Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [75]
not? But I won’t dwell on that. There is, however, something else. How was it now—did you acknowledge that you were a good judge of people or not? If you were, you see, you would also be able to judge the truth of what I’m going to say: I cannot possibly mean that Miss Kielland is, indeed, a flirt. I don’t mean that seriously. On the contrary, she’s extremely natural—what do you think, for instance, of her unrestrained laughter, seeing that her teeth aren’t even perfectly white! And yet I can do my best to spread the perception that Miss Kielland is a flirt, that doesn’t bother me. And I don’t do it to harm her or take revenge on her, but to keep myself afloat; I do it out of self-love, because she is unattainable for me, because she mocks all my efforts to make her love me, because she is engaged and already bound—she’s lost, quite lost to me. Now, with your permission, this is another aberration of the human soul. I could walk up to her in the street and tell her in dead earnest in front of several people, ostensibly just to express my disdain and do her harm—I could look at her and say, How do you do, miss! May I congratulate you on your clean shift! Can you believe it! But, yes, I could say that. What I then would do—whether I would run home and sob into my handkerchief or take one or two drops from the little bottle I carry in my vest pocket—that I’ll pass over. In the same vein, I could walk into the church one Sunday while her father, Pastor Kielland, was preaching the word of God, stroll up the aisle, stop in front of Miss Kielland and say out loud, Will you permit me to feel your puff? Well, what do you think? By ‘puff’ I wouldn’t have anything particular in mind, it would just be a word to make her blush. Please, let me feel your puff, I would say. And afterward I might throw myself at her feet and implore her to make me blissfully happy by spitting on me.... Now you’re getting scared in earnest; well, I must admit I’m indulging in rather blasphemous talk, the more so as I’m talking about a parson’s daughter to a parson’s son. Forgive me, my friend, it’s not out of malice, not out of sheer malice, but because I’m drunk as a coot.... Listen, I once knew a young man who stole a gas lamp, sold it to a junk dealer and blew the money going on a spree. It’s true, by Jove! In fact, he was an acquaintance of mine, a relation of the late Pastor Hærem. But what does this have to do with my relationship to Miss Kielland? Again, you’re quite right! You don’t say anything, but I can see your tongue is itching to say it, and it’s a quite correct remark. But as far as Miss Kielland is concerned, she’s altogether lost to me, and I don’t regret it for her sake, but for mine. You, standing there cold sober and seeing through people, will also understand if, some day, I simply started a rumor in town that Miss Kielland had sat on my knee, that I’d met her three nights in a row at a certain place in the woods, and that later she had accepted gifts from me. You would understand, wouldn’t you? Sure, because you are a damn good judge of people, my friend, you are indeed, it’s no use quibbling.... Has it ever happened to you to be walking along the street some day, lost in your own innocent thoughts, and before you know it having everybody stare at you, looking you up and down? It is a most embarrassing situation to find yourself in. Ashamed, you brush yourself front and back, you steal a glance down at your clothes to see if your fly happens to be open, and you are so full of misgivings that you even take off your hat to check if the price tag might still be on it, though the hat is old. It’s to no avail; you find nothing wrong with your clothes, and you must patiently put up with having every tailor’s apprentice and every lieutenant stare at you as much as they like.... But if that would be an infernal torment, what, my good friend, do you say to being summoned to a hearing? ... Now you gave a start again. You didn’t? My word, it definitely looked as if you gave a little start.... Well, then, to be summoned to a hearing, to be confronted