Jerusalem. Selma LagerlöfЧитать онлайн книгу.
soon as he felt sure that he could not be seen from the road, he slowed down and brought out the letter. Instantly Brita put her hand on his arm. "Don't read it!" she begged.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Never mind reading it; it's nothing."
"But how can you know?"
"It's a letter from me."
"Then tell me yourself what's in it."
"No, I can't tell you that."
He looked hard at her. She turned scarlet, her eyes growing wild with alarm. "I guess I will read that letter anyway," said Ingmar, and began to tear open the envelope.
"O Heavenly Father!" she cried, "am I then to be spared nothing? Ingmar," she implored, "read it in a day or two—when I am on my way to America."
By that time he had already opened the letter and was scanning it. She put her hand over the paper. "Listen to me, Ingmar!" she said. "It was the chaplain who got me to write that letter, and he promised not to send it till I was on board the steamer. Instead he sent it off too soon. You have no right to read it yet; wait till I'm gone, Ingmar."
Ingmar gave her an angry look and jumped out of the wagon, so that he might read the letter in peace. Brita was as much excited now as she had been in the old days, when things did not go her way.
"What I say in that letter isn't true. The chaplain talked me into writing it. I don't love you, Ingmar."
He looked up from the paper and gazed at her in astonishment. Then she grew silent, and the lessons in humility which she had learned in prison profited her now. After all she suffered no greater embarrassment than she deserved.
Ingmar, meanwhile, stood puzzling over the letter. Suddenly, with an impatient snarl, he crumpled it up.
"I can't make this out!" he said, stamping his foot. "My head's all in a muddle."
He went up to Brita and gripped her by the arm.
"Does it really say in the letter that you care for me?" His tone was shockingly brutal, and the look of him was terrible.
Brita was silent.
"Does the letter say that you care for me?" he repeated savagely.
"Yes," she answered faintly.
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