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

had clothed him; and when at last she sees him in all the nakedness of egotism and selfishness, her terrible little tongue passes sentence upon him:⁠—

“What else are you?”

“Anne-Marie!”

“Yes, what else are we both,” continues the merciless tongue, which, since it has once started, finds it best to clear up this matter which has tortured her conscience ever since she has begun to realize that this rich man who owned this big estate had a heart too which could suffer and yearn. So while her tongue is so well started and all shyness seems to have fallen from her, she says:⁠—

“When we placed ourselves in the chaise at home there, what did we think? What did we talk about on the way? About how we would deceive him there. ‘You must be brave, Anne-Marie,’ you said. ‘And you must be crafty, Maurits,’ I said. We thought only of ingratiating ourselves. We wished to have much and we wished to give nothing except hypocrisy. It was not our intention to say: ‘Help us, because we are poor and care for one another,’ but we were to flatter and fawn until Uncle was charmed by me or by you; that was our intention. But we meant to give nothing in return; neither love nor respect nor even gratitude. And why did you not come alone, why must I come too? You wished to show me to him; you wished me to⁠—to⁠—”

Uncle Theodore rises when he sees Maurits raise his hand against her. For now he has finished counting, and follows what is passing with his heart swelling with hope. His heart flies wide open to receive her as she now screams and runs into his arms, runs there without hesitation or consideration, quite as if there were no other place on earth to which to run.

“Uncle, he will strike me!”

And she presses close, close to him.

But Maurits is now calm again. “Forgive my impetuosity, Anne-Marie,” he says. “It hurt me to hear you speak in such a childish way in Uncle’s presence. But Uncle must also understand that you are only a child. Still I grant that not even the most just wrath gives a man the right to strike a woman. Come here now and kiss me. You need not seek protection from me with anybody.”

She does not move, does not turn, only clings more closely.

“Downie, shall I let him take you?” whispers Uncle Theodore.

She answers only with a shudder, which quivers through him also.

Uncle Theodore feels so strong, so inspired. He, too, no longer sees his perfect nephew as before in the bright light of his perfection. He dares to jest with him.

“Maurits,” he says, “you surprise me. Love makes you weak. Can you so promptly forgive her having called you a scoundrel? You must break with her instantly. Your honor, Maurits, think of your honor! Nothing in the world can permit a woman to insult a man. Place yourself in the chaise, my boy, and go away without this abandoned creature! It is only pure and simple justice after such an insult.”

As he finishes this speech, he puts his big hands about her head and bends it back so that he can kiss her forehead.

“Give up this abandoned creature!” he repeats.

But now Maurits begins to understand also. He sees the light in Uncle Theodore’s eyes and how one smile after the other dances over his lips.

“Come, Anne-Marie!”

She starts. Now he calls her as the man to whom she has promised herself. She feels she must obey. And she lets go of Uncle Theodore so suddenly that he cannot stop her, but she cannot go to Maurits; so she slides down to the floor and there she remains sitting and sobs.

“Go home alone in your chaise, Maurits,” says Uncle Theodore sharply. “This young lady is guest in my house as yet, and I intend to protect her from your interference.”

He no longer thinks of Maurits, but only to lift her up, dry her tears and whisper that he loves her.

Maurits, who sees them, the one weeping, the other comforting, cries: “Oh, this is a conspiracy! I am tricked! This is a comedy! You have stolen my betrothed from me and you mock me! You let me call one who never intends to come! I congratulate you on this affair, Anne-Marie!”

As he rushes out and slams the door, he calls back: “Fortune-hunter!”

Uncle Theodore makes a movement as if to go after him and chastise him, but Downie holds him back.

“Ah, Uncle Theodore, do let Maurits have the last word. Maurits is always right. Fortune-hunter⁠—that is just what I am, Uncle Theodore.”

She creeps again close to him without hesitation, without question. And Uncle Theodore is quite confused; just now she was weeping and now she is laughing; just now she was going to marry one man and now she is caressing another. Then she lifts up her head and smiles: “Now I am your little dog. You cannot be rid of me.”

“Downie,” says Uncle Theodore with his gruffest voice: “You have known it the whole time!”

She began to whisper: “Had my brother⁠—”

“And yet you wished, Downie⁠—Maurits is lucky to be rid of you. Such a foolish, deceitful, hypocritical Downie, such an unreliable little wisp, such a, such a⁠—”

Ah, Downie, ah, silken flower! You were certainly not a fortune-hunter only; you were also a fortune-giver, otherwise there would be nothing left of your happy peace in the house where you lived. To this day the garden is shaded by big beeches and the birch tree trunks stand there white and spotless from the root upwards. To this day the snake suns himself in peace on the slope, and in the pond in the park swims a carp which is so old that no boy has the heart to catch it. And when I come there, I feel that there is festival in the air, and it seems as if the birds and flowers still sang their beautiful songs of you.