Hunger (15 page)

I took my time going home, crawling at a snail's pace. I felt thirsty, happily for the first time all day, and kept looking around for a place to drink. I had gotten too far away from the Arcades, and I didn't want to walk into a private house. Perhaps I could just wait till I got home, it would take a mere quarter of an hour. It was by no means certain that I could keep down a mouthful of water anyway; my stomach didn't tolerate anything anymore, I even felt nauseated by the saliva I kept swallowing.

But the buttons! I hadn't tried with the buttons yet. I stood stock-still and broke into a smile. There might still be a way out. I wasn't completely doomed. I would certainly get ten øre for them, tomorrow I would get ten more someplace or other, and Thursday I would be paid for my newspaper article! There you could see, things would take a turn for the better! Imagine forgetting the buttons! I took them out of my pocket and inspected them as I walked on; my eyes went dim with joy, and I couldn't properly see the street I was walking on.

How thoroughly familiar I was with that big basement, my refuge in the dark evenings, my bloodsucking friend! One by one my possessions had vanished down there, little things from home, my last book. I would go down to watch on the auction day, and I was glad every time my books seemed to fall into good hands. Magelsen, the actor, had my watch, and that made me almost feel proud; a yearbook with my first modest poetic attempts in it had been bought by an acquaintance, and my overcoat ended up with a photographer, to be on loan in the studio. So I had no reason to complain.

I held the buttons ready in my hand and stepped in. “Un cle” sits at his desk, writing.

“I'm not in a hurry,” I say, afraid to disturb him and rub him the wrong way with my request. My voice sounded so strangely hollow that I almost failed to recognize it, and my heart was thumping like a hammer.

He approached me with a smile as usual, placed both his hands palms down on the counter, and looked me squarely in the face without saying anything.

Well, I had brought something I wanted to ask if he could use . . . something that was only in my way at home—“believe me, a real nuisance, some buttons.”

Well, what about it, what about those buttons? And he brings his eyes right down to my hand.

Couldn't he let me have a few øre for them? . . . As much as he himself saw fit . . . Using his own discretion . . .

“For those buttons?” “Uncle” stares at me in surprise. “For
these
buttons?”

Just enough for a cigar or whatever he pleased to give me. “I was just passing by and thought I'd drop in.”

The old pawnbroker laughed and returned to his desk without saying a word. I just stood there. I hadn't really hoped for very much, and yet I had thought I might possibly be helped out. This laughter was my death sentence. It probably wasn't any use to try with the glasses either.

“Naturally I would throw in my glasses, too, that goes without saying,” I said, taking them off. “Just ten øre”—or, if he pleased, five øre.

“You know, don't you, that I can't lend you anything on your glasses,” “Uncle” said. “I have told you so before.”

“But I need a stamp,” I said, in a muffled voice. I couldn't even mail the letters I was going to write. “A ten- or five øre stamp, just as you please.”

“May God bless you, and now, be on your way!” he answered, motioning me off with his hand.

All right, we'll forget about it, I said to myself. Mechanically, I put my glasses back on, picked up the buttons and left. I said good night and closed the door behind me as usual. There, nothing more to be done! I stopped at the top of the stairs and took another look at the buttons. Imagine, he wasn't at all interested! I said. And the buttons are almost new; I just can't understand.

While I stood there, absorbed in these reflections, a man came by and went down into the basement. In his hurry he had brushed against me, we both apologized, and I turned around and followed him with my eyes.

“Oh, it's you!” he suddenly said, from the bottom of the stairs. He came back up and I recognized him. “Goodness gracious, you look a mess!” he said. “What were you doing down here?”

“Oh—I had some business. You're going there too, I see.”

“Yes. What did you bring?”

My knees shook, I leaned against the wall and held out my hand with the buttons.

“What the hell!” he cried. “No, this is going too far!”

“Good night,” I said, turning to go. I had a lump in my throat.

“No, wait a moment!” he said.

What should I wait for? He was on his way to “Uncle” himself, bringing his engagement ring perhaps, had been going hungry for several days, was in debt to his landlady.

“All right,” I answered, “if you will be quick—”

“Of course,” he said, grabbing my arm. “But the fact is, I don't believe you, idiot that you are. You'd better come with me.”

