Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [55]
Far from throwing up the game, he thought for a moment and replied, “But I do calculate it, oh yes, I calculate that too, as you’ll come to realize. When I confess, as I’m doing right now, I really don’t risk anything by it, not much anyway. You see, in the first place I can’t be sure that the person I confess to will believe me. You, for one, don’t believe me at this moment. And what’s the consequence? Well, the consequence is that I make a double profit; I profit enormously, my prize grows like an avalanche, my greatness becomes mountain-high. Yes. But in the second place, I would come away from the speculation with profit in any case, even if you believed me. You’re shaking your head? Oh, please, don’t; I’ve acted on this assumption often enough, I assure you, and I’ve always gained by it. If you really believed that my confession was truthful, you would at least be quite struck by my candor. You would say, Well, he has fooled me, but he tells me so afterward, and without any need to; his impudence is mysterious, he shuns absolutely nothing, he positively bars my way with his admissions! In short, I force you to stare hard at me, I excite your curiosity to occupy itself with me, I make you bridle. No more than a minute ago you said yourself, ‘I just don’t understand you!’ Now, you said this because you had tried to puzzle me out—which again tickles me, feels directly sweet to me, in fact. So, at all events I bring my profit home whether you believe me or not.”
Pause.
“And you want me to believe,” she said, “that you’ve planned all this trickery in advance? That you’ve met every contingency, taken all precautions? Ha-ha-ha! Nothing you say can ever surprise me again, from now on I’ll be prepared for anything. Well, enough of that, you could’ve come off far worse as a liar, you’re quite clever.”
He stuck stubbornly to his point, remarking that after this decision on her part his high-mindedness must seem like a mountain. And he wanted to thank her so much, heh-heh-heh; he had achieved everything he had intended. But it was much too kind of her, much too good-natured—
“All right,” she broke in, “that will do.”
But now it was he who came to a stop. “I tell you once again that I’ve fooled you!” he said, fixing his eyes on her.
They looked at each other for a moment; her heart began to beat faster and she turned rather pale. Why, she wondered, was it so important for him to make her believe the worst about himself? Glad and willing as he otherwise was to give way, in this respect he couldn’t be made to budge. What a fixed idea, what foolishness! Exasperated, she exclaimed, “I cannot figure out why you’re turning yourself inside out for me. After all, you promised to be good.”
Her anger was, indeed, genuine. Her brain was starting to reel from his obstinacy, which was so cocksure, so unshakable that it made her waver. She felt insulted to have become muddled like this. In her agitation she was tapping her hand with the parasol as she walked.
He was very miserable6 and made many helpless, droll remarks about it. At last she had to laugh again, giving him to understand that she didn’t take him seriously. He was simply impossible, would always remain impossible, and wanted to be impossible. Well, he could just please himself, if he thought it was such fun. But not another word about this fixed idea of his, not a word....
Pause.
“This is where we first met,” he said. “Do you remember? I’ll never forget how elflike you looked as you fled. Like a wood nymph, a vision—. But now I’m going to tell you about an