Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [108]
“I can’t go anywhere,” she replied. “How do you imagine I can go there? And why should I, why do you want me to?”
He explained it all to her openly and honestly: the idea had come to him, he had been thinking about it for a long time; the thought had occurred to him already a couple of weeks ago, but it had slipped his mind until now. She should simply show up; she ought to be part of it, he wanted to see her there. If she wished, he wouldn’t even talk to her, so she wasn’t going to be bothered by him, that wasn’t the idea. It was just that he would be happy to see her with other people for once, to hear her laugh, see her be truly young. Please, she just had to do it!
He looked at her. How conspicuously white her hair was, and how dark her eyes! One hand was picking at the buttons of her bodice, and this hand, a slight hand with long fingers, was grayish in hue; it was probably not quite clean, but it made a curiously chaste impression. Running up from the wrists were two blue veins.
“Yes,” she said, “that might be amusing.” But she didn’t have anything to wear, not even a dress, for such an evening—
He interrupted her: there were still three working days to spare; she could get whatever she needed before Thursday. Oh sure, there was plenty of time! So was it an agreement?
Little by little she gave in.
After all, one mustn’t bury oneself completely, he said; that way one would only lose. And besides, with her eyes, her teeth, oh, what a pity! And those small bills on the table would be for her dress, oh yes, no more nonsense! The more so as it was his idea and it had required an effort on her part to humor him.
He said good night as usual, briefly, without giving her the slightest reason to feel uneasy. But when she saw him into the hallway, it was she who once again gave him her hand, thanking him for inviting her to the bazaar. Something like this hadn’t happened to her for many, many years, so she had lost the habit. She would behave nicely, though....
The big child, even promising to behave nicely, though he hadn’t asked her to!
XVI
THURSDAY CAME. It rained a little, but in the evening the bazaar still opened in style and before a crowded audience. The whole town had showed up, people even came from the countryside to participate in this rare entertainment.
When Johan Nagel entered the assembly hall around nine o’clock, there was a full house. He found a place way in the back, near the door, where he stood for a few minutes listening to a speech. Looking pale, he was wearing his yellow suit as always, but he had removed the bandage on his hand. The two wounds were almost healed.
Up front, near the platform, he saw Dr. and Mrs. Stenersen, and slightly to their right stood Miniman, with the other actors in the tableaux. But Dagny wasn’t there.
The heat from the lamps and the crush of people soon drove him out of the hall. At the door he met Mr. Reinert, the deputy, to whom he bowed, receiving barely a nod in return. He remained standing in the hallway.
Then he noticed something which occupied his thoughts and made him curious even a long time afterward: on his left, the door is open to a room where the visitors have left their wraps, and by the light of the lamp in there he clearly sees Dagny Kielland fingering his coat, which he had hung on a hook. He was not mistaken, no one else in town had a yellow spring coat like that; it was definitely his, apart from the fact that he remembered exactly where he had hung it. She was doing this and nothing else; she seemed to be looking for something, at the same time taking the opportunity to brush his coat with her hand again and again. He quickly turned around so as not to catch her unawares.
This little incident made him uneasy all at once. What was she looking for, and what business did she have with his coat? These questions constantly occupied his thoughts, he couldn’t put them out of his mind. Heaven knows, maybe she had wanted to find out if he had firearms in his pockets; maybe she thought him crazy enough