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

The short and harsh manner in which she gave her orders jarred upon her ears, but she was obliged to speak in this way in order to be obeyed; it was the only chance she had. What right had she to order another person about⁠—she who had not even the right to be alive?

After all this she would never again be able to feel as if she had any right to live. This was the most dreadful part of all that had happened to her: that she could have lived in the Parsonage for six years, and not even been able to make herself so much loved that they wished to keep her alive. And those whom no one loves have no right to live. She could not exactly say how she knew it was so, but it was as clear as daylight. She knew it from the feeling that the same moment she heard that they did not care about her an iron hand seemed to have crushed her heart as if to make it stop. Yes, it was life itself that had been closed for her. And the same moment she had come back from death, and felt the delight of being alive burn brightly and strongly within her, just at that moment the one thing that gave her the right of existing had been torn from her.

This was worse than sentence of death. It was much more cruel than an ordinary sentence of death. She knew what it was like. It was like felling a tree⁠—not in the usual manner, when the trunk is cut through, but by cutting its roots and leaving it standing in the ground to die by itself. There the tree stands, and cannot understand why it no longer gets nourishment and support. It struggles and strives to live, but the leaves get smaller and smaller, it sends forth no fresh shoots, the bark falls off, and it must die, because it is severed from the spring of life. Thus it is it must die.

At last the Dalar man put down his pack on the stone step outside a little house in the midst of the wild forest. The door was locked, but as soon as Ingrid had got out of the pack she took the key from under the doorstep, opened the door, and walked in.

Ingrid knew the house thoroughly and all it contained. It was not the first time she had come there for comfort; it was not the first time she had come and told old Anna Stina that she could not bear living at home any longer⁠—that her adopted mother was so hard to her that she would not go back to the Parsonage. But every time she came the old woman had talked her over and quieted her. She had made her some terrible coffee from roasted peas and chicory, without a single coffee-bean in it, but which had all the same given her new courage, and in the end she had made her laugh at everything, and encouraged her so much, that she had simply danced down the hillside on her way home.

Even if Anna Stina had been at home, and had made some of her terrible coffee, it would probably not have helped Ingrid this time. But the old woman was down at the Parsonage to the funeral feast, for the Pastor’s wife had not forgotten to invite any of those of whom Ingrid had been fond. That, too, was probably the result of an uneasy conscience.

But in Anna’s room everything was as usual. And when Ingrid saw the sofa with the wooden seat, and the clean, scoured table, and the cat, and the coffee-kettle, although she did not feel comforted or cheered, she felt that here was a place where she could give vent to her sorrow. It was a relief that here she need not think of anything but crying and moaning.

She went straight to the settle, threw herself on the wooden seat, and lay there crying, she did not know for how long.

The Dalar man sat outside on the stone step; he did not want to go into the house on account of the cat. He expected that Ingrid would come out and play to him. He had taken the violin out long ago. As it was such a long time before she came, he began to play himself. He played softly and gently, as was his wont. It was barely possible for the young girl to hear him playing.

Ingrid had one fit of shivering after the other. This was how she had been before she fell ill. She would no doubt be ill again. It was also best that the fever should come and put an end to her in earnest.

When she heard the violin, she rose and looked round with bewildered glance. Who was that playing? Was that her student? Had he come at last? It soon struck her, however, that it was the Dalar man, and she lay down again with a sigh. She could not follow what he was playing. But as soon as she closed her eyes the violin assumed the student’s voice. She also heard what he said; he spoke with her adopted mother and defended her. He spoke just as nicely as he had done to Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren. Ingrid needed love so much, he said. That was what she had missed. That was why she had not always attended to her work, but allowed dreams to fill her mind. But no one knew how she could work and slave for those who loved her. For their sake she could bear sorrow and sickness, and contempt and poverty; for them she would be as strong as a giant, and as patient as a slave.

Ingrid heard him distinctly and she became quiet. Yes, it was true. If only her adopted mother had loved her, she would have seen what Ingrid was worth.