Read Online Hunger by Knut Hamsun - Free Book Online Page B

face.
    â€œGood evening,” he said.
    â€œGood evening,” I answered, feeling scared. I got up, embarrassed. He stood motionless awhile.
    â€œWhere do you live?” he asked.
    By force of habit, and without reflecting, I named my old address, the little attic room I had given up.
    He stood awhile again.
    â€œHave I done something wrong?” I asked fearfully.
    â€œNo, not at all,” he answered. “But you ought to go home now, don’t you think, it’s cold lying here.”
    â€œYes, it’s chilly, I can feel it.”
    I said good night and instinctively set out for my old place. If I watched my step I was pretty sure I could walk up without being heard—there were eight flights of stairs in all, and only the two top ones had creaky steps.
    I took off my shoes in the entrance and went up. It was quiet everywhere. On the second floor I heard the slow tick tock of a clock and a child crying softly; then I heard nothing more. I found my door, lifted it slightly on its hinges and opened it without a key as I was used to doing, entered the room and pulled the door shut without a sound.
    Everything was just as I had left it—the curtains were pulled away from the windows and the bed was empty. Over on the table I glimpsed a piece of paper, probably my note to the landlady. So she hadn’t even been up here since I went away. I fumbled with my hand over the white spot and felt to my surprise that it was a letter. A letter? I take it over to the window, scan the badly written characters as best I can in the dark, and finally make out my own name. Aha! I think, the landlady’s answer, warning me not to set foot in the room anymore in case I should wish to come back!
    And slowly, quite slowly, I walk out of the room again, carrying my shoes in one hand, the letter in the other, and the blanket under my arm. Clenching my teeth, I tread lightly on the creaky steps, make it safely down all those flights of stairs, and find myself in the entranceway once more.
    I put on my shoes again, taking my time with the laces; I even sit still for a moment after I’m done, staring blankly ahead of me and holding the letter in my hand.
    Then I stand up and leave.
    The flickering light of a street lamp twinkles up the way, so I walk right under the light, lean my parcel up against the lamppost and open the letter, doing it all with extreme slowness.
    A stream of light seems to surge through my breast, and I hear myself giving a little cry, a meaningless sound of joy: the letter was from the editor, my story was accepted, it had gone directly to the composing room! “A few minor changes . . . corrected a few slips of the pen . . . promising work . . . to be printed tomorrow . . . ten kroner.”
    Laughing and crying, I leaped up and raced down the street, stopped to slap my thighs and flung a solemn oath into space for no particular reason. And time passed.
    All night long, till daybreak, I went yodeling about the streets dazed with joy, repeating: promising work, meaning a little masterpiece, a stroke of genius. And ten kroner!

PART TWO

A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER I found myself out-of-doors one night.
    I had once again been sitting in one of the cemeteries working on an article for one of the papers. While I was busy with this it got to be ten o’clock, darkness came on, and the gate was going to be closed. I was hungry, very hungry; those ten kroner, I’m sorry to say, were gone all too quickly. It was now two, nearly three, days since I had eaten anything and I felt weak, slightly fatigued from moving my pencil. I had a half-pocketknife and a bunch of keys in my pocket, but not a penny.
    When the cemetery gate closed I should have gone straight home, but from an instinctive fear of my completely dark and empty room—an abandoned tinsmith’s shop where I had finally been allowed to stay for the time being—I shambled on, wandering aimlessly past the city jail, all the