Free Mysteries by Knut Hamsun Page A

his post for over a minute, but nobody appeared. He looked at the sign above the door: “F. M. Andresen, Danish Consulate.”
    Nagel was just about to go, but as he turned Miss Fredrikke stuck her long, aristocratic face out of the window and gave him a surprised, searching look. He paused once more, their eyes met, her cheeks were coloring; but as if brazening it out, she pulled up her sleeves and rested her elbows on the windowsill. She stayed like this for quite a long time, without anything happening, and eventually Nagel had to make an end of it and go. At that moment a quaint question came into his head. Was the young lady kneeling behind the window? If so, he thought, the consul’s apartment didn’t have very tall ceilings, since the window was scarcely over six feet high and extended to a mere foot below the eaves. He had to laugh at himself for this fancy out of nowhere: what the hell did he have to do with Consul Andresen’s apartment!
    And he wandered on.
    Down by the quays work was in full swing. Warehouse workers, customs officers and fishermen were running helterskelter, each busy with his own thing; capstans were rattling, and two steamships blew their whistles for departure almost simultaneously. The sea was dead calm; the sun beat down, turning the water into a seamless sheet of gold in which ships and boats lay immersed up to the middle of their bellies. From a huge three-master in the distance came the sound of a wretched street organ, and when the steam whistles and the capstans were silent for a moment, its mournful melody sounded like a girl’s faint, tremulous voice on the point of giving up. Even those on board made merry with the street organ, starting to dance a polka to its maudlin songs.
    Nagel caught sight of a child, a tiny little girl who was squeezing a cat in her arms; the cat hung straight down, quite patiently, its hind legs nearly touching the ground, and it didn’t stir. Nagel patted the girl’s cheek and spoke to her: “Is it your cat?”
    “Yes. Two four six seven.”
    “Oh, you can count too?”
    “Yes. Seven eight eleven two four six seven.”
    He walked on. In the direction of the parsonage, a sun-intoxicated white pigeon reeled sideways down the sky and disappeared behind the treetops; it looked like a shining silver arrow falling to the ground far away. A brief, nearly soundless shot was fired somewhere, and shortly afterward a wisp of blue smoke rose from the forest on the other side of the bay.
    After reaching the last pier and wandering up and down the deserted jetty a few times, he walked unthinkingly up the hill and entered the forest. He walked for a good half hour, deeper and deeper into the forest, and at last came to a halt at a small path. All was still, not even a songbird to be seen, and not a cloud in the sky. He walked a few steps off the path, found a dry spot and stretched out. On his right was the parsonage, on his left the town, and above him an endless sea of blue sky.
    What if one were up there, drifting about among suns and feeling the tails of comets fan one’s forehead! How small the earth was and how puny the people; a Norway of two million provincial souls and a mortgage bank to help feed them! What was life worth at such a rate? You elbowed yourself ahead in the sweat of your face for a few mortal years, only to perish all the same, all the same! Nagel tore at his head. Oh dear, it would end by his getting out of this world, putting an end to it all! Would he ever be able to carry it out? Yes. By God in heaven, yes, he wouldn’t flinch! At the moment he felt quite ecstatic at having this simple way of escape in reserve; his eyes watered with enthusiasm and his breathing grew all but loud. He was already rocking about on a heavenly sea, fishing with a silver hook and singing to himself. And his boat was made of aromatic wood and the oars gleamed like white wings; but the sail was of pale-blue silk and cut in the shape of a half-moon....
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