by Knut Hamsun
“But good grief, man, they wouldn’t leave him alone!” I shouted, beside myself. However, being fearful all along that I might get thrown out, I didn’t put much force into my shout; only, my whole body trembled with rage.
The landlord turned around toward me.
“Ho, listen to that! What the hell does it have to do with you? You just keep your mouth shut and do as I say, that’s your best bet.”
But now the matron’s voice could also be heard, and the whole house resounded with wrangling.
“I believe, God help me, you must be stark-staring mad, all of you!” she screamed. “If you want to stay in here you’ll have to keep quiet, both of you, take it from me! Huh, it isn’t enough that one has to fix the poor devil up with room and board, one must put up with doomsday and commotion and devilish nuisance in one’s own house as well. But that will have to stop, take it from me! Ssh. Shut your traps, kids, and wipe your noses, too, or I’ll come and do it for you! I’ve never seen the likes of such people! Here they come in straight from the street, without even a penny to buy lice ointment, kick up a row in the middle of the night and make mischief among the people who live here. I want none of it, understand, and all those of you who don’t belong here can make yourselves scarce. I want peace in my own house, I tell you!”
I said not a word, didn’t even open my mouth, but sat down near the door again and listened to the uproar. Everyone joined in the clamor, even the children and the maid, who tried to explain how the quarrel had started. If I just kept mum it would probably blow over sooner or later; it would surely not come to the worst as long as I didn’t say anything. What could I say anyway? Wasn’t it winter outside, and besides, wasn’t night coming on? Was this the time to pound the table and show you could hold your own? No tomfooleries, please! And so I sat still and didn’t quit the house, though I had very nearly been given notice. Hardened, I stared at the wall, where Christ was hanging in an oleograph, and kept stubbornly silent amid all the landlady’s sallies.
“Well, if it’s me you want to get rid of, ma’am, nothing stands in the way as far as I am concerned,” one of the card players said.
He stood up. The other card player stood up too.
“No, I didn’t mean you. Not you either,” the landlady answered the two of them. “If necessary, I’ll show whom I mean, all right. If necessary. Take it from me. We shall see who it is.”
She spoke in spurts and gave me these jabs at short intervals, dragging it out to let me know more clearly that it was me she had in mind. Quiet! I said to myself. Just quiet! She hadn’t asked me to leave, not expressly, not in so many words. Only, no arrogance on my part, no misplaced pride! Keep all your wits about you! . . . How curiously green the hair of that Christ in the oleograph was. It had a distinct resemblance to green grass or, expressed with studied precision: thick meadow grass. Ha, a perfectly correct remark on my part, reasonably thick meadow grass. . . . A succession of fleeting associations of ideas flashed through my head at this moment—from the green grass to a Bible passage that says all flesh is as grass that is torched, and from there to Judgment Day when everything would be burned up, then a small detour to the Lisbon earthquake, whereupon I had a dim memory of a Spanish brass spittoon and an ebony penholder I had seen at Ylajali’s. Alas, all was perishable! Just like grass that was torched. It all came to four boards and a shroud—at Madam Andersen’s, main entrance to the right. . . .
All this was tossed around in my head in this desperate moment when my landlady was about to throw me out of the house.
“He doesn’t hear!” she cried. “I’m telling you to leave this house, now you know! Strike me dead, I believe the man must be crazy! Now, get out, this blessed minute, and no more idle talk.”
I looked toward the door, not to leave, not at all to leave—an audacious idea occurred to me: if there had been a key in the door I would have turned it, locking myself in with the others to avoid leaving. I felt an absolutely hysterical horror at the thought of ending up on the street again. But there wasn’t any key in the door and I got up; there was no hope left.
Then my landlord’s voice suddenly mingles with his wife’s. Astonished, I remained standing. The same man who had recently threatened me takes my part, strangely enough. He says, “You can’t throw people out on the street at night, you know. You can go to jail for that.”
