Mysteries (20 page)

She fixed him with a wide-eyed stare, without saying a word. Finally she decided he must be joking and gave another laugh—or rather a small bewildered smile.

Nagel calmly got the red bills out of his wallet and flashed them in front of her a few times. Meanwhile he didn’t let the chair out of his sight. “I won’t deny that you could possibly have gotten more from someone else,” he said, “I admit that in all honesty; you might have obtained a
little
more. But the fact is, I’ve come to think of two hundred, in round numbers, as a fair price for this article, and I don’t feel I can go any higher than that. You can do as you like, of course, but think it over first. Two hundred kroner is also money.”

“No,” she replied with her timid smile, “keep your money.”

“Keep my money! What do you mean? What’s wrong with this money, may I ask? Do you think it’s homemade? For you wouldn’t suspect me of having stolen it, would you, heh-heh-heh, what?”

She was no longer laughing. The man appeared to be in earnest, and she began to think it over. Did that lunatic wish to curry favor with her? Judging by his eyes, he was capable of anything. God knows if he wasn’t dreaming up something, if he wasn’t setting a trap. Why did he come to her, of all people, with his money? Finally she seemed to have arrived at a decision, and she said, “If you insist on giving me something for the chair, let me have a krone or two and I’ll be grateful to you. But I won’t take more.”

He appeared extremely surprised, went a step closer and looked at her. Then he burst out laughing. “But—have you considered—. In all the time I’ve been collecting, nothing like this has ever happened to me! Well, I can understand a joke—”

“It’s no joke. I never heard anything so absurd! That’s all I want, I don’t want anything. Take the chair if you like!”

Nagel laughed at the top of his voice.

“Again, I can understand and appreciate a joke; in fact, it tickles me, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t! I always laugh myself silly over a good joke. But how about coming to an understanding, eh? What if we simply settle the matter right now, before we lose our good humor again? In a minute you may put the chair back in the corner and ask five hundred for it.”

“Take the chair. I—. What are you thinking of?”

They stood there staring at each other.

“If you believe I’m thinking of something other than getting the chair at a reasonable price, you’re mistaken,” he said.
⁷

“But for heaven’s sake, take it—take it!” Martha cried.

“I ought, of course, to be much obliged to you for your great courtesy.
⁸
But we collectors, too, have a scrap of honor, paltry as it may be many a time, and that sense of honor holds me back, gets up on its hind legs, so to speak, if I try to obtain a precious article by fraud. My whole collection would fall in my—the owner’s—estimation if I introduced such a smuggled article among the others; it would confer upon everything, however small, a certain false note.
⁹
Heh-heh-heh, I can’t help but laugh; you must admit it’s rather preposterous that I should stand here pleading your cause, instead of what I ought to do: consider my own advantage. But you’ve left me no alternative.”

She wouldn’t give in, no, he couldn’t get anywhere with her. She stuck to her point: either he took the chair for a trifle, a krone or two, or he could forget about it. Since her stubbornness resisted all appeals, to save face he finally said, “All right, we’ll let the matter rest for now. But promise me that you won’t sell the chair to anyone else without informing me, will you? I won’t give it up, just so you know, even if I should have to pay some more. At any rate, I’m willing to match anybody’s offer, and I did come first.”

When Nagel got outside, he started walking down the street with long, agitated strides. What a stiff-necked woman, and how poor and suspicious she was! Did you see that bed? he said to himself; not even straw on the bottom, not even a sheet on top, only two petticoats, both of which she probably had to wear in the daytime when the weather was cold. And yet so afraid to get involved in something unfamiliar that she turned down the best of offers!
¹⁰
But damn it all, what concern was it of his anyway? None, really. She was a helluva woman, though, wasn’t she? Suppose he sent a man over to make a bid on the chair, drive up the price, would that also arouse her suspicion? What an idiot, a real idiot! But why did he have to go there, only to be so crushingly refused?

Immersed in his chagrin, he had reached the hotel before he knew it. He stopped short, turned around as steamed up as ever and went back down the street to J. Hansen’s tailor shop, where he entered. He saw the proprietor behind closed doors, ordered a coat in strict confidence, a coat of such and such a type, and en-joined the tailor to keep the order secret from everybody. When the coat was ready, it was to be sent to Miniman without delay, to Grøgaard, the crooked coal carrier, who—

Was the coat for Miniman?

Well, what of it? No nosiness! What sort of snooping was this?