I understood what he had in mind, felt another twinge of honor of a sudden and answered, “I can't! I've promised to be in Bernt Anker Street at half-past seven, and—”

“Half-past seven, right! But it's eight now. See this watch in my hand? That's what I'm taking down there. So, in with you, you hungry sinner! I'll get at least five kroner for you.”

And he pushed me in.

PART THREE

A WEEK WENT BY in joy and gladness.

I was over the worst this time too. I had food every day, my courage rose, and I had more and more irons in the fire. I was working on three or four monographs, which picked my poor brain clean of every spark, every thought that arose in it, and I felt it was going better than before. My last article, which had cost me so much running around and given rise to so much hope, had already been returned by the editor, and I had destroyed it immediately, angry and insulted, without reading it afresh. In the future I would try another paper, in order to open up more opportunities for myself. At worst, if that didn't help either, I had the ships to turn to.
The Nun
lay ready to sail at the pier, and I might be able to work my way to Arkhangelsk on it, or wherever it was bound for. So there was no lack of prospects in several quarters.

My last crisis had dealt roughly with me. I began to lose a lot of hair, my headaches were also very troublesome, especially in the morning, and my nervousness refused to go away. During the day I sat and wrote with my hands swathed in rags, merely because I couldn't stand my own breath on them. When Jens Olai slammed the stable door downstairs or a dog entered the back yard and started barking, I felt as though pierced to the quick by cold stabs of pain which hit me everywhere. I was fairly done for.

I toiled at my work day after day, barely allowing myself time to gulp down my food before going on with my writing again. In those days both my bed and my small wobbly writing table were flooded with notes and manuscript pages I took turns working on, adding new things that would occur to me in the course of the day, erasing, brushing up the dead spots with a colorful word here and there, struggling ahead sentence by sentence with the greatest difficulty. Then, one afternoon, one of my articles was finished at last and, pleased and happy, I stuck it in my pocket and went up to the “Commander's.” It was high time I bestirred myself to get some money again, I didn't have very many øre left.

The “Commander” asked me to sit down for a moment, then he would right away . . . And he went on writing.

I looked about me in the small office: busts, lithographs, clippings, and an immense wastebasket that looked as though it could swallow a man whole. I felt sad at the sight of that huge maw, those dragon's jaws which were always open, always ready to receive fresh scrapped writings—fresh blasted hopes.

“What is today's date?” the “Commander” suddenly asks from his desk.

“The 28th,” I answer, glad to be of service to him.

“The 28th.” And he goes on writing. Finally he slips a couple of letters into their envelopes, tosses some papers into the wastebasket and lays down his pen. Then he swings around in his chair and looks at me. When he notices that I am still standing by the door, he waves his hand in a half-serious, half-facetious manner and points to a chair.

I turn away so he won't see I'm not wearing a vest when I open my coat, and take the manuscript from my pocket.

“It's just a short profile of Correggio,” I say, “but I'm afraid it may not be written in such a way that—”

He takes the papers out of my hand and starts leafing through them. He turns his face in my direction.

So this was how he looked close up, this man whose name I had already heard in my first youth and whose paper had had the greatest influence on me throughout the years. His hair is curly, his fine brown eyes a bit restless; he has a habit of snorting slightly every once in a while. A Scottish parson couldn't look more gentle than this dangerous writer, whose words had always left bloody stripes wherever they struck. I am stirred by a curious feeling of fear and admiration vis-à-vis this person; on the verge of tears, I cannot help advancing a step to tell him how sincerely I loved him for all he had taught me and to ask him not to hurt me—I was only a poor devil who had a hard enough time of it as it was.

He looked up and slowly folded my manuscript, pondering as he did so. To make it easier for him to give me a refusal, I extend my hand slightly and remark, “Oh well, you can't use it, of course.” And I smile to give the impression I'm taking it lightly.

“Everything we can use must be so popular,” he answers. “You know the sort of public we have. Couldn't you try to make it a bit simpler? Or else come up with something that people understand better?”

His tact strikes me with wonder. I realize that my article has been scrapped, but I couldn't have received a nicer refusal. So as not to take up more of his time, I reply, “Yes, I suppose I could.”

