Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [152]
Having gotten to his knees, he rocked his head painfully back and forth. Listen, there was a call from the sea! It would soon be twelve o’clock and the ring had not been found. Some creature was after him, he could hear the sound of it, a scaly beast with a slack belly dragging itself along the ground, leaving a wet trail, a horrible hieroglyph with arms jutting out from its head and a yellow claw on its nose. Away, away! There was another call from the sea and, screaming, he put his hands over his ears so as not to hear it.
Again he jumps up. All hope was not lost, he could procure the remedy of last resort, a safe six-shooter, the best thing in the world! And he cries for gratitude, running as best he can-he cries for gratitude because of this fresh hope. Suddenly he remembers it’s night, he can’t get hold of a six-shooter, all the stores are closed. At that moment he gives up, pitches forward and bumps his head against the ground without a sound.
Just then the hotel keeper and a few other people finally came out of the hotel to see what had become of him....
He woke up and stared about him-he had dreamed the whole thing. Yes, he had slept, despite everything. Thank God, it was all a dream; he hadn’t left his bed.
He lies for a moment thinking things over. He looks at his hand, but the ring is gone; he looks at his watch, it’s midnight, twelve o‘clock, only a few minutes short. Perhaps he could be let off, perhaps he was saved, after all! But his heart is hammering, and he is shaking. Perhaps-perhaps twelve o’clock might come without anything happening? He takes the watch in his hand and his hand is shaking; he counts the minutes—the seconds-
Then the watch falls on the floor and he jumps out of bed. “Someone is calling!” he whispers, looking out of the window, his eyes popping. He quickly puts on some clothes, opens the doors and runs out into the street. He looks about him, no one is watching. Then he starts racing toward the harbor, the white back of his vest shining all the while. He reaches the docks, follows the road to the outermost jetty and jumps straight into the sea.
A few bubbles rise to the surface.
XXIII
LATE ONE NIGHT in April this year, Dagny and Martha were walking through town together; they had been to a party and were on their way home. It was dark, and the streets were iced over here and there, so they walked quite slowly.
“I’ve been thinking of all the things that were said about Nagel this evening,” Dagny said. “Much of it was new to me.”
“I didn’t hear it,” Martha replied, “I went out.”
“But there was one thing they didn’t know,” Dagny continued. “Nagel told me last summer that Miniman would come to a bad end. I can’t figure out how he’d seen it already then. He said it long, long before you told me what Miniman had done to you.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
They had turned onto Parsonage Road. The forest stood dark and still around them, the only sounds to be heard were their footfalls on the frozen road.
After a long silence Dagny said again, “This is where he always used to walk.”
“Who?” Martha replied. “It’s slippery, won’t you take my arm?”
“Sure; but I’d rather you take mine.”
And they walked on in silence, arm in arm, holding tightly on to each other.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
PAGE
3 Napoleon III (1808-73), French emperor 1852-70.
8 “May your steel be as sharp as your final no”: in the first edition of Mysteries, this quotation is attributed to Victor Hugo (see textual note 8, chapter 4). Guy Rosa, who submitted the alleged quotation to the Hugo Seminar of the University of Paris VII, which he chairs, reports that the closest approximation is in a speech by Thisbe to Rodolfo in Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, Day Three, Part Three, Scene 3. To Thisbe’s question whether he ever loved her, Rodolfo answers, “Never!” to which she replies: “Ah, that word kills me, you wretch! Your dagger has only to finish me off.” Theatre complet, II (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 67.
19 The person here referred to is Pastor