Mysteries

by Knut Hamsun

  In the afternoon, looking out of the window of his room, he saw Miniman coming up the difficult graveled road from the dock with a sack on his back. It was a sack of coal he was carrying. He walked completely hunched over and couldn’t see where he was going, being weighed almost to the ground by his burden. He was so awkward on his legs and walked so crookedly that his trousers were worn to shreds on the inside. Going out to meet him, Nagel found him by the post office, where Miniman had put his sack down for a moment.

  They made a deep bow to one another. When Miniman straightened up, his left shoulder sagged badly. Suddenly Nagel grabs him by this shoulder and, all worked up and without relaxing his grip, says offhandedly, “Have you been gossiping about that money I gave you, let anyone know about it?”

  Astounded, Miniman replies, “No, I haven’t, definitely not.”

  “Let me just advise you,” Nagel continued, pale with emotion, “that if you ever say a word about those few pennies, I’ll kill you—kill you! By God in heaven! You understand? And have your uncle hold his tongue, too.”

  Miniman stood there all agape, stammering a word now and then: he wouldn’t say anything, not a word, he promised, it was a pledge.

  As if trying to excuse his agitation, Nagel added at once, “This town is a real hole, a hornets’ nest, the pits! People stare at me wherever I go, I can’t budge. I won’t have this spying everywhere, I say to hell with everybody! Now you’ve been warned. And listen to this: I have reason to believe that this Miss Kielland from the parsonage, for one, is a little too good at taking you in and making you talk. But I won’t stand for her nosiness, I simply won’t. By the way, I was with her last night. She’s a big flirt. Well, that’s neither here nor there. Let me just ask you once more to keep mum about that little business of ours.2 Incidentally, it’s a good thing I ran into you just now,” Nagel continued. “There is something else I wish to talk to you about. The day before yesterday we were sitting together on a tombstone in the cemetery.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wrote a verse on that stone, a poor and improper one, I admit, but that’s beside the point—well, I did write that verse. When I left, the verse was still there, but when I returned a few minutes later it had been erased. Was that your doing?”

  Miniman looks at the ground and answers, “Yes.”

  Pause. Uneasy at having been caught in this audacious act, which he had committed on his own, Miniman tries to explain, stammering, “I wanted to prevent—You didn’t know Mina Meek, that’s the whole trouble, otherwise you wouldn’t have done it, have written it. In fact, I said to myself right away: he’s excused, he’s a stranger in town, and it’s easy for me who lives here to correct it, so why shouldn’t I do it? I wiped the verse off. Nobody had read it.”

  “How do you know that nobody had read it?”

  “Not a soul had read it. After walking with you and Dr. Stenersen to the gate, I turned back at once and wiped it off. I hadn’t been away more than a few minutes.”

  Nagel looked at him, took his hand and pressed it without saying anything. They looked at one another; Nagel’s lips trembled slightly.

  “Goodbye!” he said.... “Come to think, did you get the coat?”

  “Hm. I’m pretty sure I’ll have it by the time I need it. In three weeks—”

  At that moment the white-haired egg-wife, Martha Gude, went by, the basket under her apron and her black eyes downcast. Miniman greeted her, as did Nagel, but she barely responded, walked quickly by and hurried over to the market, where she delivered her two or three eggs and left again with the pennies in her hand. She was wearing a thin green dress. Nagel didn’t take his eyes off that green dress. He said, “So you will need that coat in three weeks? What’s going to take place in three weeks?”

  “There’s going to be a bazaar, a big evening entertainment, haven’t you heard? I’ll take part in the tableaux. Miss Dagny has already chosen me for that.”

  “Is that so?” Nagel said, deep in thought. “Well, you’ll get the coat very soon, a new coat at that, in place of the old one. Mr. Reinert told me so today. The man isn’t really so bad.... But listen, be sure to remember you mustn’t thank him, no, never! You mustn’t under any circumstances mention that coat to him, he didn’t want any thanks. You understand? He would find it distressing, he said. I suppose you realize yourself that it would be tactless of you to remind him of the day he was drunk and walked out of the hotel with a dent in his hat.”

