Ragna did not know what to answer; she had never seriously questioned
any religious doctrine that had been taught her and Ingeborg's revolt
both shocked her and found her unprepared.
"Aren't you ashamed to talk like that, Ingeborg Andersen?" she said
indignantly. "Of course there is a Heaven and a Hell, and perhaps good
dogs have a Heaven of their own--I don't know! If there is one, I'm sure
Balke went there," she ended lamely.
Ingeborg was watching her with curious unchildlike eyes.
"You don't believe in Heaven any more than I do," she asserted. "If you
did you'd talk about it differently. People have told you things and you
have just gone on believing them to save yourself the trouble of
thinking."
She slipped from Ragna's knees and crossed to the window, where she
stood looking out; she left her sister thunderstruck. The child had
spoken the truth--but how had she known, by what intuition had she
understood? Ragna went over to her, and putting an arm about her, stood
some minutes in silence before she asked:
"What made you say that, Ingeborg?"
"I don't know, but it is so and you can't deny it. Oh, I often know
what people think about when they don't know themselves, and I often
know, too, what is going to happen to people. Grandmother told me I was
fey; you see I'm the youngest and I'm the seventh daughter and so was
mother, and those people always are, Grandmother said so."
"How can you know? What do you do?"
"Oh, nothing, I just look into people's eyes, and sometimes I see
things, and sometimes I don't."
"Can you tell me what will happen to me?" asked Ragna in a low voice.
Ingeborg turned and looked long into her sister's eyes. The sun had sunk
below the mountains and a cool grey light pervaded the place. She stood
motionless a long time, then she passed her hand over her forehead and
half turned away.
"I don't want to tell you, Ragna," she said.
But Ragna insisted, she would know, she was not superstitious; she only
wanted to see if it would come true.
"It will come true--it always does," said Ingeborg sadly.
"Then tell me, I'm not afraid."
Ingeborg hesitated, then seeing that Ragna was in earnest:
"I will tell some of it, but I do not see very clearly. You are going
away, to begin with, I see you with Aunt Gitta and there are many people
but their faces are shadows. Then you go away farther still, where the
sun is hot--it dazzles you, and there is a man--or is it a greyhound?"
Ragna started. "Yes, it is a man, but there is a greyhound and a hare
and some stone arches, and you are very sad after that, Ragna. But the
man goes away and there is another man with eyes like coals, and he
hates you--he puts chains on you, and you can't break them, and you
never come home any more--" Her voice died away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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