Knut Hamsun - The Collected Works of Knut Hamsun

“Nothing,” she answered. “Only—that I wanted to. It doesn't matter.”

I took off my cap and brushed back my hair mechanically as I stood looking at her. “Doesn't matter...?”

Herr Mack was saying something, a good way off; we could not hear his words from where we were. But I was glad to think that Herr Mack had seen nothing, that he knew nothing of this. It was well indeed that he had been away from the party just then. I felt relieved at that, and I stepped over to the others and said with a laugh, and seeming quite indifferent:

“I would ask you all to forgive my unseemly behavior a moment ago; I am myself extremely sorry about it. Edwarda kindly offered to change flowers with me, and I forgot myself. I beg her pardon and yours. Put yourself in my place; I live all alone, and am not accustomed to the society of ladies; besides which, I have been drinking wine, and am not used to that either. You must make allowances for that.”

And I laughed, and showed great indifference to such a trifle, that it might be forgotten; but, inwardly, I was serious. Moreover, what I had said made no impression on Edwarda. She did not try to hide anything, to smooth over the effect of her hasty action: on the contrary, she sat down close to me and kept looking at me fixedly. Now and again she spoke to me. And afterwards, when we were playing “ Enke ,” she said:

“I shall have Lieutenant Glahn. I don't care to run after anyone else.”

“ Saa for Satan , girl, be quiet!” I whispered, stamping my foot.

She gave me a look of surprise, made a wry face as if it hurt, and then smiled bashfully. I was deeply moved at that; the helpless look in her eyes and her little thin figure were more than I could resist; I was drawn to her in that moment, and I took her long, slight hand in mine.

“Afterwards,” I said, “No more now. We can meet again to-morrow.”

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In the night I heard Æsop get up from his corner and growl; I heard it through my sleep, but I was dreaming just then of shooting, the growl of the dog fitted into the dream, and it did not wake me, quite. When I stepped out of the hut next morning there were tracks in the grass of a pair of human feet; someone had been there—had gone first to one of my windows, then to the other. The tracks were lost again down on the road.

She came towards me with hot cheeks, with a face all beaming.

“Have you been waiting?” she said. “I was afraid you would have to wait.”

I had not been waiting; she was on the way before me.

“Have you slept well?” I asked. I hardly knew what to say.

“No, I haven't. I have been awake,” she answered. And she told me she had not slept that night, but had sat in a chair with her eyes closed. And she had been out of the house for a little walk.

“Someone was outside my hut last night,” I said. “I saw tracks in the grass this morning.”

And her face colored; she took my hand there, on the road, and made no answer. I looked at her, and said:

“Was it you, I wonder?”

“Yes,” she answered, pressing close to me. “It was I. I hope I didn't wake you—I stepped as quietly as I could. Yes, it was I. I was near you again. I am fond of you!”

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Every day, every day I met her. I will tell the truth: I was glad to meet her; aye, my heart flew. It is two years ago this year; now, I think of it only when I please, the whole story just amuses and distracts me. And as for the two green feathers, I will tell about them in good time.

There were several places where we could meet—at the mill, on the road, even in my hut. She came wherever I would. “Goddag!” she cried, always first, and I answered “Goddag!”

“You are happy to-day,” she says, and her eyes sparkle.

“Yes, I am happy,” I answer. “There is a speck there on your shoulder; it is dust, perhaps, a speck of mud from the road; I must kiss that little spot. No—let me—I will. Everything about you stirs me so! I am half out of my senses. I did not sleep last night.”

And that was true. Many a night I lay and could not sleep.

We walk side by side along the road.

“What do you think—am I as you like me to be?” she asks. “Perhaps I talk too much. No? Oh, but you must say what you really think. Sometimes I think to myself this can never come to any good...”

“What can never come to any good?” I ask.

“This between us. That it cannot come to any good. You may believe it or not, but I am shivering now with cold; I feel icy cold the moment I come to you. Just out of happiness.”

“It is the same with me,” I answer. “I feel a shiver, too, when I see you. But it will come to some good all the same. And, anyhow, let me pat you on the back, to warm you.”

And she lets me, half unwillingly, and then I hit a little harder, for a jest, and laugh, and ask if that doesn't make her feel better.

“Oh, please, don't when I ask you; please ,” says she.

Those few words! There was something so helpless about her saying it so, the wrong way round: “Please don't when I ask you.”...

Then we went on along the road again. Was she displeased with me for my jest, I wondered? And thought to myself: Well, let us see. And I said:

“I just happened to think of something. Once when I was out on a sledge party, there was a young lady who took a silk kerchief from her neck and fastened it round mine. In the evening, I said to her: 'You shall have your kerchief again to-morrow; I will have it washed.' 'No,' she said, 'give it to me now; I will keep it just as it is, after you have worn it.' And I gave it to her. Three years after, I met the same young lady again. 'The kerchief,' I said. And she brought it out. It lay in a paper, just as before; I saw it myself.”

Edwarda glanced up at me.

“Yes? And what then?”

“That is all,” I said. “There was nothing more. But I thought it was nice of her.”

Pause.

“Where is that lady now?”

“Abroad.”

We spoke no more of that. But when it was time for her to go home, she said:

“Well, good-night. But you won't go thinking of that lady any more, will you? I don't think of anyone but you.”

I believed her. I saw that she meant what she said, and it was more than enough for me that she thought of no one else. I walked after her.

“Thank you, Edwarda,” I said. And then I added with all my heart: “You are all too good for me, but I am thankful that you will have me; God will reward you for that. I'm not so fine as many you could have, no doubt, but I am all yours—so endlessly yours, by my eternal soul.——What are you thinking of now, to bring tears to your eyes?”

“It was nothing,” she answered. “It sounded so strange—that God would reward me for that. You say things that I ... Oh, I love you so!”

And all at once she threw her arms round my neck, there in the middle of the road, and kissed me.

When she had gone, I stepped aside into the woods to hide, to be alone with my happiness. And then I hurried eagerly back to the road to see if anyone had noticed that I had gone in there. But I saw no one.

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Summer nights and still water, and the woods endlessly still. No cry, no footsteps from the road. My heart seemed full as with dark wine.

Moths and night-flies came flying noiselessly in through my window, lured by the glow from the hearth and the smell of the bird I had just cooked. They dashed against the roof with a dull sound, fluttered past my ears, sending a cold shiver through me, and settled on my white powder-horn on the wall. I watched them; they sat trembling and looked at me—moths and spinners and burrowing things. Some of them looked like pansies on the wing.