Hm, how about the measurements?

So that was it! Yes, the coat was for Miniman. All right, Miniman could come and have his measurements taken, why not? But not an unnecessary word, not a wink—was that clear? And when would the coat be ready? In a couple of days, fine!

Nagel counted out the money at once, said goodbye and left. His annoyance gone, he rubbed his hands and sang. Yes, indeed, he would still—still! Just you wait! When he got back to the hotel he ran up to his room and rang the bell; his hands were shaking with impatience, and no sooner was the door opened than he called, “Sara, some telegram blanks!”

He had just opened his violin case as Sara came in, and to her great amazement she saw that this case, which she had always handled so gingerly, contained only dirty laundry and some papers and writing materials, but no violin. For a moment she couldn’t tear herself away, but stood there staring at it.

“Telegram blanks!” he repeated more loudly, “I asked for some telegram blanks.”

When he finally got the blanks he wrote out an order to an acquaintance in Kristiania to send, anonymously and secretly, two hundred kroner to a certain Miss Martha Gude, a local resident, two hundred kroner, without a word in writing. “Command the utmost silence. Johan Nagel.”

But it wouldn’t work. No, on second thought he had to discard the plan. Hadn’t he better give a few more particulars, and enclose the money to ensure that it would be sent? He tore up the telegram, burned it at once and dashed off a letter. Yes, that was better; a letter, however brief, was more complete, it might really do. Oh, he would show her, give her to understand....

But after he had put the money in the envelope and closed it, he still sat awhile thinking it over. She might still smell a rat, he said to himself; two hundred kroner was too round a sum, besides being the same sum he had recently flaunted under her nose! No, that wouldn’t work either! He took another ten-krone bill out of his pocket, opened the envelope and changed the amount to two hundred and ten kroner. Then he sealed the letter and sent it off.

A whole hour later he still regarded this trick as just great when he thought about it. The letter would descend upon her like a miracle from heaven, from up above, from on high, dropped down on her by unknown hands. Just imagine what she would say when she received all that money! But when he asked himself again what she would say, how she would react to the whole thing, he felt disheartened: the plan was dangerous, all too bold; it was a poor, stupid plan. The catch was that she wouldn’t say a sensible word but behave like a goose. When the letter arrived she would simply fail to understand and leave it to others to find out. She would spread it out on the post-office counter, making the whole town get in on it; she would leave the whole matter to the postal clerk’s discretion right then and there, maybe even act bullheaded and say: Keep your money! Whereupon the postal clerk puts his finger to his nose and cries, Wait a bit, half a mo, I have an idea! And he opens up his books and finds that the same sum was sent from here a few days ago, the very same sum, not to say the very same bills, two hundred and ten kroner to such and such an address in Kristiania. The sender proves to be a certain Johan Nagel, a stranger, who for the time being is staying at the Central.... Sure, such postal clerks had a nose that long to sniff around with....

Nagel rang once more and had the hotel porter bring the letter back immediately.

In the end, all the nervous agitation he had experienced throughout the day made him sick and tired of it all. Frankly, he didn’t give a damn about the whole thing! What concern was it of his that the good Lord arranged a collision with loss of life on the Erie Railroad far inside America? None, to be sure! Well, he had just as little to do with Martha Gude, a respectable lady of this town.

For two days he didn’t step outside the hotel.

ON SATURDAY NIGHT Miniman entered Nagel’s room at the hotel. Miniman was wearing his new coat and was radiantly happy.

“I ran across the deputy,” he said, “and he didn’t move a muscle; he even asked me who had given me the coat. He was so wily, to put me to the test that way.”

“And what did you reply?”

“I laughed and replied I wouldn’t say, not to anybody, he must excuse me, goodbye! ... He’ll get his reply, all right—. Look, it’s a good thirteen years since I had a new coat; I’ve checked it out....
¹
I want to thank you for the latest money you gave me. Again, it was far too much money for an invalid, what am I going to do with it all? You make me so confused by all your kindnesses that it spooks me; it’s as if everything is loose inside me and can’t stay in place. Ha-ha-ha-ha! But, God help me, I’m behaving like a child. Sure, I knew well enough I would get the coat some day; what did I tell you? It often takes a while, but in the end I’m never let down. Lieutenant Hansen once promised me two woolen shirts which he didn’t wear anymore. That was two years ago, but I’m dead certain he’ll come through. It’s always like that: people remember it sooner or later and give me what I need when the time comes. But don’t you think I look like another person in decent clothes?”

