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

to anyone trying to find his way in the churchyard. Old women who are in the habit of going on Sundays to visit their graves can only get a little way down the main walk on account of the snow. There they stand, trying to make out where their own grave lies⁠—is it near that bush, or that?⁠—and they begin to long for the snow to melt. It is as if the one for whom they are sorrowing has gone so far away from them, now that they cannot see the spot where he lies.

There are also a few large gravestones and crosses that are higher than the snow, but they are not many; and as these are also covered with snow, they cannot be distinguished either.

There is only one pathway kept clear in the churchyard. It is the one leading from the entrance to the small mortuary. When anyone is to be buried the coffin is carried into the mortuary, and there the pastor reads the service and casts the earth upon the coffin. It is impossible to place the coffin in the ground as long as such a winter lasts. It must remain standing in the mortuary until God sees fit to thaw the earth, and the ground can be digged and made ready.

Just when the winter was at its hardest, and the churchyard quite inaccessible, a child died at Sander’s, the ironmaster at Lerum ironworks.

The ironworks at Lerum were large, and Sander, the ironmaster, was a great man in that part of the country. He had recently had a family grave made in the churchyard⁠—a splendid grave, the position of which one could not easily forget, although the snow had laid its thick carpet over it. It was surrounded by heavy, hewn stones, with a massive chain between them, and in the middle of the grave stood a huge granite block, with their name inscribed upon it. There was only the one word “Sander,” engraved in large letters, but it could be seen over the whole churchyard. But now that the child was dead, and was to be buried, the ironmaster said to his wife:

“I will not allow this child to lie in my grave.”

One can picture them both at that moment. It was in their dining-room at Lerum. The ironmaster was sitting at the breakfast-table alone, as was his wont. His wife, Ebba Sander, was sitting in a rocking-chair at the window, from where she had a wide view of the lake, with its small islands covered with birches.

She had been weeping, but when her husband said this, her eyes became immediately dry. Her little figure seemed to shrink from fear, and she began to tremble.

“What do you say? What are you saying?” she asked, and her voice sounded as if she were shivering from cold.

“I object to it,” he said. “My father and my mother lie there, and the name ‘Sander’ stands on the stone. I will not allow that child to lie there.”

“Oh,” she said, still trembling, “is that what you have been thinking about? I always did think that some day you would have your revenge.”

He threw down his serviette, rose from the table, and stood before her, broad and big. It was not his intention to assert his will with many words, but she could see, as he stood there, that nothing could make him change his mind. Stern, immovable, obstinate he was from top to toe.

“I will not revenge myself,” he said, “only I will not have it.”

“You speak as if it were only a question of removing him from one bed to the other,” she said. “He is dead. It does not matter to him where he lies, I suppose; but for me it is ruin, you know.”

“I have also thought of that,” he said, “but I cannot.”

When two people have been married, and have lived together for some years, they do not require many words to understand one another. She knew it would be quite useless to try and move him.

“Why did you forgive me, then?” she said, wringing her hands. “Why did you let me stay with you as your wife and promise to forgive me?”

He knew that he would not do her any harm. It was not his fault that he had now reached the limit of his forbearance.

“Say to people what you like,” he said; “I shall not say anything. You can say, if you like, that there is water in the vault, or that there is only room for father and mother and you and me.”

“And you imagine that they will believe that!”

“Well, you must manage that as best you can.”

He was not angry; she knew that he was not. It was only as he said: on that point he could not give way.

She went further into the room, put her hands at the back of her head, and sat gazing out of the window without saying anything. The terrible thing is that so much happens to one in life over which one has no control, and, above all, that something may spring up within one’s self over which one is entirely powerless. Some years ago, when she was already a staid married woman, love came to her; and what a love⁠—so violent that it was quite impossible for her to resist.

Was not the feeling which now mastered her husband⁠—was not that, after all, a desire to be revenged?

He had never been angry with her. He forgave her at once when she came and confessed her sin.

“You have been out of your senses,” he said, and allowed her to remain with him at Lerum as if nothing had happened.

But although it is easy enough to say one forgives, it may be hard to do so, especially for one whose mind is slow and heavy, who ponders over but never forgets or gives vent to his feelings. Whatever he may say, and however much he may have made up his mind, something is always left within