Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [27]
I know of a poor woman here, she has looked at me so sheepishly, as if she wanted to ask for something but hasn’t yet dared to. I’m quite obsessed by her eyes, although her hair is white; I’ve gone out of my way four times to avoid meeting her. She’s not old, it’s not from age that she’s white; her eyelashes are still startlingly black, fearfully so, giving her eyes a smoldering look. She almost always carries a basket under her apron, which is probably what makes her feel so sheepish. When I turn around once she has passed me, I notice that she walks to the market, takes a few eggs out of her basket and sells those two or three eggs to the first comer, whereupon she returns home the way she came, the basket under her apron. She lives in a tiny little house by the quayside; it’s a one-story house and unpainted. I once saw her through the window—there are no curtains, only a few white flowers to be seen on the windowsill; she was standing far back in the room staring at me as I walked by. God only knows what sort of woman she is; but her hands are quite small. I could always give you a handout, my white maiden, but I would rather give you some assistance.
Incidentally, I know very well why I’m so obsessed by your eyes, I knew that right away. Strange how a youthful infatuation can linger for so long and crop up again every once in a while. But her lovely face is not yours, and you’re much older than she, alas. And yet she married a telegraph operator and moved to Kabelvag! Well, there is no accounting for tastes; I couldn’t expect to have her love, nor did I get it. There’s nothing to be done about that—. Listen, the clock is striking half-past ten—. There certainly isn’t, there’s nothing to be done about that. But if you only knew how dearly I have remembered you these ten or twelve years, not forgetting you for a moment—. Heh-heh, but that is really my own fault, she can’t help that. While other people remember someone for a year and that’s that, I go on remembering for ten.
I’ll give that white-haired egg-wife an assistance, well, both a handout and an assistance, for the sake of her eyes. I’ve got worlds of money to take from, sixty-two thousand kroner for a landed property, cash in hand at that. Ho-ho, I need only glance at the table to find three telegraphic documents of the greatest value before my eyes—. Ah, some joke that was, what a trick! One is an agronomist and a capitalist, one doesn’t sell just like that, at the first offer, one sleeps on it and thinks it over. That’s what one does, one thinks it over. And meanwhile not a soul is surprised, although one purposely made the joke as crude and the trick as thick as at all possible.6 Man, your name is jackass! One can lead you by the nose wherever one likes.7
Over there, for instance, sticking out of my vest pocket, is the neck of a small bottle. It’s medicine, Prussic acid, that I’m keeping as a curiosity, not having the courage to use it. Why, then, do I carry it around with me, and why did I provide myself with it? Humbug again, nothing but humbug, the modern humbug of decadence, quest for publicity, and snobbery. Pfui—. As pure and fine as porcelain, she is my proper medicine—.
Or take an innocent thing such as my lifesaving medal. I earned it honestly, as they say; one dabbles in all sorts of things, one saves people’s lives. But whether I really deserve any credit for it, God only knows. Judge for yourselves, gentlemen and ladies: A young man stands at the ship’s rail, he’s crying, his shoulders are shaking; when I speak to him he gives me a distracted look and scurries down to the saloon. I pursue him—the man has already turned in. I examine the passenger list, find the man’s name and note that he’s going to Hamburg. That’s the first evening. From now on I keep a constant eye on him, taking him by surprise in unexpected places and looking him squarely in the face. Why am I doing it?