Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [70]
“What did you apologize for?”
“In case I might have said something that made them jump at me.5 I shook hands with them and apologized, so they would do me as little harm as possible. But it was no use, they stripped me completely. Also, the doctor found a letter in my pocket and began reading it to the others. Then I sobered up a bit, for the letter was from my mother, who used to write to me when I went to sea. In plain words, I called the doctor a sponge. Everyone knew he was a heavy drinker. ‘You’re a sponge!’ I said. That made him terribly angry, and he tried to grab me by the scruff of the neck, but the others stopped him. ‘Let’s make him drunk instead!’ said the justice of the peace, as if I wasn’t sufficiently drunk already. And they poured still some more into me from several bottles. Afterward two of the men—I can’t remember who they were anymore—but, anyway, they came in with a tub of water. They put the tub in the middle of the room and said I was to be baptized. In fact, they all wanted me to be baptized and greeted this caprice with a tremendous hullabaloo. Then they had the idea of mixing all sorts of things into the water to make it dirty, spitting into it and pouring in liquor, even going to the bedroom for the worst thing they could find and dumping it into the water. And on top of it all they scattered two shovelfuls of ashes from the stove, to make it still more muddy for me. Then everything was ready for the baptism. ‘Why can’t you just as well baptize one of the others?’ I asked the justice of the peace, embracing his knees. ‘We’ve been baptized already,’ he replied, ‘baptized in the very same way,’ he said. And I believed him, because that was always what he wanted of those he associated with, that they should be baptized. The next moment the justice of the peace said to me, ‘And now I shall let you come before my countenance!’ But I refused to go willingly; I stood pat, hanging on to the doorknob. ‘Come now, right this min—stir your stumps, mini man!’ he said. He was from upcountry and spoke like that. But no, I refused to budge. Then Captain Prante yelled, ‘Miniman, Miniman, that’s it! He shall be baptized Miniman, yes, Miniman!’ And everyone agreed to have me baptized Miniman, because I was so small. And now two of the men dragged me over to the justice of the peace and brought me before his countenance, and since I was so puny the justice of the peace ducked me under in the tub all by himself. He ducked my head all the way under and rubbed my nose against the bottom of the tub, which was covered with ashes and shards of glass; and then he pulled me out again and recited a prayer over me. Afterward the godparents were to do their thing, and that consisted of each of them lifting me high up from the floor and dropping me, and when they were tired of that they lined up in two teams and tossed me from one team to the other like a ball; this was done so I would dry again, and they kept it up until they were good and tired of it. Then the justice of the peace shouted, ‘Stop!’ And so they let me go and called me Miniman, every one of them, shook hands with me and called me Miniman to seal my baptism. But then I was again thrown into the tub, this time by Dr. Kolbye, who used such force that I fell with my whole weight and injured my side, because he couldn’t forget that I had called him a sponge.... My nickname has stuck to me ever since. The next day the whole town knew I’d been at the house of the justice of the peace and been baptized.”
“And your side was injured. But there was no damage to your head, was there, I mean inside?”
Pause.
“This is the second time you’ve asked me if there has been some damage to my head, so perhaps you mean something by it. But I didn’t hurt my head that time, there was no concussion, if that’s what you’re afraid of. But I bumped so hard against the tub that I broke a rib. It’s all healed again now, though; Dr.