... The clock struck eleven, the fatale hour [...], for that is when the lights are turned out everywhere and it does not matter that there is an unopened bottle on the table – Kristiania dies at eleven o´clock! [...] Anyway, we had to leave Grand Café in a hurry. [...] Really in a hurry, for the Norwegian waiter is brutal, democratic and can not take a joke.
Dagny and Stachu had many Norwegian friends from their time in Berlin. They met them again in Kristiania. Dagny's uncle, Otto Blehr, was the prime minister of Norway, and the Przybyszewskis were invited to his parties more than once.
Przybyszewski [...] was down here a couple of days ago. He is penniless, as the rest of us. The critique around here wants to hush down his books, but they shan't. [...] His wife, Dagny, is having a kid, weirdly enough; I am to be its god father, I promised that. It'll be born in early October, P says.
Ah, ah! I have already heard much, much about you. Much good and much bad, but the significant thing is that one hears much bad about a young artist.
That is the funny thing here in Norway, that everyone – from Kristian Krog to Jacob Høst – yes, every single one, have the only, only blissfull meaning about art, they basically ought to deny that Europe is always that much further developed than them. And anyway, they are pleased with things as they are.
I particularly remember one improvised feast in Kristiania, one lovely Julyday in '94. We started at the "Grand", continued the party in the home of Gabriel Finne who lived in Nordstrand, and was ended by all of us taking the first morning train to town and walking as one big crowd from the railway station up Karl Johansgate in the rays of the morning sun with Obstfelder in the front, still playing his violin. The party ended with a concert in the hall of the University's Domus Media, which gathered a fair lot of early morning people around us. Only then did the police step in, being on their nicest behaviour, and suggesting we went home and went to bed, a sensible demand which was granted.
The party in the home of Gabriel Finne on Nordstrand was given literary form by Sigbjørn Obstfelder in his text Sommer ("Summer").
"[...] One hour later, we sat out in the country, by the fiord, in Ebbe's, the poet's, place. The door to the veranda was open, and the evening stood in, the red summer night... [...]
And then there were a woman.
Her hair.
And I had a feeling she was sitting and listening like me, – waiting for something, – and when it came, it flurried through her, as she said nothing. Sometimes, she laughed a short, sobbing laughter, or bent her entire upper body forwards, as to capture the words that evening, when the twilight turned to whispers.
Kanskje var det under besøket på Nordstrand at Dagny og mannen satt på en bergskrent over Kristianiafjorden. Dagny hadde på seg et gammelt, edelt familiesmykke. De forsøkte å overgå hverandre med ord om sin kjærlighets styrke. Til sist spurte Stachu: "Elsker du meg så høyt at du kunne kaste smykket du bærer i havet fo rmin skyld?" Uten å nøle skal Dagny ha revet det av seg og kastet det utfor bergskrenten.
Maybe it was here, under this visit to Nordstrand, that Dagny and her husband sat on a little rock by Kristianiafjorden. Dagny was wearing an old, elegant family heiroom piece of jewellery. The were competing over who felt the strongest love. Finally, Stachu asked "Do you love me high enough to throw that pience of jewellery into the sea for my sake?" Finally, without hesitataion, Dagny apparently ripped it off and thew it in.