Mysteries (16 page)

The doctor sits down to his coffee in great agitation. His wife exchanges glances with Nagel and says, laughing, “Mr. Nagel would’ve done exactly the same as that woman. We were discussing the matter just before you came. Mr. Nagel doesn’t believe in your science.”

“So, Mr. Nagel doesn’t?” the doctor remarks curtly. “Well, Mr. Nagel can do as he likes in that regard.”

Annoyed and offended, filled with anger at these bad patients who had ignored his orders, the doctor drank his coffee in silence. He was indignant that everyone was watching him. “Dream up something, get a move on,” he said. But after the coffee he cheered up again, chatted with Dagny awhile, and made fun of his oarsman, the man who had taken him to his patients. Then he reverted to his troubles as a physician and lost his temper afresh. He still found it impossible to forget that mistake with the ointments; it was all just coarseness and superstition and idiocy and nothing else. All in all, the ignorance among the common people was atrocious.

“But the man got well, after all!”

The doctor could have dug his teeth into Dagny when she said this. He straightened up. The man got well, sure, and so what? That didn’t preclude the existence of scandalous stupidity out there among the common people. The man got well, all right; but what if he had burned up his chops? Did she mean to defend his bovine stupidity?

This ignominious run-in with a peasant lout who had acted in the teeth of his instructions and still been cured, irritated the doctor more than anything else and made his otherwise gentle eyes look perfectly furious behind his glasses. He had been taken in by the wiliest fluke, set aside in favor of a zinc disk, and only after a stiff toddy on top of the coffee was he able to forget about it. Then he suddenly said, “Jetta, look, I gave the man who picked me up five kroner, just so you know. Ha-ha-ha, I’ve never seen such a fellow; the whole seat of his pants was gone, but what strength there was in him, and what nonchalance! A helluva guy! He sang all the way rowing out. He was sure as sin he could reach the sky with a fishing rod if he stood on top of Mount Etje. ‘You would have to stand on tiptoe, then,’ I said. That he didn’t understand; he took it seriously and swore he could stand on tiptoe as well as anybody. Ha-ha-ha, would you believe it! But he certainly was amusing.”

Finally Miss Andresen got up to leave, whereupon everybody else did the same. When Nagel said good night, he thanked his hosts so warmly, so sincerely, that the doctor, who had been slightly cross with him the last quarter of an hour, was quite disarmed. “Come back soon! Say, have you got a cigar? Do light a cigar, will you.” And the doctor forced him to come in for a fresh cigar.

Meanwhile Dagny had put on her wraps and was waiting on the steps.

 

 

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT.

The two or three people who were still to be seen in the streets looked radiantly happy; in the cemetery a man was still trundling a wheelbarrow, singing softly. Otherwise, everything was so quiet that nothing could be heard except this song. From the elevation by the doctor’s house, the town looked like a weird, splayed giant insect, a fabulous creature that had thrown itself flat on its belly, extending arms and horns and feelers in all directions; only here and there did it move a joint or withdraw a claw—such as down by the seaside, where a tiny steam yawl glided soundlessly along the bay, leaving a furrow in the black water.

The smoke from Nagel’s cigar rose in blue swirls. Already taking in the fragrance of the grass and the woods, he was seized with a keen sense of contentment, a special, intense joy that made his eyes water and nearly took his breath away. He was walking beside Dagny, who hadn’t yet spoken. After passing the cemetery, he had uttered a few words of praise for the Stenersens, but she hadn’t answered. By now the stillness and beauty of the night had intoxicated him so profoundly, imbued him with such ardor, that his breath quickened and his eyes grew dim. Oh, how lovely these white nights were! “Just look at those hills over there, how clear they are!” he said in a loud voice. “I’m so happy, Miss Kielland, I must ask you kindly to bear with me; tonight, you know, I could do something foolish from sheer happiness.
¹
Do you see these pine trees, and the stones and tussocks and clusters of juniper? In this nocturnal light, they look like people sitting there. And the night is clear and cool; it doesn’t oppress us with mysterious forebodings, and no secret dangers are brewing anywhere. Or are they? Now, don’t be annoyed with me, you mustn’t! I feel as though angels were passing through my soul, singing a song. Do I frighten you?”

