Mysteries (43 page)

After a while he dropped into an uneasy slumber on the sofa; tossing and turning in his dreams, he talked aloud, sang, and called for cognac, which he drank, half asleep and feverish. Sara was constantly looking in on him, but though he talked to her almost all the time, she understood very little of what he said. He lay with his eyes closed.

No, he didn’t want to undress, what was she thinking of? Wasn’t it the middle of the day? He could still clearly hear the birds chirping. She mustn’t fetch the doctor either. Why, the doctor would only give him some yellow ointment and some white ointment, and then they would mistake one for the other and use them the wrong way, killing him on the spot. Karlsen had died of it; she remembered Karlsen, didn’t she? Yes, he’d died of it. Karlsen had somehow gotten a fish hook in his throat, but when the doctor came with his medicines it turned out he’d choked on a glass of quite ordinary christening water from the well. Heh-heh-heh, though it was no laughing matter.... “Sara, you mustn’t think I’m drunk; you don‘t, do you? ‘Association of ideas,‘ do you hear that? ‘Encyclopedists,’ and so forth. Count on your buttons, Sara, and see if I’m drunk.... Listen, the mills are running, the town mills! My God, what a godforsaken hole you live in, Sara; I would like to deliver you out of the hands of your enemies, as it says in Holy Writ. Oh, go to hell, go to hell! Who are you, anyway? You are all fakes, and I’ll get the better of you, one and all. You don’t believe me? Oh, but I’ve been keeping an eye on you! I’m convinced that Lieutenant Hansen promised Miniman two woolen shirts, but do you think he got them! And do you think Miniman dared admit it? Let me disabuse you on that score: Miniman did
not
dare admit it, he wriggled out of it. Do you get me? If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Grøgaard, you’re again laughing your dirty laugh behind your newspaper, aren’t you? No? Well, no matter.... Are you still there, Sara? Good! If you’ll sit here another five minutes, I’ll tell you something; is it an agreement? But first try to imagine a man whose eyebrows are gradually falling out. Can you hold on to that? Whose eyebrows are falling out. Next, may I ask if you’ve ever slept in a bed that creaked? Count on your buttons to see if you have. I’m very suspicious of you. For that matter, everyone in town is under suspicion, I’ve been keeping an eye on them all. For that matter. And I’ve acquitted myself well, I’ve given you all a score of extremely rich topics of conversation every time and turned your lives into disarray; I’ve contributed one turbulent scene after another to your respectable appendix-like existence. Ho-ho, how the mills have been whirring! Whereupon, my highly respected maiden, Sara Tosspot Josefsdatter, I advise you to eat your broth while it’s hot, because if you wait until it’s cold, I swear to God there won’t be anything left but water.... More cognac, Sara, I have a headache, on both sides of my head and in the middle. It’s quite strange, the way it hurts....”

“Wouldn’t you like something warm?” Sara asks.

Something warm? What sort of ideas she was coming up with all the time! It would be all over town in a wink that he’d drunk something warm. Keep in mind that he had no intention of causing a scandal, he would behave like a good taxpayer, walk by the book along Parsonage Road, and never view things in a cussedly different way from other people; three fingers up on that.... She need have no fear. But he really hurt here and there, that’s why he didn’t get undressed, so it would wear off sooner. One should give measure for measure....

He was constantly getting worse, and Sara was on tenterhooks. She would have liked to cut and run, but whenever she got up he noticed right away and asked if she was abandoning him. She waited for him to fall fast asleep, after he had tired himself out by his jabbering. Oh, what nonsense he talked, always with his eyes closed and his face red-hot with fever. He had contrived a new method of delousing Mrs. Stenersen’s red currant bushes. It consisted of his going into a store one fine day and buying a can of kerosene, after which he would go to Market Square, take off his shoes and fill them with kerosene. Then he would set fire to both shoes, one after the other, and conclude by dancing around them in his stocking feet and singing a song. This must be done some morning when he was well again. He would crack his whip and make a regular circus of it, a real horse opera.

