Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [66]
“I’m glad,” he said in a dry tone of voice, “that you have decided to let me have the chair. And now we’ll discuss the price. No, pardon me, wait a moment, let me finish: I don’t want you to give me a price, I always set the price myself. I appraise the article, offer so and so much for it, and that’s that! You might want to ask an exorbitant sum. You might try to overcharge me, why not? To this you may object that you can’t really look that greedy—fine, I readily acknowledge that; but still, I have to deal with all kinds of people and I like to set the price myself, then I know what I’m doing. It’s a question of principle with me. What could stop you, for instance, from asking three hundred kroner for that chair, if you had your way? You would be all the more likely to do so knowing, as you do, that we are, in fact, talking about a rare and precious piece of furniture. But I couldn’t possibly pay such a fabulous price; I say this straight out so that you won’t have any illusions on that score. After all, I have no wish to ruin myself, I would be crazy if I paid three hundred kroner for that chair. In short, I’ll give you two hundred kroner for it, not a penny more. I’ll pay what I find an article to be worth, but no more.”
She fixed him with a wide-eyed stare, without saying a word. Finally she decided he must be joking and gave another laugh—or rather a small bewildered smile.
Nagel calmly got the red bills out of his wallet and flashed them in front of her a few times. Meanwhile he didn’t let the chair out of his sight. “I won’t deny that you could possibly have gotten more from someone else,” he said, “I admit that in all honesty; you might have obtained a little more. But the fact is, I’ve come to think of two hundred, in round numbers, as a fair price for this article, and I don’t feel I can go any higher than that. You can do as you like, of course, but think it over first. Two hundred kroner is also money.”
“No,” she replied with her timid smile, “keep your money.”
“Keep my money! What do you mean? What’s wrong with this money, may I ask? Do you think it’s homemade? For you wouldn’t suspect me of having stolen it, would you, heh-heh-heh, what?”
She was no longer laughing. The man appeared to be in earnest, and she began to think it over. Did that lunatic wish to curry favor with her? Judging by his eyes, he was capable of anything. God knows if he wasn’t dreaming up something, if he wasn’t setting a trap. Why did he come to her, of all people, with his money? Finally she seemed to have arrived at a decision, and she said, “If you insist on giving me something for the chair, let me have a krone or two and I’ll be grateful to you. But I won’t take more.”
He appeared extremely surprised, went a step closer and looked at her. Then he burst out laughing. “But—have you considered—. In all the time I’ve been collecting, nothing like this has ever happened to me! Well, I can understand a joke—”
“It’s no joke. I never heard anything so absurd! That’s all I want, I don’t want anything. Take the chair if you like!”
Nagel laughed at the top of his voice.
“Again, I can understand and appreciate a joke; in fact, it tickles me, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t! I always laugh myself silly over a good joke. But how about coming to an understanding, eh? What if we simply settle the matter right now, before we lose our good humor again? In a minute you may put the chair back in the corner and ask five hundred for it.”
“Take the chair. I—. What are you thinking of?”
They stood there staring at each other.
“If you believe I’m thinking of something other than getting the chair at a reasonable price, you’re mistaken,” he said.7
“But for heaven’s sake, take it—take it!” Martha cried.
“I ought, of course, to be much obliged to you for your great courtesy.8 But we collectors, too, have a scrap of honor, paltry as it may be many a time, and that sense of honor holds me back, gets up on its hind legs, so to speak, if I try to obtain a precious article by fraud. My whole collection would fall in