Mysteries

by Knut Hamsun

  But wouldn’t most of his objections to Tolstoy also apply to BJørnson? Wasn’t Bjørnson also just a sermonizer, a preacher of virtue, an ordinary old bore, a professional pen pusher, or whatever it all was?

  “No!” Nagel cried in a loud voice. Waving his arms, he defended Bjørnson with angry words. One just couldn’t compare Bjørnson and Tolstoy, partly because it went against everyone’s simple agronomical sense, partly because one’s basic humanity was bound to oppose it. First of all, Bjørnson was a genius23 just like Tolstoy. Nagel didn’t have a high opinion of the perfectly ordinary geniuses, those of average greatness—he should say he didn’t24—and it was to their level Tolstoy had risen, whereas Bjørnson far surpassed them. To be sure, that didn’t preclude Tolstoy from being able to write better books than many of Bjørnson’s; but what did that prove? Good books could, after all, be written even by Danish captains, Norwegian painters, and English housewives. Secondly, Bjørnson was a human being, an overmastering personality, not a mere concept. “He’s a vivid, thunderous presence on our planet and needs forty elbowrooms. He doesn’t sit there like a sphinx before the people, making himself great and mysterious,25 like Tolstoy on his steppe or Ibsen in his café. Bjørnson’s mind is like a windswept forest; he’s a fighter, always on the go, and does glorious damage to his own interests with the Grand Café clientele. Everything about him is on a grand scale; he’s a masterful spirit, one of the few commanders. He can stand on a platform and stop the first hint of booing with a wave of his hand. He has a perpetually fertile, teeming brain; he wins great victories and makes grievous mistakes, but does both with personality and spirit. Bjørnson is our only poet of inspiration, blessed with a divine spark. It begins like a rustle within him, as of grain on a summer’s day, and ends by his hearing nothing else, nothing but that; his soul lives and moves by the principle of the running start—the way of genius. Compared to the poetry of Bjørnson, that of Ibsen, for example, is simply mechanical routine. Ibsen’s verse largely consists of one rhyme hitting another with a smack; most of his plays are dramatized wood pulp. What the hell were people thinking of? ... Well, that’ll do; let’s drink to it all....”

  It was two o’clock. Miniman is yawning. Sleepy after a hard-working day, sick and tired of Nagel’s endless chatter, he again gets up to leave. However, when he had said goodbye and was already at the door, something happened which made him stop, an insidious little incident which would be of the greatest importance long afterward: the doctor wakes up, flails his arm excitedly and, in his myopia, upsets several glasses. Nagel, who sat next to him, was drenched with champagne. He jumped up, shook his wet breast with a laugh and shouted hurrah with abandon.

  Miniman at once played the menial, rushing up to Nagel with handkerchiefs and towels eager to dry him. His vest had taken the brunt of it—if only he would take it off for a moment, just one minute, it would be remedied at once! But Nagel refused to take it off. Awakened by the noise, the lawyer added his voice to the hurrahs without knowing what was going on. Once again Miniman asked if he could have the vest for a moment, but Nagel only shook his head. Suddenly he looks at Miniman, something occurs to him; he immediately gets up, pulls off his vest and hands it to him, greatly excited.

  “There you are!” he said. “Wipe it clean and keep it; oh yes, you shall keep it, you don’t have a vest, after all. Sh-sh, no nonsense now! You’re more than welcome to it, my dear friend.” But as Miniman still protested, Nagel stuck the vest under his arm, opened the door and sent him off with a friendly nudge.

  Miniman left.

  This happened so quickly that only Øien, who sat nearest the door, noticed it.

  In his gallows humor the lawyer proposed that they should break the rest of the glasses as well. Nagel made no objection, and now four grown-up men started amusing themselves by dashing one glass after another against the wall. Afterward they drank straight from the bottles, yelling like sailors and dancing around the room. It was four o’clock before the carousing ended. By then the doctor was roaring drunk. In the doorway Øien turned to Nagel and said, “What you said about Tolstoy can also be said about Bjørnson, you know. You’re not consistent in your arguments....”

