Mysteries (12 page)

When he passed through the hotel entrance he had long since forgotten all his bitterness; his heart was without rancor, and his mind was again luminous with the image of a boat of aromatic wood and a pale-blue silken sail cut in the shape of a half-moon.

 

 

This mood stayed with him all day. Toward evening he went out once more and, taking the same road down to the sea, found anew a thousand little things that made him go into raptures. The sun was sinking, the brutal scorching light was softened and streamed gently over the water; even the noise from the ships was muffled. Nagel saw flags being hoisted here and there along the bay; flags were also fluttering at several houses in town, and shortly afterward work came to a standstill on all the piers.

Without giving it any thought, he wandered off into the woods again; after walking back and forth, he went as far as the outbuildings of the parsonage and looked into the yard. From there he went back into the woods, boring his way in at the darkest spot he could find, and sat down on a rock. He rested his head on one hand and tapped his knee with the other. He sat like this for a long time, maybe a whole hour, and when he finally got up to leave, the sun was below the horizon. The first shade of twilight had settled on the town.

A great surprise awaited him. Once out of the woods, he discovered lots of kindled fires on the hills round about, maybe as many as twenty bonfires, blazing like miniature suns in all directions. Out on the water there was a myriad of boats, and on board the boats they were lighting sparklers, which gave off red and green flares. From one of the boats, where a quartet was singing, they were even sending up rockets. A great many people were astir, the steamship landing was black with townsfolk, sitting and strolling.

Nagel gave a brief exclamation of surprise. Turning to a man, he asked him what the bonfires and the flags were supposed to mean. The man looked at him, spat, looked at him again and replied that it was June 23, Midsummer Eve. Ah, it was Midsummer Eve! That was quite correct, of course, there was no mistaking it; it also tallied with the date. Just imagine, it was Midsummer Eve tonight—one good thing came on top of another, and it was Midsummer Eve to boot! Nagel rubbed his hands with pleasure and strolled over to the steamship landing like the rest, repeating to himself several times how incredibly lucky he was.

At a distance, he noticed Dagny Kielland’s blood-red parasol in the middle of a group of men and women, and when he also discovered Dr. Stenersen among them, he walked up to him without hesitation. Tipping his cap, he shook hands with the doctor and continued to stand bareheaded for quite a while. The doctor introduced him to the company; Mrs. Stenersen also gave him her hand, and he sat down beside her. She was pale and had a grayish complexion, which gave her a sickly look; but she was very young, hardly over twenty. She was bundled up.

Nagel donned his cap and said, addressing them all, “I beg your pardon for intruding, for joining you like this, uninvited—”

“Goodness, no, it’s a pleasure,” Mrs. Stenersen broke in amiably. “Maybe you could start up a song?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t,” he answered, “I couldn’t be more unmusical.”

“On the contrary, it was good that you came; we were just talking about you,” the doctor remarked. “You play the violin, don’t you?”

“No,” Nagel replied again, shaking his head; he gave a smile as well. “I don’t.” But suddenly, apropos of nothing, he gets up and says, his eyes sparkling, “I’m so happy today. It has been so wonderful all day, from the moment I woke up this morning; for ten hours I’ve been walking around in a most beautiful dream. Can you imagine: I’m literally haunted by the idea of finding myself in a boat of aromatic wood with a sail of pale-blue silk, cut in the shape of a half-moon. Isn’t that pretty? I cannot describe the scent of the boat; no matter how hard I tried, or how skillful I was at finding the right words, I couldn’t do it. But just think, I feel as though I’m out fishing, that I’m fishing with a silver hook. Pardon me, ladies, but don’t you, at least, think
¹
it is ... Well, I don’t know.”

None of the ladies answered; they looked at one another in embarrassment, asking each other with their eyes what to do. But finally they started laughing, one after the other; showing no mercy, they burst into loud laughter at the whole thing.

Nagel looked from one to the other, his eyes still shiny; he was obviously still thinking about the boat with the blue sail. But his hands trembled, although his face remained calm.

Coming to his rescue, the doctor said, “So it was a sort of hallucination that—”

“No, I beg your pardon,” he replied. “Well, if you like, why not? It doesn’t matter what you
call
it. I’ve been under a delightful spell all day, whether it’s hallucination or not. It began this morning while I was still in bed. I heard a fly buzzing, that was my first conscious thought after I awoke; then I saw the sunlight filtering in through a hole in the curtain, and at one stroke a delicate, light mood sprang up within me. I had a sensation of summer in my soul—try to imagine a soft rustle in the grass and that this rustle passes through your heart. Hallucination—well, maybe it was, I don’t know; but don’t forget that I must’ve been in a certain prior state of susceptibility, that I heard the fly exactly at the right moment, a moment in which I needed just that kind of light and in that amount, namely, a
single
ray of sunlight from a hole in the curtain, and so on. After I got up and went out, the first thing I saw was an attractive woman in a window” —he cast a glance at Miss Andresen, who lowered her eyes—“next I saw a great number of ships, then a little girl with a cat in her arms, and so forth, all of it things that made an impression on me. Shortly after I went into the woods, and that’s where I saw the boat and the half-moon, just by lying on my back and staring up at the sky.”

