Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [112]
“Heavens, yes! Naturally it is because the town is so small that you are watched so closely,” she said in a curt, sharp tone of voice, “that stands to reason. In a larger town you wouldn’t be the only man to attract people’s attention.”
This cold and very correct reply at first evoked downright admiration on his part. He was on the point of rewarding it with some compliment or other, but thought better of it. She was overly worked up and had too many things against him; besides, she might have gone too far in belittling him. That made him feel a bit hurt. What was he in her eyes, after all? A quite ordinary stranger in a little town, a man who was noticed simply because he was a stranger in town and wore a yellow suit. He said with some bitterness, “But aren’t they also saying that I once wrote a lewd verse on a tombstone, on Mina Meek’s tombstone? Didn’t anyone see it? It’s true, though, yes, it is. It’s also true that I went to the town pharmacy, this very town’s pharmacy, and ordered some medicines for a foul disease I’d written down on a slip of paper, but couldn’t get the medicines because I didn’t have a prescription. And while I remember, hasn’t Miniman told you that I tried to bribe him one day by offering him two hundred kroner to assume paternity for my child? That, too, is the simple truth, Miniman himself can testify to it. I’m sure I could add many more features, alas—”
“There’s no need, you have mentioned plenty,” she replied defiantly. And with her eyes turning cold and hard, she reminded him of the fake telegrams, the wealth he had telegraphically credited himself with, the violin case he was dragging about with him, though he didn’t have a violin or know how to play, of one thing after another, all his deceptions, even his lifesaving medal which, by his own admission, he hadn’t acquired in the most honorable way either. She remembered everything and didn’t spare him; at this moment every trifle took on significance for her, and she let him know that she now believed he had really perpetrated all those mean pranks she had previously thought were lies calculated to blacken himself with. He was an insolent, shady type, all right, no doubt about it! “And with all that,” she said, “you still try to catch me off guard and unnerve me, to inveigle me to some escapade. You have no sense of shame, no heart for anyone but yourself, you simply keep making me one declaration after another—”
At this moment she was interrupted by Dr. Stenersen, who was elbowing his way from the hall, looking very busy. He was taken up with the bazaar and didn’t spare himself.
“Good evening, Mr. Nagel!” he cried. “I remember with pleasure that night in your place. What a wild time we had of it—. Oh say, Miss Kielland, you’d better watch out, we shall be getting up the tableaux presently.”
With that the doctor disappeared again.
Another musical number started up, and a sense of excitement swept through the hall. Dagny leaned forward and peeked through the door, before she again turned to Nagel and said, “Here’s Martha coming back.”
Pause.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Oh yes,” he replied absentmindedly. Without looking up, he just continued to turn his full glass around and around without drinking, his bowed head nearly touching the table.
“Hush!” she said mockingly, “they’re playing again. When one listens to that kind of music one should preferably be at some distance from it, don’t you think, in an adjoining room holding the hand of one’s beloved—isn’t that what you said once? I believe it’s the very same Lanner waltz, and now that Martha is coming—”
But suddenly she seemed to regret her spitefulness; she broke off, a glint appeared in her eyes, and she nervously shifted on her chair. His head was still bent over, she could only see how quick and irregular his breathing was. Rising, she picked up her glass and was going to say something, a few last