by Knut Hamsun
I slunk away, a little ashamed at being so early, and wandered about on Karl Johan Street awhile, keeping an eye on the University clock. When it turned eight I started up University Street again. On the way it occurred to me that I might be a few minutes late, and I pressed on as best I could. My foot was very sore, otherwise there was nothing the matter with me.
I posted myself near the fountain and caught my breath. I stood there for quite a while, looking up at the windows of number two, but she didn’t come. Well, I would wait, I wasn’t in a hurry; perhaps she had been detained. I waited some more. I couldn’t have dreamed the whole thing, could I? Fantasized that first meeting with her the night I was laid up with a fever? Perplexed, I began to think back and wasn’t at all sure.
“Hmm!” came from behind me.
I heard this sound, and I also heard light footsteps nearby; but I didn’t turn around, only stared up at the tall flight of steps before me.
Then came, “Good evening!”
I forget to smile, don’t even tip my hat right away, being greatly surprised to see her coming from that direction.
“Have you been waiting long?” she says, breathing rapidly after her walk.
“No, not at all, I only came a short while ago,” I answered. “Besides, what would it matter if I had waited long? By the way, I thought you would be coming from another direction.”
“I took Mama to see some friends—Mama will be away this evening.”
“Is that so!” I said.
We had started walking now. A policeman stands on the corner looking at us.
“Where are we actually going?” she says, stopping.
“Wherever you want, just where you want.”
“Oh dear. But it’s such a bore to decide that yourself.”
Pause.
Then I say, just to say something, “Your windows are dark, I see.”
“Yes!” she answers vivaciously. “The maid is off this evening, too. So I’m home all alone.”
We are both looking up at the windows of number two, as if neither of us had ever seen them before.
“Can we go up to your place then?” I say. “I’ll sit by the door the whole time if you want me to. . . .”
But the next moment I was trembling with emotion, full of remorse for having been too brash. What if she became offended and walked away? What if I never got to see her again? Oh, that wretched suit I was wearing! I waited desperately for her answer.
“You certainly won’t sit by the door,” she says.
We went up.
In the hallway, where it was dark, she took my hand and led me on. I didn’t have to be so quiet, she said, I could very well talk. We came in. As she made a light—she didn’t light a lamp but a candle—as she lighted this candle, she said with a little laugh, “But now you mustn’t look at me. Oo, I’m so ashamed! But I’ll never do it again.”
“What won’t you ever do again?”
“I’ll never . . . oh, dear, God forbid . . . I’ll never kiss you again.”
“You won’t?” I said, and we both laughed. I stretched out my arms for her but she slid aside, slipping away on the other side of the table. We stood looking at each other a little while, with the candle between us.17
Then she began to undo her veil and take off her hat, while her sparkling eyes were glued to me, watching my movements to keep me from catching her. I made another lunge forward, tripped on the carpet and fell; my sore foot refused to hold me up any longer. I got up, extremely embarrassed.
“My goodness, how red you became!” she said. “Was it as clumsy as all that?”
“Yes, it was.”
We began running around afresh.
“You seem to be limping.”
“I may be limping a little—just a little, though.”
“The last time you had a sore finger, now you have a sore foot. You certainly have lots of troubles.”
“I was run over a bit the other day.”
“Run over? Drunk again, then? Good heavens, what a life you’re leading, young man!” She threatened me with her forefinger and put up a serious face. “Let’s sit down!” she said. “No, not there by the door. You’re too shy. Over here—you there and I here, that’s it. . . . Oh, shy people are such a bore! One has to say and do everything oneself, they don’t help out with anything. For example, I wouldn’t mind if you put your hand on the back of my chair right now, you could easily have dreamed up that much by yourself, couldn’t you? Because if I say something like that, your eyes pop as if you don’t quite believe me. Yes, it’s really true, I’ve seen it several times, you’re doing it now too. But don’t try to tell me you are that modest when you dare come on. You were fresh enough that day when you were tipsy and followed me straight home, pestering me with your wit ticisms: ‘You’re losing your book, miss! You’re definitely losing your book, miss!’ Ha-ha-ha! Phew, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
I sat looking at her with rapt attention. My heart was thumping, the blood coursing warmly through my veins. What a wonderful pleasure18 to be sitting in a human dwelling again, hear a clock ticking, and talk with a lively young girl instead of with myself!
