The outcast

by Selma Lagerlöf

"I seem to understand a little now," he said aloud. "As soon as you found out that I went about looking for my daughter you thought you could use her as a bait to catch a poor fellow again for good."

And he laughed in Sven's soft face. The lion was determined to keep its freedom, and cared nothing for the bait offered.

"Thank you," said Sven Elversson, with his humblest smile. "What you say brings me just to the very thing I wanted to tell you. Look you, last summer I was doing some building work in the district. Not for myself, you understand, but to order. And I had to get some stone from a quarry just above the fishing village of Knapefiord, where we are now, and in that way I came into contact with a good many of the people there. And among them was a young woman named Julia Lamprecht. It was an unusual name, and as soon as I saw your name in the papers I remembered her."

The accused rose to his feet. Again he felt that shiver through his body. His face twitched, his eyelids quivered; it was evident that some emotion took possession of him at the mention of his daughter, though, truth to tell, he had been seeking her hitherto less from any warmth of real feeling than in the hope that she might perhaps be well off and able to give him a home.

He thrust Sven Elversson aside carelessly, and stood up in the middle of the cell.

"Is she here?" he asked. "I want to see her."

His tone was that of a man who expects immediate obedience to his orders. But Sven Elversson did not lose countenance.

"You shall see her," he said, kindly and gently as before, but not without firmness. "You shall sit and talk with her as you are doing now with me. But there is one thing to be done first. You must write the answers on that paper. You may think, perhaps, that we are cruel in trying to separate father and daughter in this way, but we must have that paper signed first."

The accused flushed angrily. He was not accustomed to have any reasonable request refused. Ever since he had been arrested, he had been treated with the greatest leniency, to make him thrive, as it were, in captivity, and render him more willing to give the confession that would keep him there. He felt now as if he could spring at this stranger and thrash him soundly, but he controlled himself. He threw himself face downward on the bench, keeping his face hidden. He did not know himself what made him do so, but he felt it was best to conceal his feelings.

"I am glad, I am grateful to you for thinking it over," said Sven. "I must tell you that Julia Lamprecht is not very happy as she is. Her mother died early, as you know. And since then she has, as one might say, grown up in the streets. She came here in company with a workman from the quarries. They were not married, but quarrymen hereabouts do not always trouble about marrying, so no one paid much heed to that. And Julia is a good girl; there are many worse than she. But a few days back, when the man heard she was your daughter, he left her. Couldn't bear the sight of her, he said. And now she is all alone. She is handsome, like her father, with fair hair, and no doubt there will be others ready to be friends with her in a way, but it will only be the same again. Now, if she had a little money, say five thousand kroner, then she could buy a little house and be properly married. Five thousand would be just about right. More would not be well for her, and less would be hardly enough. Well, now you see how we have thought it out. As soon as you have answered the questions there, you can see her, and give her the five thousand. You would like that, I think. Then she would feel she had a father. She would feel that, whatever you might have done, you had still some affection for her."