Oh, well, she might have her reason for doing so; besides, she liked staying up late at night; it was a thing she had always had a great fancy for. Did I care about going to bed before twelve?
I? If there was anything in the world I hated it was to go to bed before twelve o’clock at night.
Ah, there, you see! She, too, was just the same; she took this little tour in the evenings when she had nothing to lose by doing so. She lived up in St. Olav’s Place.
“Ylajali,” I cried.
“I beg pardon?”
“I only said ‘Ylajali’ … it’s all right. Continue …”
She lived up in St. Olav’s Place, lonely enough, together with her mother, to whom one couldn’t talk because she was so deaf. Was there anything odd in her liking to get out for a little?
“No, not at all,” I replied.
“No? well, what then?”
I could hear by her voice that she was smiling.
Hadn’t she a sister?
Yes; an older sister. But, by-the-way, how did I know that? She had gone to Hamburg.
“Lately?”
“Yes; five weeks ago.” From where did I learn that she had a sister?
I didn’t learn it at all; I only asked.
We kept silence. A man passes us, with a pair of shoes under his arm; otherwise, the street is empty as far as we can see. Over at the Tivoli a long row of coloured lamps are burning. It no longer snows; the sky is clear.
“Gracious! don’t you freeze without an overcoat?” inquires the lady, suddenly looking at me.
Should I tell her why I had no overcoat; make my sorry condition known at once, and frighten her away? As well first as last. Still, it was delightful to walk here at her side and keep her in ignorance yet a while longer. So I lied. I answered:
“No, not at all”; and, in order to change the subject, I asked, “Have you seen the menagerie in the Tivoli?”
“No,” she answered; “is there really anything to see?”
Suppose she were to take it into her head to wish to go there? Into that blaze of light, with the crowd of people. Why, she would be filled with shame; I would drive her out again, with my shabby clothes, and lean face; perhaps she might even notice that I had no waistcoat on. …
“Ah, no; there is sure to be nothing worth seeing!”
And a lot of happy ideas occurred to me, of which I at once made use; a few sparse words, fragments left in my dessicated brain. What could one expect from such a small menagerie? On the whole, it did not interest me in the least to see animals in cages. These animals know that one is standing staring at them; they feel hundreds of inquisitive looks upon them; are conscious of them. No; I would prefer to see animals that didn’t know one observed them; shy creatures that nestle in their lair, and lie with sluggish green eyes, and lick their claws, and muse, eh?
Yes; I was certainly right in that.
It was only animals in all their peculiar fearfulness and peculiar savagery that possessed a charm. The soundless, stealthy tread in the total darkness of night; the hidden monsters of the woods; the shrieks of a bird flying past; the wind, the smell of blood, the rumbling in space; in short, the reigning spirit of the kingdom of savage creatures hovering over savagery … the unconscious poetry! … But I was afraid this bored her. The consciousness of my great poverty seized me anew, and crushed me. If I had only been in any way well-enough dressed to have given her the pleasure of this little tour in the Tivoli! I could not make out this creature, who could find pleasure in letting herself be accompanied up the whole of Carl Johann Street by a half-naked beggar. What, in the name of God, was she thinking of? And why was I walking there, giving myself airs, and smiling idiotically at nothing? Had I any reasonable cause, either, for letting myself be worried into a long walk by this dainty, silken-clad bird? Mayhap it did not cost me an effort? Did I not feel the ice of death go right into my heart at even the gentlest puff of wind that blew against us? Was not madness running riot in my brain, just for lack of food for many months at a stretch? Yet she hindered me from going home to get even a little milk into my parched mouth; a spoonful of sweet milk, that I might perhaps be able to keep down. Why didn’t she turn her back on me, and let me go to the deuce? …
I became distracted; my despair reduced me to the last extremity. I said:
“Considering all things, you ought not to walk with me. I disgrace you right under everyone’s eyes, if only with my clothes. Yes, it is positively true; I mean it.”
She starts, looks up quickly at me, and is silent; then she exclaims suddenly:
“Indeed, though!” More she doesn’t say.
“What do you mean by that?” I queried.
“Ugh, no; you make me feel ashamed. … We have not got very far now”; and she walked on a little faster.
We turned up University Street, and could already see the lights in St. Olav’s Place. Then she commenced to walk slowly again.
“I have no wish to be indiscreet,” I say; “but won’t you tell me your name before we part? and won’t you, just for one second, lift up your veil so that I can see you? I would be really so grateful.”
A pause. I walked on in expectation.
“You have seen me before,” she replies.
“Ylajali,” I say again.
“Beg pardon. You followed me once for half-a-day, almost right home. Were you tipsy that time?”
I could hear again that she smiled.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, worse luck, I was tipsy that time.”
“That was horrid of you!”
And I admitted contritely that it was horrid of me.
We