“Why don’t you say something?”
“Ah, how sweet you are!” I said. “I’m sitting here getting fascinated by you, at this moment I’m thoroughly fascinated. I can’t help it. You are the strangest person that . . . Sometimes your eyes are so radiant, I’ve never seen anything like it, they look like flowers. Eh? No, no, maybe not like flowers but . . . I’m madly in love with you, and it won’t do me a bit of good. What’s your name? Really, you must tell me what your name is. . . .”
“No, what’s your name? Goodness, I almost forgot again! I was thinking all day yesterday that I must ask you. Well, that is, not all day yesterday, I certainly didn’t think about you all day yesterday.”
“Do you know what I’ve called you? I have called you Ylajali. How do you like it? Such a gliding sound—”
“Ylajali?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a foreign language?”
“Hmm. No, it’s not.”
“Well, it isn’t ugly.”
After long negotiations we told each other our names. She sat down right beside me on the sofa and pushed the chair away with her foot. We began chatting anew.
“You have shaved, too, this evening,” she said. “You look on the whole a little better than last time, but actually only a wee bit better; just don’t you imagine . . . No, the last time you were really mean. On top of it all, you had a horrible rag around your finger. And in that condition you were dead set on going in somewhere to have a glass of wine with me. No, thank you.”
“So it was because of my wretched appearance that you refused to go with me, wasn’t it?” I said.
“No,” she answered, dropping her eyes. “Oh no, God knows it wasn’t! I didn’t even think of that.”
“Look,” I said. “You imagine I can dress and live exactly as I please, don’t you? But, you see, I can’t do that. I’m very, very poor.”
She looked at me.
“You are?” she said.
“Yes, I am.”
Pause.
“Oh dear me, so am I,” she said with a brisk movement of her head.
Every one of her words intoxicated me, fell on my heart like drops of wine,19 though she was probably a perfectly average Kristiania girl, with her jargon, her bold little sallies, and her chatter. She delighted me with the way she had of tilting her head slightly sideways as she listened to me talk. And I could feel her breath full upon my face.
“Do you know,” I said, “that . . . But promise you won’t get angry. . . . When I went to bed last night I put my arm out for you . . . like this . . . as if you were lying on it. And then I went to sleep.”
“Really? That was pretty!” Pause. “But you’d really have to be far away from me to do something like that, for otherwise—”
“You don’t think I could do it otherwise?”
&n
bsp; “No, I don’t.”
“Oh yes, from me you can expect everything,” I said, puffing myself up. And I put my arm around her waist.
“I can?” she said, nothing more.
It annoyed and hurt me that she considered me too good. I threw out my chest, plucked up courage and grabbed her hand. But she pulled it quietly back and moved a little away from me. That was enough to kill my courage, I felt ashamed and looked out the window. Anyhow, I cut an all too sorry figure sitting there, I’d better not get any ideas. It would have been a different matter if I had met her while I still looked like a human being, in my palmy days, when I had what it took to keep afloat. I felt very depressed.
“There, see!” she said. “There you can see! All it takes to knock you over is a tiny frown, you look sheepish as soon as one moves a little away from you. . . .” She laughed impishly, her eyes completely closed, as if she herself couldn’t stand being looked at.
“Well, I never!” I blurted out. “Just you wait and see!” And I flung my arms lustily around her shoulders. Was the girl out of her mind? Did she take me for a complete green-horn? Haw-haw, wouldn’t I, though, by the living . . . No one should say about me that I was backward on that score. What a little devil! If it was just a matter of pushing on, then . . .
