Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [80]
Pause.
“I must say you’re always extremely candid with me,” she remarked, without answering his question. “I have no idea what it’s supposed to be for. Your views are rather unusual; a moment ago you would have me suppose that, in reality, everything is just humbug, nothing is noble, pure, great. Is that what you think? Does it make no difference whether one buys oneself a medal for so and so many kroner, or one earns it by some exploit?”
He didn’t answer. She continued, slowly and earnestly, “I cannot figure you out. Sometimes when I hear you talk I ask myself if you can be quite sane. Forgive my saying so! You make me a little more uneasy every time we meet, a little more shaken still; you confuse my ideas about everything, no matter what you talk about, turning things topsy-turvy for me. How can this be? I’ve never met anyone who contradicts all my innermost feelings as you do. Tell me, how much of what you say do you really mean? What is your deepest conviction?”
She had asked her question in such earnest, so warmly, that he was taken aback by it.
“If I had a god,” he then said, “a god I regarded as truly high and holy, I would swear by that god that I sincerely mean everything I’ve said to you, absolutely everything, and that I have the best intentions even when I confuse you. You said the last time we talked that I represented a contradiction to the views of everyone else.4 Well, that’s true; I admit I am a living contradiction, and I don’t myself understand why. I simply cannot grasp why everyone else doesn’t share my view of things. That’s how plain and transparent all problems seem to me, and that’s how luminously clear my vision of the underlying truth behind them is. This is my deepest conviction, Miss Kielland. If only I could make you believe me, now and always.”
“Now and always—no, that I will not promise.”
“It’s so infinitely important to me,” he said.
By now they had entered the forest. They were walking so close to each other that their sleeves often touched, and the air was so calm that they could speak quite softly and still be heard. Now and then a bird twittered.
Suddenly he stopped short, making her stop as well.
“How I’ve longed for you these last few days!” he said. “No, no, don’t get frightened. What I’m going to say is next to nothing, and it won’t gain me anything; I’m under no illusion, none at all, as far as that goes. Besides, maybe you won’t even understand me, with that awkward beginning and my slips of the tongue, saying what I didn’t mean to say....”
When he fell silent she said, “How strange you are today!”
With that she wanted to move on.
But again he stopped her. “Dear Miss Kielland, wait a moment! You must bear with me today! I’m afraid to talk, I fear you may interrupt me and say, ‘Go away!’ And yet I have thought this over during many wakeful hours.”
Looking at him with growing surprise, she asked, “Where is this taking us?”
“Where it’s taking us? Will you let me tell you in plain words? It takes us to where—to where I love you, Miss Kielland. Well, I really don’t see why you should be so astonished; I’m made of flesh and blood, I met you and fell in love with you. That’s not so very strange, is it? It’s quite another matter that perhaps I shouldn’t have confessed it to you.”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“It goes to show how far one can be driven. I have even slandered you, out of love for you. I’ve called you a flirt and tried to drag you down, just to console myself and make up for my loss, because I knew you were unattainable. This is the fifth time we’ve met; I did, after all, wait until the fifth time before giving myself away, though I could’ve done