Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [120]
Then she started talking: “I’ll lie awake all night thinking. Maybe we’ll meet tomorrow? If you’d like to?”
“Sure, tomorrow. Yes, I’d like to! What time? May I come at eight?”
“Yes—. Would you like me to wear the same dress again?”
This touching question, her quivering lips, those two wide-open eyes looking up at him—it all moved him, going straight to his heart. “My dear sweet child,” he replied, “you decide! How good you are! ... But you mustn’t lie awake tonight, you mustn’t! Think about me, say good night and go to sleep. You aren’t scared to be here alone, are you?”
“No! ... You’ll get wet walking home.”
She even thought of that, his getting wet!
“Stay happy and sleep well!” he said.
But no sooner had he stepped into the hallway than he remembered something, and turning to her, he said, “I forgot to tell you something: I’m not a rich man. Perhaps you thought I was rich?”
“I know nothing about that,” she replied, shaking her head.
“No, I’m not rich. But we can buy ourselves a home and what more we’ll need, I’m rich enough for that. And later, as time goes by, I’ll take care of everything, bear every burden, that’s what I’ve got my two hands for.... You aren’t disappointed that I’m not rich, are you?”
“No,” she said, taking his hands, which she pressed once more. At the last minute he told her to close the door securely behind him and stepped into the street.
It was pouring, and very dark.
He didn’t go back to the hotel, but headed for the Parsonage Woods. He walked for a quarter of an hour; the darkness was so dense that he could barely see anything. Finally he slackened his pace, walked off the road and found his way to a large tree. It was an aspen. There he stopped.
The wind soughs through the forest and it’s still pouring, but otherwise there’s dead silence all around. He whispers a few words to himself, a name, says “Dagny, Dagny,” falls silent and says it again. He stands bolt upright by the tree as he says this. A moment later he speaks louder, saying “Dagny” in a clear voice. She insulted him last evening, venting all her contempt on his head; he still feels every word she spat out in his heart, and yet here he stands talking about her. He kneels down by the tree, takes out his pocketknife and carves her name in the trunk in the darkness. He works at this for several minutes, feeling his way, carving and again feeling his way, until it’s done....
He had been without his cap the whole time he was busy with this.
When he got back to the road he stopped, hesitated for a moment, and then turned around. He gropes his way back to the tree, runs his fingers over the trunk and finds the letters. Then he kneels down a second time, leans forward and kisses this name, these letters, as though he would never see them again, stands up at last and quickly walks off.
It was five o’clock when he reached the hotel.
XVII
THE FOLLOWING DAY the same rain, the same dark, heavy weather. With all that water steadily gushing through the downspouts and beating against the windowpanes, it looked as though it would never cease. Hour after hour went by, the entire forenoon went by, and the sky grew no clearer. In the small garden behind the hotel everything was bent and broken; the leaves were pressed into the ground, buried in mud and water.
Nagel stayed indoors all day; he read, pacing the floor in his usual way, while continually looking at his watch. It was an endless day! He waited with the utmost impatience for evening.
On the stroke of eight he set out for Martha’s place. He was quite unsuspecting, but she received him with a suffering air, red-eyed with weeping. When he spoke to her, she answered curtly and evasively, without even looking at him. She repeatedly asked him to forgive her and not to feel let down.
When he took her hand she began to tremble and tried to pull back, though in the end she sat down on a chair next to him. There she remained until he left an hour or so later. What had happened? He plied her with questions, asking