by Knut Hamsun
“Wouldn’t you like something warm?” Sara asks.
Something warm? What sort of ideas she was coming up with all the time! It would be all over town in a wink that he’d drunk something warm. Keep in mind that he had no intention of causing a scandal, he would behave like a good taxpayer, walk by the book along Parsonage Road, and never view things in a cussedly different way from other people; three fingers up on that.... She need have no fear. But he really hurt here and there, that’s why he didn’t get undressed, so it would wear off sooner. One should give measure for measure....
He was constantly getting worse, and Sara was on tenterhooks. She would have liked to cut and run, but whenever she got up he noticed right away and asked if she was abandoning him. She waited for him to fall fast asleep, after he had tired himself out by his jabbering. Oh, what nonsense he talked, always with his eyes closed and his face red-hot with fever. He had contrived a new method of delousing Mrs. Stenersen’s red currant bushes. It consisted of his going into a store one fine day and buying a can of kerosene, after which he would go to Market Square, take off his shoes and fill them with kerosene. Then he would set fire to both shoes, one after the other, and conclude by dancing around them in his stocking feet and singing a song. This must be done some morning when he was well again. He would crack his whip and make a regular circus of it, a real horse opera.
He also kept dreaming up ridiculous quaint names and titles for his acquaintances. Thus, he called Reinert, the deputy, “Bilge,” saying that Bilge was a title. “Mr. Reinert, esteemed Town Bilge,” he said. In the end he began to rave about how high the ceiling might be in Consul Andresen’s apartment. “Seven feet, seven feet!” he cried again and again. “Seven feet, by a rough estimate. Am I not right?” But seriously, he was really lying there with a fish hook in his throat, he wasn’t making it up, and he was bleeding, it hurt quite a bit....
Finally, toward evening, he fell soundly asleep.
He awoke again about ten. Alone, he was still lying on the sofa. The blanket that Sara had spread over him had fallen on the floor, but he didn’t feel cold. Sara had also closed the windows, and he opened them again. His head seemed to be clear, but he felt faint and was trembling. Once more he was falling prey to a dull terror-pierced to the quick whenever the walls creaked or a shout came from the street. If he went to bed and slept till tomorrow morning, maybe it would pass. He undressed.
However, he wasn’t able to fall asleep. He lay there thinking about all his adventures in the last twenty-four hours, from yesterday evening when he went out into the woods and emptied the vial of water, until this moment as he lay in his room, quite worn out and plagued by fever. How endlessly long this day and night had been! And his anxiety refused to leave him; this dull, lurking sensation that he found himself on the verge of some danger, a misfortune, wouldn’t let go of him. Whatever had he done? What a whispering there was around his bed! The room was filled with a hissing murmur. He folded his hands and thought he was falling asleep....
Suddenly, looking at his fingers, he notices that his ring is gone. His heart instantly begins to beat faster. He takes a closer look: a faint dark streak around his finger, but no ring! God in heaven, the ring was gone! Yes, he’d thrown it into the sea; since he was going to die, he didn’t think he would need it anymore, and so he threw it into the sea. But now it was gone, the ring was gone!
He jumps out of bed, gets into his clothes and staggers about the room like a madman. It was ten o’clock. By twelve the ring must have been found, he thought; the stroke of twelve was the last second, the ring, the ring ...
He rushes down the stairs, into the street and down toward the docks. He is seen by people at the hotel, but he doesn’t care. He’s getting dead tired again, his knees wobbly, but he doesn’t heed that either. Ah, now he knew the reason for the oppressive anxiety that had weighed upon him all day: the iron ring was gone! And the woman with the crucifix had appeared to him.
Quite beside himself with terror, he jumps into the first boat he comes across at the jetty. It’s made fast on shore and he can’t unfasten it. He calls to a man, asking him to untie the boat, but the man answers he doesn’t dare, it isn’t his boat.—But Nagel would answer for everything, the ring was at stake, he would buy the boat.—But couldn’t he see that the boat was padlocked? Didn’t he see the iron chain?—All right, he would take another boat.
And Nagel jumped into another boat.
“Where are you going?” the man asks.