I didn’t know if you could go to jail for it, I didn’t think so, but perhaps it was true, and the wife soon thought better of it, calmed down and didn’t say another word to me. She even put out two sandwiches for my supper, but I didn’t accept them—I didn’t accept them solely because of my gratitude to the husband, pretending that I had eaten in town.
When I finally went out into the hall to go to bed, the matron followed me, stopped on the threshold and said loudly, her big pregnant belly bulging out toward me, “But this is the last night you’re sleeping here, now you know.”
“All right,” I answered.
By tomorrow something might turn up in the way of shelter if I put real effort into it. I was bound to find some sort of hiding place. For the time being I was glad not to have to spend the night in the open.4
I slept until five or six in the morning. It wasn’t light yet when I awoke, but I got up right away all the same. I had slept fully clothed because of the cold, so there was nothing more to put on. After drinking some water and quietly opening the door, I went out at once, as I was afraid of meeting my landlady again.
The only living things I saw in the street were a few policemen who had been on patrol all night. Shortly afterward some men began to put out the street lamps all around. I drifted about aimlessly, got up to Kirke Street and headed down toward the Fortress. Cold and still sleepy, my knees and back tired from my long walk, and very hungry, I sat down on a bench and fell into a long doze. For three weeks I had been living exclusively on the sandwiches my landlady had given me morning and evening. It was now exactly twenty-four hours since I had had my last meal, my hunger pains were becoming severe once more, and I had to find a way out fairly soon. With this thought, I fell asleep again on the bench. . . .
I was awakened by people talking nearby, and when I had gathered my wits about me I saw it was broad daylight and that everyone was up and about. I stood up and walked off. The sun was bursting forth over the hills, the sky was nice and clear, and in my joy at the beautiful morning after so many dark weeks I forgot all my worries and thought I had been worse off many a time. I slapped my chest and sang a snatch of song to myself. My voice sounded so poor, downright feeble, I was moved to tears by it. Also, this gorgeous day, that clear sky flooded with light, affected me all too deeply and I burst into loud sobs.
“What’s the matter with you?” some man asked.
I didn’t answer, just hurried off, hiding my face from everybody.
I came down to the docks. A big barque with a Russian flag was unloading coal; I read its name, Copégoro, on the ship’s side. I found it amusing for a while to observe what was going on aboard the foreign ship. It must have been almost completely unloaded, sitting already with IX feet naked on the stem despite the ballast it had taken in by now, and when the coal-heavers trampled along the deck in their heavy boots, the entire ship gave a hollow boom.
The sun, the light, the salty breath of air from the ocean, all this lively, bustling activity stiffened my backbone and set my heart throbbing. Suddenly it occurred to me that I might do a couple of scenes of my play while sitting here. I took my sheets of paper from my pocket.
I tried to shape up some lines from the lips of a monk, lines that ought to swell with intolerance and power, but I didn’t succeed. So I skipped the monk and tried to work out a speech, that which the judge addressed to the dese crator of the temple, and I wrote half a page of this speech, whereupon I stopped. My words just wouldn’t evoke the right atmosphere. The bustling activity around me, the sea shanties, the noise of the capstans, and the incessant clanking of the railcar couplings agreed poorly w
ith that thick, musty air of mediaevalism which was to envelop my play, like fog. I gathered up my papers and got up.
Still, I had made a wonderful start, and I was confident I could now accomplish something if all went well. If only I had someplace to go! I thought hard—I actually stopped in the middle of the street to think—but didn’t come up with a single quiet place in the whole city where I could settle down for a while. I had no choice but to go back to the rooming house in the Vaterland section. Though I shrank from the very thought of this, telling myself all along it just wouldn’t do, I inched forward all the same and came closer and closer to the forbidden spot. It was cowardly, to be sure, that I admitted to myself—it was, in fact, disgraceful, downright disgraceful; but there was no help for it. I wasn’t the least bit proud—I dare say I was one of the least cocky creatures in existence these days. And so I went.
