Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [49]
Dagny interrupted him and said softly, “Tell me, rather, what you’ve been having such fun with over there in the corner all evening. When I said you had been silent, you know, I simply meant to give you a warning. You were obviously being malicious again. It’s really mean of you to mimic and make fun of everything and everybody. True, it’s pretty awful the way he shows off that iron ring on his little finger, the way he holds it up, looks at it and polishes it. But it may well be he’s doing it quite unwittingly. At any rate, he didn’t carry on as badly as you made out he did. Still, he’s stuck-up and cracked enough to deserve it. But you, Gudrun, went too far, to laugh like that. He must have noticed that you were laughing at him.”
Joining them, Gudrun defended herself; she claimed it was all Mr. Reinert’s fault, he’d been so funny, quite irresistible. Just the way he had said, “Gladstone’s greatness has never impressed me—me!”
“Sh-sh, you’re talking too loud again, Gudrun. He heard you, yes, he did, he turned around. But did you notice—when he was interrupted, he never lost his temper, did he? He just gave us all an almost sorrowful look. Oh dear, I’m beginning to feel sorry that we’re sitting here gossiping about him.15 So let’s hear your story about the Kaiser’s visit, Mr. Reinert.”
The deputy told the story. Since it was no secret but a quite harmless incident involving a woman and a bouquet of flowers, he spoke louder and louder, until at last everyone was listening. The story was long-winded and took several minutes. When he finished, Miss Andresen said, “Mr. Nagel, do you remember last night, that story you told us about the choir in the Mediterranean?”
Nagel quickly closed the album and looked out at the room with an almost frightened expression. Was he shamming, or was he sincere? Speaking softly, he replied that he might have been mistaken in a few details, but it wasn’t on purpose, and he hadn’t made up the story, it had really happened.
“Oh, please, I didn’t mean to suggest that you’d made it up,” she replied with a laugh. “But can you remember what you answered when I said it was so lovely? That only once before had you heard anything more beautiful, and that was in a dream.”
Oh yes, he remembered; he nodded.
“So, won’t you tell us that dream, too? Oh, please! You tell things so differently. We all beg you.”
But this time he refused. Offering many excuses, he said it was a mere trifle, a dream without beginning or end, a whiff of an idea during sleep. It couldn’t even be put into words; everyone knew those vague, fleeting sensations one could only feel like a flash, gone in an instant. Anyone could understand how stupid the whole thing was by the fact that the dream took place in a white silver wood—
“All right, a silver wood. And then?”
“No.” He shook his head.
He would gladly do anything in the world for her, oh yes, she was free to test him. But he couldn’t tell that dream, she must believe him.
“All right, then something else. We beg you, all of us.”
He wasn’t up to it, not tonight.16 Sorry.
Then a few indifferent words were spoken, a couple of childish questions and answers, sheer nonsense. Dagny said, “So, you would do anything in the world for Miss Andresen? What exactly would you do?”
They laughed at this whim, as did Dagny herself. After a moment’s hesitation Nagel said, “For you I could do something really bad.”
“Something bad for me, then. Let’s hear. A murder, for instance?”
“Oh yes. I could kill an Eskimo and skin him to make a letter case for you.”
“You see! How about Miss Andresen, what could you do for her? Something frightfully good?”
“Perhaps I could, I don’t know. By the way, the thing about the Eskimo I’ve got from somewhere else. Don’t imagine it’s my own idea.”
Pause.
“You’re all very kind, wonderful people,” he went on. “You always want me to put myself forward, do my bit of chatter ahead of everybody