Short Fiction by Selma Lagerlöf (android based ebook reader txt) 📕

fir strewn the whole way from the entrance-hall to the church; housecleaning and butchering, brewing and baking for a fortnight before the funeral; the corpse on a bier in the inmost room; smoke from the newly-lighted fires in the rooms; the whole house crowded with guests; singing over the body whilst the lid of the coffin was being screwed on; silver plates on the coffin; twenty loads of wood burned in a fortnight; the whole village busy cooking food to take to the funeral; all the tall hats newly ironed; all the corn-brandy from the autumn drunk up during the funeral feast; all the roads crowded with people as at fair-time.

Again the old man started up. He had heard them sitting and talking about him during the feast.

“But how did he manage to go and get frozen to death?” asked the Justice of the Peace. “What could he have been doing in the large forest?”

And the Captain would say that it was probably from Christmas ale and corn-brandy. And that roused him again. The Ingmars had never been drunkards. It should never be said of him that he was muddled in his last moments. And he began again to walk and walk; but he was so tired that he could scarcely stand on his legs. It was quite clear to him now that he had got far into the forest, for there were no paths anywhere, but many large rocks, of which he knew there were none lower down. His foot caught between two stones, so that he had difficulty in getting it out, and he stood and moaned. He was quite done for.

Suddenly he fell over a heap of fagots. He fell softly on to the snow and branches, so he was not hurt, but he did not take the trouble to get up again. He had no other desire in the world than to sleep. He pushed the fagots to one side and crept under them as if they were a rug; but when he pushed himself under the branches he felt that underneath there was something warm and soft. This must be a bear, he thought.

He felt the animal move, and heard it sniff; but he lay still. The bear might eat him if it liked, he thought. He had not strength enough to move a single step to get out of its way.

But it seemed as if the bear did not want to harm anyone who sought its protection on such a night as this. It moved a little further into its lair, as if to make room for its visitor, and directly afterwards it slept again with even, snorting breath.

In the meantime there was but scanty Christmas joy in the old farm of the Ingmars. The whole of Christmas-eve they were looking for Ingmar Ingmarson. First they went all over the dwelling-house and all the outhouses. They searched high and low, from loft to cellar. Then they went to the neighbouring farms and inquired for Ingmar Ingmarson.

As they did not find him, his sons and his sons-in-law went into the fields and roads. They used the torches which should have lighted the way for people going to early service on Christmas morning in the search for him. The terrible snowstorm had hidden all traces, and the howling of the wind drowned the sound of their voices when they called and shouted. They were out and about until long after midnight, but then they saw that it was useless to continue the search, and that they must wait until daylight to find the old man.

At the first pale streak of dawn everybody was up at Ingmar’s farm, and the men stood about the yard ready to set out for the wood. But before they started the old housewife came and called them into the best room. She told them to sit down on the long benches; she herself sat down by the Christmas table with the Bible in front of her and began to read. She tried her best to find something suitable for the occasion, and chose the story of the man who was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves.

She read slowly and monotonously about the unfortunate man who was succoured by the good Samaritan. Her sons and sons-in-law, her daughters and daughters-in-law, sat around her on the benches. They all resembled her and each other, big and clumsy, with plain, old-fashioned faces, for they all belonged to the old race of the Ingmars. They had all reddish hair, freckled skin, and light-blue eyes with white eyelashes. They might be different enough from each other in some ways, but they had all a stern look about the mouth, dull eyes, and heavy movements, as if everything were a trouble to them. But one could see that they all, every one of them, belonged to the first people in the neighbourhood, and that they knew themselves to be better than other people.

All the sons and daughters of the house of Ingmar sighed deeply during the reading of the Bible. They wondered if some good Samaritan had found the master of the house and taken care of him, for all the Ingmars felt as if they had lost part of their own soul when a misfortune happened to anyone belonging to the family.

The old woman read and read, and came to the question: “Who was neighbour unto him that fell amongst thieves?” But before she had read the answer the door opened and old Ingmar came into the room.

“Mother, here is father,” said one of the daughters; and the answer, that the man’s neighbour was he who had shown mercy unto him, was never read.

Later in the day the housewife sat again in the same place, and read her Bible. She was alone; the women had gone to church, and the men were bear-hunting in the forest. As soon as Ingmar Ingmarson had eaten and drunk, he took his sons with him and went