Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlöf
page 52 of 254 (20%)
page 52 of 254 (20%)
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The news came to her lying and fading in emulation with the rootless birches. "Petter Nord, with whom you played one summer day, is in the graveyard waiting for you. Petter Nord, whom your uncle has frightened out of his senses, cannot leave the graveyard until your flower-decked coffin comes to fetch him." The girl opened her eyes as if to look at the world once more. She sent a message to Petter Nord. She was angry at his mad pranks. Why could she not die in peace? She had never wished that he should have any pangs of conscience for her sake. The bearer of the message came back without Petter Nord. He could not come. The wall was too high and the gate too strong. There was only one who could free him. During those days they thought of nothing else in the little town. "He is there; he is there still," they told one another every day. "Is he mad?" they asked most often, and some who had talked with him answered that he certainly would be when "she" came. But they were exceedingly proud of that martyr to love who gave a glory to the town. The poor took him food. The rich stole up on the mountain to catch a glimpse of him. But Edith, who could not move, who lay helpless and dying, she who had so much time to think, with what was she occupying herself? What thoughts revolved in her brain day and night? Oh, Petter Nord, Petter Nord! Must she always see before her the man who loved her, who was losing his mind for her sake, who really, actually was in the graveyard waiting for her coffin. |
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