“You haven’t been to see me for a long time.”

“The fact is, I was waiting for the coat, I’d made up my mind not to see you anymore in the old one.
²
I do have my eccentricities—it distresses me to appear in company wearing a torn coat, God knows why; it’s as though I lose my self-respect. Forgive me for speaking about my self-respect in front of you, as if it were worth anything. Well, it isn’t, it couldn’t be less, I assure you; but I still feel it now and then.”

“Would you like some wine? No? But you’ll smoke a cigar, won’t you?”

Nagel rang for wine and cigars. Once they were brought, he started drinking heavily right away, while Miniman smoked and looked on. Miniman kept talking incessantly and didn’t seem inclined to stop.

“Listen,” Nagel said all of a sudden, “you don’t have much in the way of shirts, do you? Pardon me for asking.”

“That’s not why I mentioned those two shirts,” Miniman replied hurriedly. “As sure as I’m sitting here, that’s not why.”

“Of course not! Why are you screaming? If you don’t mind, why don’t you show me what you’re wearing under your coat?”

“Gladly, oh, gladly, gladly! Here’s one side, just take a look. And the other side is no worse—”

“Oh, but wait a bit! I’m afraid that’s exactly what it is, the other side is worse.”

“But what else can you expect?” Miniman cries. “No, I don’t need any shirts right now, I really don’t. I’ll go so far as to say that a shirt like this is much too good for me. Can you guess who gave it to me? Dr. Stenersen, yes, Dr. Stenersen himself. I don’t think his wife even knew about it, though she too is generosity itself. I got it for Christmas at that.”

“For Christmas?”

“You think that’s a long time ago?
³
I don’t wear a shirt like that ragged, as if I were some animal, doing my worst to make holes in it; so I take it off at night and sleep naked, in order not to wear it out to no purpose when I’m sleeping. That way I make it last much longer, and I can go about freely among people without being put to shame because I don’t have a decent shirt. And now, with the tableaux, it’ll be a great help that I’ve still got a shirt I can show myself in. Miss Dagny keeps insisting that I have to turn out. I met her at the church yesterday. She also spoke about you—”

“I’ll get you a pair of trousers, too. It will be worth the money to see you appear in public. Since the deputy has given you a coat, I’ll give you a pair of trousers, that’s only fair. But I’ll do it on the usual condition—that you keep mum about it.”

“All right, all right.”

“I think you should have some wine. Oh well, do as you like. I’m going to drink tonight, I feel nervous and rather sad. Will you permit me to ask you a personal question? Are you aware that people have a nickname for you? They call you Miniman; do you know that?”

“Yes, of course, I know. It seemed hard at first, and I prayed to God for help on account of it. I wandered about in the woods for a whole Sunday, kneeling down all the time in the three places that were dry—this was in the spring, when the snow was melting.
⁴
But that was a long time ago, many years ago, and now nobody calls me anything but Miniman; and it’s good enough, for that matter. Why would you like to know if I was aware of it? How can I help it, however much I’m aware of it?”

“Do you know, too, how you were given such an absurd name?”

“Yes, I do. That is, it’s so long ago, before I became an invalid, but I remember it well. It happened one evening, or rather one night, at a bachelor party. Maybe you’ve noticed that yellow house down by the Customs House, on your right hand as you go down? Well, it was painted white in those days, and the justice of the peace lived there. He was a bachelor, and his name was Sørensen, a really jolly fellow. It was a spring night—I was returning from the docks, where I’d been strolling back and forth looking at the ships. When I came to this yellow house I could tell there were visitors inside, because there was an awful racket and lots of people laughing. As I pass the windows, they catch sight of me and tap on the panes. Once inside, I’m confronted by Dr. Kolbye, Captain William Prante and Folkedahl, the customs officer, and many more—well, by now they’ve all died or left town, but altogether there were seven or eight of them and everyone dead drunk. They had smashed up the chairs just for fun, that was what the justice of the peace wanted, and they had also broken all the glasses, so we had to drink from the bottle. After I joined them and got drunk as well, there was no end to the racket. The men stripped and ran around the rooms stark naked, although we hadn’t drawn the blinds, and when I wouldn’t play along with them, they grabbed me by force and undressed me. I put up a fight and did what else I could, but there was no getting out of it, so I apologized to them, I shook their hands and apologized—”