by Knut Hamsun
Why did she think so?
Oh, I had laughed so much.
“Really. Yes, I used to laugh a lot in those days.”
“But not now anymore?”
“Oh sure, now too.” It was glorious just to be alive!
We were approaching Karl Johan Street. She said, “Now we won’t go any further.” We turned around and walked back up University Street. When we reached the fountain again, I slowed down a bit, knowing I had walked her as far as I could go.
“So, now you’ll have to turn around,” she said, stopping.
“Yes, I suppose I must,” I answered.
But a moment later she thought I could certainly walk her to the door. Good heavens, there was nothing wrong with that, was there?
“No,” I said.
But as we stood there by the door, all my misery again bore down upon me. Anyway, how could you keep up your courage when you were so broken-down? Here I stood before a young woman, dirty, tattered, disfigured by hunger, unwashed, only half-dressed—it was enough to make you sink into the ground. I made myself small and ducked instinctively as I said, “You won’t meet me again, will you?”
I had no hope that she would let me see her again; I was almost wishing for a sharp no, which would brace me up and make me indifferent.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Pause.
“Won’t you, please, lift your veil for just a moment?” I said, “so I can see who I’ve been talking with. One moment, that’s all. Because, you know, I must see who I’ve been talking with.”
Pause.
“You can meet me Tuesday evening, right here,” she says. “Would you like to?”
“Dear, yes, if you’ll let me!”
“Eight o’clock.”
“Good.”
I passed my hand down over her coat, brushing away the snow to have a pretext for touching her. It gave me a thrill to be so close to her.
“And try not to think badly of me, will you,” she said. She smiled again.
“No—”
Suddenly she made a resolute movement and pulled her veil up over her forehead. We stood looking at each other for a second. “Ylajali!” I said. She rose on her toes, flung her arms around my neck and kissed me smack on the lips.7 I could feel her bosom heaving, hear her rapid breath.
She broke away from me at once, called good night in a whisper, breathlessly, turned around and ran up the stairs without another word.
The front door slammed shut.
The following day it snowed harder, a heavy snow mixed with rain, big blue flakes that fell on the ground and turned to mud. The air was raw and freezing cold.
I had woken up rather late, my head strangely confused by the emotions of the previous evening, my heart intoxicated from that beautiful encounter. In my rapture I had lain awake awhile imagining Ylajali beside me; I spread my arms, hugged myself and blew kisses in the air. Then I had finally turned out, got myself another cup of milk and soon afterward a steak, and I wasn’t hungry anymore. Only, my nerves were greatly agitated again.
I went down to the clothing stalls. It occurred to me that I might pick up a second-hand vest at bargain price, something to wear under my coat, no matter what. I walked up the steps to the stall and found a vest that I began to examine. While I was busying myself with this an acquaintance came by; he nodded and called to me, and I let the vest hang and went down to him. He was a technician, on his way to the office.
“Come and have a glass of beer with me,” he said. “But hurry up, I don’t have much time. . . . Who was that woman you were walking with last night?”
“Look here, you!” I said, jealous of his mere thought. “What if she was my sweetheart?”
“I’ll be damned!” he said.
“Oh yes, it was all decided yesterday.”
I had bowled him over, he believed me unquestioningly. I stuffed him full of lies to get rid of him. We got our beer, drank up and left.
“Goodbye, then! . . . Look,” he said suddenly, “I owe you a few kroner, you know, and it’s a shame I haven’t paid you back a long time ago. But you’ll get your money by and by.”
“All right, thanks,” I replied. But I knew he would never pay me back that money.
The beer, unfortunately, went to my head in no time, and I felt very hot. The thought of last night’s adventure overwhelmed me, made me almost distraught. What if she didn’t show up on Tuesday! What if she began to mull it over and get suspicious! . . . Suspicious about what? . . . My thoughts, suddenly alive and kicking, started grappling with the money. I felt deadly afraid, appalled at myself. The theft rushed in upon me in every particular. I saw the little shop, the counter, my skinny hand as I grabbed the money, and I pictured to myself how the police would proceed when they came to pick me up. Shackles on hands and feet, no, only on the hands, maybe only on one hand; the desk, the register of the officer on duty, the sound of his scratchy pen, his glance, his dangerous glance: Ah, Mr. Tangen? The cell, the eternal darkness . . .
