth.

Ingrid stopped halfway up the stairs and looked at it. There it was, light and fleeting, as impossible to grasp and hold fast as a sunspot reflected by the prism of a chandelier, but just as visible, just as real. She thought of her recent dream, but this was different⁠—this was reality.

When she had looked a little at the face, the lips began to move; they spoke, but she could not hear a sound. Then she tried to see what they said, tried to read the words from the lips, as deaf people do, and she succeeded.

“Do not let me go,” the lips said; “do not let me go.”

And the anguish with which it was said! If a fellow-creature had been lying at her feet begging for life, it could not have affected her more. She was so overcome that she shook. It was more heartrending than anything she had ever heard in her whole life. Never had she thought that anyone could beg in such fearful anguish. Again and again the lips begged, “Do not let me go!” And for every time the anguish was greater.

Ingrid did not understand it, but remained standing, filled with unspeakable pity. It seemed to her that more than life itself must be at stake for one who begged like this, that his very soul must be at stake.

The lips did not move any more; they stood half open in dull despair. When they assumed this expression she uttered a cry and stumbled. She recognised the face of the crazy fellow as she had just seen it.

“No, no, no!” she said. “It cannot be so! It must not! it cannot! It is not possible that it is he!”

The same moment the face vanished. She must have sat for a whole hour on the cold staircase, crying in helpless despair. But at last hope sprang up in her, strong and fair. She again took courage to raise her head. All that had happened seemed to show that she should save him. It was for that she had come here. She should have the great, great happiness of saving him.

In the little boudoir her ladyship was talking to Miss Stafva. It sounded so pitiful to hear her asking the housekeeper to persuade her son to remain a few days longer. Miss Stafva tried to appear hard and severe.

“Of course, I can ask him,” she said; “but your ladyship knows that no one can make him stay longer than he wants.”

“We have money enough, you know. There is not the slightest necessity for him to go. Can you not tell him that?” said her ladyship.

At the same moment Ingrid came in. The door opened noiselessly. She glided through the room with light, airy steps; her eyes were radiant, as if she beheld something beautiful afar off.

When her ladyship saw her she frowned a little. She also felt an inclination to be cruel, to give pain.

“Ingrid,” she said, “come here; I must speak with you about your future.”

The young girl had fetched her guitar and was about to leave the room. She turned round to her ladyship.

“My future?” she said, putting her hand to her forehead. “My future is already decided, you know,” she continued, with the smile of a martyr; and without saying any more she left the room.

Her ladyship and Stafva looked in surprise at each other. They began to discuss where they should send the young girl. But when Miss Stafva came down to her room she found Ingrid sitting there, singing some little songs and playing on the