She had stopped, that’s why he asked whether he frightened her. She looked at him with her blue eyes and smiled, then became serious again and said, “I’ve been wondering what sort of person you are.”

She said this while continuing to stand still and looking at him. During the entire walk she spoke in a clear, tremulous voice, as if she were scared and glad at the same time.

Then the following conversation started up between them, a conversation that, no matter how slowly they walked, went on until they were at the other end of the forest, jumping from one thing to another, from mood to mood, with all the emotional restlessness they were both feeling.

“You’ve been thinking about me? Really? But I’ve probably thought much, much more about you. I already knew about you when I arrived, I overheard your name aboard the steamer; I happened to hear it by chance as I was listening to a conversation. And I went ashore here on June 12. June 12—”

“On June 12 of all days, you don’t say!”

“Yes. Flags were flying all over town, and I thought it was such a delightful little town, that’s why I stepped ashore here. And soon I heard more about you.”

She smiled and asked, “Well, I suppose you heard it from Miniman?”

“No. I heard that you were loved by everybody, by the whole town, and that you were admired by all.” ... Suddenly Nagel came to think of Karlsen, the theologian, who had taken his own life for her sake.
²

“Tell me,” she said, “did you mean what you said about the naval officers?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well, then we agree.”

“Why shouldn’t I mean it? I’m enthusiastic about them, I always have been; I admire their free life, their uniforms, their freshness and fearlessness. Most of them are also extremely agreeable people.”
³

“But now let’s talk about you. What grievance do you have against Mr. Reinert, the deputy?”

“None at all. Against Mr. Reinert, did you say?”

“Last night you asked him to forgive you for something, and tonight you barely spoke a word with him. Are you in the habit of offending everybody and then apologizing for it?”

He laughed and looked down at the road.

“The truth is,” he replied, “that it was quite wrong of me to offend the deputy. But I’m quite certain that it will be all right again when I’ve had a chance to talk to him. I’m a bit hasty, a bit too plain-spoken, the whole thing was due to his jostling me as he passed through a door. A trifle, that is, a carelessness on his part; but like a fool I immediately jump up and call him names, shake my tankard under his nose and dent his hat. Then he left; as a gentleman he simply had to take himself off. But afterward I came to regret my conduct, and I’ve decided to make it up with him. Naturally, I may have had an excuse of sorts; I was all nerves that day, having had several disappointments. But nobody knows about that, you can’t tell people such things, so I’d better take the whole blame.”
⁴

He had spoken without hesitation, in absolute sincerity, as if trying to be fair to both sides. Nor did his expression betray any trickery. But Dagny stopped short, looked him squarely in the face and said, astonished, “Oh, but—that’s not how it happened! I’ve heard a quite different story.”

“Miniman is lying!” Nagel cried, coloring up.

“Miniman? I didn’t hear it from Miniman. Why are you slandering yourself? I heard it from a man in Market Square, from the plasterer, he told me all about it. He saw it from beginning to end.”

Pause.

“Why do you have to slander yourself? That baffles me,” she went on, not taking her eyes off him. “I heard the story today and it made me so happy; that is, I thought you had acted in such an exceptionally beautiful way, in such a superior way. It suited you so well. If I hadn’t heard that story this morning, I would hardly have dared to walk here with you now. I’m telling you this in all sincerity.”

Pause.

Then he says, “And now you admire me because of this?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

“Oh yes, you do.
⁵

“Look,” he goes on, “this is a farce. You are an honest person, it goes against my grain to deceive you; I’ll tell you what the truth of the matter is.”

And he explains to her, brazenly and unblinkingly, how he calculated the whole thing.