The women were still laughing, and the doctor, seemingly about to be infected by their snickering, said with a smile, “So you were fishing with a silver hook, were you?”

“Yes, with a silver hook.”

“Ha-ha-ha!”

Then all of a sudden Dagny Kielland flushed and said, “I can well understand that such an idea ... For my part, I can clearly see the boat and the sail, that blue half-moon—and just fancy, a white silver hook plumb through the water like that! I think it’s lovely.”

Unable to continue, she stammered and got stuck, her eyes on the ground.

Nagel immediately came to her rescue. “Yes, isn’t it? I said to myself straightaway: watch out, this is a white dream, an omen. It’s meant to be a warning to you: fish with clean hooks, clean hooks! You asked me, Doctor, if I play the violin? No, I don’t, not in the least. I’m dragging a violin case around with me, but there’s no violin in it; the case is full of dirty laundry, I’m sorry to say. I just thought it would look good to have a violin case as part of my luggage, that’s why I got it. This may give you a very poor impression of me, I don’t know, but it can’t be helped, though I’m truly sorry about it. Anyway, the silver hook is to blame for it all.”

The astonished ladies were no longer laughing; even the doctor, the deputy—Mr. Reinert, the judge’s deputy—and the secondary school teacher were agape. They all had their eyes on Nagel; the doctor clearly didn’t know what to think. What on earth was the matter with this total stranger? Nagel himself sat quietly down and didn’t seem to have anything further to say. The embarrassing silence appeared interminable. But then Mrs. Stenersen came to the rescue. Amiability incarnate, she acted like a mother to them all, making sure that nobody suffered harm. She deliberately wrinkled her brows to make herself look older than she was, so that her words would carry greater weight.

“You’ve come from abroad, haven’t you, Mr. Nagel?”

“Yes, madam.”

“From Helsingfors, I believe my husband said?”

“Yes, from Helsingfors. That is, most recently from Helsingfors. I’m an agronomist, I studied there for a while.”

Pause.

“And how do you like the town?” Mrs. Stenersen asked.

“Helsingfors?”

“No, our town.”

“Oh, it’s an excellent town, a charming place! I won’t ever leave, I really won’t. Heh-heh, well, don’t let it frighten you too much, I may still leave sometime, it all depends.... By the way,” he went on, getting up again, “if I intruded when I came, I sincerely apologize. The truth is, I would be very happy if you allowed me to sit here and share your company. Being a stranger to everybody, I don’t have many to associate with, so I’ve fallen into the habit of talking to myself too much. I’ll be very pleased if you completely ignore my presence among you and go on with your conversation as before I came.”

“You have certainly caused considerable diversion since you came,” Reinert said acrimoniously.

To this Nagel replied, “Well, to you, sir, I owe a private apology, and I’ll make all the amends you might require; but not now. Not now, all right?”

“No, this is not the place for it,” Reinert agreed.

“Besides, I’m happy today,” Nagel went on, a warm smile flitting across his face. This smile lighted up his face, so that for a moment he looked like a child. “It’s a wonderful evening, and soon the stars will come out. Bonfires are blazing everywhere on the hills, and from the sea comes the sound of singing. Just listen! Not bad at all. I’m no expert, but isn’t it rather good? It reminds me a little of a night in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Tunis. There were some hundred passengers on board, a choir hailing from somewhere in Sardinia. Since I wasn’t part of the company and couldn’t sing, I just sat listening on deck while the choir was singing in the saloon below. It went on nearly until morning; I’ll never forget how nice
²
it sounded in the sultry night. I surreptitiously closed the doors to the saloon, shutting the singing up, so to speak, and then it was as though the sound came from the bottom of the sea, as though the ship were about to sail into eternity to resounding music. Try to imagine something like an ocean filled with song, a subterranean choir.”

Miss Andresen, who sat next to Nagel, said impulsively, “Oh God, yes, how lovely it must have been!”

“Only once have I heard something more beautiful, and that was in a dream. But it was a long time ago, I was still a child when I had that dream. When you grow up, you no longer have beautiful dreams like that.”