“I’m going to look for my ring. Perhaps you know me, I used to wear a ring here, you can see the mark yourself, it’s the honest truth. And now I’ve thrown the ring away, it’s lying out there somewhere.”
The man doesn’t understand this sort of talk.
“Are you going to look for a ring at the bottom of the sea?” he says.
“Exactly!” Nagel replies. “I can hear you understand. Because I must have my ring, you know, you too realize that, don’t you? Come and row me out.”
The man asks again, “Are you going to look for a ring you have thrown into the sea?”
“Yes, yes, come on! Don’t worry, I’ll give you lots of money for it.”
“God bless you, forget about it! Are you going to fish it out with your fingers?”
“Yes, with my fingers. It’s no matter. I can swim like an eel if it should come to that. Maybe we could find something else to fish it out with.”
And the stranger actually gets into the boat. He begins to talk about the matter in hand, but keeps his face averted. It was sheer folly to try something like that. If it had been an anchor or a chain, it might have made some sense, but a ring! Especially since he didn’t even know exactly where it was!
Nagel himself was also beginning to realize how impossible his undertaking was. But his mind couldn’t accept it, because then he was doomed! His eyes were fixed in a stare, and he was shaking with fever and dread. He makes as though he means to jump overboard, but the man grabs him. Nagel collapses at once, faint, dead tired, much too weak to wrestle anyone. Heavenly father, this was going from bad to worse! The ring was lost, it would soon be twelve o’clock and the ring was lost. He had also received the warning.
At this moment a glimpse of lucid awareness flashed through him, and during those two or three short minutes he thought of an incredible number of things. He also recalled something he’d so far forgotten, that already yesterday evening he’d written a farewell note to his sister and sent it off. He wasn’t dead yet, but the letter was hurrying along, it couldn’t be stopped, it had to take its course and was well on its way by now. And when his sister received it, he simply had to be dead. Anyway, the ring was gone, from now on everything was impossible....
His teeth chattering, he looks around, at a complete loss what to do-the water is only a short jump away. He squints at the man on the thwart in front of him; the man still keeps his face averted but is watching carefully, ready to intervene if necessary. But why does he keep his face averted all the time?
“Let me help you ashore,” the man says. And he grabs him under the arms and gets him ashore.
“Good night!” Nagel says, turning his back on him.
But the man is distrustful and goes after him, watching his every movement on the sly. Furious, Nagel turns around and says good night once more, whereupon he tries to jump off the jetty.
Again the man lays hold of him.
“You won’t make it,” he says, close to Nagel’s ear. “You’re too good a swimmer. You’ll come to the surface again.”
Taken aback, Nagel considers a moment. Sure, he was too good a swimmer, he would probably come to the surface again and be saved. He looks at the man, staring him in the face; his eyes meet the most hideous face ever-it’s Miniman.
Miniman again, once again Miniman.
“Go to hell, you miserable, crawling snake!” Nagel screams, and starts running. He staggers up the road like a drunk, stumbles, falls and gets up again; everything is spinning before his
eyes and he’s still running, running in the direction of the town. For the second time Miniman had frustrated his plans! In heaven’s name, what would he finally have to dream up? What swirling confusion before his eyes! What a soughing noise above the town! Again he fell.
Having gotten to his knees, he rocked his head painfully back and forth. Listen, there was a call from the sea! It would soon be twelve o’clock and the ring had not been found. Some creature was after him, he could hear the sound of it, a scaly beast with a slack belly dragging itself along the ground, leaving a wet trail, a horrible hieroglyph with arms jutting out from its head and a yellow claw on its nose. Away, away! There was another call from the sea and, screaming, he put his hands over his ears so as not to hear it.
Again he jumps up. All hope was not lost, he could procure the remedy of last resort, a safe six-shooter, the best thing in the world! And he cries for gratitude, running as best he can-he cries for gratitude because of this fresh hope. Suddenly he remembers it’s night, he can’t get hold of a six-shooter, all the stores are closed. At that moment he gives up, pitches forward and bumps his head against the ground without a sound.
Just then the hotel keeper and a few other people finally came out of the hotel to see what had become of him....