As though I was good for much of anything!20
She sat quite still, her eyes closed as before; neither of us spoke. I pressed her hard to me, squeezing her body against my breast, and she didn’t say a word. I could hear our heartbeats, both hers and mine; they sounded like hoofbeats.
I kissed her.
I didn’t know what I was doing anymore, said some nonsense that she laughed at, whispered endearments against her mouth, stroked her cheek and kissed her again and again. I opened a button or two in her bodice and glimpsed her breasts underneath, white, round breasts that peeked out like two sweet miracles behind her underlinen.
“May I see?” I say, trying some more buttons, eager to enlarge the opening. But I can’t get anywhere with the lower buttons, my emotion is too strong and, besides, her bodice is tighter there. “May I see just a little . . . a little . . . ?”
She winds her arm around my neck, quite slowly, tenderly; her breath blows directly on my face from her red, quivering nostrils. With the other hand she begins to undo the buttons herself, one by one. She laughs bashfully, a short laugh, and glances up at me several times to see whether I notice she’s afraid. She unties the bands and unhooks her corset, rapt and apprehensive. And my coarse hands fiddle with these buttons and bands.
To distract my attention from what she is doing, she runs her left hand over my shoulder and says, “What a lot of loose hair you’ve got here!”
“Yes,” I reply, trying to press my mouth onto her bosom. At this moment she lies with her clothes completely open. Suddenly she seems to change her mind, as though she feels she has gone too far. She covers herself again and sits up a little. To hide her embarrassment over her unbuttoned clothes, she starts talking once more about all the dead hair on my shoulders.
“How come you’re losing so much hair?”
“Don’t know.”
“You drink too much, of course, and perhaps . . . Phew, I won’t even say it! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I wouldn’t have believed it of you, no, never! To think that you, who are so young, should already be losing your hair! . . . Now, you’d better tell me straight out what sort of life you’re leading. I’m sure it’s awful! But only the truth, mind you, no quibbles! Anyway, I’ll know from your face if you try to hide something. So, go on and tell me!” Oh, how tired I was! How much I’d rather sit still looking at her than putting on an act and taking a lot of trouble over all these moves. I was good for nothing, I’d turned into a wet sock.
“Come on, will you!” she said.21
I seized the opportunity and told her everything, and I told nothing but the truth. I didn’t make anything worse than it was, it wasn’t my intention to arouse her compassion. I even said that I had walked off with five kroner one evening.
She was listening agape, pale, frightened, her shining eyes quite troubled. I wanted to put it right again, to dispel the sad impression I had made, and so I pulled myself together. “Anyway, it’s over now, there’s no question of such doings anymore; I’m saved now. . . .”
But she was very crestfallen. “Lord help me!” she said, just that, and was silent. She said this at short intervals and then was silent again, each time. “Lord help me!”
I began joking, poked her in the side to tickle her and lifted her up to my breast. She had buttoned her dress again, and that annoyed me. Why should she button her dress? Was I less worthy now, in her eyes, than if I had only myself to blame for my hair falling out, because of unbridled living? Would she have thought better of me if I had turned myself into a roué? . . . No nonsense now! It was only a matter of pushing on! And if it was only a matter of pushing on, then I was the right man.
I had to try once more.
I laid her down, simply laid her down on the sofa. She struggled, not much though, and looked astonished.
“No! . . . What do you want?” she said.
“What I want?”22
“No! . . . Why, no . . . !”
“Oh yes, oh yes . . . !”
“No, d’you hear!” she cried. And she added these cutting words, “Why, I believe you’re crazy!”
Startled into leaving off for a moment, I said, “You don’t mean that!”
“Oh yes, you look so queer! And that morning when you were following me—so you weren’t really drunk that time?”
“No. But I wasn’t hungry either then, you know; I had just eaten.”
“So much the worse.”
“Would you rather I had been drunk?”
“Yes . . . Oh, I’m so scared of you! Good God, can’t you let go of me!”
