Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [103]
No, she hadn’t sold it.
Good. And no one else had been to see her and driven up the price? No would-be buyers?
“Oh yes. But—”
“What? Indeed!” There had been others? “What are you saying, a lady? Oh, these pernicious women, poking their noses everywhere!” So, she had gotten wind of this rarity of a chair and had to snatch it up right away. Sure, that was the way those women operated. “But what did she offer, how high did she go? Let me tell you, I won’t let go of that chair for anything, the hell I will!”
Martha was bewildered by his vehemence and hastened to answer, “No, no, you can have it, with pleasure.”
“So, may I call on you this evening, around eight o’clock, and settle the matter?”
Yes, perhaps. But hadn’t she better send the chair to his hotel? Then it would be settled—?
Definitely not, by no means, that he would never allow. An article like that must be treated with care and by experienced hands; frankly, he couldn’t even bear having a stranger look at it. He would be there at eight. Then something occurred to him: “Say, no dustcloth near it, no washing, for God’s sake! Not a drop of water!”
Nagel went straight to the hotel, where he lay down on his bed fully dressed and slept soundly and quietly at a stretch until toward evening.
As soon as he’d had supper he went down to the docks, to Martha Gude’s little house. It was eight o’clock; he knocked and walked in.
The room had just been washed, the floor was clean and the windows polished; Martha herself had even put a string of beads around her neck. He was obviously expected.
He said good evening, sat down and began the negotiations straightaway. But she was no more willing to give in than before; on the contrary, she was more obstinate than ever and insisted on giving him the chair for nothing. Finally he became furious, threatened to throw five hundred kroner at her and make off with the chair. That’s what she deserved! He had never seen such folly in his entire life, and banging the table he asked if she was stark-staring mad.
“Do you know what?” he said, giving her a sharp look. “Your resistance is really beginning to make me suspicious. Tell me frankly, the chair has been acquired honestly, right? I have to deal with all sorts of people, you know, and one can never be too careful. If the chair has come into your possession by trickery or shady dealing, then I don’t dare touch it. However, if I’ve misunderstood your hesitation, please forgive me.”
And he admonished her strongly to tell the truth.
Confused by his suspicion, half afraid and half hurt, she immediately justified herself. The chair had been brought home by her grandfather and had been in the family’s possession for a hundred years; he mustn’t think she was hiding anything. She was getting tears in her eyes.
Good! And now he really wanted to have done with this nonsense, and that was the end of that! He felt for his wallet.
She took a step forward as if to stop him once again, but he calmly placed the two red bills on the table and closed his wallet with a smack.
“There you are!” he said.
“Don’t give me more than fifty kroner in any case!” she begged. At that moment she was so perplexed that she stroked his hair a couple of times as she said this, simply to make him give in. She wasn’t aware of what she was doing; she stroked his hair and begged him again to let her off with only fifty kroner. The silly woman still had tears in her eyes.
He raised his head and looked at her. This white-haired pauper, an old maid of forty, with still a black, burning glint in her eyes and yet with a manner that was reminiscent of a nun—this singular, exotic beauty affected him, making him waver for a moment. He took her hand, stroked it and said, “Goodness, how strange you are!” But the next moment he quickly got up from his chair and dropped her hand.
“I hope you won’t mind if I take the chair with me right away,” he said.
And he picked up the chair.
She was obviously no longer