He also kept dreaming up ridiculous quaint names and titles for his acquaintances. Thus, he called Reinert, the deputy, “Bilge,” saying that Bilge was a title. “Mr. Reinert, esteemed Town Bilge,” he said. In the end he began to rave about how high the ceiling might be in Consul Andresen’s apartment. “Seven feet, seven feet!” he cried again and again. “Seven feet, by a rough estimate. Am I not right?” But seriously, he was really lying there with a fish hook in his throat, he wasn’t making it up, and he was bleeding, it hurt quite a bit....

Finally, toward evening, he fell soundly asleep.

 

 

He awoke again about ten. Alone, he was still lying on the sofa. The blanket that Sara had spread over him had fallen on the floor, but he didn’t feel cold. Sara had also closed the windows, and he opened them again. His head seemed to be clear, but he felt faint and was trembling. Once more he was falling prey to a dull terror-pierced to the quick whenever the walls creaked or a shout came from the street. If he went to bed and slept till tomorrow morning, maybe it would pass. He undressed.

However, he wasn’t able to fall asleep. He lay there thinking about all his adventures in the last twenty-four hours, from yesterday evening when he went out into the woods and emptied the vial of water, until this moment as he lay in his room, quite worn out and plagued by fever. How endlessly long this day and night had been! And his anxiety refused to leave him; this dull, lurking sensation that he found himself on the verge of some danger, a misfortune, wouldn’t let go of him. Whatever had he done? What a whispering there was around his bed! The room was filled with a hissing murmur. He folded his hands and thought he was falling asleep....

Suddenly, looking at his fingers, he notices that his ring is gone. His heart instantly begins to beat faster. He takes a closer look: a faint dark streak around his finger, but no ring! God in heaven, the ring was gone! Yes, he’d thrown it into the sea; since he was going to die, he didn’t think he would need it anymore, and so he threw it into the sea. But now it was gone, the ring was gone!

He jumps out of bed, gets into his clothes and staggers about the room like a madman. It was ten o’clock. By twelve the ring must have been found, he thought; the stroke of twelve was the last second, the ring, the ring ...

He rushes down the stairs, into the street and down toward the docks. He is seen by people at the hotel, but he doesn’t care. He’s getting dead tired again, his knees wobbly, but he doesn’t heed that either. Ah, now he knew the reason for the oppressive anxiety that had weighed upon him all day: the iron ring was gone! And the woman with the crucifix had appeared to him.

Quite beside himself with terror, he jumps into the first boat he comes across at the jetty. It’s made fast on shore and he can’t unfasten it. He calls to a man, asking him to untie the boat, but the man answers he doesn’t dare, it isn’t his boat.—But Nagel would answer for everything, the ring was at stake, he would buy the boat.—But couldn’t he see that the boat was padlocked? Didn’t he see the iron chain?—All right, he would take another boat.

And Nagel jumped into another boat.

“Where are you going?” the man asks.

“I’m going to look for my ring. Perhaps you know me, I used to wear a ring here, you can see the mark yourself, it’s the honest truth. And now I’ve thrown the ring away, it’s lying out there somewhere.”

The man doesn’t understand this sort of talk.

“Are you going to look for a ring at the bottom of the sea?” he says.

“Exactly!” Nagel replies. “I can hear you understand. Because I must have my ring, you know, you too realize that, don’t you? Come and row me out.”

The man asks again, “Are you going to look for a ring you have thrown into the sea?”

“Yes, yes, come on! Don’t worry, I’ll give you lots of money for it.”

“God bless you, forget about it! Are you going to fish it out with your fingers?”

“Yes, with my fingers. It’s no matter. I can swim like an eel if it should come to that. Maybe we could find something else to fish it out with.”

And the stranger actually gets into the boat. He begins to talk about the matter in hand, but keeps his face averted. It was sheer folly to try something like that. If it had been an anchor or a chain, it might have made some sense, but a ring! Especially since he didn’t even know exactly where it was!

Nagel himself was also beginning to realize how impossible his undertaking was. But his mind couldn’t accept it, because then he was doomed! His eyes were fixed in a stare, and he was shaking with fever and dread. He makes as though he means to jump overboard, but the man grabs him. Nagel collapses at once, faint, dead tired, much too weak to wrestle anyone. Heavenly father, this was going from bad to worse! The ring was lost, it would soon be twelve o’clock and the ring was lost. He had also received the warning.

