Mysteries (25 page)

Sobbing, she threw herself on her knees before him, grabbing both his hands, which she held against her face and then pressed to her bosom.

He was at once strangely moved by this intense tenderness, which he hadn’t expected anymore; he pulled her up and set her on his knees.

“I didn’t forget your birthday,” she said, “I always remember it. You have no idea how often I weep over you at night, when I can’t sleep for just thinking.... My dear boy, you still have the same red lips! I thought about so many things on board; I wondered, Are his lips just as red still? ... How your eyes wander! You aren’t getting impatient, are you? Otherwise you are the same; but your eyes do wander, as if you were trying to figure out how to get rid of me as soon as possible. Why don’t I sit on the chair next to you, you will like that better, won’t you? I’ve got so much, so much, to talk to you about, and I have to hurry up, because the steamer will be leaving very soon, and right now you’re simply confusing me with your indifferent air. What can I say to make you sit up and listen to me? You aren’t the least bit grateful that I remembered your birthday and came up here.... Did you get lots of flowers? I trust you did. Mrs. Stenersen remembered you too, didn’t she? Tell me, this Mrs. Stenersen, for whom you serve as agronomist, what does she look like? Ha-ha-ha, what a man! ... I would have brought you some flowers too, if I had been able to afford it; but I’m too poor right now.... Ye gods, why don’t you listen to me these few paltry minutes, won’t you, please! How everything has changed! Do you remember how once—but you obviously don’t, and it’s pointless to remind you of it—well, once you recognized me a long way off simply by the feather in my hat, and as soon as you saw it you came running. You know quite well this is true, don’t you? It happened one day on the Ramparts.
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But now I can’t remember anymore why I mentioned that about the feather. Oh dear, I’ve forgotten how I was going to use it against you, though it was a good argument.... What now? Why jump up like that?”

He got up, tiptoed across the room and jerked the door open.

“Sara, they keep ringing for you in the dining room!” he called through the doorway.

When he came back and sat down on his chair again, he nodded to Kamma and whispered, “I could tell she was peeping through the keyhole, all right.”

Kamma was getting impatient.

“And what if she was?” she said. “Why on earth are you so taken up with a thousand other things just now? I’ve been sitting here for a quarter of an hour and you haven’t even asked me to undo my veil. But don’t you dare ask me now, afterward! You don’t consider how awful it is to have a winter veil over one’s face in this heat. Oh well, it serves me right; what did I want to come here for anyway! It didn’t escape me that you asked the maid if we might go in here for just a moment. For just a moment! you said. That must have meant you’d make sure to finish with me in a minute or two. Oh, I don’t blame you, it’s only that it makes me so unspeakably sad. God help me! ... Why can’t I ever let you go? I know you’re mad, your eyes are as crazy as can be—yes, imagine, that’s what I’ve heard, and I can well believe it. But still I can’t let you go. Dr. Nissen said you were mad, and God knows you must be stark-mad to settle down in a place like this and call yourself an agronomist. Whoever heard the likes! And you’re still wearing that iron ring on your finger and forever sporting that loud yellow suit, which no one but you would touch....”

“Did Dr. Nissen say I was mad?” he asked.

“Dr. Nissen said that right out! Would you like to know to whom he said it?”

Pause. He fell into a reverie for a moment. Then he looked up and asked, “Tell me frankly, Kamma, couldn’t I help you out with some money? You know I can do it.”

“Never!” she cried, “never, do you hear! What on earth makes you think you can fling one insult after another in my face!”

Pause.

“I don’t see,” he said, “why we should sit here making things unpleasant for each other—”