Hmm. I clenched my fists hard to bolster my courage, walked more rapidly and came to Stortorvet Square. Here I sat down.
No dumb tricks now! How in the world could they prove that I had stolen anything? Besides, the grocery boy would never dare sound the alarm, even if some day he should remember how it had all happened; his job was too dear to his heart for that. No commotion, no scenes, if you please!
But the coins still felt heavy in my pocket and gave me no peace of mind. I set about testing myself and discovered as clear as could be that I had been happier before, when I was suffering in all honesty. And Ylajali! Hadn’t I also dragged her down with my sinful hands? Oh Lord, oh Lord my God! Ylajali!
Feeling drunk as a coot, I suddenly jumped up and went right over to the cake vendor near the Elephant Pharmacy. I could still recover from my disgrace, it was far from too late, I would show the whole world that I had it in me to do so! On the way I got the money ready, holding every øre in my hand. I bent forward over the woman’s table as if I wanted to buy something and smacked the money into her hand, just like that. I didn’t say a word and left at once.
How wonderful to be an honest person again! My empty pockets no longer felt heavy, it was a pleasure to be broke once more. All things considered, I had to admit that this money had cost me much secret anguish, I had thought of it with a veritable shudder time and again. I was no hardened soul, my honest nature had revolted from the base deed, oh yes. Thank God, I had raised myself in my own estimation! I defy you to do as much! I said, looking out over the crowded marketplace, just you try! I had made a poor old cake vendor ever so happy, she didn’t know which way to turn. Her children wouldn’t go to bed hungry tonight. . . . I worked myself up with these thoughts, feeling that I had acted splendidly. Thank God, the money was now out of my hands.
Drunk and nervous, I walked down the street, girding up my loins. My delight at being able to meet Ylajali pure and honest and to look her squarely in the face, quite ran away with me in my drunkenness. I felt no pain anymore and my head was clear and empty; it was as if I had a head of pure shining light on my shoulders. I had a mind to do mischief, commit some startling act, turn the town topsy-turvy and raise a rumpus. All the way up Grænsen Street I behaved like a madman; there was a faint ringing in my ears, and in my brain the intoxication was going full tilt. Carried away by rashness, I took it into my head to go and report my age to a town porter, who incidentally hadn’t said a word, grab his hand, fix him with a penetrating look, and leave him again without an explanation. I could distinguish the nuances in the voices and laughter of the passersby, observed some small birds hopping ahead of me in the street, began to study the expressions of the cobblestones and discovered all sorts of signs and quaint figures in them. Meanwhile I had reached Storting Place.
I suddenly stand still, staring down at the cabs. The coach-men are wandering about while talking among themselves, the horses are
hanging their heads against the foul weather. Come! I said, nudging myself with my elbow. I walked quickly up to the first carriage and climbed in. “37 Ullevaal Road!” I cried. And we rolled off.
En route the coachman started to look behind him, leaning down and peeping into the carriage, where I was sitting under the oilskin. Had he become suspicious? There was no doubt that my miserable get-up had caught his eye.
“I have to see a certain man,” I called out, to steal a march on him, and I earnestly explained that I absolutely had to see this man.
We stop outside number 37. I jump out, run up the stairs, all the way to the third floor, grab a bell rope and give it a tug. The bell gave six or seven dreadful jangles inside.
A girl opens the door. I notice that she’s wearing gold earrings and has black lasting-buttons on her gray bodice. She looks at me in dismay.
I ask for Kierulf, Joachim Kierulf, if she would oblige, a trader in wool—in short, there was no mistaking him. . . .