  “Ha-ha-ha!” came the doctor’s mad laughter. “He wants consistency—at this time of night! ... Can you still say ‘encyclopedists,’ my dear man. ‘Association of ideas’? Come, let me help you get home.... Ha-ha, at this time of night!”

  It wasn’t raining anymore. Nor was there any sun; but the weather was calm and the day promised to be mild.

  XIV

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Miniman again appeared at the hotel. He went quietly into Nagel’s room, put his watch, some papers, a pencil stub and the vial of poison on the table, and was about to go again. However, since Nagel woke up at that moment, he was obliged to explain why he had come.

  “These are some things I found in your vest pocket,” he said.

  “In my vest pocket? Yes, by Jove, right you are! What time is it?”

  “Eight o’clock. But your watch stopped, and I didn’t want to wind it.”

  “You didn’t drink the Prussic acid, I trust?”

  Miniman smiled and shook his head.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Not even taste it? The vial should be half full. Let me see.”

  Miniman showed him that the vial was still half full.

  “Fine! And it’s eight o’clock? Then it’s time to get up.... While I remember, Grøgaard, could you borrow a violin for me? I would like to see if I could learn to—. Oh, baloney! The truth is, I want to buy a violin to give to a friend; I don’t want it for myself. So you’ll just have to find me a violin, no matter where you get it from.”

  Miniman would spare no pains.

  “Many thanks. I hope you’ll drop by again when you feel like it. You know the way. Have a good day!”

  An hour later Nagel already found himself in the Parsonage Woods. The ground was still wet from the rain the previous evening, and the sun was not very warm. He sat down on a stone and kept a sharp lookout on the road. He had noticed some familiar footprints in the wet gravel; he was fairly sure they were Dagny’s and that she had gone into town. Having waited for quite a long time to no purpose, he decided at last to go and meet her and got up from the stone.

  And, indeed, he had not been mistaken, he met her already at the edge of the forest. She was carrying a book, Gertrude Colbjørnsen by Skram.

  They first talked about this book awhile; then she said, “You know something—our dog has died.”

  “He has?” he replied.

  “A few days ago. We found him stone dead. I can’t imagine how it happened.”

  “You know, I always thought he was a very vicious dog; I’m sorry, but—one of those mastiffs with a pug nose and an insolent human face. When he looked at you, the corners of his mouth drooped as if he were carrying all the world’s sorrows. I’m downright glad he’s dead.”

  “Oh, for shame—”

  But he interrupted her nervously; anxious for some reason to get off the subject of the dog at once, he made light of it. He began talking about a man he had once run across, certainly one of the funniest fellows anyone would ever meet. “The man s-stammered slightly and didn’t make a secret of it; on the contrary, he made himself a worse s-stammerer than he really was to display his imperfection properly. He had the most peculiar ideas about women. Incidentally, he used to relate a story from Mexico which was too funny for words the way he told it. It was a fiercely cold winter, the thermometers were constantly bursting, and people stayed indoors around the clock. But one day he had to go to the neighboring town; he was walking through a naked landscape, with only a cabin here and there, and the sharp, biting wind burned his face excruciatingly. As he struggles along in the fierce cold, a half-naked woman comes rushing out of one of the cabins and starts running after him, all the while screaming, ‘There is a blister on your nose! Watch out, you’ve got a blister on your nose!’ The woman had a ladle in he
r hand and her sleeves were rolled up. She had seen this stranger go by with a cold blister on his nose and had run away from her chores to warn him about it. Heh-heh, would you believe it! And there she stands herself in the biting wind, her sleeves rolled up, while her whole right cheek is gradually losing color and turning into one huge blister! Heh-heh, it’s quite incredible! ... But despite this incident, and many other instances of feminine sacrifice he was familiar with, the stammerer was adamant on the subject. ‘Women are queer, insatiable creatures,’ he told me, without explaining exactly why they were queer and insatiable. ‘It’s quite unbelievable what fancies they can come up with,’ he said. And he related: ‘I had a friend who fell in love with a young lady; as a matter of fact, her name was Klara. He took great pains to win this lady, but it was no use; Klara wouldn’t have anything to do with him, though he was a handsome and well-regarded young man. However, Klara had a sister, an unusually lopsided and hunch-backed creature who was downright ugly. One day my friend proposes to her, God knows why; maybe he did it from ulterior motives, or maybe he had really fallen in love with her despite her ugliness. And what does Klara do? Well, here the female promptly showed her claws: Klara raises an outcry, kicking up a hell of a row: “It was me he wanted! It was me he wanted!” she said. “He won’t get me, though, I don’t want to, not for anything in the world,” she said. Hm, but do you think he was allowed to get the sister, with whom he had, in fact, fallen deeply in love? No, that’s just the catch—Klara wouldn’t let her sister have him either. Heh-heh-heh. Oh no! Since it was really herself he had wanted, he wouldn’t get her hunchbacked sister either, though she was none too good for anyone. And so my friend didn’t get either lady.’ ... This was one of the many stories the stammerer told me. He was such an amusing raconteur, just because he stammered so badly. However, the man was a great enigma.... Am I boring you?”

