Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [144]
Good heavens, was he ill?
No, no, he wasn’t ill.
Well, then he mustn’t go away.
Mrs. Stenersen pulled him by the arm. Dagny even got up and offered him her chair. He looked at her, their eyes met. She had even got up for him, saying in a low voice, “Please, take this chair!”
But he found a place next to the doctor and sat down.
This reception made him feel rather dazed. Not only did Dagny have a soft look in her eyes, she had actually offered him her chair. His heart went pitapat; perhaps he could give her Martha’s letter regardless.
After a short while his composure returned. The conversation was refreshingly lively, moving from one topic to another; once again his keen joy took possession of him, making his voice tremble. He was alive, after all, not dead, nor was he going to die. Sitting in this green leafy garden, at a table with a white tablecloth and bright silverware, in the company of happy, laughing, bright-eyed people, what reason did he have to feel uneasy?
“To oblige us, why don’t you get your violin and play a little for us?” Mrs. Stenersen says.
How did she ever get that idea!
When the others also asked him to, he laughed aloud and said, “I don’t even have a violin!”
But they would send for the violin of the organist, it would be there in a minute.
It was no use, he wouldn’t touch it. Moreover, the organist’s violin had been ruined by those tiny inlaid rubies on the fingerboard, which made it sound glassy; they should never have been put there, it was unbearable. Besides, he couldn’t wield the bow anymore—well, for that matter, he had never been able to; who would know that better than himself? ... And now he related what had happened to him the first and only time his playing had received public mention; it almost seemed symbolic. He’d got the paper in the evening and feasted on it in bed; he was very young at the time and living at home, and it was a local paper that had reviewed him. Oh, how happy that paper had made him! He read the review several times and fell asleep without snuffing out the candles. When he awoke during the night he was still dead tired; the candles had burned out and it was dark in the room. But he glimpsed something white on the floor, and since he knew there was a white spittoon in his room, he thought: That must be the spittoon, I imagine! He was ashamed to say it, but he gave a spit, and he heard that it hit the target. And since his aim was so excellent the first time, he spat again and made another hit. Then he went back to sleep. But in the morning he saw that,what he’d spat on was that precious newspaper, that it was the very favorable public opinion of him he’d spat on. Heh-heh, it was quite tragic!
They all laughed at this, and their spirits were rising by the minute. Mrs. Stenersen, however, said, “You do look a little paler than usual.”
“Ah,” Nagel replied, “that doesn’t mean anything, there’s nothing wrong with me.” And he laughed aloud at the idea that there should be something the matter with him.
Suddenly his cheeks flush, he rises from his seat and says there is something wrong with him all the same. He couldn’t understand it, but it was as though something unexpected was going to happen to him, and he was rather anxious. Heh-heh, who would believe it! It was quite absurd and didn’t mean anything—or did it? Something had happened to him, though.
They asked him to tell them what it was.
No, why? It was without importance, it was foolish, so why should he take up their time with it? Besides, they might find it boring.
No, they wouldn’t find it boring at all.
But it was such a long story. It began as far away as San Francisco and dated from a time when he’d smoked opium—
“Opium ? Good God, how interesting!”
“No, Mrs. Stenersen, if anything it’s rather embarrassing, since I’m right now walking around in broad daylight feeling anxious about something. You mustn’t think that smoking opium is an everyday thing with me; I’ve smoked only twice, and the second time is of no interest. But the first time