by Knut Hamsun
They walked on.
“I still catch myself thinking of that pretty picture you described to me of the boat and the blue silk sail in the shape of a half-moon,” she said. “It was so beautiful. When the sky is high and seems far away, I see myself rocking about up there, fishing with a silver hook.”
It made him happy to learn that she still remembered his Midsummer Eve reverie, his eyes grew moist and he replied warmly, “You’re right, it would really suit you better than me to sit in a boat like that.”
When they were about halfway into the forest, she was careless enough to ask, “How long will you be staying here?”
She regretted it immediately and would have liked to take it back, but was quickly reassured when he smiled and avoided a direct answer. She was grateful to him for his tact, he must have noticed her difficulty.
“I’ll be staying where you are, of course,” he replied.... “I’ll stay here until I run out of money,” he then said. And he added, “But it won’t be too long.”
She looked at him, also smiling, and asked, “It won’t be too long? But you’re rich, I’ve heard?”
His face assumed its old secretive expression as he answered, “Am I rich? Look, there seems to be a story going around town that I am a capitalist, that among other things I own an estate of considerable value. That’s not true, I ask you not to believe it, it’s humbug. I have no estate, in any case it’s extremely small and not even all mine, since I own it jointly with my sister; besides, it’s totally eaten up by debt and all kinds of mortgages. That’s the truth.”
She laughed mistrustfully.
“Well, you always tell the truth, of course, when you talk about yourself,” she said.
“You don’t believe me? You have doubts? Then let me tell you—though I find it humiliating—let me tell you the truth of the situation. You should know that the first day I was in town I walked thirty miles—I went on foot all the way to the next town and sent myself three telegrams from there concerning a large sum of money and a farm in Finland. Then I left the three telegrams open on the table in my room for several days, so that each and everyone in the hotel could read them. Do you believe me now? So isn’t it all humbug about my money?”
“Provided you aren’t telling another lie about yourself.”
“Another lie? You’re mistaken, Miss Kielland. By God in heaven, I’m not lying! So there!”
Pause.
“But why did you do it, why did you send those telegrams to yourself?”
“Now that would be a rather long story, if I were to give the whole picture.... Well, as a matter of fact, I did it simply to show off, to attract attention in town. Heh-heh-heh, to speak plainly.”
“Now you’re lying!”
“I’ll be damned if I am!”
Pause.
“You are a strange person. What you mean to achieve, God only knows. One moment you go around making—well, you don’t even shrink from making me the most ardent confessions; but as soon as I put in a few words to make you see reason, you immediately turn around and present yourself as the worst charlatan, a liar and a cheat. You might as well save your pains; one thing makes as little impression on me as the other. I’m just a plain person; all that ingenuity is above my head.”
She had taken offense all of a sudden.
“I wasn’t trying to show any special ingenuity right now. All is lost anyway, so why should I make an effort?”
“But why, then, are you telling me all these terrible things about yourself whenever you have a chance?” she cried passionately.
Slowly, in full control of himself, he replied, “To influence you, Miss Kielland.”
Again they stopped and stared at one another. He continued, “I had the pleasure of telling you a few things about my method once before. You ask me why I even let out secrets which are damaging to me and could have been kept hidden. I reply, As a matter of policy, out of calculation. You see, I bank on the possibility that my candor will make some impression on you, despite your denial. Anyway, I can well imagine you might feel a certain respect for the devil-may-care nonchalance with which I give myself away. Maybe I’m making a mistake, that’s possible, then it can’t be helped. But even if I’m making a mistake, you’re still lost to me and I have nothing more to lose. One can get to such a pass that one becomes desperate and takes a gamble. I help you to contrive accusations against me and thus do my humble best to strengthen you in your resolve to send me away, always away. Why do I do it? Because it goes against the grain of my humble soul to speak in my own favor and to profit by that kind of shabbiness, I couldn’t make it pass my lips. But—you might say—I try in this way to achieve by cunning and devious means what others achieve by a shabby directness? Ah—. However, I won’t defend myself. Call it humbug, why not? That’s fine, very apt; I’ll even add that it is the crudest sort of fakery. All right, so it’s humbug, and I don’t defend myself; you’re right, my whole nature is humbug. But, you know, everyone is more or less caught up in humbug, so may not one kind of humbug be just as good as another, since at bottom it’s all humbug anyway? ... I feel I’m getting into my element, I have nothing against riding one of my hobbyhorses for a moment. However, I won’t; good heavens, how tired I am of it all! I say, Let it pass, just let it pass, period.... Now, who would suspect, for instance, there was anything wrong with the Stenersens? I’m not saying there is anything wrong, and therefore I also merely ask if it would occur to anyone to suspect there was something wrong with that respectable family. There are only the two of them, man and wife, no children, no serious worries, and yet there may be a third person. God only knows, but perhaps when all is said and done there is one more person, besides the man and wife, a young person, a much too warm friend of the family, Mr. Reinert, the deputy. Well, what can one make of it? There may be faults on both sides. The doctor may even be wise to the situation and yet be powerless to do anything about it. In any case, he drank hard last night and showed such a devil-may-care attitude to everything, to the whole world, that he proposed the human race should exterminate itself with Prussic acid and let the show go on. Poor man! ... But he’s hardly the only one who is knee-deep in humbug, even if I exclude myself, Nagel, who is steeped in humbug to the waist. What if I mentioned Miniman, for example? A dear soul, a just man, a martyr! Everything that’s good is on his side, but I’ve got my eye on him. I’m telling you, I’ve got my eye on him! You appear to be surprised? Have I alarmed you? I didn’t mean to. Anyway, let me set your mind at rest at once by saying that nobody can get at Miniman, he’s truly righteous. Then why don’t I let him out of my sight? Why do I watch him from around the corner at two o’clock in the morning when he returns home from an innocent walk—at two in the morning? Why do I snoop on him from front and back when he carries his sacks around and greets people in the street? For no reason, bless me, no reason! He just interests me, I like him, and I’m very happy right now to be able to present him as someone pure and just in the midst of all the humbug otherwise. That’s why I mentioned him, and I’m quite sure you understand. Heh-heh-heh.... But to come back to myself—. Well, no, I don’t really want to come back to myself, anything but that!”
