Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [110]
When Nagel was left alone with Martha, she too got up to go. She couldn’t sit there alone; she had already noticed Mr. Reinert remarking on it, making Miss Kielland laugh. No, she had better leave.
But Nagel persuaded her to have another nip anyway. Martha was dressed in black; her new dress fitted her nicely, but was not becoming, making the quaint-looking spinster look older and contrasting too sharply with her white hair. However, her eyes were smoldering, and when she laughed her ardent face came vividly alive.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked. “Do you feel happy this evening?”
“Yes, thank you!” she replied, “I feel great.”
He kept the conversation going without a break. In an attempt to humor her, he hit on the idea of telling her an anecdote, which made her laugh a lot, the story of how he had obtained one of his most precious cowbells. A treasure, a priceless antique! The name of a cow was engraved on it; the cow was called Øystein, of all things, so it must almost certainly have been a bull....
This set her laughing in no time. Forgetting herself and where she was, she shook her head and laughed like a child at this poor piece of drollery. She was positively radiant.
“Can you imagine,” he said, “I think Miniman was jealous.”
“No,” she replied hesitantly.
“I had that impression. For that matter, I do prefer to sit here alone with you. It’s such fun to hear you laugh.”
She didn’t reply, merely lowered her eyes.
They went on talking. He sat all along in such a way that he could keep an eye on Dagny’s table.
A few minutes went by. Miss Andresen came back for a moment, said a few words, took a sip from her glass and went off again.
Suddenly Dagny left her seat and came over to Nagel’s table. “You’re having a great time, aren’t you?” she said, a slight tremor in her voice. “Good evening, Martha! What are you both laughing about?”
“We’re amusing ourselves as best we can,” Nagel replied. “I chatter away and Miss Gude is much too easy on me; she has laughed a great many times.... May we offer you a glass?”
Dagny sat down.
An exceptionally loud roar of applause from the hall gave Martha a pretext to get up and see what was going on. She drew farther and farther away, until finally she called back, “It’s a magician, that I have to see!” And she went off.
Pause.
“You’ve abandoned your companions,” Nagel said. He would have said more, but suddenly Dagny interrupted him, “And yours has abandoned you.”
“Oh, she’s sure to come back. Doesn’t Miss Gude look wonderful? She’s happy as a child this evening.”
Dagny made no reply, but asked, “You’ve been away for a while, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
Pause.
“Do you really find it so enjoyable here this evening?”
“I? I don’t even know what’s going on,” he replied. “I didn’t exactly come here to enjoy myself.”
“Then what did you come here for?”
“To see you again, naturally. Well, only at a distance, of course, without a word—”
“I see. And that’s why you brought a partner, is it?”
That he failed to understand. He looked at her and considered a moment.
“Are you referring to Miss Gude? I don’t know how to answer you. I’ve heard so much about her; she sits at home year after year alone, she doesn’t have a single joy in her life. It wasn’t I who brought her here, I only wanted to entertain her a little so she wouldn’t be bored, that’s all. Miss Andresen got her to come over to this table. Good grief, how that woman has suffered! No wonder her hair has turned white....”
“But you don’t think, do you—you don’t imagine I’m jealous, do you? You’re mistaken! Oh, I remember what you told me about some madman who went for a drive with twenty-four carriages; the man was a s-stammerer, as you said, and he fell in love with a girl named Klara. Oh sure, I remember it well enough. And since Klara refused to have anything to do with the man, she couldn’t stand the idea of her hunchbacked sister