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

For the Värmland polska is the most wonderful dance. It transforms the heavy-footed sons of earth. Without a sound soles an inch thick float over the unplaned barn floor. They whirl about, light as leaves in an autumn wind. It is supple, quick, silent, gliding. Its noble, measured movements set the body free and let it feel itself light, elastic, floating.

While Petter Nord danced the dance of his native land, there was silence in the ballroom. At first people laughed, but then they all recognized that this was dancing. It floated away in even, rapid whirls; it was dancing indeed, if anything.

In the midst of his delirium Petter Nord perceived that round about him reigned a strange silence. He stopped short and passed his hand over his forehead. There was no black barn floor, no leafy walls, no light blue summer night, no merry peasant maiden in the reality he gazed upon. He was ashamed and wished to steal away.

But he was already surrounded, besieged. The young ladies crowded about the shop-boy and cried: “Dance with us; dance with us!”

They wished to learn the polska. They all wished to learn to dance the polska. The ball was turned from its course and became a dancing-school. All said that they had never known before what it was to dance. And Petter Nord was a great man for that evening. He had to dance with all the fine ladies, and they were exceedingly kind to him. He was only a boy, and such a madcap besides. No one could help making a pet of him.

Petter Nord felt that this was happiness. To be the favorite of the ladies, to dare to talk to them, to be in the midst of lights, of movement, to be made much of, to be petted, surely this was happiness.

When the ball was over, he was too happy to think about it. He needed to come home to be able to think over quietly what had happened to him that evening.

Halfvorson was not married, but he had in his house a niece who worked in the office. She was poor and dependent on Halfvorson, but she was quite haughty towards both him and Petter Nord. She had many friends among the more important people of the town and was invited to families where Halfvorson could never come. She and Petter Nord went home from the ball together.

“Do you know, Nord,” asked Edith Halfvorson, “that a suit is soon to be brought against Halfvorson for illicit trading in brandy? You might tell me how it really is.”

“There is nothing worth making a fuss about,” said Petter Nord.

Edith sighed. “Of course there is nothing. But there will be a lawsuit and fines and shame without end. I wish that I really knew how it is.”

“Perhaps it is best not to know anything,” said Petter Nord.

“I wish to rise in the world, do you see,” continued Edith, “and I wish to drag Halfvorson up with me, but he always drops back again. And then he does something so that I become impossible too. He is scheming something now. Do you not know what it is? It would be good to know.”

“No,” said Petter Nord, and not another word would he say. It was inhuman to talk to him of such things on the way home from his first ball.

Beyond the shop there was a little dark room for the shop-boy. There sat Petter Nord of today and came to an understanding with Petter Nord of yesterday. How pale and cowardly the churl looked. Now he heard what he really was. A thief and a miser. Did he know the seventh commandment? By rights he ought to have forty stripes. That was what he deserved.

God be blessed and praised for having let him go to the ball and get a new view of it all. Usch! what ugly thoughts he had had; but now it was quite changed. As if riches were worth sacrificing conscience and the soul’s freedom for their sake! As if they were worth as much as a white mouse, if the heart could not be glad at the same time! He clapped his hands and cried out in joy⁠—that he was free, free, free! There was not even a longing to possess the fifty crowns in his heart. How good it was to be happy!

When he had gone to bed, he thought that he would show Halfvorson the fifty crowns early the next morning. Then he became uneasy that the tradesman might come into the shop before him the next morning, search for the note and find it. He might easily think that Petter Nord had hidden it to keep it. The thought gave him no peace. He tried to shake it off, but he could not succeed. He could not sleep. So he rose, crept into the shop and felt about till he found the fifty crowns. Then he fell asleep with the note under his pillow.

An hour later he awoke. A light shone sharply in his eyes; a hand was fumbling under his pillow and a rumbling voice was scolding and swearing.

Before the boy was really awake, Halfvorson had the note in his hand and showed it to the two women, who stood in the doorway to his room. “You see that I was right,” said Halfvorson. “You see that it was well worth while for me to drag you up to bear witness against him! You see that he is a thief!”

“No, no, no,” screamed poor Petter Nord. “I did not wish to steal. I only hid the note.”

Halfvorson heard nothing. Both the women stood with their backs turned to the room, as if determined to neither hear nor see.

Petter Nord sat up in bed. He looked all of a sudden pitifully weak and small. His tears were streaming. He wailed aloud.

“Uncle,” said Edith, “he is weeping.”

“Let him weep,” said Halfvorson, “let him weep!” And he walked forward and looked