Mysteries (22 page)

Pause. Nagel drank and continued. “Now, you may ask what this story has to do with you and me and the bachelor party. To be sure, my good friend, it has nothing whatever to do with it. But I decided to tell it to you anyway, to show my stupidity concerning the human soul. Alas, the human soul! For instance, what do you make of the fact that, the other morning, I catch myself—catch me, Johan Nilsen Nagel—walking in front of Consul Andresen’s house up there on the hill, wondering how high, or how low, the ceiling might be in his living room? What do you make of it? But here again we have—if I may so express it—the human soul. No trifle is irrelevant to it, everything is meaningful.... How would you feel, say, if one night, coming home late from some meeting or expedition having to do with your lawful business, you suddenly bump into a man who stands at a street corner watching you, turning his head to keep you in sight as you pass, all the while simply staring at you without a word? Suppose, further, that the man is dressed in black and that all you can see of him are his face and eyes. Well, what of it? Ah, who can fathom what takes place in the human soul! ... You join a company some evening, let’s say there are twelve of you, and the thirteenth—it may be a female telegraph operator, a poor law school graduate, an office clerk, or a steamship captain, in short, a person of no importance whatever—sits in a corner without taking part in the conversation, or making any other kind of noise; and yet, this thirteenth person does have a value, not only per se but also as a factor in the group. Just because he’s wearing this or that garb, because he remains so silent, because he looks around at the other guests with a rather stupid, inane expression, and because his role on the whole is to be so insignificant—just because of that, he helps to define the character of the group. Just because he says nothing, he has a negative effect and produces a faint, pervasive note of gloom in the room, which causes the other guests to speak just so loud and not louder. Am I not right? In this way, that person can literally become the most powerful member of the group. As I’ve said, I’m not a good judge of people, and yet I often find it amusing to notice the tremendous value trifles can sometimes have. Thus, I once witnessed how a total stranger, a poor engineer who absolutely refused to open his mouth ... But that’s another story and has nothing to do with this one, except insofar as they have both passed through my brain and left their traces. However, to pursue the matter in hand, who knows whether your silence this evening hasn’t given my words their special tone—with all due respect to my excessive intoxication—whether the expression of your face at this moment, that half wary, half innocent look in your eyes, doesn’t stimulate me to speak precisely the way I do! It’s quite natural. You listen to what I say—what a drunk man says—and somehow or other you feel
smitten
now and then, to employ a word I’ve already used; I feel tempted to go even further and throw another dozen words in your face. I refer to this simply as an example of the value of trifles. Don’t disregard trifles, my dear friend! Trifles have an enormous value, for Christ’s sake—. Come in!”

It was Sara who knocked, announcing that supper was ready. Miniman got up at once. Nagel was now visibly intoxicated and couldn’t even speak clearly any longer; besides, he was constantly contradicting himself and talking more and more nonsense. His preoccupied look and the swollen veins in his temples showed that his mind was grappling with many thoughts.

“Well,” he said, “I’m not surprised that you would like to take this opportunity to leave, after all the chatter you’ve had to put up with this evening. Still, there are several other things I would’ve liked to hear your opinion of; for instance, you never answered my question about what, in your heart of hearts, you think of Miss Kielland. To me, she is a most rare and unattainable being, full of loveliness, pure and white as the driven snow—try to imagine a really pure, deep snow, like silk. That’s how I think of her. If I gave you a different impression by what I said earlier, it’s erroneous.... So let me drink my last glass with yau. Skaal! ... But just now something occurred to me. If you have the patience to listen to me for another minute or two, I would be very much obliged to you, indeed. The fact is—come a little closer, the walls of this building are very thin
¹⁰
—well, the fact is I’m hopelessly in love with Miss Kielland. There, I’ve said it! These poor, cold words don’t say much, but God in heaven knows how madly I love her and how much I suffer because of her. Well, that’s another matter—I love, I suffer, that’s all right, it’s beside the point. So! But I hope you will treat my candor with all the discretion it deserves, do you promise me that? Thank you, my dear friend! But, you say, how can I be in love with her when I called her a big flirt a little while ago? In the first place, one can easily love a flirt, why 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 by the wiliest devil of a police officer and cross-examined in open court, only to be brought back to the starting point by a dozen different secret paths—oh, what exquisite pleasure for someone who has nothing to do with the whole thing and just sits there listening! You’ll grant me that, won’t you? ... I wonder if there isn’t a glass of wine left, if I squeeze the bottle—.”

