Short stories, Swedish -- Translations into English; Sweden -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
'I suppose, ma'am, Greta will get her muslin dress?'
'Yes; either Greta will have it, or I shall use it myself.'
'She does not leave much behind her, poor thing!'
'No one expects her to leave anything,' said her adopted mother. 'I
should be quite content if I could remember ever having had a kind word
from her.'
This is only the kind of thing one says when one has a bad conscience,
and wants to excuse one's self. Her adopted mother did not really mean
what she said.
The Dalar man behaved exactly as he always did when he came to sell his
wares. He stood for a little while looking round the kitchen; then he
slowly pushed the pack on to a table, and unfastened the braces and the
straps; then he looked round to see if there were any cats or dogs
about. He then straightened his back, and began to unfasten the two
leather flaps, which were fastened with numerous buckles and knots.
'He need not trouble about opening his pack to-day,' Lisa said; 'it is
Sunday, and he knows quite well we don't buy anything on Sundays.'
She, however, took no notice of the crazy fellow, who continued to
unfasten his straps. She turned round to her mistress. This was a good
opportunity for insinuating herself.
'I don't even know whether she was good to the children. I have often
heard them cry in the nursery.'
'I suppose it was the same with them as it was with their mother,' said
the Pastor's wife; 'but now, of course, they cry because she is dead.'
'They don't understand what is best for them,' said the servant; 'but
the mistress can be certain that before a month is gone there will be no
one to cry over her.'
At the same moment they both turned round from the kitchen range, and
looked towards the table, where the Dalar man stood opening his big
pack. They had heard a strange noise, something like a sigh or a sob.
The man was just opening the inside lid, and out of the pack rose the
newly-buried girl, exactly the same as when they laid her in the coffin.
And yet she did not look quite the same. She looked almost more dead now
than when she was laid in her coffin. Then she had nearly the same
colour as when she was alive; now her face was ashy-gray, there was a
bluish-black shadow round her mouth, and her eyes lay deep in her head.
She said nothing, but her face expressed the greatest despair, and she
held out beseechingly, and as if to avert their anger, the bouquet of
myrtle which she had received from her adopted mother.
This sight was more than flesh and blood could stand. Her mother fell
fainting to the ground; the maid stood still for a moment, gazing at the
mother and daughter, covered her eyes with her hands, and rushed into
her own room and locked the door.
'It is not me she has come for; this does not concern me.'
But Ingrid turned round to the Dalar man.
'Put me in your pack again, and take me away. Do you hear? Take me away.
Take me back to where you found me.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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