“No?” said Miss Andresen.

“Oh no. Well, it’s an exaggeration, of course, but... I still remember my last dream so clearly: I saw an open marsh.... Oh, excuse me, I’m talking all the time, forcing you to listen to me. It may be tiresome in the long run. I don’t always talk so much.”

Then Dagny Kielland opened her mouth and said, “There’s nobody here, I think, who wouldn’t rather listen to you than relate something herself.” And leaning toward Mrs. Stenersen, she whispered, “Can’t you get him started? Please, do. Just listen to that voice!”

Nagel said, smiling, “I’ll be glad to jabber away. All in all, I’m minded to this evening, God knows what’s come over me.... Well, actually, that little dream wasn’t anything to talk about. True, I did see an open marsh, without trees, only with lots of roots lying about everywhere, like strangely writhing serpents. And then a madman who was walking around among all those crooked tree roots. I can still see him, he was pale and had a dark beard, but the beard was so small and sparse that his skin showed through everywhere. He was staring about him with wide-open eyes, and his eyes were full of suffering. Hiding behind a rock, I called out to him. Then he instantly looked at the rock, without seeming to wonder where the call was coming from; it was as though he knew I was lying exactly there, though I was well hidden. He kept staring at the rock the whole time. He won’t find me anyway, I thought, and if worst comes to worst and he does, I can take to my heels. And though I didn’t like to have him staring at me, I called out once more to tease him. He took a couple of steps toward me, his mouth open and ready to bite, but he couldn’t get going; the roots were piling up before him—he was weighed down by roots and couldn’t budge. I called out again, many times in a row, to get him thoroughly worked up, and he began tackling the roots to clear them away, tossing them aside by armfuls in his laborious struggle to reach me. But it was no use. Then he started groaning, so loud that I could hear him despite the distance, his eyes fixed in a painful stare. When I saw I was perfectly safe, I got up and swung my cap, showing myself in my full height, teasing him by continually shouting halloo to him, stamping the ground and shouting halloo. I even went closer so I could tease him more cruelly still, thumbing my nose at him and crying halloo insultingly close to his ears, to bewilder him even more, if possible. Then I retraced my steps, leaving him there to realize how close to him I had been. But he wasn’t quite giving up; he was still struggling with the roots, inured to pain as he toiled to clear them away, getting scratched till the blood came and hurting his face, then raising himself on tiptoe to scream at me. Yes, can you imagine, he stood bolt upright on tiptoe staring at me and screaming! His face was dripping with perspiration, distorted by terrible suffering because he couldn’t get hold of me. Wanting to goad him even further, I went closer still, snapping my fingers under his nose and calling ‘tee-hee-hee-hee-hee’ with the most awful mockery. I flung a tree root at him, hitting him in the mouth, and almost succeeded in knocking him down; but he simply spat out the blood, put his hand to his mouth and continued to struggle with the roots. Then, thinking I could risk it, I stretched out my hand to touch him; I wanted to put my finger on his forehead and withdraw again. But at that moment he caught me. Good Lord, what a fright it gave me to be caught like that! He made a furious grab at me and clutched my hand. I screamed, but he simply held my hand and followed me. We walked out of the marsh—the tree roots no longer hampered him once he’d gotten hold of my hand—and came to the rock where I had at first been hiding. When we got there, the man prostrated himself before me and kissed the ground I had walked on; bloody and bruised, he kneeled before me, thanking me for having been kind to him. Then he blessed me, and prayed to God to bless me as well. His eyes were candid and filled with good prayers to God for me, and he didn’t kiss my hand, or even my shoes, but the ground where my shoes had trod. ‘Why do you kiss the ground exactly where I’ve walked?’ I asked.—‘Because,’ he said, ‘because my mouth is bleeding and I don’t want to dirty your shoes.’—He didn’t want to dirty my shoes! Again I said, ‘But why do you thank me when I’ve done you harm and caused you pain?’—‘I thank you,’ he replied, ’‘because you didn’t cause me
more
pain, because you were kind enough not to torture me still more.’—‘All right,’ I said, ‘but why did you scream at me and open your mouth to bite me?’—‘I wasn’t going to bite you,’ he replied, ‘I opened my mouth to ask you for help; but I couldn’t utter a word and you didn’t understand. And then I screamed because I suffered so terribly.’—‘So that’s why you screamed?’ I asked.—‘Yes, that’s why!’ ... I looked at the lunatic—he was still spitting blood but prayed to God for me all the same. I realized I had seen him before and that I knew him; he was a middle-aged man with gray hair and a miserable little beard—it was Miniman.”