He woke up and stared about him-he had dreamed the whole thing. Yes, he had slept, despite everything. Thank God, it was all a dream; he hadn’t left his bed.
He lies for a moment thinking things over. He looks at his hand, but the ring is gone; he looks at his watch, it’s midnight, twelve o‘clock, only a few minutes short. Perhaps he could be let off, perhaps he was saved, after all! But his heart is hammering, and he is shaking. Perhaps-perhaps twelve o’clock might come without anything happening? He takes the watch in his hand and his hand is shaking; he counts the minutes—the seconds-
Then the watch falls on the floor and he jumps out of bed. “Someone is calling!” he whispers, looking out of the window, his eyes popping. He quickly puts on some clothes, opens the doors and runs out into the street. He looks about him, no one is watching. Then he starts racing toward the harbor, the white back of his vest shining all the while. He reaches the docks, follows the road to the outermost jetty and jumps straight into the sea.
A few bubbles rise to the surface.
XXIII
LATE ONE NIGHT in April this year, Dagny and Martha were walking through town together; they had been to a party and were on their way home. It was dark, and the streets were iced over here and there, so they walked quite slowly.
“I’ve been thinking of all the things that were said about Nagel this evening,” Dagny said. “Much of it was new to me.”
“I didn’t hear it,” Martha replied, “I went out.”
“But there was one thing they didn’t know,” Dagny continued. “Nagel told me last summer that Miniman would come to a bad end. I can’t figure out how he’d seen it already then. He said it long, long before you told me what Miniman had done to you.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
They had turned onto Parsonage Road. The forest stood dark and still around them, the only sounds to be heard were their footfalls on the frozen road.
After a long silence Dagny said again, “This is where he always used to walk.”
“Who?” Martha replied. “It’s slippery, won’t you take my arm?”
“Sure; but I’d rather you take mine.”
And they walked on in silence, arm in arm, holding tightly on to each other.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
PAGE
3 Napoleon III (1808-73), French emperor 1852-70.
8 “May your steel be as sharp as your final no”: in the first edition of Mysteries, this quotation is attributed to Victor Hugo (see textual note 8, chapter 4). Guy Rosa, who submitted the alleged quotation to the Hugo Seminar of the University of Paris VII, which he chairs, reports that the closest approximation is in a speech by Thisbe to Rodolfo in Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, Day Three, Part Three, Scene 3. To Thisbe’s question whether he ever loved her, Rodolfo answers, “Never!” to which she replies: “Ah, that word kills me, you wretch! Your dagger has only to finish me off.” Theatre complet, II (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 67.
19 The person here referred to is Pastor Hans Jacob Grøgaard (1764-1836), a member of the Eidsvoll Constitutional Assembly (1814) who sided with the so-called Union Party, those who favored union with Sweden.
23 Arne Garborg (1851-1924) was a distinguished Norwegian novelist and poet who wrote chiefly in New Norwegian. Bondestudentar (1883; Peasant Students) was his first novel. The play Uforsonlige (1888; Irreconcilables), an excoriating attack on the cowardice of politicians, showed Garborg’s disenchantment with the Left.
23 Ivan Turgenev (1818-83), Russian novelist and short-story writer whose “superfluous man” in such novels as Rudin (1855), A Nest of Gentlefolk (1859), and On the Eve (1860) anticipates some of Hamsun’s heroes-or antiheroes-of the 1890s.
28 William Gladstone (1809-98), British statesman, leader of the Liberal Party from 1868 to 1894. A great reformer, Gladstone was premier four times, the beginning of the last one (1892-94) coinciding with the year in which Mysteries was completed and published.
28 “The little boy walked ...” is the first line of a poem in the peasant tale Arne (1858) by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910).
29 Gjevik is a town in Oppland County, situated on the shores of Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake, sixty miles north of Oslo. The Vardal Woods extend ca. ten miles west of Glovik. Hamsun knew the area well, having done roadwork there in 1880-81.
