Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [123]
He walked at the same slow pace, and when he got to the handkerchief he stepped on it and kept walking.
They went on like that for another few minutes; then he saw her suddenly look at her watch and turn abruptly. She was coming straight at him. Had she missed her handkerchief? He turned also and walked slowly ahead of her. When he again reached the handkerchief, he stepped on it anew, a second time and under her very eyes. And he continued walking. He felt she was right behind him, and yet he didn’t increase his pace. They kept this up until they reached town.
Sure enough, she turned off in the direction of the bazaar; he went up to his room.
He opened a window and leaned forward, his elbows on the sill, broken, crushed by emotion. His anger was gone; clinching up, he started sobbing, sobbing with his head in his hands, mutely, with dry eyes, his body shaking. How could this have happened? Oh, how he regretted it, how he wished it undone! She had tossed her handkerchief down, maybe on purpose, maybe to humiliate him, but so what? He could have picked it up, stolen it, and kept it in his bosom for the rest of his life. It was white as snow, and he had trampled it in the mud! Once he had gotten hold of it, perhaps she would have refused to take it back; perhaps she would have let him keep it! Heaven knows. But if she had held out her hand for it, he would have thrown himself at her feet and pleaded, imploring her with raised hands to let him keep it as a remembrance, out of pity. And what would it matter if she had mocked him once more?
Suddenly he starts up, negotiates the stairs in two jumps, rushes into the street, leaves the town behind him in a couple of minutes and finds himself back on Parsonage Road. Maybe he could still find the handkerchief! And sure enough, she had left it there, although he was certain she had seen him step on it the second time. How lucky he was, though, despite everything! Thank God for that! His heart throbbing, he puts it away, rushes back to the hotel and rinses it, changing the water countless times, and gently spreads it out. It was pretty badly messed up, one corner even torn by his heel, but what did that matter! Oh, how happy he was to have found it!
Not until he sat down by the window again did he discover that he had made this latest walk through town without his cap. Sure, he was mad, quite mad! Suppose she had noticed! She had wanted to test him, and when all was said and done he had again failed miserably. No, this would have to stop, the sooner the better! He must be able to look at her with a tranquil heart, his head held high and his eyes cold, without betraying himself. He would certainly make an effort. He would go away and take Martha with him. She was much too good for him, alas, but he would make himself worthy of her; never rest, never allow himself an hour’s rest, until he had made himself worthy of her.
The weather was getting milder and milder, gentle puffs of wind carried the fragrance of damp grass and earth in through his window and revived him more and more. Tomorrow he would go see Martha again and beg her most humbly to give in....
But already the following morning, his hopes were completely undone.
XVIII
FIRST, DR. STENERSEN CAME; Nagel hadn’t even risen yet. The doctor excused himself, that confounded bazaar kept him busy night and day. He did have an errand, though, a mission: it was a question of getting him—Nagel—to appear at the bazaar again this evening. His playing was rumored to have been simply wonderful, the town had been sleepless