At this moment a glimpse of lucid awareness flashed through him, and during those two or three short minutes he thought of an incredible number of things. He also recalled something he’d so far forgotten, that already yesterday evening he’d written a farewell note to his sister and sent it off. He wasn’t dead yet, but the letter was hurrying along, it couldn’t be stopped, it had to take its course and was well on its way by now. And when his sister received it, he simply had to be dead. Anyway, the ring was gone, from now on everything was impossible....

His teeth chattering, he looks around, at a complete loss what to do-the water is only a short jump away. He squints at the man on the thwart in front of him; the man still keeps his face averted but is watching carefully, ready to intervene if necessary. But why does he keep his face averted all the time?

“Let me help you ashore,” the man says. And he grabs him under the arms and gets him ashore.

“Good night!” Nagel says, turning his back on him.

But the man is distrustful and goes after him, watching his every movement on the sly. Furious, Nagel turns around and says good night once more, whereupon he tries to jump off the jetty.

Again the man lays hold of him.

“You won’t make it,” he says, close to Nagel’s ear. “You’re too good a swimmer. You’ll come to the surface again.”

Taken aback, Nagel considers a moment. Sure, he was too good a swimmer, he would probably come to the surface again and be saved. He looks at the man, staring him in the face; his eyes meet the most hideous face ever-it’s Miniman.

Miniman again, once again Miniman.

“Go to hell, you miserable, crawling snake!” Nagel screams, and starts running. He staggers up the road like a drunk, stumbles, falls and gets up again; everything is spinning before his eyes and he’s still running, running in the direction of the town. For the second time Miniman had frustrated his plans! In heaven’s name, what would he finally have to dream up? What swirling confusion before his eyes! What a soughing noise above the town! Again he fell.

Having gotten to his knees, he rocked his head painfully back and forth. Listen, there was a call from the sea! It would soon be twelve o’clock and the ring had not been found. Some creature was after him, he could hear the sound of it, a scaly beast with a slack belly dragging itself along the ground, leaving a wet trail, a horrible hieroglyph with arms jutting out from its head and a yellow claw on its nose. Away, away! There was another call from the sea and, screaming, he put his hands over his ears so as not to hear it.

Again he jumps up. All hope was not lost, he could procure the remedy of last resort, a safe six-shooter, the best thing in the world! And he cries for gratitude, running as best he can-he cries for gratitude because of this fresh hope. Suddenly he remembers it’s night, he can’t get hold of a six-shooter, all the stores are closed. At that moment he gives up, pitches forward and bumps his head against the ground without a sound.

Just then the hotel keeper and a few other people finally came out of the hotel to see what had become of him....

He woke up and stared about him-he had dreamed the whole thing. Yes, he had slept, despite everything. Thank God, it was all a dream; he hadn’t left his bed.

 

 

He lies for a moment thinking things over. He looks at his hand, but the ring is gone; he looks at his watch, it’s midnight, twelve o‘clock, only a few minutes short. Perhaps he could be let off, perhaps he was saved, after all! But his heart is hammering, and he is shaking. Perhaps-perhaps twelve o’clock might come without anything happening? He takes the watch in his hand and his hand is shaking; he counts the minutes—the seconds-

Then the watch falls on the floor and he jumps out of bed. “Someone is calling!” he whispers, looking out of the window, his eyes popping. He quickly puts on some clothes, opens the doors and runs out into the street. He looks about him, no one is watching. Then he starts racing toward the harbor, the white back of his vest shining all the while. He reaches the docks, follows the road to the outermost jetty and jumps straight into the sea.

A few bubbles rise to the surface.

LATE ONE NIGHT in April this year, Dagny and Martha were walking through town together; they had been to a party and were on their way home. It was dark, and the streets were iced over here and there, so they walked quite slowly.

“I’ve been thinking of all the things that were said about Nagel this evening,” Dagny said. “Much of it was new to me.”

“I didn’t hear it,” Martha replied, “I went out.”

“But there was one thing they didn’t know,” Dagny continued. “Nagel told me last summer that Miniman would come to a bad end. I can’t figure out how he’d seen it already then. He said it long, long before you told me what Miniman had done to you.”