Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [43]
“Oh, but of course you must come!”
“Must I?” he said, looking at her.
She let that pass. They were still walking side by side.7
They had reached the Parsonage Road. Miss Kielland stopped, burst out laughing and said, “Who would ever believe it!” And she shook her head.8
She began to wait for the rest of the party, which had fallen behind. He wanted to ask her if he could walk her home; he was about to risk it, when she suddenly turned away from him and called to the teacher, “Come on, will you!” And she eagerly waved her hand to hurry him on.
VII
AT SIX O’CLOCK the following evening Nagel entered the doctor’s parlor. He thought he had arrived too early, but the party from the previous evening were already assembled. There were also a few other guests, a lawyer and a blond young student. At two tables they were already drinking cognac and club soda, at a third the ladies, Mr. Reinert, and the student were talking together. The teacher, a reticent man who seldom or never gave out a sound, was already quite drunk, and in the heat of the moment, his cheeks flushed, he was sounding off about one subject after another. There was Serbia, for example, where eighty percent of the population could neither read nor write, or did anybody maintain it wasn’t that bad? Well, he was just asking! And he looked about him with a grim expression on his face, though not a soul had contradicted him.
The hostess called Nagel and made room for him at the ladies’ table. What would he like to drink? They were just talking about Kristiania, she said. What a quaint idea of Nagel’s to come and settle down in a small town, when he was free to choose and could even be in Kristiania!
But Nagel didn’t find the idea the least bit quaint; after all, he had come to the country for a holiday. In any case, he wouldn’t want to be in Kristiania; Kristiania was one of the last places he would choose.
Really? Still, it was the capital. It was, after all, the meeting place for whatever the country had to offer of great and famous people, of art and theater, and everything under the sun.
“Yes; and what about all those foreigners who come flocking there!” Miss Andresen remarked. “Foreign actors, singers, musicians, artists of all kinds.”
Dagny Kielland just listened, without saying anything.
Well, that might be true enough, Nagel admitted; but somehow, for some reason he couldn’t explain, every time Kristiania was mentioned he saw a section of Grænsen Street before his eyes, and it smelled of clothes hung out to dry. It was really true, he didn’t invent it. What he envisioned was a snooty small town with a couple of churches, a couple of newspapers, a hotel and a town pump, but with the grandest people in the world. He had never seen people swagger as they did in Kristiania, and good grief, how many a time he had wished himself far away when he lived there!
Mr. Reinert couldn’t understand how it was possible to conceive such an antipathy—not toward an individual but toward a whole city, the country’s capital. In fact, Kristiania was not that small anymore, it was taking its place among other prominent cities. And the Grand Café was anything but a poor café.
At first Nagel made no protest apropos of the Grand. But a moment later he wrinkled his brows and remarked for all to hear, “The Grand is a unique café.”
“You don’t seem to mean that.”
“Oh yes.” The Grand was that notorious place1 in the city where everything great foregathered. There sat the world’s greatest painters, the world’s most promising young men, the world’s most fashionable ladies, the world’s most able editors, and the world’s greatest authors! “Heh-heh!” There they sat and puffed themselves up for each other2—each delighted to be appreciated by everyone else. “I’ve seen everyman sitting there rejoicing because other everymen were watching him.”
This answer provoked general indignation. Mr. Reinert leaned over to Miss Kielland’s chair and said quite loud, “Did you ever hear such conceited talk!”
Waking up, she cast