I stopped at the entrance and pondered the matter yet once more. Yes, I had to risk it, come what may. The whole thing was a mere trifle anyway. First, it would only be for a few hours; second, God forbid I should ever again take refuge in that house! I went into the courtyard. Picking my way over the uneven cobbles in the yard, I still felt uncertain and very nearly turned around at the door. I clenched my teeth. No, none of your misplaced pride now! If worst came to worst, I could always give the excuse that I had dropped in to say goodbye, take proper leave, and to come to an agreement concerning my small debt to the house. I opened the door to the hall.
Once inside, I remained stock-still. Right in front of me, two steps away, stood the landlord himself, without hat and coat, peeping through the keyhole into the family room. He made mute gestures with his hand to make me stay quiet and peeped through the keyhole again. He was laughing. “Come over here,” he said in a whisper.
I approached on tiptoe.
“Just look!” he said, laughing with a quiet, excited laughter. “Take a peep! Hee-hee! There they lie. Look at the old man! Can you see the old man?”
In the bed, right below Christ’s oleograph and directly opposite me, I could see two figures, the landlady and the strange mate; her legs gleamed white against the dark quilt. And on the bed by the other wall sat her father, the paralyzed graybeard, looking on, hunched over his hands and curled up as usual, without being able to move.
I turned around to my landlord. He had the greatest difficulty keeping from laughing aloud. He was holding his hand over his nose.5
“Did you see the old man?” he whispered. “Oh Lord, did you see the old man? The way he sits there looking on!” He put his face to the keyhole again.
I went over to the window and sat down. This spectacle had thrown all my thoughts into merciless confusion and upset my rich mood. Why, what was it to me? When the husband himself put up with it, was even greatly amused by it, there was no reason why I should take it to heart. And as far as the old man was concerned, the old man was an old man. Maybe he didn’t even see it, maybe he just sat there sleeping; God knows, he might even be dead. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was dead sitting there. I felt no qualms about it.
I picked up my papers again and tried to dismiss all extraneous impressions. I had stopped in the middle of a sentence of the judge’s speech: And so God and the law bid me, the counsel of my wise men bids me, and so too my own conscience bids me . . . I looked out the window to consider what his conscience should bid him do. A small noise reached my ears from the living room. Pshaw, it was no concern of mine, not in the least; besides, the old graybeard was dead—he could have died this morning, around four. Consequently, I didn’t care two hoots about that noise. Why the hell, then, was I sitting there troubling my head about it? Quiet now!
And so too my own conscience bids me . . .
But everything conspired against me. The husband didn’t keep altogether quiet over by the keyhole, not by any means; I could hear his suppressed laughter every now and then and saw him shaking. Out in the street there was also something going on that distracted me. A small boy was puttering by himself in the sun on the far sidewalk; completely off his guard, he sat there tying together some strips of paper and wasn’t bothering anybody. Suddenly he jumps up and curses. Backing into the street, he catches sight of a man, a grown man with a red beard, who was leaning out of an open second-floor window and spitting down on his head. The little fellow cried from anger and cursed helplessly up at the window, and the man just laughed in his face. Five minutes may have gone by that way. I turned away to avoid seeing the boy’s tears.
And so too my own conscience bids me . . .
I found it impossible to get any further. In the end my mind seemed to be giving way; I even thought that what I had already written was unusable, that the whole idea, in fact, was utter nonsense. One couldn’t really talk about conscience in the Middle Ages, the conscience was only invented by Shakespeare, that old dancing master, and consequently my whole speech was wrong. So was there nothing of value in these pages? I leafed through them afresh and dispelled my doubts immediately; I found some magnificent parts, quite long passages that were really extraordinary. An intoxicating urge to set to work again and finish my play swept through me once more.
I got up and went over to the door without heeding the landlord’s furious signs to me to step lightly. I walked firmly and resolutely out of the hall, up the stairs to the second floor, and entered my old room. The mate wasn’t there, after all, so what stood in the way of my sitting here a moment? I wouldn’t touch any of his things, wouldn’t even use his table, but just settle on a chair near the door and be glad at that. I eagerly unfold the papers on my knees.