“When I present this skirmish with the deputy in my own way, distorting the matter slightly, even slandering myself a little, I do so essentially—essentially—out of pure speculation. I’m trying to derive as much advantage from the affair as possible. You can see I’m quite candid with you. I take it for granted that someone or other will tell you the truth sometime anyway, and since I have from the start made myself look as bad as possible, I stand to gain by it, to win an immense prize. I acquire a tinge of greatness, of magnanimity, which scarcely has an equal—don’t you agree?—but it only comes about through a deception so common, so crude, that you’ll be shocked on learning about it. I feel bound to make this open confession, because you deserve that I treat you honestly. But what I’ll achieve by it is, of course, to drive you a thousand miles away from me, unfortunately.”

Her eyes still fastened on him, she pondered this man and his words, reflecting and trying to form an opinion. What was she to believe? What was he after with all his candor? Again she suddenly stops, claps her hands together and bursts into loud, ringing laughter.

“Oh, you’re the most impudent person I’ve ever known! Imagine saying such things, one nastier than the other, and all with a straight face, just to damage oneself! But you won’t get anywhere with it! The utter absurdity of it! What guarantee did you have that I would ever get to know the truth of the matter? Tell me that! No, stop, don’t say anything, it’ll only be one more lie. Phew, how mean of you, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. But listen: once you have calculated that it will go this way or that, arranged everything and achieved what you wanted, why do you go and spoil it all afterward by confessing your deception, as you call it? Last night you did pretty much the same thing. I just don’t understand you. How can you calculate all the rest while you do not calculate that you will end up exposing your own trickery?”

Far from throwing up the game, he thought for a moment and replied, “But I do calculate it, oh yes, I calculate that too, as you’ll come to realize. When I confess, as I’m doing right now, I really don’t risk anything by it, not much anyway. You see, in the first place I can’t be sure that the person I confess to will believe me.
You,
for one, don’t believe me at this moment. And what’s the consequence? Well, the consequence is that I make a double profit; I profit enormously, my prize grows like an avalanche, my greatness becomes mountain-high. Yes. But in the second place, I would come away from the speculation with profit in any case, even if you believed me. You’re shaking your head? Oh, please, don’t; I’ve acted on this assumption often enough, I assure you, and I’ve always gained by it. If you really believed that my confession was truthful, you would at least be quite struck by my candor. You would say, Well, he has fooled me, but he tells me so afterward, and without any need to; his impudence is mysterious, he shuns absolutely nothing, he positively bars my way with his admissions! In short, I force you to stare hard at me, I excite your curiosity to occupy itself with me, I make you bridle. No more than a minute ago you said yourself, ‘I just don’t understand you!’ Now, you said this because you had tried to puzzle me out—which again tickles me, feels directly sweet to me, in fact. So, at all events I bring my profit home whether you believe me or not.”

Pause.

“And you want me to believe,” she said, “that you’ve planned all this trickery in advance? That you’ve met every contingency, taken all precautions? Ha-ha-ha! Nothing you say can ever surprise me again, from now on I’ll be prepared for anything. Well, enough of that, you could’ve come off far worse as a liar, you’re quite clever.”

He stuck stubbornly to his point, remarking that after this decision on her part his high-mindedness must seem like a mountain. And he wanted to thank her so much, heh-heh-heh; he had achieved everything he had intended. But it was much too kind of her, much too good-natured—

“All right,” she broke in, “that will do.”

But now it was he who came to a stop. “I tell you once again that I’ve fooled you!” he said, fixing his eyes on her.

They looked at each other for a moment; her heart began to beat faster and she turned rather pale. Why, she wondered, was it so important for him to make her believe the worst about himself? Glad and willing as he otherwise was to give way, in this respect he couldn’t be made to budge. What a fixed idea, what foolishness! Exasperated, she exclaimed, “I cannot figure out why you’re turning yourself inside out for me. After all, you promised to be good.”

Her anger was, indeed, genuine. Her brain was starting to reel from his obstinacy, which was so cocksure, so unshakable that it made her waver. She felt insulted to have become muddled like this. In her agitation she was tapping her hand with the parasol as she walked.

He was very miserable
⁶
and made many helpless, droll remarks about it. At last she had to laugh again, giving him to understand that she didn’t take him seriously. He was simply impossible, would always remain impossible, and wanted to be impossible. Well, he could just please himself, if he thought it was such fun. But not another word about this fixed idea of his, not a word....