  “Yes.”3

  “And you’re not to tell your uncle where you have the coat from either; not a soul is to know, Mr. Reinert was explicit on that score. You surely understand how embarrassing it would be for him if it got about town that he was in the habit of forgetting himself with every Tom, Dick, and Harry and then had to make it up to them with a coat.”

  “I do, indeed.”

  “Say, something just occurred to me: why don’t you rather use a cart to take the coal around?”

  “I can’t because of my handicap, I’m no good at pulling. I can withstand considerable weight, if I load myself with care, but I cannot go all out and pull and strain that way; if I did, I would overtax myself and fall flat on my face in great pain. But it doesn’t work so poorly with a sack either.”

  “Good. Drop by again sometime.4 Number 7, remember; just walk right in.”

  With that he slipped a bill into Miniman’s hand and quickly walked down the street toward the docks. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the green dress ahead of him for a moment, and now he set off after it.

  When he reached Martha Gude’s little house, he stopped for a moment and peered about him. Nobody was watching. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He had tried her door twice before without getting an answer, but this time he had clearly seen her going straight home from the market, and he refused to turn back without having been inside. He pushed the door open and stepped in.

  She was standing in the middle of the room looking at him. Her face was pale and she appeared upset;5 she was so timorous that she momentarily threw up her hands, being at her wits’ end.

  “Please, forgive my intrusion,” Nagel said, making an unusually respectful bow. “I would be very grateful if you allowed me to talk to you for a moment. Don’t be uneasy, my business is soon taken care of. I’ve looked for you a couple of times before, but only today was I lucky enough to find you at home. My name is Nagel, I’m a stranger here, for the time being staying at the Central.”

  She still didn’t say anything, but put out a chair for him and sidled toward the kitchen door. She was terribly bashful and kept fingering her apron as she looked at him.

  The room was as he had pictured it: a table, a couple of chairs, and a bed was pretty much all it contained. In the windows were some plants with white flowers, but there were no curtains, and the floor wasn’t clean. Nagel noticed, besides, a poor old high-backed chair in the corner by the bed. It had only two legs and rested against the wall, decrepit and broken. The seat was covered with red plush.

  “If only I could put you at ease, miss!” Nagel said once more. “You know, people don’t always get so frightened when I call on them, heh-heh-heh; this is not, you see, the first time I’ve been to someone’s house here. You’re not the only one I’ve inflicted myself on. I go from house to house, trying my luck everywhere. Well, perhaps you’ve heard about it? No? It’s true, though. It comes with my occupation, I’m a collector, you see; I collect all kinds of old things, buy antiquated articles and pay what they may be worth. Now, don’t get frightened, miss, I don’t sneak off with anything when I leave, heh-heh-heh, I certainly don’t have that bad habit. You may rest assured of that. If I fail to obtain an article by friendly means, that cannot be helped.”

  “But I don’t have any old things,” she said at last, looking quite desperate.

  “They always say that,” he replied. “Well, I admit there are things one may have become fond of and therefore is reluctant to part with, familiar things one has been surrounded w
ith all one’s life, such as heirlooms from one’s parents or even one’s grand-parents. But on the other hand, these cast-off things just stand there without doing much good, so why should they take up space and tie up money? You see, these useless heirlooms keep many a shilling locked up, and in the end they fall to pieces and have to be taken to the attic. So why not rather sell them while there’s time? Some people get angry when I come, telling me they don’t hold on to old things. Fine, to each his own, I bow and go my way. There’s nothing to be done about that. Other people become embarrassed, feeling uneasy about showing me a frying pan without a bottom, for example. That shows how little they know about it. This is true particularly for those simple souls who have no idea how highly developed collection mania has become. I use the word mania on purpose, recognizing that it is a mania pure and simple that drives me, and so I call the thing by its right name. However, that concerns me alone, it’s my own affair. What I meant to say is this: the reluctance of these people to show an antique is both ridiculous and foolish. How about the looks of those weapons and rings they dig out of the ancient barrows? But does that mean they have no value? Right you are, miss! You should see my collection of cowbells, for instance! I have one bell—of simple sheet iron, by the way—which has even been worshiped as a deity by an Indian tribe. Just imagine, it hung for ever so many years on a tent pole in their camp, receiving prayers and sacrifices. What do you say to that! But I seem to be getting away from my errand. When I get going on the subject of my bells, I tend to speak overmuch.”

