Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [58]
“‘Good night!’ she said again and left....”
Pause. Dagny had turned flaming red, her breast rose and fell, her nostrils quivered. “She left?” she asked quickly.
Pause.8
“Now my nightly adventure changes and becomes like a fairy tale, a rose-colored remembrance. Imagine a white, white night.... I was alone; the darkness around me was thick and heavy, like velvet. I was tired, my knees were shaking, and I felt rather dazed. What a scoundrel that madman was, to have led me around in circles in the wet grass for hours, led me like a dumb beast just by that look in his eyes and his ‘Come, come!’ The next time I would tear the lantern out of his hand and smash his chops with it! I was quite furious, lighted a cigar in my anger and went to bed. I lay there watching the light of my cigar for a while; then I hear the gate slam below, and all is quiet.
“Ten minutes went by. Keep in mind: I’m lying wide awake in bed smoking a cigar. All at once the vault is filled with a soughing noise, as though vents were opened all over the ceiling. Getting up on my elbow to put out my cigar, I stare about me in the darkness without discovering anything. I lie down again and listen; I seem to hear some sounds far away, a marvelous thousand-voiced music from somewhere outside me, from way up under the sky perhaps, thousand-voiced and soft. The music goes on and on, coming closer and closer until at last it surges above me, over the roof of the tower. Again I get up on my elbow. Then I experience something that even today intoxicates me with a mysterious, supernatural pleasure whenever I think of it: a stream of tiny little dazzling creatures suddenly descends upon me; they are perfectly white, angels, myriads of little angels streaming down from on high like an oblique wall of light. They fill the vault, there may be as many as a million; they float about the room in a wave-like motion, from floor to ceiling, and they sing, they sing, and they are perfectly naked and white. My heart stands still, there are angels everywhere, I listen and hear their song; they brush my eyelids and settle in my hair, and the entire vault is filled with the fragrance from their small open mouths.
“As I lie there leaning on my elbow, I hold out my hand to them, and some sit down on it; they look like a trembling seven-pointed star on my hand. But when I bend forward and look into their eyes, I see that their eyes are blind. I release the seven blind ones and catch seven others, and they too are blind. Alas, they were all blind—the whole tower was full of blind angels singing.
“Realizing this almost took my breath away, I couldn’t move; a sad lament glided through my soul for the sake of those blind eyes.
“A minute went by. Lying there listening, I hear a heavy, hollow stroke somewhere far away; the sound is so clear, it’s uncanny, followed by a long rumble: it was the town clock striking the hour again. It struck one o’clock.
“All at once the song of the angels ceased. I saw them get into formation and fly away, swarming up to the ceiling, pushing to be off. They were like an oblique wall of sheer light, and they all looked at me as they left. The last one turned to give me yet another look with his blind eyes before he disappeared.
“That is the last thing I remember, the one angel who turned to look at me, although he was blind. Then everything went dark. I fell back on the bed and slept....
“When I awoke it was broad daylight. I was still alone in the vault. My clothes were lying on the floor in front of me. I brushed them with my hand, they were still a little wet; but I put them on anyway. Then the door opens and the girl from the night before reappears.
“She comes straight up to me, and I say, ‘Where do you come from? Where were you last night?’
“‘Up there,’ she replies, pointing to the roof of the tower.
“‘Didn’t you sleep?’
“‘No, I didn’t sleep. I kept watch.’
“‘But didn’t you hear music last night?’ I asked. ‘I heard a music too wonderful for words.’
“‘Oh yes, that was me playing and singing,’ she replied.
“‘Was it you? Tell me,