I thought it over. No, I couldn’t let go, I would lose too much that way.23 No damn fiddle-faddle on a sofa at this time of night!24 Ha, the sort of excuses they dreamed up at such a moment! As if I didn’t know it was all nothing but bashfulness! How green could I be? So, quiet now! No nonsense!25
She fought me off vigorously, oddly enough, far too vigorously simply to arise from bashfulness. I knocked the candle over by mistake, so it went out. She fought back desperately, even gave out a little whimper.
“No, not that, not that! If you want to, I’d let you kiss my bosom instead. Please, please!”
I stopped immediately. Her words sounded so frightened, so helpless that I was touched to the quick. She meant to offer me compensation by allowing me to kiss her bosom! How beautiful, beautiful and naive! I could have fallen on my knees before her.
“But my dear!” I said, quite confused. “I don’t understand . . . I really can’t understand what sort of game you’re playing. . . .”
She got up and lighted the candle again with trembling hands. I was left on the sofa doing nothing. What would happen now? I felt extremely ill at ease.
She glanced at the wall, at the clock, and gave a start.
“Oo, the maid will be home soon!” she said. This was the first thing she said.
I understood the hint and stood up. She reached for her coat as if to put it on but changed her mind, let it lie where it was and went over to the fireplace. She was pale and grew more and more restless. So it shouldn’t look like she was throwing me out, I said, “Was your father a military man?” At the same time I got ready to leave.
“Yes, he was. How did you know?”
“I didn’t, it just occurred to me.”
“That’s odd.”
“Well, yes.” There were certain places I went where I would get hunches. “Heh-heh, it’s part of my madness, you know. . . .”
She looked up quickly but didn’t answer. I felt my presence was painful to her and wanted to get it over with. I went to the door. She wouldn’t kiss me anymore, would she? Not even give me her hand? I was waiting.
“Are you going now?” she
said, still standing quietly over by the fireplace.
I didn’t answer. I felt humiliated and confused and looked at her without speaking. Oh, what a mess I’d made!26 It didn’t seem to affect her that I stood there ready to go; all at once she was completely lost to me, and I searched for something to say to her for goodbye, some deep, weighty word that would cut into her and maybe impress her a little. But in the teeth of my firm resolve, hurt, uneasy and offended instead of proud and cold, I just started talking about trifles. The cutting word didn’t come, I behaved very thoughtlessly. It ended up being claptrap and rhetoric again.27
Why couldn’t she just tell me, in no uncertain terms, to leave? I asked. Yes, yes, why not? There was no need to feel embarrassed about it. Instead of reminding me that the maid would soon be home, she could simply have said the following: Now you must get lost, because I’m going to pick up my mother, and I don’t want to be seen walking down the street with you. So, that was not what she’d been thinking? Oh yes, that was what she’d been thinking, all right, I understood that at once. It took so little to put me on the track; just the way she had reached for her coat and then left it where it was had convinced me immediately. As I had said before, I had a knack for hunches. And it might not be that crazy either, not really—.
“But good heavens, can’t you forgive me for that one word! It just slipped out,” she cried. But she still stood motionless and didn’t come over to me.
I was unrelenting and went on. I stood there jabbering away, having the unpleasant feeling that I was boring her, that not a single one of my words hit home, and yet I didn’t stop. One could, after all, be quite a sensitive person even if one wasn’t crazy, I said; there were natures that fed on trifles and died from a harsh word. I gave her to understand that I had such a nature. The fact of the matter was that my poverty had sharpened certain aptitudes in me to such a degree that it got me into outright trouble—“yes, I assure you, outright trouble, I’m sorry to say.” But it also had its advantages, it helped me in certain situations. The intelligent poor individual was a much finer observer than the intelligent rich one. The poor individual looks around him at every step, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets; thus, every step he takes presents a problem, a task, for his thoughts and feelings. He is alert and sensitive, he is experienced, his soul has been burned. . . .