  “But I really don’t have any old things like that,” Martha repeated.

  “May I,” Nagel said slowly, with a knowledgeable air, “may I, for example, have a look at that chair over there? It’s only a question, naturally I won’t make a move unless I have your permission. 6 Incidentally, I’ve sort of had my eye on it from where I’m sitting ever since I came in.”

  Bewildered, Martha replies, “That chair—. Please help yourself.... The legs are broken—”

  “Quite right, the legs are broken! And so what? What does that matter! Just because of that, perhaps, just because of that! May I ask where you got it?”

  By this time Nagel was holding the chair in his hand, twisting and turning it every way and inspecting it at every point. It had no gilding, only a single ornament on its back, a sort of coronet carved out of mahogany. Incidentally, the back had been cut up with a knife. The frame around the seat had been used for shredding tobacco in several places; the marks could still be seen.

  “We got it somewhere abroad, I don’t know where. My grandfather once brought home several of these chairs, but this is the only one left. My grandfather was a sailor.”

  “Really. And your father, was he also a sailor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, perhaps, you sailed with him? Excuse my asking.”

  “Yes, I sailed with him for many years.”

  “Really? How interesting! You’ve seen many lands, plowed the salty waves, as they say! Well, what do you know! And then you settled down here again? Yeah, sure, there’s no place like home, ah, home.... By the way, you have no idea where your grandfather picked up this chair, do you? You see, it’s very important to me to know something about an article’s history, to become familiar with its life story, so to speak.”

  “No, I don’t know where he picked it up, it’s so long ago. In Holland, maybe? No, I don’t know.”

  He was pleased to note that she was becoming more and more animated. She had moved to the front of the room and now stood almost right next to him, while he fussed with the chair as though he couldn’t look his fill at it. He talked on and on, remarking on the workmanship and going into raptures when he discovered, on the reverse of the back, a small inlaid disk, in which another disk had been inlaid in turn—simple work, tasteless child’s play that hadn’t even been accurately executed. The chair was rotten, and he handled it very carefully.

  “Well,” she then said, “if you really—I mean, if it would give you pleasure to own that chair, I’ll gladly let you have it. I’ll bring it to the hotel myself if you wish. I have no use for it.” And suddenly she couldn’t help laughing at his eagerness to possess himself of this worm-eaten piece of furniture. “It has really got only one good leg!” she said.

  He looked at her. Her hair was white, but her smile was youthful and spirited, and her teeth were fine. When she laughed her eyes grew moist and glistened. What a black-eyed old maid! Nagel didn’t move a muscle.

  “I’m glad,” he said in a dry tone of voice, “that you have decided to let me have the chair. And now we’ll discuss the price. No, pardon me, wait a moment, let me finish: I don’t want you to give me a price, I always set the price myself. I appraise the article, offer so and so much for it, and that’s that! You might want to ask an exorbitant sum. You might try to overcharge me, why not? To this you may object that you can’t really look that greedy—fine, I readily acknowledge that; but still, I have to deal with all kinds of people and I like to set the price myself, then I know what I’m doing. It’s a question of principle with me. What could stop you, for instance, from asking three hundred kroner for that chair, if you had your way? You would be all the more likely to do so knowing, as you do, that we are, in fact, talking about a rare and precious piece of furniture. But I couldn’t possibly pay such a fabulous price; I say this straight out so that you won’t have any illusions on that score. After all, I have no wish to ruin myself, I would be crazy if I paid three hundred kroner for that chair. In short, I’ll give you two hundred kroner for it, not a penny more. I’ll pay what I find an article to be worth, but no more.”

  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 thinki
ng 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?