Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [44]
Nagel’s composure remained unruffled. Hearing this loud voice half addressed to himself, he turned to look at her with a pensive air, as if trying to remember how he might have offended her. He rested his eyes on her for more than a minute, blinking his eyes and considering, his face meanwhile showing a sorrowful expression.
By now the teacher had also heard what it was all about and protested the view that Kristiania was smaller than, for example, Belgrade.3 On the whole, Kristiania was no smaller than any other capital of a reasonable size....
This made everyone laugh; with his burning cheeks and unshakable conviction, the teacher looked too absurd. Mr. Hansen, the lawyer, a fat little man with a bald pate wearing gold-rimmed glasses, couldn’t stop laughing at him, slapping his knees and laughing.
“A reasonable size, a reasonable size,” he shouted. “Kristiania is no smaller than any other capital of the same size, of exactly the same size. Not much smaller. Oh, dear me! Skoal!”4
Nagel resumed his conversation with Øien, the student. Well, when he was younger he too—Nagel—had had a passion for music, especially Wagner. But with the years his interest had faded. Anyway, he had never got beyond learning the notes and striking a few chords.
“On the piano?” the student asked. The piano was his line.
“Ugh, no! On the violin. But as I said, I didn’t get anywhere and soon gave it up.”
By chance his eyes brushed Miss Andresen, who had been chatting with Mr. Reinert in a corner by the stove for at least a quarter of an hour. Her eyes met Nagel’s, though only fleetingly and inadvertently; still, it made her fidget on her chair and stop dead in what she was going to say.
Dagny was tapping her hand with a folded newspaper.5 There were no rings on her long white fingers. Nagel scrutinized her on the sly. Good God, how lovely she was tonight! In this light, against the background of the dark wall, her thick blond braid looked even more blond. When she was sitting down, her figure had a touch of buxomness, which disappeared when she stood up. She had a light, swinging walk, as if she used to skate a lot.6
Nagel got up and walked over to her.7
She had allowed her deep-blue eyes to rest on him for a moment, and he exclaimed at once, without thinking, “Good Lord, how beautiful you are!”
She was completely bewildered by such directness; she was all agape and didn’t know where to turn. Then she whispered, “Please, be reasonable!”
Shortly afterward she rose and walked over to the piano, where she began to leaf through some music, her cheeks flaming red.
The doctor, who was itching to talk politics, suddenly asked the gathering, “Have you read today’s papers? Look at Morgenbladet —it’s a damn shame what they print these days! It’s not fit reading for educated people anymore, just vulgar talk and abusive language from beginning to end.”
But since he wasn’t contradicted, the doctor couldn’t get anywhere. Being aware of that, Hansen, the lawyer, remarked, slyly and genially, “Shouldn’t we say there are faults on both sides?”8
“Oh, but really!” the doctor cried, jumping up. “You aren’t saying, are you, that—”
The table was set. The company entered the dining room, while the doctor went on jabbering. The conversation continued at the table. Nagel, who had been seated between the hostess and Miss Olsen, the young daughter of the chief of police, didn’t take part in it. By the time they broke up from the table, they were already deep into European politics. They had expressed their opinions of the Czar,