At this point she interrupted him with tears and no longer heeded what she was saying. “Who is unpleasant? Is it me? How utterly you have changed in a few months! I came here for one thing only, to—. I don’t expect you to return my feelings anymore, and you know I’m not the sort who goes begging; but I’d hoped you would treat me mercifully.... God in heaven, what a perfect disaster my life has been! I ought to tear you out of my heart, but I can’t; instead, I trail after you and throw myself at your feet. Do you remember that day on the Drammen Road when you smacked a dog on the muzzle because he jumped me? Oh, it was all my fault, I screamed because I thought he was going to bite me; well, he wasn’t, he only wanted to play, and after you smacked him he crawled on his belly for us and lay down instead of running off. You were moved to tears that time, you petted the dog and cried over him on the quiet, it didn’t escape me; but now I see no tears, although ... This isn’t meant as a comparison, naturally; you don’t imagine I would compare myself to a dog, do you? God only knows what thoughts might occur to you in your arrogance! I know what the score is when you put on that face. I see you’re smiling, yes, you smiled, you did! You’re mocking me to my face! Let me tell you straight out ... No, no, no, forgive me! It’s just that I’m so desperate again. You see before you a broken woman, I’m completely broken, give me your hand! Oh,
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that you can never forget that peccadillo of mine. It was just a peccadillo, after all, when you stop to think. It was mean of me not to come to you that evening; you gave me one signal after another and yet I didn’t come. I still deeply regret it, God knows I do! But he wasn’t with me then, as you thought; he had been there, but he wasn’t there then, he had left. As you see, I confess and ask for mercy. But I should have sent him packing, yes, I should, I admit that, I don’t mind admitting everything; and I shouldn’t have—. Oh, I just can’t understand—I can’t understand anything anymore....”

Pause. The silence was only broken by Kamma’s sobs and the clatter of knives and forks in the dining room. She continued to cry, and to wipe her face with her handkerchief under the veil.

“He’s so terribly helpless, you see,” she went on, “he doesn’t know how to give as good as he gets. Sometimes he bangs the table and tells me to go to blazes; yes, he rails at me, says I’m ruining him, and behaves worse than a boor. But the next moment he’s again brokenhearted and can’t brace himself to let me go. What shall I do, seeing what a weakling he is? I put off leaving him from day to day, though I’m anything but happy.... But don’t be sorry for me; just you dare show me your insolent pity! At any rate, he’s better than most and has given me more happiness than anyone else, more than you. And I love him all the same, I want you to know. I didn’t come here to slander him. When I see him again after getting home, I’ll go down on my knees and ask his forgiveness for what I just said about him. I certainly will!”

“Dear Kamma, be a little reasonable!” Nagel said. “Let me help you, do you hear! I dare say you need it. Won’t you let me? It’s mean of you to refuse me when I can do it as easily as now, and would very much like to.”

With that he took out his wallet.

“Didn’t I say no! Can’t you hear, man!” she sang out furiously.

“What, then, do you want?” he said, dismayed.

She sat down on her chair and stopped crying. She appeared to regret her anger.

“Listen, Simonsen—allow me to call you Simonsen one more time, and if you promise not to be angry I would like to ask you something. What is the big idea of settling down in a place like this, why in the world did you do it? Is it really so strange that people say you are mad? I can’t even remember the name of this town unless I stop to think, it’s that small, and here you are, putting on an act and astonishing the inhabitants with your quaint ideas! Couldn’t a man like you think of something better to do? ... Well, it’s none of my business, I’m just asking by force of—. Oh, but what do you think I should do about my chest? I feel as though it’s bursting! Don’t you think I must see the doctor again? But how, in God’s name, can I go see the doctor when I don’t have a penny to pay him with?”

“But I’ve said I’m more than willing to loan you the money! After all, you can pay it back sometime.”

“Oh, it doesn’t really matter whether I see the doctor or not,” she went on like a headstrong child. “Who would mourn me if I died?” ... But suddenly she came round, making as if she thought it over, and said, “On second thought, why shouldn’t I accept your money? Why not now just as well as before? After all, I’m not so filthy rich that I should for that reason—. But time and again you have offered it to me, on purpose, at a moment when I was exasperated, so that you knew beforehand I would refuse it. You have, all right! You’ve had it exactly figured out, simply to save your money, although you’re flush with it right now; don’t you think I’ve noticed that? And even though you’re making your offer again, one more time, you’re doing it to humiliate me and to gloat over the fact that I’m finally forced to accept it. But it can’t be helped, I’ll accept it anyway and with gratitude. I wish to God I didn’t need you! But just so you know, that’s not why I came here today; it was not for the sake of the money, believe me or not. I can’t believe you’re so common as to think that.... But how much can you spare, Simonsen? Dear me, you mustn’t take it so hard, I beg you, and you must believe I’m sincere—”

“How much do you need?”

