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The Emperor of Portugalia, a novel by Selma Lagerlof |
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Book Four - The Passing Of Katrina |
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_ Katrina lay on the bed in the little but at Ruffluck Croft, the pallor of death on her face, her eyes closed. It looked as if the end had already come. But the instant Glory Goldie reached her bedside and stood patting her hand, she opened her eyes and began to speak. "Jan wants me with him," she said, with great effort. "He doesn't hold it against me that I deserted him." Glory Goldie started. Now she knew why her mother was dying; she who had been faithful a lifetime was grieving herself to death for having failed Jan at the last. "Why should you have to fret your heart out over that, when I was the one who forced you to leave him?" said Glory Goldie. "Just the same the memory of it has been so painful," replied Katrina. "But now all is well again between Jan and me." Then she closed her eyes and lay very still, and into her thin, wan face came a faint light of happiness. Soon she began to speak again, for there were things which had to be said; she could not find peace until they were said. "Don't be so angry with Jan for running after you! He meant only well by you. Things have never been right with you since you and he first parted, and he knew it, too, nor with him either. You both went wrong, each in your own way." Glory Goldie had felt that her mother would say something of this sort, and had steeled herself beforehand. But her mother's words moved her more than she realized, and she tried to say something comforting. "I shall think of father as he was in the old days. You remember what good friends we always were at that time." Katrina seemed to be satisfied with the response, for she settled back to rest once more. Apparently she had not intended to say anything further. Then, all at once, she looked up at her daughter and gave her a smile that bespoke rare tenderness and affection. "I'm so glad, Glory Goldie, that you have grown beautiful again," she said. For that smile and those words all Glory Goldie's self-control gave way; she fell upon her knees beside the low bedstead, and wept. It was the first time since her homecoming that she had shed real tears. "Mother, I don't know how you can feel toward me as you do!" cried the girl. "It's all my fault that you are dying, and I'm to blame for father's death, too." Katrina, smiling all the while, moved her hands in a little caress. "You are so good, mother," said Glory Goldie through her sobs. "You are so good to me!" Katrina gripped hard her daughter's hand and raised herself in bed, to give her final testimony. "All, that is good in me I have learned from Jan," she declared After which she sank back on her pillow and said nothing more that was clear or sensible. The death struggle had begun, and the next morning she passed away. But all through the final agony Glory Goldie lay weeping on the floor beside her mother's bed; she wept away her anguish; her fever-dreams; her burden of guilt. There was no end to her tears. _ |
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