29 For Jairus’s daughter, raised from the dead by Jesus, see Mark 5:22ff. The heroine of Bjornson’s controversial play En Handske (1883; A Gauntlet, 1886), Svava Riis-here called Svava Bjørnson—challenges the double standard of sexual morality. A charismatic political leader, formidable orator, and social reformer as well as poet, playwright, and novelist, Bjornson was greatly admired by Hamsun despite his didactic strain. By changing the character’s name to Svava Bjornson, Nagel seems to equate her moral idealism with that of her creator. The biographer Per Amdam uses the name Svava Bjørnson Riis for this character, ostensibly for the same reason. See Bjørnstjerne Bjornson (Oslo, 1979), p. 167.
32 Kabelvag is a fishing station situated on the south side of Austvigoy, the largest of the Lofoten Islands, Nordland County, in North Norway.
34 Victor Hugo (1802-85), poet, novelist, and dramatist, and a giant in the intellectual life of his country, was viewed by many as the greatest French poet. Guy Rosa reports that the name Baron Lesdain meant nothing to any member of the Hugo Seminar and that the anecdote appears quite unbelievable. Hugo, he feels convinced, would never have allotted second place to Musset among living French writers. Alfred de Musset (1810-57) was not only a romantic poet renowned for his love lyrics, but also a novelist and playwright. -Nagel’s report on Hugo’s action during the Franco-German War is misleading. Hugo’s appeal of September 9, 1870, was not addressed to “the inhabitants of the earth” but “To the Germans” (“Aux Allemands”). In it, he challenges the German troops to “storm Paris, a city full of trembling families, where there are women, sisters, mothers, and where at this hour I, who speak to you, have my two grandchildren, one of which is still nursing.” (Actes et paroles: 1870-1871-1872 [Paris, 1872], pp. 8-9.)
35 Kungsbacka and Goteborg are within a few miles of each other on the Swedish west coast. The former is a small town, the latter a major city.
36 The “great poet” here referred to is Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), whose “Et vers” (A Verse), a four-line epigrammatic poem starting, “Life is a war with trolls” (Digte, 1871), Nagel recalls.
37 Thomas Kingo (1634-1703), bishop of Odense, Denmark, was a baroque poet and hymn writer. The hymnal he edited in 1699 contained a broad selection of his hymns. Magnus Brostrup Landstad (1802-80) was a Norwegian pastor, hymn writer, and collector of folklore. His new collection of hymns was authorized for use in religious services in 1869.
37 Høivåg (or Høvåg), a parish in Lillesand township, East Agder County, was previously a township. Lillesand, a small coastal town located ca. 15 miles northeast of Kristiansand, is believed to be the setting of Mysteries. Hamsun knew the town well from spending some summer and fall months there in 1890.
37 Caiaphas, the high priest, was in charge of the trial of Jesus (Mt. 26:57-68). Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator of Judea, “delivered Jesus ... to be crucified” (Mark 15:15).
37 The expression “universal spirits on horseback” no doubt derives from Georg F. W. Hegel (1770-1831), who used it to describe the world-historical individuals, specifically Napoleon. In a letter to F. I. Niethammer of October 13, 1806, the day before Napoleon’s victory at Jena, Hegel writes, “I saw the Emperor—this world soul—riding through the city to a review of his troops.” According to Walter Kaufmann, the statement has often been misquoted to imply “Hegel ... said that he had met the Weltgeist zu Pferde”—literally, “the world spirit on horseback” (Hegel: A Reinterpretation [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978], pp. 318-19). In this translation the word verdensdnd (Weltgeist, Weltseele) has been translated as “universal spirit.”
38 The inclusion of the emperor of Brazil in the “worthless majority” may be due to the fact that the last emperor, Pedro II (b. 1825), had been deposed in 1889 and died in 1891, at the time when Hamsun was writing Mysteries.
38 The view of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) expressed by Nagel is strongly influenced by the Russian writer’s development after 1876, when he underwent a spiritual crisis. Turning religious thinker and moral teacher, Tolstoy preached Christian love, nonviolence, and renunciation of wealth. He devoted much time to pedagogy, writing textbooks intended for the peasants in an attempt to combat illiteracy. His works from the mid-1880s are permeated with moral didacticism.