This last exclamation was so genuine, so rueful, that it made her feel sorry for him. She knew at that moment that she had to do with a torn and tormented soul. However, when he immediately took care to efface this impression, as he suddenly laughed coldly apropos of nothing and swore once again that everything was sheer humbug, her friendly feelings instantly left her. She said sharply, “You dropped some hints about Mrs. Stenersen which didn’t need to be half as crude to be base. You also scored a cheap point by ridiculing Miniman, a poor cripple. That was really mean, so vulgar!”
She started walking again and he kept pace with her. He didn’t answer but went on, his head bowed. His shoulders twitched a few times, and to her surprise she saw one or two big tears trickling down his face. He turned away and whistled to a songbird to hide them.
&nbs
p; They walked for a couple of minutes without speaking. Touched, she bitterly regretted her harsh words. Maybe he was even right in what he said, what did she know? She couldn’t help wondering whether this person hadn’t seen more in a few weeks than she had in years.
They still didn’t talk. He was again quite composed and toyed nonchalantly with his handkerchief. In a few minutes they would be in sight of the parsonage.
Then she said, “Is your hand very sore? May I see it?”
Whether she wanted to please him or really gave in to him for a moment, she said this in a sincere, almost emotional voice, meanwhile stopping.
Then his passion ran away with him. At this moment, when she was standing so close, her head leaning over his hand so that he could take in the fragrance of her hair and the nape of her neck, and without a word being said, his love reached the point of frenzy, of madness. He drew her close, first with one arm and then, when she resisted, with his other arm as well, pressing her long and fervently to his breast and almost lifting her off her feet. He felt her back yield, she was giving in. Heavy and delicious, she rested in his embrace, her eyes half veiled as she looked up at his. Then he spoke to her, telling her she was enchanting, and that she would be his one and only love till his dying day. One man had already given his life for her, and he would do the same, at the slightest hint, a word. Oh, how he loved her! And he repeated time and again, as he pressed her more and more tenderly to his breast, “I love you, I love you!”
She no longer made any resistance. Her head resting lightly on his left arm, he kissed her fervently, interrupted only, at brief intervals, by the most tender words. He had a distinct feeling that she clung to him of herself, and when he kissed her she closed her eyes even more.
“Meet me tomorrow by the tree, you remember the tree, the aspen. Meet me, I love you, Dagny! Will you meet me? Come whenever you like, come at seven.”
She didn’t make any reply to this but merely said, “Let me go now!”
And slowly she extricated herself from his arms.
She looked about her for a moment, her face assuming a more and more bewildered expression; finally a helpless spasm trembled at the corners of her mouth, and she went over to a stone by the roadside and sat down. She was crying.
He bent over her and spoke softly. This went on for a minute or two. Suddenly she jumps up, her fists clenched and her face white with rage, and, pressing her hands against her breast, she says furiously, “You’re a mean person, God, how mean you are! Though you aren’t likely to agree. Oh, how could you, how could you do it!”
And she started crying again.
He tried once more to calm her down, but to no avail; they stood at that stone by the roadside for half an hour, unable to tear themselves away.
“You even want me to see you again,” she said. “But I won’t see you, I will never lay eyes on you again, you’re a villain!”
He pleaded with her, threw himself down before her and kissed her dress; but she kept repeating that he was a villain and that he had behaved wretchedly. What had he done to her? Go away, go! He couldn’t walk her any farther, not one step!
And she headed for home.
He still tried to go after her, but she waved her hand deprecatingly and said, “Stay away!”
He kept following her with his eyes until she had gone ten or twenty paces; then he, too, clenches his fists and runs after her—he defies her prohibition and runs after her, forcing her to stop.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, “and do have some pity! I’m willing to kill myself here and now, just to rid you of me; it will cost you only a word. And I would repeat this tomorrow if I should meet you. Grant me the mercy of doing me justice, at least. You see, I’m in thrall to your power, and I have no control over that. And it isn’t all my fault that you came into my life. I wish to God you may never suffer as I do now!”
