From a Swedish Homestead

by Selma Lagerlöf

When she awoke in the morning there stood by her bedside a tray with a silver coffee-set and old Indian china. And every morning she set her small white teeth in fine white bread and delicious almond-cakes; every day she was dressed in a fine muslin gown with a lace fichu. Her hair was dressed high at the back, but round her forehead there was a row of little light curls.

On the wall between the windows hung a mirror, with a narrow glass in a broad frame, where she could see herself, and nod to her picture, and ask:

'Is it you? Is it really you? How have you come here?'

In the daytime, when Ingrid had left the chamber with the four-poster, she sat in the drawing-room and embroidered or painted on silk, and when she was tired of that, she played a little on the guitar and sang, or talked with the old lady, who taught her French, and amused herself by training her to be a fine lady.

But she had come to an enchanted castle—she could not get away from that idea. She had had that feeling the first moment, and it was always coming back again. No one arrived at the house, no one left it. In this big house only two or three rooms were kept in order; in the others no one ever went. No one walked in the garden, no one looked after it. There was only one man-servant, and an old man who cut the firewood. And Miss Stafva had only two servants, who helped her in the kitchen and in the dairy.

But there was always dainty food on the table, and her ladyship and Ingrid were always waited upon and dressed like fine ladies of rank.

If nothing thrived on the old estate, there was, at any rate, fertile soil for dreams, and even if they did not nurse and cultivate flowers there, Ingrid was not the one to neglect her dream-roses. They grew up around her whenever she was alone. It seemed to her then as if red dream-roses formed a canopy over her.

Round the island where the trees bent low over the water, and sent long branches in between the reeds, and where shrubs and lofty trees grew luxuriantly, was a pathway where Ingrid often walked. It looked so strange to see so many letters carved on the trees, to see the old seats and summer-houses; to see the old tumble-down pavilions, which were so worm-eaten that she dared not go into them; to think that real people had walked here, that here they had lived, and longed, and loved, and that this had not always been an enchanted castle.

Down here she felt even more the witchery of the place. Here the face with the smile came to her. Here she could thank him, the student, because he had brought her to a home where she was so happy, where they loved her, and made her forget how hardly others had treated her. If it had not been he who had arranged all this for her, she could not possibly have been allowed to remain here; it was quite impossible.

She knew that it must be he. She had never before had such wild fancies. She had always been thinking of him, but she had never felt that he was so near her that he took care of her. The only thing she longed for was that he himself should come, for of course he would come some day. It was impossible that he should not come. In these avenues he had left behind part of his soul.