Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [104]
The money was still lying on the table.
“By the way,” he said, “let me ask you something. Don’t you think you had better keep this transaction to yourself, as far as possible? After all, there’s no reason why the whole town should know about it, is there?”
“No,” she said thoughtfully.
“If I were you, I would put the money away at once. First of all, though, I would hang something before the window. Take that skirt over there!”
“Won’t it be very dark?” she said. Still, she took the skirt and hung it up, with some help from him.
“Come to think, we ought to have done this at the outset,” he said. “It might get sticky if someone saw me in here.”
To this she made no reply. She picked up the money from the table, gave him her hand and moved her lips, but without being able to utter a word.
As he still stands there holding her hand, he blurts out, “Look, may I ask you something: Isn’t it rather difficult for you to get by, I mean without help, without relief? ... Or maybe you’re getting some relief?”
“Yes.”
“Please forgive my asking. It just occurred to me that if they get wind of the fact that you have some money, they will not only stop your relief payments, but your money will be confiscated, simply confiscated. That’s why it’s important to keep our transaction a secret from everybody; do you understand? I’m just advising you as a practical man. Don’t tell a living soul about this bit of business we’ve had together.... Anyway, it just dawned on me that I ought to give you smaller bills, so you won’t have to change them.”
He thinks of everything, every contingency. He sits down again and counts out some small bills. Not bothering to count carefully, he gives her all the small bills he has, picking them at random and rolling them into a wad.
“There!” he says. “Now, put them away!”
She turns around, unhooks her bodice and puts the money in her bosom.
But once she has done this, he still doesn’t get up but keeps sitting there. “What I was going to say—do you happen to know Miniman?” he asks sort of casually.
He noticed that her face turned red.
“I’ve met him a few times,” Nagel continues. “I’m very fond of him, he seems to be as good as gold. Just now I’ve charged him with getting me a violin, and he will, don’t you think? But perhaps you don’t know him?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Yes, come to think, he did tell me he had bought some flowers from you for a funeral, for Karlsen’s funeral. Say, you know him rather well then, perhaps? What do you think of him? Don’t you trust him, at least, to carry out that assignment in a satisfactory manner? When one has to deal with as many people as I do, one must make inquiries now and then. I once lost quite a bit of money just because I trusted a man blindly, without making inquiries about him; that was in Hamburg.”
And for some reason or other Nagel tells the story of the man who had caused him to lose money. Martha still stands in front of him, leaning against the table; she’s restless and says at last, quite vehemently, “Oh, don’t talk about him!”
“About whom am I not to talk?”
“About Johannes, Miniman.”
“Is Miniman’s name Johannes?”
“Yes, Johannes.”
“Really, his name is Johannes?”
“Yes.”
Nagel falls silent. This simple piece of information that Miniman’s name is Johannes gives his thoughts a real jolt, even changing his facial expression momentarily. For a while he sits there quite speechless, before asking, “And why do you call him Johannes? Not Grøgaard or Miniman?”
She replies shyly, lowering her eyes, “We’ve known each other since childhood....”
Pause.
Then Nagel says, half facetiously and with the utmost nonchalance, “Do you know what impression I have? That Miniman must be very much in love with you. Yes, it’s true, that’s how it strikes me. And I’m not greatly surprised, though I have to admit it’s rather bold of him. Don’t you agree? In the first place, he’s no youth anymore,