Then he turned around and left.
Once again, those broad shoulders on the short body kept twitching as he walked down the road. He saw none of the people he met, didn’t recognize a single face, and he came to his senses only after he had crossed the whole town and found himself at the steps of the hotel.
XV
FOR THE NEXT two or three days Nagel was absent from town. He had taken a trip on the steamer, and his hotel room was locked. Nobody knew where he was, but he had boarded a northbound ship and might have gone away simply for the sake of recreation.
When he returned early one morning before the town was on its legs, he looked pale and exhausted for lack of sleep. Nevertheless, he didn’t go up to the hotel but strolled back and forth on the pier for quite a while, before turning onto a brand-new road out to Indviken Cove, where smoke was just beginning to rise from the chimney of the steam mill.
He wasn’t away for long, and was obviously strolling about simply to kill a few hours. When the traffic started in Market Square, there he was; he was standing at the corner of the post office, carefully observing everyone coming and going, and when he noticed Martha Gude’s green skirt he stepped forward to greet her.
Beg pardon, had she perhaps forgotten him? His name was Nagel; it was he who had made an offer for her chair, the old chair. Maybe she had already sold it?
No, she hadn’t sold it.
Good. And no one else had been to see her and driven up the price? No would-be buyers?
“Oh yes. But—”
“What? Indeed!” There had been others? “What are you saying, a lady? Oh, these pernicious women, poking their noses everywhere!” So, she had gotten wind of this rarity of a chair and had to snatch it up right away. Sure, that was the way those women operated. “But what did she offer, how high did she go? Let me tell you, I won’t let go of that chair for anything, the hell I will!”
Martha was bewildered by his vehemence and hastened to answer, “No, no, you can have it, with pleasure.”
“So, may I call on you this evening, around eight o’clock, and settle the matter?”
Yes, perhaps. But hadn’t she better send the chair to his hotel? Then it would be settled—?
Definitely not, by no means, that he would never allow. An article like that must be treated with care and by experienced hands; frankly, he couldn’t even bear having a stranger look at it. He would be there at eight. Then something occurred to him: “Say, no dustcloth near it, no washing, for God’s sake! Not a drop of water!”
Nagel went straight to the hotel, where he lay down on his bed fully dressed and slept soundly and quietly at a stretch until toward evening.
As soon as he’d had supper he went down to the docks, to Martha Gude’s little house. It was eight o’clock; he knocked and walked in.
The room had just been washed, the floor was clean and the windows polished; Martha herself had even put a string of beads around her neck. He was obviously expected.
He said good evening, sat down and began the negotiations straightaway. But she was no more willing to give in than before; on the contrary, she was more obstinate than ever and insisted on giving him the chair for nothing. Finally he became furious, threatened to throw five hundred kroner at her and make off with the chair. That’s what she deserved! He had never seen such folly in his entire life, and banging the table he asked if she was stark-staring mad.
“Do you know what?” he said, giving her a sharp look. “Your resistance is really beginning to make me suspicious. Tell me frankly, the chair has been acquired honestly, right? I have to deal with all sorts of people, you know, and one can never be too careful. If the chair has come into your possession by trickery or shady dealing, then I don’t dare touch it. However, if I’ve misunderstood your hesitation, please forgive me.”
And he admonished her strongly to tell the truth.
Confused by his suspicion, half afraid and half hurt, she immediately justified herself. The chair had been brought home by her grandfather and had been in the family’s possession for a hundred years; he mustn’t think she was hiding anything. She was
getting tears in her eyes.
Good! And now he really wanted to have done with this nonsense, and that was the end of that! He felt for his wallet.
She took a step forward as if to stop him once again, but he calmly placed the two red bills on the table and closed his wallet with a smack.
“There you are!” he said.
“Don’t give me more than fifty kroner in any case!” she begged. At that moment she was so perplexed that she stroked his hair a couple of times as she said this, simply to make him give in. She wasn’t aware of what she was doing; she stroked his hair and begged him again to let her off with only fifty kroner. The silly woman still had tears in her eyes.
He raised his head and looked at her. This white-haired pauper, an old maid of forty, with still a black, burning glint in her eyes and yet with a manner that was reminiscent of a nun—this singular, exotic beauty affected him, making him waver for a moment. He took her hand, stroked it and said, “Goodness, how strange you are!” But the next moment he quickly got up from his chair and dropped her hand.
“I hope you won’t mind if I take the chair with me right away,” he said.
And he picked up the chair.
She was obviously no longer afraid of him. When she saw that his hands were getting dirty from touching the old piece of furniture, she at once reached into her pocket and handed him her handkerchief to wipe himself with.
The money was still lying on the table.
“By the way,” he said, “let me ask you something. Don’t you think you had better keep this transaction to yourself, as far as possible? After all, there’s no reason why the whole town should know about it, is there?”