Knut Hamsun, The Ring is Closed
Souvenir Press, 2010. trans: Robert Ferguson (org. “Ringen Sluttet”, 1936)
Also from this book: Olga
They walked along together as far as the little park, chatting away. By the time they got there they were tired and sat down. Good to sit for a while, next to a little chat there was, by God, nothing as good as a rest. They’re so full of loneliness and age, so wizened, and already they’ve started to die. Kjørboe is seventy five.
…
A housewife has stretched a line between two trees in the park and hung out washing on it. You weren’t supposed to do that, so they passed a comment on it. A pair of women’s bloomers hanging there in broad daylight with their shameless opening, they both pretend they aren’t looking at them. They wonder what kind of housewife it is who dares to let the whole park down like that. Mind you, the wash is clean and white, and they aren’t looking at the bloomers but staring fixedly at a pillow case next to them, as if it was an interesing shape in its square-ness.
p.28
Lolla would be fine, she was quick around the house, used to chickens and pigs, unmarried, four years older now, in good health and quite pretty. Tengvald was after her, a trained blacksmith now and working as a journeyman, they could have got married any time and started a family. But Tengvald held back. Why? Probably because he lacked the courage. He was a quiet, rather shy blacksmith, nothing especially outstanding about him, but honest and steady. It wasn’t easy for him to break up with Lolla, but she had those crazy nostrils that fluttered every time she looked at him. His excuse was that he had to take care of his mother. Okay then, said Lolla, who wasn’t too brokenhearted about it. What was Tengvald the blacksmith to her? But when, a little while later, the very same Tengvald began courting Lovise Rolandsen, and even ended up marrying her, Lolla started passing a lot of sly remarks: that, by God, those two were made for each other, because one thing was for sure, he wouldn’t be forcing his attentions on her too often, and she wouldn’t be having to repair any children’s clothes!
And how could Lolla know something like that?
p.21
It all started when I ran into a hotel to escape a sudden squall, and she was just on her way out. Young woman, listening to the music in the foyer, English, pretty, so I took to her at once. The weather frightened her. I reached out and I grabbed the first umbrella I could from the cloakroom and I said: This is yours! Mine? she said, smiling, and looked at me. I left a pound behind on the counter for the loan and walked out to a taxi with her. I am so grateful to you, she said. I’m the one who should be grateful, I said and I climbed in after her. I never saw your like! she says in surprise. To begin with she was a little reserved, and she got worried about her violin when I moved in closer to her, but then we started talking, and by the time we got to where we were going we’d done a lot of talking, and she didn’t turn me down when I said I had to have her at any cost. I really meant what I said, and it was the worst case of being in love I’ve ever had, what you might call a kind of exaltation. Her cheeks went all warm and she got restless in the seat, if I just touched her hand it went right through her, her sex was all over her body. There’s a lot of them like that, it’s not that uncommon. She didn’t want to let me come in with her, so I said it right back to her: I never saw your like, and I want to marry you. I am married, she said. What difference does that make? I said. No, she said. And on the stairway she said it as well, that it made no difference. Take good note of that. We came into the house, it was full of the most appalling animals and birds and there was an atrocious smell. A mad dog greeted us at the door, screeching birds in cages, three hedgehogs, a tortoise lumbering about on the floor, there was an ape sitting on the sofa. Did you ever hear the like of it, and maybe there was a snake or two here as well. I got so distracted by all these ugly beasts that I started talking too much about them instead of about her, and the mood passed off her. Damn those bloody animals! I know she would have left her husband, but then the next time I brought it up she said no. What I should have done, straightaway I should have chased that monkey off the sofa. Hahaha! the Engineer laughed.
p.117
Are you angry? I’ve got a feeling you’re sitting there and getting angry, Lolla. How can you be bothered? Be indifferent to everything and everybody – that’s the way to make time pass.
Yes, and the days and the years pass. And we don’t do anything. And so our whole lives pass.
Abel nodded: I once thought of doing something, but not straight away. And if a thing isn’t done straight away it can still be done next year. Why not do it now? I don’t know. Right now, with the summer nearly over? I’ve always thought it should be in the spring. Some spring or other.
Lolla shrieked in her distress: For God’s sake, Abel, you’re letting yourself go completely!
Abel smiled: Don’t get so worked up, Lolla.
p.127
…and he made a point of keeping the encounter casual and friendly, waving and calling to her: At last! It affronted her slightly, he was neither her brother nor her husband.
Good morning, Abel! she said. You greet me as if we’d seen each other just yesterday.
Forgive me! I did it on purpose, I planned it.
Ah. Yes, you’re very strange.
p.300
Or say he calls in at a local cellar cafe and says: I just want to warn you that I saw a mouse squeeze in under your door. A mouse? the proprietress shrieks, picking up her skirts. There it is! he cries, pointing. The proprietress doesn’t see it, but she opens a door and calls the cat. Abel nods and walks on, taking with him a little piece of sausage, a reward to himself for warning her about the mouse.
p.323
But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out sideways.
p.125
