When it grew light, Solem went to the kitchen, had his breakfast, settled
his business with Paul and the women, and returned to his room. He was in
no hurry; though it was no longer early in the day, he took his time about
tying his bundles, preparatory to leaving. Lingeringly he looked into the
windows of the south wing as he passed.
Then Solem was gone.
A little later Miss Torsen came in to breakfast. She asked at once about
Solem. And why might she be so interested in Solem? She had certainly
stopped in her room intentionally so as to give him time to leave; if she
wanted to see him she could have been here long ago. But was it not safest
to seem a little angry? Supposing, night owl that I was, that I had seen
something!
"Where is Solem?" she asked indignantly.
"Solem has gone now," Josephine replied.
"Lucky for him!"
"Why?" asked Josephine.
"Oh, he's a dreadful creature!"
How agitated she was! But in the course of the day she calmed down. Her
anger dissolved, and there was neither weeping nor a scene; only she did
not walk proudly, as was her habit, but preferred to sit in silence.
That passed too; she roused herself briskly soon after Solem's departure,
and in a few days she was the same as ever. She took walks, she talked and
laughed with us, she made the actor swing her in the children's swing, as
in the lawyer's day....
I went out one evening, for there was good weather and darkness for
walking; there was neither a moon nor stars. The gentle ripple of the
little Reisa river was all the sound I heard; there were God and Goethe
and _über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh'_ that night. On my return, I was in
the mood to walk softly and on tiptoe, so I undressed and went to bed in
the dark.
Then they came again to my window, those two lunatics, the lady and the
actor. What next? But it was not he that chose this spot; of that I was
sure. She chose it because she was convinced I had returned. There was
something she _wanted_ me to hear.
Why should I listen to him still pleading with her?
"I've had enough of this," he said. "I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Oh, well...." she said. "No, let's not tonight," she added suddenly;
"some other time. Yes? In a few days? We'll talk about it tomorrow. Good
night."
For the first time it struck me: she wants to rouse you, too, settled man
though you are; she wants to make you as mad as the others! That's what
she's after!
And now I remember, before the lawyer arrived, when there was Tradesman
Batt--I remember how during his first few days here, she would give me a
kind word or a look that was quite out of the picture, and as unmistakable
as her pride would permit. No, she had no objections to seeing old age
wriggle. And listen to this: before this she had been intent to show a
well-behaved indifference to sex, but that was finished; was she not at
this moment resisting only faintly, and raising definite hopes? "Not
tonight, but some other time," she had said. Yes, a half-refusal, a mere
postponement, that I was meant to hear. She was corrupt, but she was also
cunning, with the cunning of a madman. So corrupt.
Dear child, Pharaoh laughs before his pyramids; standing before his
pyramids he laughs. He would laugh at me, too.
* * * * *
Next day we three remaining guests were sitting in the living room. The
lady and the actor read one book; I read another.
"Will you," she says to him, "do me a great favor?"
"With pleasure."
"Would you go out in the grounds where we sat yesterday and fetch my
galoshes?"
So he went out to do her this great favor. He sang a well-known popular
song as he crossed the yard, cheerful in his own peculiar way.
She turned to me.
"You seem silent."
"Do I?"
"Yes, you're very silent."
"Listen to this," I said, and began to read to her from the book I held in
my hands. I read a longish bit.
She tried to interrupt me several times, and at length said impatiently:
"What is this you want me to listen to?"
"The _Musketeers_. You must admit it's entertaining."
"I've read it," she said. And then she began to clasp her hands and drag
them apart again.
"Then you must hear something you haven't read before," I replied, and
went across to my room to fetch a few pages I had written. They were only
a few poems--nothing special, just a few small verses. Not that I am in
the habit of reading such things aloud, but I seized on this for the
moment because I wanted to prevent her from humbling herself, and telling
me anything more.
While I was reading the poems to her, the actor returned.
"I couldn't find any galoshes there," he said.
"No?" she replied absently.
"No, I really looked everywhere, but...."
She got up and left the room.
He looked after her in some surprise, and sat still for a moment. Then it
occurred to him.
"I believe her galoshes are in the passage outside her door," he said, and
hurried after her.
I sat back, thinking it over. There had been a sweetness in her face as
she said, "Yes, you're very silent." Had she seen through me and my
pretext for reading to her? Of course she had. She was no fool. I was the
fool, nobody else. I should have driven a sportsman to despair. Some
practice the sport of making conquests and the sport of making love,
because they find it so agreeable; I have never practiced sport of any
kind. I have loved and raged and suffered and stormed according to my
nature--that is all; I am an old-fashioned man. And here I sit in the
shadow of evening, the shadow of the half-century. Let me have done!
The actor returned to the living room confused and dejected. She had
turned him out; she had wept.