Finally he opened the three telegrams, but even before he had finished reading the first one he burst into a brief, quiet chuckle. He lay there all alone laughing to himself; his teeth were exceptionally fine. Then his face grew serious again, and a moment later he tossed the telegrams aside with the utmost indifference. And yet they seemed to concern a matter of great importance; it was an offer of sixty-two thousand kroner for a landed property, the entire sum to be paid in cash if the sale came about immediately. They were brief, dry business telegrams with nothing ridiculous about them, but they were unsigned. A few minutes later Nagel had fallen asleep. The two candles on the table, which he had forgotten to put out, illuminated his chest and his clean-shaven face, and cast an unwavering light on the telegrams lying wide-open on the table....

 

 

The following morning Johan Nagel sent to the post office for his mail; there were some newspapers, including a couple of foreign ones, but no letter. He placed his violin case on a chair in the middle of the room, as if wishing to show it off; but he didn’t open it, leaving the instrument untouched.

In the course of the morning he did nothing except write a few letters and pace the floor of his room reading a book. He did buy a pair of gloves in a shop, and when he visited the marketplace a little later, he paid ten kroner for a small carrot-colored puppy, which he at once gave to the hotel keeper. To everybody’s amusement, he had baptized the puppy Jakobsen, regardless of the fact that it was a female.

And so he did nothing the whole day. He had no business to take care of in the town, visited no offices, and paid no calls, not knowing a soul. The people in the hotel were rather surprised by his marked indifference to nearly everything, even his own affairs. Thus, the three telegrams were still lying on the table in his room, open to everyone; he hadn’t touched them since the evening they arrived. He also failed to answer direct questions at times. Twice the hotel keeper had tried to get out of him who he was and what had brought him to the town, but he had brushed the matter aside both times.1 Another peculiar trait of his became evident in the course of the day: although he didn’t know a soul in the place and hadn’t made contact with anybody, he had nonetheless stopped in front of one of the young ladies in town at the entrance to the churchyard—had stopped to look at her and bowed very deeply without a word of explanation. The lady in question had blushed all over her face. Afterward the impudent fellow had strolled right down the highway, as far as the parsonage and beyond, which he also did, incidentally, on the following days. He would return so late from his rambles that it was after closing time, and they constantly had to open the door for him at the hotel.

Then, just as Nagel came out of his room the third morning, he was accosted by the hotel keeper, who greeted him and said a few amiable words. They went out on the veranda and sat down. The hotel keeper took it into his head to ask him about the shipment of a crate of fresh fish: “How should I send that crate you see there, can you tell me?”

Nagel looked at the crate, smiled, and shook his head. “Oh, I haven’t the least idea about that sort of thing,” he replied.

“You haven’t, eh? I thought perhaps you had traveled a bit and seen things here and there, how they do it in other places.”

“Oh no, I haven’t traveled much.”

Pause.

“Hm, maybe it’s rather with—well, with other things that you have occupied yourself. You’re a businessman perhaps?”

“No, I’m not a businessman.”

“So you’re not here on business then?”

No answer. Nagel lighted a cigar and puffed slowly, looking into vacancy. The hotel keeper observed him from the side. “Won’t you play for us some day? I see you have brought your violin,” he tried again.

Nagel replied nonchalantly, “Oh no, I’m through with that.”

He soon got up without further ado and left. A moment later he came back and said, “Oh, about the bill, I just had an idea; you can give it to me whenever you like. It doesn’t matter to me when I pay up.”

“Thanks,” the hotel keeper replied, “there’s no hurry. If you stay for any length of time, we’ll have to charge you somewhat less, of course. I don’t know, but do you plan to be with us for some time?”

Nagel suddenly became animated and replied at once; for no apparent reason, his face even showed a faint blush.

“Yes, I may very well decide to stay for some time,” he said. “It all depends.