  “No,” Dagny replied.

  “A great enigma of a man, yes. He was such a miser, and a thief to boot, that he was capable of removing the leather straps from the railcar windows and taking them home with him, hoping to find some use for them. What was to stop him? As a matter of fact, he’s said to have been caught in such a theft once. On the other hand, he didn’t care a fig about money, when he was in that humor. One day he took it into his head to organize a prodigious drive. Since he didn’t have any friends, he hired twenty-four carriages for himself alone, which he dispatched one by one. Twenty-three of them were completely empty, and in the twenty-fourth—the last one—there he sits himself, looking down on the passersby, proud as a god of the huge procession he had pulled off....”

  But Nagel dreamed up one subject after another without any success; Dagny was barely listening to what he said. He fell silent, considering for a moment. Why the hell did he have to talk so stupidly, making a fool of himself all the time! To assault a young lady, the queen of his heart at that, with idle talk about cold blisters and twenty-four carriages! Suddenly he remembered that he had also forgotten himself badly once before, telling a stale joke about an Eskimo and a letter case. His cheeks flushed at the recollection; he gave a start and almost came to a stop. Why the hell didn’t he watch out! Oh, he ought to be ashamed of himself! These moments when he jabbered away so stupidly made him look ridiculous; they humiliated him and set him back weeks and months. What mustn’t she think of him!

  “So when will that bazaar take place?” he said.

  She answered, smiling, “Why are you taking such pains to talk all the time? Why are you all nerves?”

  This question came so unexpectedly that he looked at her in bewilderment for a moment. He replied softly, his heart going pitapat: “Miss Kielland, the last time we were together I promised that, if I was allowed to see you once more, I would talk about anything but what I had been forbidden to talk about. I’m trying to keep my promise. So far I have kept it.”

  “Yes,” she said, “one must keep one’s promises, one mustn’t break a promise.” She seemingly said this more to herself than to him.

  “I made up my mind to try even before you came; I knew I would meet you.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “I saw your footprints on the road.”

  She gave him a quick glance but said nothing.

  After a moment she said, “You have a bandage on your hand. Did you injure yourself?”

  “Yes,” he replied, “your dog bit me.”

  They both stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. He clenched his fists and continued in utter anguish, “I’ve been in these woods every single night, I’ve seen your windows every night before going to bed. Forgive me, it’s not a crime, after all! You told me not to, and yet I did it, that can’t be helped. The dog bit me, he was fighting for his life; I killed him—I gave him poison because he always barked when I came to say good night to your windows.”

  “So it was you who killed the dog!” she said.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  Pause. They still stood motionless, eyeing each other; his breast was heaving strongly.

  “And I would be capable of doing far worse things to get a glimpse of you,” he went on. “You have no idea how I suffer, how engrossed I am in you, day and night, no, you have no idea. I talk to people, I laugh, I even arrange merry boozing sessions—last night, in fact, I had company until four in the morning; we ended up smashing all the glasses—but even while I’m drinking and singing, you’re always in my thoughts and I feel distraught. I don’t care about anything anymore, and I have no idea what’s going to happen to me. Anyway, take pity on me for a few minutes, there’s something I must tell you. But don’t be afraid, I’m not going to frighten you or tempt you, I just have to talk to you because I’m racked with pain—”

  “Do you flatly refuse to be reasonable?” she said abruptly. “You promised.”

