A World Gone Mad by Astrid Lindgren

Author:Astrid Lindgren [Astrid Lindgren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782272328
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2016-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

25 DECEMBER

For us, the fourth Christmas of the war was spent in Stockholm. It was the first Christmas of my life away from Näs. But we’ve had such a nice time that I think we’ll stay at home in future. Admittedly Karin went down with a nasty throat infection about a week before Christmas, and on the 23rd the doctor predicted it would develop into an abscess behind the tonsils, but lo and behold the crisis passed on Christmas Eve and by the evening her temperature was down and she was able to appreciate the delights of Christmas. ‘Come and sit with me, Mummy, and help me enjoy being so lucky,’ she said. Lars was very happy and content, too. His presents were: ski trousers, a jacket, sports socks, ordinary socks, books, money, sweets, a photo album; and for Karin: an umbrella, a coat for school, mittens, loads of books, including Alice in Wonderland which she’s been longing for, sweets, a couple of games, and so on. We still had tree candles this Christmas, though only Karin was allowed ten. Luckily I’d saved up a few. And there’s no shortage of food. We saved our pork and bacon coupons – and this was what we were able to muster: a Christmas ham, 3½kg, brawn, liver pâté – home-made, salt beef, veal kidney from Småland (though we got through that before Christmas). We were supposed to have a hare from Skåne as well, but it didn’t come, luckily, or it would have been sheer gluttony. But we made little cakes and biscuits: ginger snaps and brandy rings, and Mother [Astrid’s mother-in-law] brought lots of other kinds.

This morning we’ve got the Fries family coming, and they’ll bring something too, so we’ll have assorted meats (ham, tongue and salt beef ) plus creamed potatoes, herring salad, a buckling gratin, herring, liver pâté and smoked eel. We’re going to have a really nice time.

Out in the world there’s nothing but misery. Things are going badly for the Germans in Russia and Africa. Major military setbacks – it must be the beginning of the end.

Pelle Dieden dropped in before Christmas and gave us news from Norway.

[Count] Pontus de la Gardie’s daughter married into a Norwegian family. She told Pelle that her maternal grandfather, Count Lövenskiöld, was taken to Northern Norway as forced labour along with various other leading men of his district, in reprisal after some Norwegians in a nearby village grumbled when a German soldier pushed ahead of everybody in the cinema queue and behaved generally obnoxiously. The poor count wasn’t even aware of the film performance. Such is German justice. And after the count was taken away, two trucks drove up to his grand house and a bunch of German soldiers tramped in and grabbed all they could find, including 2,000 bottles of wine, all the food that had been bottled and preserved, all the soap – they weren’t even allowed to keep a scrap of soap for a baby. Then the soldiers drank themselves senseless and forced the old countess to make them tea at 3 in the morning.

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