The girl shakes her head. “There’s no Kierulf living here,” she says.
She stares at me and takes hold of the door, ready to beat a retreat. She made no effort to find the man; she really looked like she knew the person I was asking for, if she would just stop and think, the lazy creature. I got angry, turned my back on her and ran down the stairs again.
“He wasn’t there!” I called to the coachman.
“Wasn’t he there?”
“No. Drive to 11 Tomte Street.”
I was in a most violent frenzy, which rubbed off on the coachman too—he evidently believed it was a matter of life and death and drove off without further question. He lashed his horse on.
“What is the man’s name?” he asked, turning around on the cox.
“Kierulf, the wool trader, Kierulf.”
The coachman also seemed to think there was no mistaking that man. Didn’t he usually wear a light-colored coat?
“What’s that?” I cried. “A light coat? Are you crazy? Do you imagine I’m looking for a teacup?” This light coat was extremely unwelcome and spoiled the image of the man I had made for myself.
“What did you say his name was? Kierulf?”
“Certainly,” I answered. “Is there anything strange about that? What’s in a name anyway?”
“Doesn’t he have red hair?”
It might very well be that he had red hair, and now that the coachman mentioned it, I was instantly convinced he was right. I felt grateful to the poor driver and told him he had caught the spitting image of the man; what he had said was perfectly correct. It would be something quite exceptional, I said, to see such a man without red hair.
“It must be the same person I’ve driven a couple of times,” the coachman said. “He even had an ashplant.”
This made the man come vividly alive to me, and I said, “Ha-ha, to be sure, no one has ever yet seen that man without his ashplant in his hand. You may rest assured as far as that goes, quite assured.”
Yes, it was obviously the same man he had driven. He had recognized him. . . .
We tore along, making the horse’s shoes throw off sparks.
In the midst of this agitated state I hadn’t for a single moment lost my presence of mind. We pass a police officer, and I notice his number is 69. This figure hits me with a terrible accuracy, it sticks in my brain instantly, like a splinter. Sixty-nine, exactly 69, I would never forget it!
A prey to the wildest fancies, I leaned back in the carriage, curled up under the oilskin hood so that no one could see I was moving my lips, and took to chattering idiotically to myself. Madness rages through my brain and I let it rage, fully aware of being subject to influences I cannot control. I began to laugh, noiselessly and passionately, without a trace of a reason, still jolly and drunk from the couple of glasses of beer I had had. Gradually my agitation subsides, my calm returns more and more. Feeling a chill in my sore finger, I stuck it inside my neck band to warm it a bit. We arrived thus at Tomte Street. The coachman reins up.
I alight from the carriage without haste, absent-mindedly, limply, my head heavy. I walk in through the gate, come into a back yard, which I cross, run into a door which I open and pass through, and find myself in a hallway, a kind of anteroom with two windows. In one corner stand two trunks, one on top of the other, and against the long wall an old, unpainted sofa bed with a blanket on it. In the next room, to the right, I can hear voices and the squalling of babies and, above me, on the second floor, the sound of someone hammering on an iron slab. I notice all this as soon as I enter.
I walk quietly straight across the room, over to the opposite door, without hurrying, without any thought of flight, open it too and step out into Vognmand Street. I glance up at the house I have just walked through and read above the door: “Refreshments and Lodging for Travelers.”
It never enters my head to try and get away, giving the coachman waiting for me the slip. I walk sedately through Vognmand Street without fear and without being conscious of having done anything wrong. Kierulf, this trader in wool who had been haunting my brain for so long, this person who I thought existed and whom I perforce had to see, had vanished from my thoughts, erased together with other mad inventions that came and went by turns. I didn’t remember him anymore except as a vague feeling, a memory.
I sobered up more and more as I wandered on, feeling heavy and limp and dragging my feet. The snow was still falling in big, wet dollops. I got to the Grønland section at last, as far as the church, where I sat down on a bench to rest. All who walked past looked at me in great surprise. I became lost in thought.
