Hunger

Part II A few weeks later I was out one evening. Once more I had sat out in a churchyard and worked at an article for one of the newspapers. But whilst I was struggling with it eight o'clock struck, and darkness closed in, and time for shutting the gates. I was hungry--very hungry. The ten shillings had, worse luck, lasted all too short. It was now two, ay, nearly three days since I had eaten anything, and I felt somewhat faint; holding the pencil even had taxed me a little. I had half a penknife and a bunch of keys in my pocket, but not a farthing. When the churchyard gate shut I meant to have gone straight home, but, from an instinctive dread of my room--a vacant tinker's workshop, where all was dark and barren, and which, in fact, I had got permission to occupy for the present--I stumbled on, passed, not caring where I went, the Town Hall, right to the sea, and over to a seat near the railway bridge. At this moment not a sad thought troubled me. I forgot my distress, and felt calmed by the view of the sea, which lay peaceful and lovely in the murkiness. For old habit's sake I would please myself by reading through the bit I had just written, and which seemed to my suffering head the best thing I had ever done. I took my manuscript out of my pocket to try and decipher it, held it close up to my eyes, and ran through it, one line after the other. At last I got tired, and put the papers back in my pocket. Everything was still. The sea stretched away in pearly blueness, and little birds flitted noiselessly by me from place to place. A policeman patrols in the distance; otherwise there is not a soul visible, and the whole harbour is hushed in quiet. I count my belongings once more--half a penknife, a bunch of keys, but not a farthing. Suddenly I dive into my pocket and take the papers out again. It was a mechanical movement, an unconscious nervous twitch. I selected a white unwritten page, and--God knows where I got the notion from--but I made a cornet, closed it carefully, so that it looked as if it were filled with something, and threw it far out on to the pavement. The breeze blew it onward a little, and then it lay still. By this time hunger had begun to assail me in earnest. I sat and looked at the white paper cornet, which seemed as if it might be bursting with shining silver pieces, and incited myself to believe that it really did contain something. I sat and coaxed myself quite audibly to guess the sum; if I guessed aright, it was to be mine. I imagined the tiny, pretty penny bits at the bottom and the thick fluted shillings on top--a whole paper cornet full of money! I sat and gazed at it with wide opened eyes, and urged myself to go and steal it. Then I hear the constable cough. What puts it into my head to do the same? I rise up from the seat and repeat the cough three times so that he may hear it. Won't he jump at the corner when he comes. I sat and laughed at this trick, rubbed my hands with glee, and swore with rollicking recklessness. What a disappointment he will get, the dog! Wouldn't this piece of villainy make him inclined to sink into hell's hottest pool of torment! I was drunk with starvation; my hunger had made me tipsy. A few minutes later the policeman comes by, clinking his iron heels on the pavement, peering on all sides. He takes his time; he has the whole night before him; he does not notice the paper bag--not till he comes quite close to it. Then he stops and stares at it. It looks so white and so full as it lies there; perhaps a little sum--what? A little sum of silver money?... and he picks it up. Hum ... it is light--very light; maybe an expensive feather; some hat trimming.... He opened it carefully with his big hands, and looked in. I laughed, laughed, slapped my thighs, and laughed, like a maniac. And not a sound issued from my throat; my laughter was hushed and feverish to the intensity of tears. Clink, clink again over the paving-stones, and the policeman took a turn towards the landing-stage. I sat there, with tears in my eyes, and hiccoughed for breath, quite beside myself with feverish merriment. I commenced to talk aloud to myself all about the cornet, imitated the poor policeman's movements, peeped into my hollow hand, and repeated over and over again to myself, "He coughed as he threw it away--he coughed as he threw it away." I added new words to these, gave them additional point, changed the whole sentence, and made it catching and piquant. He coughed once--Kheu heu! I exhausted myself in weaving variations on these words, and the evening was far advanced before my mirth ceased. Then a drowsy quiet overcame me; a pleasant languor which I did not attempt to resist. The darkness had intensified, and a slight breeze furrowed the pearl-blue sea. The ships, the masts of which I could see outlined against the sky, looked with their black hulls like voiceless monsters that bristled and lay in wait for me. I had no pain--my hunger had taken the edge off it. In its stead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me, and glad not to be noticed by any one. I put my feet up on the seat and leant back. Thus I could best appreciate the well-being of perfect isolation. There was not a cloud on my mind, not a feeling of discomfort, and so far as my thought reached, I had not a whim, not a desire unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away. Moreover, not a sound disturbed me. Soft darkness had hidden the whole world from my sight, and buried me in ideal rest. Only the lonely, crooning voice of silence strikes in monotones on my ear, and the dark monsters out there will draw me to them when night comes, and they will bear me far across the sea, through strange lands where no man dwells, and they will bear me to Princess Ylajali's palace, where an undreamt-of grandeur awaits me, greater than that of any other man. And she herself will be sitting in a dazzling hall where all is amethyst, on a throne of yellow roses, and will stretch out her hands to me when I alight; will smile and call as I approach and kneel: "Welcome, welcome, knight, to me and my land! I have waited twenty summers for you, and called for you on all bright nights. And when you sorrowed I have wept here, and when you slept I have breathed sweet dreams in you!"... And the fair one clasps my hand and, holding it, leads me through long corridors where great crowds of people cry, "Hurrah!" through bright gardens where three hundred tender maidens laugh and play; and through another hall where all is of emerald; and here the sun shines. In the corridors and galleries choirs of musicians march by, and rills of perfume are wafted towards me. I clasp her hand in mine; I feel the wild witchery of enchantment shiver through my blood, and I fold my arms around her, and she whispers, "Not here; come yet farther!" and we enter a crimson room, where all is of ruby, a foaming glory, in which I faint. Then I feel her arms encircle me; her breath fans my face with a whispered "Welcome, loved one! Kiss me ... more ... more...." I see from my seat stars shooting before my eyes, and my thoughts are swept away in a hurricane of light.... I had fallen asleep where I lay, and was awakened by the policeman. There I sat, recalled mercilessly to life and misery. My first feeling was of stupid amazement at finding myself in the open air; but this was quickly replaced by a bitter despondency, I was near crying with sorrow at being still alive. It had rained whilst I slept, and my clothes were soaked through and through, and I felt a damp cold in my limbs. The darkness was denser; it was with difficulty that I could distinguish the policeman's face in front of me. "So, that's right," he said; "get up now." I got up at once; if he had commanded me to lie down again I would have obeyed too. I was fearfully dejected, and utterly without strength; added to that, I was almost instantly aware of the pangs of hunger again. "Hold on there!" the policeman shouted after me; "why, you're walking off without your hat, you Juggins! So--h there; now, go on." "I indeed thought there was something--something I had forgotten," I stammered, absently. "Thanks, good-night!" and I stumbled away. If one only had a little bread to eat; one of those delicious little brown loaves that one could bite into as one walked along the street; and as I went on I thought over the particular sort of brown bread that would be so unspeakably good to munch. I was bitterly hungry; wished myself dead and buried; I got maudlin, and wept. There never was any end to my misery. Suddenly I stopped in the street, stamped on the pavement, and cursed loudly. What was it he called me? A "Juggins"? I would just show him what calling me a "Juggins" means. I turned round and ran back. I felt red-hot with anger. Down the street I stumbled, and fell, but I paid no heed to it, jumped up again, and ran on. But by the time I reached the railway station I had become so tired that I did not feel able to proceed all the way to the landing-stage; besides, my anger had cooled down with the run. At length I pulled up and drew breath. Was it not, after all, a matter of perfect indifference to me what such a policeman said? Yes; but one couldn't stand everything. Right enough, I interrupted myself; but he knew no better. And I found this argument satisfactory. I repeated twice to myself, "He knew no better"; and with that I returned again. "Good Lord!" thought I, wrathfully, "what things you do take into your head: running about like a madman through the soaking wet streets on dark nights." My hunger was now tormenting me excruciatingly, and gave me no rest. Again and again I swallowed saliva to try and satisfy myself a little; I fancied it helped. I had been pinched, too, for food for ever so many weeks before this last period set in, and my strength had diminished considerably of late. When I had been lucky enough to raise five shillings by some manoeuvre or another they only lasted any time with difficulty; not long enough for me to be restored to health before a new hunger period set in and reduced me again. My back and shoulders caused me the worst trouble. I could stop the little gnawing I had in my chest by coughing hard, or bending well forward as I walked, but I had no remedy for back and shoulders. Whatever was the reason that things would not brighten up for me? Was I not just as much entitled to live as any one else? for example, as Bookseller Pascha or Steam Agent Hennechen? Had I not two shoulders like a giant, and two strong hands to work with? and had I not, in sooth, even applied for a place as wood-chopper in Möllergaden in order to earn my daily bread? Was I lazy? Had I not applied for