Now it went extremely well for several minutes. One speech after another sprang up in my head, perfectly finished, and I wrote without a break. I fill one page after another, tear along at full speed, murmuring softly with delight at my fine mood and scarcely knowing what I’m doing. The only sound I hear at this moment is my own joyful murmur. I also had a felicitous idea about a church bell that would burst out ringing at a certain point in my play. Everything was going sweepingly.
Then I hear footsteps on the stairs. I tremble, almost beside myself and ready to jump up at any moment, wary, alert, fearful of everything, and inflamed by hunger. I listen nervously, hold the pencil still in my hand and listen, unable to write another word. The door opens, and the pair from the living room step in.
Even before I had time to apologize, the landlady shouted, thunderstruck, “Goodness gracious, there he is again!”
“I beg your pardon!” I said. I would have said more but didn’t get any further.
The landlady threw the door open all the way and screamed, “I swear to God, if you don’t leave this minute I’ll call the police!”
I stood up.
“I just wanted to say goodbye,” I mumbled, “and so I had to wait for you. I haven’t touched a thing, I was just sitting here on this chair—”
“No harm done,” the mate said. “Why the damn fuss? Just leave the man alone!”
Going down the stairs, I suddenly flew into a rage with this fat, bloated woman who was following hard on my heels to get rid of me in a jiffy, and I stood still for a moment, my mouth full of the most awful epithets which I had a mind to spit at her. But I thought better of it and held my tongue—held my tongue out of gratitude to the stranger who walked behind her and would hear it all. The landlady was constantly pursuing me, hurling abuse without letup, while my anger increased with every step that I took.
We came down into the yard, with me walking very slowly, still trying to decide whether to take on the landlady. I was at this moment frantic with rage, contemplating the most awful bloodshed, a blow that would strike her dead instantly, a kick in the belly. A messenger passes me in the entrance, he says hello but I don’t answer. He turns to the matron behind me, and I can hear him asking for me. But I don’t turn around.
A few steps outside the entrance the messenger catches up with me, says hello once more and stops me. He hands me a letter. Angry and reluctant, I t
ear it open—a ten-krone bill falls out of the envelope, but no letter, not a word.
I look at the man and ask, “What sort of silly prank is this? Who is this letter from?”
“I don’t know,” he answers, “but it was a lady who gave it to me.”
I stood still. The messenger left. I put the bill back in the envelope, crumple it all up, turn around and walk up to the landlady, who is still keeping an eye on me from the entrance, and throw the bill in her face. I didn’t say anything, didn’t utter a syllable, only noticed that she examined the crumpled-up paper before I left.
Ha, that’s what was called knowing how to acquit oneself!6 Not say a word, not speak to the scum, but quite calmly crumple up a big bill and throw it straight in the face of one’s persecutors. That’s what one could call behaving with dignity. It served them right, the brutes!
When I got to the corner of Tomte Street and Jærnbanetorvet Square, the street suddenly began swirling before my eyes, there was an empty buzzing in my head, and I fell up against the wall of a building. I simply couldn’t walk any further, couldn’t even straighten up from my awkward position. I remained slumped over against the wall, just as I had fallen, and I felt I was about to pass out. My insane anger was only heightened by this fit of exhaustion, and I lifted my foot and stamped it on the sidewalk. I also did various other things to recover my strength: I clenched my teeth, knitted my brows and rolled my eyes in despair, and it began to help. My mind cleared up, I understood I was about to go under. I stretched out my hands and pushed myself back from the wall; the street was still whirling around with me. Bursting into sobs of rage, I fought my distress with my innermost soul, bravely holding my own so as not to fall down: I had no intention of collapsing, I would die on my feet. A cart rolled slowly by. I see there are potatoes in the cart, but out of rage, from sheer obstinacy, I take it into my head to say they weren’t potatoes at all, they were cabbages, and I swore horribly that they were cabbages. I heard quite well what I said, and I swore willfully time after time, upholding this lie just to have the droll satisfaction of committing downright perjury. Drunk with this unprecedented sin, I raised three fingers and swore with quivering lips in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost that they were cabbages.