Good God, what an awful state I was in! I was so thoroughly sick and tired of my whole wretched life that I didn’t find it worth my while to go on fighting in order to hang on to it. The hardships had got the better of me, they had been too gross; I was so strangely ruined, nothing but a shadow of what I once was. My shoulders had slumped completely to one side, and I had fallen into the habit of leaning over sharply when I walked, in order to spare my chest what little I could. I had examined my body a few days ago, at noon up in my room, and I had stood there and cried over it the whole time. I had been wearing the same shirt for weeks on end, it was stiff with old sweat and had gnawed my navel to bits. A little blood and water was oozing from the wound, though it didn’t hurt; but it was so sad to have this wound in the middle of one’s stomach. I had no remedy for it, and it refused to heal by itself; I washed it, wiped it carefully and put on the same old shirt again. There was nothing to be done about it. . . .
I sit there on the bench mulling over all this and feeling quite dismal. I am disgusted with myself, even my hands appear loathsome to me. That flabby, shameless expression on the backs of my hands pains me, makes me uneasy. I feel rudely affected by the sight of my bony fingers, and I hate my whole slack body and shudder at having to carry it, to feel it around me. God, if only it would end! I yearned to die.
Completely defeated, defiled, and degraded in my own estimation, I got mechanically to my feet and began to walk homeward. On my way I passed a gate where one could read the following: “Shrouds at Madam Andersen’s, main entrance to the right.” Old memories! I said, remembering my previous room at Hammersborg, the little rocking chair, the newspaper wall-covering down by the door, the ad from the Director of Lighthouses and the freshly baked bread of Fabian Olsen, the baker. Well, yes, I had been much better off then; one night I had written a story worth ten kroner, now I couldn’t write anything anymore—I was completely unable to, my head grew empty as soon as I tried. Yes, I wanted to end it all! I walked and walked.
As I got closer and closer to the grocery store, I had a semiconscious feeling that I was approaching a danger; but I stuck to my purpose: I was going to give myself up. I walked calmly up the steps. In the doorway I meet a little girl carrying a cup in her hand, and I let her pass and close the door. The clerk and I stand face to face for the second time.
“Why,” he says, “some awful weather we’re having.” What was the
point of this detour? Why didn’t he just nab me at once? I became furious and said, “I haven’t come here to chat about the weather.”
My anger takes him aback, his little huckster’s brain breaks down; it had never even crossed his mind that I had cheated him out of five kroner.
“You don’t know that I have bamboozled you, do you?” I say impatiently, breathing heavily, trembling and ready to use force if he won’t get to the matter in hand at once.
But the poor man is quite unsuspecting.
Good heavens, the sort of blockheads one had to deal with! I bawl him out, explaining to him point by point how it had all occurred, showing him where I stood and where he stood when the deed took place, where the coins had been, how I had gathered them up in my hand and closed my fingers over them—and he understands everything but still doesn’t do anything about it. He turns this way and that, listens for footsteps in the next room, shushes me to get me to talk lower and finally says, “That was a mean thing to do!”
“No, wait a minute!” I cried, feeling an urge to contradict him and egg him on. It wasn’t as base or shabby as he, with his miserable grocer’s mind, had imagined. I didn’t keep the money obviously, that would never occur to me; I didn’t want to reap any benefit from it personally, that went against the grain of my thoroughly honest nature.
“So what did you do with it?”
I gave it away to a poor old woman, every penny, I wanted him to know. I was that kind of person, I never quite forgot the poor. . . .
He ponders this awhile, evidently beginning to have doubts whether I am an honest man or not. Finally he says, “Shouldn’t you have returned the money instead?”
“No, just listen,” I answer brashly. “I didn’t want to get you into trouble, I wanted to spare you. But that’s the thanks one gets for being magnanimous. Here I’m explaining the whole thing to you, which should make you cringe with shame, and yet you do nothing at all to settle the dispute between us. Therefore I’m washing my hands of it all. And besides, you can go to hell. Goodbye!”
