Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [96]
In his gallows humor the lawyer proposed that they should break the rest of the glasses as well. Nagel made no objection, and now four grown-up men started amusing themselves by dashing one glass after another against the wall. Afterward they drank straight from the bottles, yelling like sailors and dancing around the room. It was four o’clock before the carousing ended. By then the doctor was roaring drunk. In the doorway Øien turned to Nagel and said, “What you said about Tolstoy can also be said about Bjørnson, you know. You’re not consistent in your arguments....”
“Ha-ha-ha!” came the doctor’s mad laughter. “He wants consistency—at this time of night! ... Can you still say ‘encyclopedists,’ my dear man. ‘Association of ideas’? Come, let me help you get home.... Ha-ha, at this time of night!”
It wasn’t raining anymore. Nor was there any sun; but the weather was calm and the day promised to be mild.
XIV
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Miniman again appeared at the hotel. He went quietly into Nagel’s room, put his watch, some papers, a pencil stub and the vial of poison on the table, and was about to go again. However, since Nagel woke up at that moment, he was obliged to explain why he had come.
“These are some things I found in your vest pocket,” he said.
“In my vest pocket? Yes, by Jove, right you are! What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock. But your watch stopped, and I didn’t want to wind it.”
“You didn’t drink the Prussic acid, I trust?”
Miniman smiled and shook his head.
“No,” he replied.
“Not even taste it? The vial should be half full. Let me see.”
Miniman showed him that the vial was still half full.
“Fine! And it’s eight o’clock? Then it’s time to get up.... While I remember, Grøgaard, could you borrow a violin for me? I would like to see if I could learn to—. Oh, baloney! The truth is, I want to buy a violin to give to a friend; I don’t want it for myself. So you’ll just have to find me a violin, no matter where you get it from.”
Miniman would spare no pains.
“Many thanks. I hope you’ll drop by again when you feel like it. You know the way. Have a good day!”
An hour later Nagel already found himself in the Parsonage Woods. The ground was still wet from the rain the previous evening, and the sun was not very warm. He sat down on a stone and kept a sharp lookout on the road. He had noticed some familiar footprints in the wet gravel; he was fairly sure they were Dagny’s and that she had gone into town. Having waited for quite a long time to no purpose, he decided at last to go and meet her and got up from the stone.
And, indeed, he had not been mistaken, he met her already at the edge of the forest. She was carrying a book, Gertrude Colbjørnsen by Skram.
They first talked about this book awhile; then she said, “You know something—our dog has died.”
“He has?” he replied.
“A few days ago. We found him stone dead. I can’t imagine how it happened.”
“You know, I always thought he was a very vicious dog; I’m sorry, but—one of those mastiffs with a pug nose and an insolent human face. When he looked at you, the corners of his mouth drooped as if he were carrying all the world’s sorrows. I’m downright glad he’s dead.”
“Oh, for shame—”
But he interrupted her nervously; anxious for some reason to get off the subject of the dog at once, he made light of it. He began talking about a man he had once run across, certainly one of the funniest fellows anyone would ever meet. “The man s-stammered slightly and didn’t make a secret of it; on the contrary, he made himself a worse s-stammerer than he really was to display his imperfection properly. He had the most peculiar ideas about women. Incidentally, he used to relate a story from Mexico which was too funny for words the way he told it. It was a fiercely cold winter, the thermometers were constantly bursting, and people stayed indoors around the clock. But one day he had to go to the neighboring town; he was walking through a naked landscape, with only a cabin here and there, and the sharp, biting