Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [84]
“No—. How could you dream of coming here? What is it that—”
“The same to you, the same to you, namely, How could you dream of sneaking off to a place like this? But I found you anyway! ... So you are an agronomist here, eh? Ha-ha-ha, I met some people on the dock who said you were an agronomist and that you had helped out a certain Mrs. Stenersen with her garden. You had taken care of some currant bushes, working in your shirtsleeves two days in a row. What an idea! ... My hands are ice-cold; well, they always are when I’m upset, and right now I’m upset. You don’t have much compassion for me, do you, though I call you Simonsen as in the old days and am cheerful and happy? This morning, while I was still lying in my berth, I thought to myself, How will he receive me, I wonder; won’t he at least call me by my first name and chuck me under the chin? I was almost certain that you would, but I was mistaken. I don’t ask you to do so now, mind you. Please, take note of that. It’s too late, I won’t have it.... Say, why are you constantly blinking your eyes? Is it because you’re thinking of something else while I’m talking to you?”
“I don’t feel quite up to scratch today, Kamma,” he merely replied. “Couldn’t you tell me at once why you’ve come to see me? You would be doing me a great favor.”
“Why I’ve come to see you?” she cried. “My God, how terribly you can hurt a person’s feelings! Are you afraid I may ask you for money, that I’ve come simply to clean you out? Just come out with it, if you really harbor such black thoughts in your heart.... But why have I come to see you, then? Take a guess! Don’t you know what day, what date, it is today? Can you possibly have forgotten your own birthday?”
Sobbing, she threw herself on her knees before him, grabbing both his hands, which she held against her face and then pressed to her bosom.
He was at once strangely moved by this intense tenderness, which he hadn’t expected anymore; he pulled her up and set her on his knees.
“I didn’t forget your birthday,” she said, “I always remember it. You have no idea how often I weep over you at night, when I can’t sleep for just thinking.... My dear boy, you still have the same red lips! I thought about so many things on board; I wondered, Are his lips just as red still? ... How your eyes wander! You aren’t getting impatient, are you? Otherwise you are the same; but your eyes do wander, as if you were trying to figure out how to get rid of me as soon as possible. Why don’t I sit on the chair next to you, you will like that better, won’t you? I’ve got so much, so much, to talk to you about, and I have to hurry up, because the steamer will be leaving very soon, and right now you’re simply confusing me with your indifferent air. What can I say to make you sit up and listen to me? You aren’t the least bit grateful that I remembered your birthday and came up here.... Did you get lots of flowers? I trust you did. Mrs. Stenersen remembered you too, didn’t she? Tell me, this Mrs. Stenersen, for whom you serve as agronomist, what does she look like? Ha-ha-ha, what a man! ... I would have brought you some flowers too, if I had been able to afford it; but I’m too poor right now.... Ye gods, why don’t you listen to me these few paltry minutes, won’t you, please! How everything has changed! Do you remember how once—but you obviously don’t, and it’s pointless to remind you of it—well, once you recognized me a long way off simply by the feather in my hat, and as soon as you saw it you came running. You know quite well this is true, don’t you? It happened one day on the Ramparts.1 But now I can’t remember anymore why I mentioned that about the feather. Oh dear, I’ve forgotten how I was going to use it against you, though it was a good argument.... What now? Why jump up like that?”
He got up, tiptoed across the room and jerked the door open.
“Sara, they keep ringing for you in the dining room!” he called through the doorway.
When he came back and sat down on his chair again, he nodded to Kamma and whispered, “I could tell she