I walk up to the door. Hmm. He had to excuse me for taking up his time with this. . . . I bow and put my hand on the doorknob.

“If you need it,” he says, “I would be glad to give you a small advance. You can always write for it.”

Now that he had seen I was no good as a writer, his offer felt somewhat humiliating, and I replied, “Thank you, no, I can manage awhile yet. Thank you kindly anyway. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” the “Commander” replies, turning back to his desk the same moment.

Even so he had treated me with undeserved kindness, and I was grateful to him for that; I would know how to appreciate it, too. I decided not to come back to him until I could bring him a piece I was completely satisfied with, something that would take the “Commander” by surprise and make him order me to be paid ten kroner without a moment's hesitation. I returned home and set about writing afresh.

The next several evenings, as eight o'clock approached and the street lamps had already been lighted, the following happened regularly to me:

As I come out of my entranceway in order to set out on a walk in the streets after the day's labor and hardships, a lady dressed in black stands near the lamppost just outside the gate. Her face is turned toward me, and she follows me with her eyes as I walk past her. I notice that she is always dressed the same way, wears the same heavy veil that conceals her face and falls over her breast, and carries in her hand a small umbrella with an ivory ring in the handle.

It was already the third evening I had seen her there, always in the very same spot. As soon as I had passed, she turned slowly and walked down the street, away from me.

My nervous brain shot out its feelers, and I immediately had the absurd idea that her visit concerned me. In the end I was nearly on the point of accosting her, asking her if she was looking for someone, if she needed my help with something, or if I could take her home—poorly dressed though I was, regretfully—and protect her in the dark streets. But I had a vague fear it might cost me something, a glass of wine or a cab ride, and I didn't have any money left. My hopelessly empty pockets had an all too disheartening effect on me, and I didn't even have the courage to look closely at her as I walked past. Hunger had again begun to play havoc with me, I hadn't had a bite to eat since last night. That certainly wasn't a very long time, I had often been able to hold out for several days on end, but I had begun to grow alarmingly thinner. I wasn't nearly as good at starving as I used to be; a single day could now put me into a near daze, and I suffered from constant vomiting as soon as I drank some water. Moreover, I was cold at night—sleeping in my clothes, the same I'd worn all day, I was blue with cold, chilled to the bone and shivering every night, and I froze stiff in my sleep. The old blanket couldn't keep out the draft, and I woke up in the morning from having a stuffed nose, due to the sharp, hoarfrosty air that penetrated my room from outside.

I wander about the streets trying to figure out how to keep my head above water until I finish my next article. If only I had a candle. Then I could try to plug away into the night, a couple of hours was all it would take once I got into my stride. And tomorrow I could call on the “Com mander” again.

Without further ado, I enter the Oplandske Café to look for my young acquaintance from the bank and touch him for ten øre to buy a candle. They let me pass from room to room unchallenged; I passed a dozen tables where chatting customers sat eating and drinking, pressed all the way to the back of the café, into the Red Room, without finding my man. Embarrassed and annoyed, I crawled out into the street again and started walking in the direction of the Palace.

Why the hell, why the living everlasting hell, wouldn't my tribulations ever end! Taking long furious strides, my coat collar turned raffishly up in the back and my hands clenched in my trouser pockets, I cursed my unlucky stars every step of the way. Not a truly carefree moment in seven to eight months, not the bare necessities of life for an entire short week before want once again brought me to my knees. And on top of it all, here I had gone around being honest in the midst of my misery, heh-heh, fundamentally honest anyway! Good heavens, what a fool I had been. And I began to tell myself how I had even gone around with a bad conscience because I had once taken Hans Pauli's blanket to the pawnbroker. I laughed scornfully at my tender scruples, spat contemptuously in the gutter and was at a loss for words that were strong enough to deride myself for my folly. It should have been now! Were I to find on the street, this minute, a schoolgirl's modest savings, a poor widow's last penny, I would snatch it up and stick it in my pocket, steal it in cold blood and sleep like a log all night afterward. I hadn't suffered so unspeakably for nothing, my patience was up, I was ready for anything.