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

out of it, and when I finished with the evening’s milking and was going in, the fire on the hearth was already lighted.”

“Now I’m very curious to hear what happened,” said Gudmund.

“Think! Already, as I was crossing the house yard, I thought there was something familiar in the gleam from the fire, and when I opened the door, it flashed across my mind that I was going into our own cabin and that father and mother would be sitting by the hearth. This flew past like a dream, but when I came in, I was surprised that it looked so pretty and homelike in the cottage. To me your mother and the rest of you had never appeared as pleasant as you did in the firelight. It seemed really good to come in, and this was not so before. I was so astonished that I could hardly keep from clapping my hands and shouting. I thought you were all so changed. You were no longer strangers to me and I could talk to you about all sorts of things. You can understand, of course, that I was happy, but I couldn’t help being astonished. I wondered if I had been bewitched, and then I remembered the ashes I had strewn over the hearth.”

“Yes, it was marvellous,” said Gudmund. He did not believe the least little bit in witchcraft and was not at all superstitious; but he didn’t dislike hearing Helga talk of such things. “Now the wild forest girl has returned,” thought he. “Can anybody comprehend how one who has passed through all that she has can still be so childish?”

“Of course it was wonderful!” said Helga. “And the same thing has been coming back all winter. As soon as the fire on the hearth was burning, I felt the same confidence and security as if I had been at home. But there must be something extraordinary about this fire⁠—not with any other kind of fire, perhaps⁠—only that which burns on a hearth, with all the household gathered around it, night after night. It gets sort of acquainted with one. It plays and dances for one and talks to one, and sometimes it is ill-humored. It is as if it had the power to create comfort and discomfort. I thought now that the fire from home had come to me and that it gave the same glow of pleasure to everyone here that it had done back home.”

“What if you had to leave Närlunda?” said Gudmund.

“Then I must long to come back again all my life,” said she. And the quiver in her voice betrayed that this was spoken in profound seriousness.

“Well, I shall not be the one to drive you away!” said Gudmund. Although he was laughing, there was something warm in his tone.

They started no new subject of conversation, but walked on in silence until they came to the homestead. Now and then Gudmund turned his head to look at her who was walking at his side. She had gathered strength after her hard time of the year before. Her features were delicate and refined; her hair was like an aureole around her head, and her eyes were not easy to read. Her step was light and elastic, and when she spoke, the words came readily, yet modestly. She was afraid of being laughed at, still she had to speak out what was in her heart.

Gudmund wondered if he wished Hildur to be like this, but he probably didn’t. This Helga would be nothing special to marry.

A fortnight later Helga heard that she must leave Närlunda in April because Hildur Ericsdotter would not live under the same roof with her. The master and mistress of the house did not say this in so many words, but the mistress hinted that when the new daughter-in-law came, they would in all probability get so much help from her they would not require so many servants. On another occasion she said she had heard of a good place where Helga would fare better than with them.

It was not necessary for Helga to hear anything further to understand that she must leave, and she immediately announced that she would move, but she did not wish any other situation and would return to her home.

It was apparent that it was not of their own free will they were dismissing Helga from Närlunda.

When she was leaving, there was a spread for her. It was like a party, and mother Ingeborg gave her such heaps of dresses and shoes that she, who had come to them with only a bundle under her arm, could now barely find room enough in a chest for her possessions.

“I shall never again have such an excellent servant in my house as you have been,” said mother Ingeborg. “And do not think too hard of me for letting you go! You understand, no doubt, that it is not my will, this. I shall not forget you. So long as I have any power, you shall never have to suffer want.”

She arranged with Helga that she was to weave sheets and towels for her. She gave her employment for at least half a year.

Gudmund was in the woodshed splitting wood the day Helga was leaving. He did not come in to say goodbye, although his horse was at the door. He appeared to be so busy that he didn’t take note of what was going on. She had to go out to him to say farewell.

He laid down the axe, took Helga’s hand, and said rather hurriedly, “Thank you for all!” and began chopping again. Helga had wanted to say something about her understanding that it was impossible for them to keep her and that it was all her own fault. She had brought this upon herself. But Gudmund chopped away until the splinters flew around him, and she couldn’t make up her mind to speak.

But the strangest thing about this whole moving affair was that the master himself, old Erland