“Oh, what I need! ... Good Lord, I won’t miss the steamer, will I? ... I may need a lot, but—maybe several hundred kroner, but—”

“Look, you shouldn’t feel the least bit humiliated by accepting this money; if you were agreeable you could earn it. You could do me a very great favor, if I might ask you—”

“If you might ask me!” she cried, beside herself with joy at this way out. “Heavens, how you can talk! What favor? What favor, Simonsen? I’m game for anything! Oh, my dearest boy!”

“You still have three quarters of an hour before the steamer leaves—”

“Yes. And what am I to do?”

“You are to look up a lady and do an errand for me.”

“A lady?”

“She lives down by the docks, in a small one-story house. There are no curtains on the windows, but usually she has a few white flowers on the windowsills. The lady’s name is Martha Gude, Miss Gude.”

“But is it her—Isn’t it rather Mrs. Stenersen—?”

“Come, you’re on the wrong track, Miss Gude must be going on forty. But she has a chair, an old armchair, which I’ve decided to acquire, and for that I need your help.... Now, put your money away and I’ll explain it all to you.”

It was beginning to grow dark; the hotel guests were leaving the dining room, making an awful din, while Nagel was still carefully explaining everything concerning the old armchair. She would have to proceed with caution, grand gestures were no good. Kamma became more and more eager to get going, this questionable mission sent her into raptures; she laughed aloud and kept asking if she shouldn’t appear in disguise, wear glasses at least. Didn’t he once have a red hat? She could wear that—

“No, no, you mustn’t use any tricks. You are simply to make a bid on the chair, drive the price up; you can go as high as two hundred kroner, well, two hundred and twenty kroner. And don’t worry, you won’t be stuck with it; you won’t get it.”

“Lord, what heaps of money! Why wouldn’t I get it for two hundred and twenty kroner?”

“Because I have a prior claim on it.”

“But suppose she takes me at my word?”

“She won’t take you at your word. Now go.”

At the very last moment she asked him again for a comb and expressed a concern that her dress might have gotten crumpled. “I really can’t stand the idea of your going to see that Mrs. Stenersen so often,” she said, shamming.
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“I just can’t stand it, I’ll be inconsolable.” She again checked whether her money had been safely stowed away. “How sweet of you to give me all that money!” she exclaimed. And with a quick movement she lifted her veil and kissed him on the lips, right smack on the lips. But still completely wrapped up in her strange errand to Martha Gude, she asked, “How can I let you know that everything has gone well? I can have the captain blow the whistle, if you like, blow it four or five times, wouldn’t that do? There you see, I’m not that dumb. Trust me! That’s the least I can do for you, after you have—. Listen, it was
not
because of the money that I came here today, believe me! Well, let me thank you again! So long, so long!”

Once more she checked on the money.

Half an hour later Nagel did, in fact, hear a steam whistle blow five brief blasts.

A COUPLE OF DAYS went by.

Nagel stayed at the hotel, wandering about with a gloomy air and looking harassed and suffering; his eyes had in the course of these two days become quite lusterless. He never spoke to anyone, not even to people in the hotel. He had a rag tied around one hand; one night when he had been out until the early morning as usual, he returned with one hand inside his handkerchief. He said the two wounds he had were caused by his tripping over a discarded harrow left on the dock.

On Thursday morning it rained, and the unpleasant weather made him still more depressed. However, after reading the papers in bed and enjoying an animated scene in the French Chamber of Deputies, he suddenly snapped his fingers and jumped out of bed. Why the hell should he mope! The world was big, rich, merry, the world was beautiful, you bet your life it was!

Before he was fully dressed, he rang and informed Sara that he intended to have some visitors in the evening, six or seven who could whoop it up a bit in this vale of tears, merry souls: Dr. Stenersen; Mr. Hansen, the lawyer; the teacher, and so on.

He promptly sent out invitations. Miniman answered that he would come; Mr. Reinert, the deputy, was also invited but stayed away. By five o’clock they were all gathered in Nagel’s room. Since it was still raining and the skies were dark, the lamp was lighted and the blinds drawn.