  “Yes, I probably did; I don’t know, but maybe I promised to be reasonable. I’m so poor at it, though. All right, I’ll be reasonable, you can trust me. But how shall I go about it, can you tell me that? Teach me how.1 You know, one day I was on the verge of forcing my way into the parsonage, opening the doors and going straight in even if there were other people present! But I’ve also done all I can to stand fast, I assure you; I’ve even slandered you, trying to destroy your power over me by discrediting you in the eyes of others. I didn’t do it out of revenge, oh no; you see, I’m really close to going under. I did it to raise myself up, to learn to clench my teeth so as not to stoop too low in my own eyes. That’s why I did it. But I don’t quite know if it was any use.2 I also tried to leave, I really did; I began to pack my things but didn’t quite finish, nor did I leave. How could I? Instead, I would rather follow you, if you weren’t here. And even if I never found you, I would still go after you and keep searching, hoping to find you at last. And if I realized it was no use, I would lower and lower my hopes, so that in the end I would be sincerely grateful simply to have a chance to meet someone who might have been close to you at one time, a woman friend who had shaken your hand or received a smile from you in the good old days. That’s what I would do. So how could I leave? Besides, it’s summer, this whole forest is my church and the birds know me; they look at me every morning when I come, cock their heads and look at me, and the next moment they start the music. And I’ll never forget how the flags were flying all over town for you the evening I arrived; it made the most powerful impression on me. In fact, I was moved to a mysterious sympathy and, half stunned, I walked about the ship watching the flags before deciding to step ashore. Ah, some evening that was! ... But I’ve also enjoyed many a delightful moment here since; I walk the same paths as you every day, and sometimes I may be lucky enough to see your footprints on the path, as I did today, and then I wait for you until you come by again—I slip into the woods and lie down behind a rock to wait for you. I’ve seen you twice since I last talked to you, and once I waited for six hours before you came. I lay behind the rock all those six hours; I didn’t get up simply for fear you mi
ght turn up and see me. God knows where you were keeping yourself for so long that day—”

  “I was at the Andresens’,” she said of a sudden.

  “That may be; I did see you when you finally came. You weren’t alone, but I saw you quite clearly and greeted you under my breath from behind the rock. God knows what thoughts flashed through your mind at that moment, for you turned your head and glanced at the rock—”

  “Now listen—. Why, you start as though I were going to read your death sentence—”

  “But you are, I see that very well, your eyes turned ice-cold.”

  “This must really come to an end, Mr. Nagel! If you think it over, you must see for yourself that you aren’t behaving very nicely toward the absent party either. Isn’t that so, if you put yourself in his place—quite apart from your making it so unpleasant for me? What do you want me to do? Let me tell you once and for all: I won’t break my promise, I love him. There, that ought to be clear enough. So be a little careful; I really can’t walk with you unless you show me some consideration. I’m telling you this straight out.”

  She was upset; her lips quivered and she made every effort to hold back her tears. When Nagel remained silent she added, “You’re welcome to walk me home, all the way home, if you like, as long as you won’t make it uncomfortable for both of us. I would be grateful if you told me a story; I love to hear you talk.”

  “Certainly,” he said promptly, in the loud, perfectly exultant voice of a windbag who could let himself go,3 “certainly, as long as I can come with you! I’ll make sure to—. Oh, how bracing, how you positively bolster me up when you’re angry with me.... ”4

  For quite a while they talked about trivial matters. They were walking with small steps and so slowly that they made barely any progress.

  “What fragrance, what fragrance!” he said. “Look how the grass and the flowers are shooting up after the rain! I wonder, are you interested in trees? It’s curious, but I feel a mysterious kinship with every tree in the forest. It is as though I once belonged to the forest; as I look around, a recollection seems to flash through my entire being. Ah, stop for a moment! Listen! Listen to the birds, how gaily they’re greeting the sun with their song! They are wildly delirious—they almost fly in our faces, not looking where they’re going.”