He tossed off what was left of the wine and went on talking.

“By the way, I apologize for constantly changing the subject. Partly, I suppose, all these sudden jumps in my thinking are due to my being roaring drunk, but partly also to a general fault of mine. The fact is, I’m only a simple agronomist, a student from a cow-dung academy; I’m a thinker who never learned how to think. Well, let’s not go into these special matters; they are of no interest to you, and to me they are downright repugnant, since I’m already aware of my situation. You know, when I sit here alone thinking about different things, taking a long, hard look at myself, it often gets to a point—well, it often happens that I call myself Rochefort in a loud voice, tap my noodle and call myself Rochefort! What will you say if I tell you that I once ordered a seal with a hedgehog on it? ... That reminds me of a man I knew at one time as a decent and quite ordinary and respectable student of philology at a German university. The man became a degenerate—two years sufficed to make him both a drunkard and a novelist. If he met strangers and was asked who he was, in the end he merely replied that he was a fact. ‘I’m a fact!’ he said, pursing his lips in sheer arrogance. Oh well, this is of no interest to you.... You mentioned a man, a thinker, who had never learned how to think. Or was it I who brought that up? I’m sorry; you see, I’m dead drunk. But that’s all right, don’t worry. However, I would very much like to explain to you this matter of the thinker who couldn’t think. If I understood you correctly, you wanted to attack the man. Oh yes, I definitely had that impression, you spoke in a scornful tone of voice; but the man you mentioned deserves to be seen more or less in perspective. First of all, he was a big fool. No, no, that I won’t take back, he was a fool. He always wore a long red tie and smiled out of pure vanity. In fact, he was so vain that time and again he would be buried in a book when someone came to see him, though he never read anything. Also, he never wore any socks, just so he could afford a rose in his buttonhole. That’s the way he was. But best of all, he had a number of portraits, the portraits of some modest but nice-looking artisan’s daughters, on which he had inscribed grand, high-sounding names to give the impression that he had such and such genteel acquaintances. On one of the pictures he had written, in clear letters, ‘Miss Stang,’ to make you believe she was related to the prime minister, though the girl’s name might be Lie or Haug, at the most. Heh-heh-heh, what can one say to such conceit? He imagined that people were occupying themselves with him, slandering him. ‘People are slandering me!’ he said. Heh-heh-heh, do you really believe that anyone would take the trouble to slander him? Then one day he walked into a jewelry store smoking two cigars! Two cigars! He had one in his hand, the other in his mouth, and both were lighted. Maybe he didn’t know he was sporting two cigars at once, and being a thinker who hadn’t learned how to think, he didn’t ask any questions—”

“I really have to go,” Miniman finally said in a soft voice.

Nagel rose instantly.

“You have to go?” he said. “You’re really going to leave me? Well, I guess the story is too long, if the man is to be seen in perspective. All right, let it wait until some other time. So you definitely want to leave, do you? Well, many thanks for a very pleasant evening! Do you hear? I can hardly believe that I got so drunk. How do I look? Take your thumb, put it under a magnifying glass and look; what a sight, eh? Oh, I understand your expression, you are an enormously clever man, Mr. Grøgaard, and it’s a treat to observe your eyes, they’re so innocent. Have another cigar before you go. When will you come to see me again? By Jove, I just remembered, you must come to my bachelor party, do you hear! Not a hair of your head shall be hurt.... You see, it will only be a cozy little evening party, a cigar, a drink, conversation, and nine times nine cheers for the Father-land, for Dr. Stenersen’s benefit—all right? It will work out fine, you’ll see. And you’ll get those trousers we’ve talked about, hell yes. But on the usual condition, of course. Thank you for your patience this evening. Let me shake your hand! Have another cigar, man.... Listen, one more word: isn’t there something you would like to ask of me? Because if there is, then ... Well, as you wish. Good night, good night.”

THEN CAME JUNE 29. It was a Monday.

A couple of unusual things happened that day; there even appeared a stranger in town, a veiled lady who disappeared again after a two hours’ stay, following a visit at the hotel.

Early that morning Johan Nagel had been happily humming and whistling in his room. As he dressed, he kept whistling merry tunes as if he were extremely elated by something. All the previous day he’d been silent and quiet, after his big bender with Miniman Saturday night. He had paced the floor with long steps and drunk heaps of water. When he left the hotel Monday morning he was still humming and looked extremely contented; in a rush of exuberant joy he even accosted a woman standing at the foot of the steps and gave her a few pennies.