"Have you spoken now to the landlady about it?"
"No, but I am just going to her," and off he rushed. They both came
back together, the landlady and he; a few minutes after, all was
settled! In the afternoon they moved! When the good-natured Vangen came
hurrying home from his dinner, there sat Kallem in dressing-gown and
slippers in the first room to the right, and announced to him that
Rendalen had gone to live in Sehested Street, where he, Kallem, used to
live; they had changed lodgings. They both laughed.
"And yet he was very comfortable here," said Vangen; but that was the
only remark he made.
Of course Edward Kallem speculated much on the reason of this hurried
move, and thought he would have a good talk with the servant each time
she came to see to the stove or to bring in his lunch or supper, both
which meals he took at home; she looked as if she knew something.
Marie had a peculiar smile that seemed to say: "Oh, I know the lot of
you--you too, you rogue." He got that, the very first time she opened
the door for him. She had eyes that were more than half covered by the
lids which hung over them in folds. The nose was a turn-up and seemed
to drag the mouth upward into a stiff smile, the upper lip projected,
showing a row of teeth for which there was hardly room, they glistened
through each smile. Everything she said seemed to have a hidden meaning
of fun and nonsense, it shot forth from under her eyelids and played
about the corners of the mouth. The voice was a soft one. Otherwise a
steady girl, well made, clever as old Nick himself, but prudent and
cautious both in speech and ways, for all her laughing criticisms. But
her laugh seemed always on the lookout for one. When he said: "I am
Edward Kallem, I am to live in Rendalen's room," she answered,
smilingly: "Oh!" just as if she had known all his secrets from the time
he was a boy. If he mentioned Rendalen, she looked as if she had a
whole room full of jokes about him; and yet--he never got anything out
of her.
The house where he lived now was a corner house, almost opposite the
university. The door of the house was in the same street into which
Kallem's rooms looked too. They were on the second floor and had
the same entrance as his landlord had; that is to say, one of the
rooms--the other one, his bed-room, had its own private entrance.
Rendalen had had a third room, the corner room further in. Kallem put
his card on the door leading into the little hall, below a large
door-plate bearing the name of Sören Kule; that was the landlord's
name! Next day being Sunday, he went to call on him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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