Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [102]
She no longer made any resistance. Her head resting lightly on his left arm, he kissed her fervently, interrupted only, at brief intervals, by the most tender words. He had a distinct feeling that she clung to him of herself, and when he kissed her she closed her eyes even more.
“Meet me tomorrow by the tree, you remember the tree, the aspen. Meet me, I love you, Dagny! Will you meet me? Come whenever you like, come at seven.”
She didn’t make any reply to this but merely said, “Let me go now!”
And slowly she extricated herself from his arms.
She looked about her for a moment, her face assuming a more and more bewildered expression; finally a helpless spasm trembled at the corners of her mouth, and she went over to a stone by the roadside and sat down. She was crying.
He bent over her and spoke softly. This went on for a minute or two. Suddenly she jumps up, her fists clenched and her face white with rage, and, pressing her hands against her breast, she says furiously, “You’re a mean person, God, how mean you are! Though you aren’t likely to agree. Oh, how could you, how could you do it!”
And she started crying again.
He tried once more to calm her down, but to no avail; they stood at that stone by the roadside for half an hour, unable to tear themselves away.
“You even want me to see you again,” she said. “But I won’t see you, I will never lay eyes on you again, you’re a villain!”
He pleaded with her, threw himself down before her and kissed her dress; but she kept repeating that he was a villain and that he had behaved wretchedly. What had he done to her? Go away, go! He couldn’t walk her any farther, not one step!
And she headed for home.
He still tried to go after her, but she waved her hand deprecatingly and said, “Stay away!”
He kept following her with his eyes until she had gone ten or twenty paces; then he, too, clenches his fists and runs after her—he defies her prohibition and runs after her, forcing her to stop.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, “and do have some pity! I’m willing to kill myself here and now, just to rid you of me; it will cost you only a word. And I would repeat this tomorrow if I should meet you. Grant me the mercy of doing me justice, at least. You see, I’m in thrall to your power, and I have no control over that. And it isn’t all my fault that you came into my life. I wish to God you may never suffer as I do now!”
Then he turned around and left.
Once again, those broad shoulders on the short body kept twitching as he walked down the road. He saw none of the people he met, didn’t recognize a single face, and he came to his senses only after he had crossed the whole town and found himself at the steps of the hotel.
XV
FOR THE NEXT two or three days Nagel was absent from town. He had taken a trip on the steamer, and his hotel room was locked. Nobody knew where he was, but he had boarded a northbound ship and might have gone away simply for the sake of recreation.
When he returned early one morning before the town was on its legs, he looked pale and exhausted for lack of sleep. Nevertheless, he didn’t go up to the hotel but strolled back and forth on the pier for quite a while, before turning onto a brand-new road out to Indviken Cove, where smoke was just beginning to rise from the chimney of the steam mill.
He wasn’t away for long, and was obviously strolling about simply to kill a few hours. When the traffic started in Market Square, there he was; he was standing at the corner of the post office, carefully observing everyone coming and going, and when he noticed Martha Gude’s green skirt he stepped forward to greet her.
Beg pardon, had she perhaps forgotten