Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [85]
Kamma was getting impatient.
“And what if she was?” she said. “Why on earth are you so taken up with a thousand other things just now? I’ve been sitting here for a quarter of an hour and you haven’t even asked me to undo my veil. But don’t you dare ask me now, afterward! You don’t consider how awful it is to have a winter veil over one’s face in this heat. Oh well, it serves me right; what did I want to come here for anyway! It didn’t escape me that you asked the maid if we might go in here for just a moment. For just a moment! you said. That must have meant you’d make sure to finish with me in a minute or two. Oh, I don’t blame you, it’s only that it makes me so unspeakably sad. God help me! ... Why can’t I ever let you go? I know you’re mad, your eyes are as crazy as can be—yes, imagine, that’s what I’ve heard, and I can well believe it. But still I can’t let you go. Dr. Nissen said you were mad, and God knows you must be stark-mad to settle down in a place like this and call yourself an agronomist. Whoever heard the likes! And you’re still wearing that iron ring on your finger and forever sporting that loud yellow suit, which no one but you would touch....”
“Did Dr. Nissen say I was mad?” he asked.
“Dr. Nissen said that right out! Would you like to know to whom he said it?”
Pause. He fell into a reverie for a moment. Then he looked up and asked, “Tell me frankly, Kamma, couldn’t I help you out with some money? You know I can do it.”
“Never!” she cried, “never, do you hear! What on earth makes you think you can fling one insult after another in my face!”
Pause.
“I don’t see,” he said, “why we should sit here making things unpleasant for each other—”
At this point she interrupted him with tears and no longer heeded what she was saying. “Who is unpleasant? Is it me? How utterly you have changed in a few months! I came here for one thing only, to—. I don’t expect you to return my feelings anymore, and you know I’m not the sort who goes begging; but I’d hoped you would treat me mercifully.... God in heaven, what a perfect disaster my life has been! I ought to tear you out of my heart, but I can’t; instead, I trail after you and throw myself at your feet. Do you remember that day on the Drammen Road when you smacked a dog on the muzzle because he jumped me? Oh, it was all my fault, I screamed because I thought he was going to bite me; well, he wasn’t, he only wanted to play, and after you smacked him he crawled on his belly for us and lay down instead of running off. You were moved to tears that time, you petted the dog and cried over him on the quiet, it didn’t escape me; but now I see no tears, although ... This isn’t meant as a comparison, naturally; you don’t imagine I would compare myself to a dog, do you? God only knows what thoughts might occur to you in your arrogance! I know what the score is when you put on that face. I see you’re smiling, yes, you smiled, you did! You’re mocking me to my face! Let me tell you straight out ... No, no, no, forgive me! It’s just that I’m so desperate again. You see before you a broken woman, I’m completely broken, give me your hand! Oh,2 that you can never forget that peccadillo of mine. It was just a peccadillo, after all, when you stop to think. It was mean of me not to come to you that evening; you gave me one signal after another and yet I didn’t come. I still deeply regret it, God knows I do! But he wasn’t with me then, as you thought; he had been there, but he wasn’t there then, he had left. As you see, I confess and ask for mercy. But I should have sent him packing, yes, I should, I admit that, I don’t mind admitting everything; and I shouldn’t have—. Oh, I just can’t understand—I can’t understand anything anymore....”
Pause. The silence was only broken by Kamma’s sobs and the clatter of knives and forks in the dining room. She continued to cry, and to wipe her face with her handkerchief under the veil.
“He’s so terribly helpless, you see,” she went on, “he doesn’t know how to give as good as he gets. Sometimes he bangs