situations, attended lectures, written articles, and worked day and night like a man possessed? Had I not lived like a miser, eaten bread and milk when I had plenty, bread alone when I had little, and starved when I had nothing? Did I live in an hotel? Had I a suite of rooms on the first floor? Why, I am living in a loft over a tinker's workshop, a loft already forsaken by God and man last winter, because the snow blew in. So I could not understand the whole thing; not a bit of it. I slouched on, and dwelt upon all this, and there was not as much as a spark of bitterness or malice or envy in my mind. I halted at a paint-shop and gazed into the window. I tried to read the labels on a couple of the tins, but it was too dark. Vexed with myself over this new whim, and excited--almost angry at not being able to make out what these tins held,--I rapped twice sharply on the window and went on. Up the street I saw a policeman. I quickened my pace, went close up to him, and said, without the slightest provocation, "It is ten o'clock." "No, it's two," he answered, amazed. "No, it's ten," I persisted; "it is ten o'clock!" and, groaning with anger, I stepped yet a pace or two nearer, clenched my fist, and said, "Listen, do you know what, it's ten o'clock!" He stood and considered a while, summed up my appearance, stared aghast at me, and at last said, quite gently, "In any case, it's about time ye were getting home. Would ye like me to go with ye a bit?" I was completely disarmed by this man's unexpected friendliness. I felt that tears sprang to my eyes, and I hastened to reply: "No, thank you! I have only been out a little too late in a café. Thank you very much all the same!" He saluted with his hand to his helmet as I turned away. His friendliness had overwhelmed me, and I cried weakly, because I had not even a little coin to give him. I halted, and looked after him as he went slowly on his way. I struck my forehead, and, in measure, as he disappeared from my sight, I cried more violently. I railed at myself for my poverty, called myself abusive names, invented furious designations--rich, rough nuggets--in a vein of abuse with which I overwhelmed myself. I kept on at this until I was nearly home. On coming to the door I discovered I had dropped my keys. "Oh, of course," I muttered to myself, "why shouldn't I lose my keys? Here I am, living in a yard where there is a stable underneath and a tinker's workshop up above. The door is locked at night, and no one, no one can open it; therefore, why should I not lose my keys? "I am as wet as a dog--a little hungry--ah, just ever such a little hungry, and slightly, ay, absurdly tired about my knees; therefore, why should I not lose them? "Why, for that matter, had not the whole house flitted out to Aker by the time I came home and wished to enter it?" ... and I laughed to myself, hardened by hunger and exhaustion. I could hear the horses stamp in the stables, and I could see my window above, but I could not open the door, and I could not get in. It had begun to rain again, and I felt the water soak through to my shoulders. At the Town Hall I was seized by a bright idea. I would ask the policeman to open the door. I applied at once to a constable, and earnestly begged him to accompany me and let me in, if he could. Yes, if he could, yes! But he couldn't; he had no key. The police keys were not there; they were kept in the Detective Department. What was I to do then? Well, I could go to an hotel and get a bed! But I really couldn't go to an hotel and get a bed; I had not money, I had been out--in a café ... he knew.... We stood a while on the Town Hall steps. He considered and examined my personal appearance. The rain fell in torrents outside. "Well then, you must go to the guard-house and report yourself as homeless!" said he. Homeless? I hadn't thought of that. Yes, by Jove, that was a capital idea; and I thanked the constable on the spot for the suggestion. Could I simply go in and say I was homeless? "Just that."... "Your name?" inquired the guard. "Tangen--Andreas Tangen!" I don't know why I lied; my thoughts fluttered about disconnectedly and inspired me with many singular whims, more than I knew what to do with. I hit upon this out-of-the-way name on the spur of the moment, and blurted it out without any calculation. I lied without any occasion for doing so. "Occupation?" This was driving me into a corner with a vengeance. Occupation! what was my occupation? I thought first of turning myself into a tinker--but I dared not; firstly, I had given myself a name that was not common to every and any tinker--besides, I wore pince-nez. It suddenly entered my head to be foolhardy. I took a step forward and said firmly, almost solemnly: "A journalist." The guard gave a start before he wrote it down, whilst I stood as important as a homeless Cabinet Minister before the barrier. It roused no suspicions. The guard understood quite well why I hesitated a little before answering. What did it look like to see a journalist in the night guard-house without a roof over his head? "On what paper, Herr Tangen?" "Morgenbladet!" said I. "I have been out a little too late this evening, more's the shame!" "Oh, we won't mention that," he interrupted, with a smile; "when young people are out ... we understand!" Turning to a policeman, he said, as he rose and bowed politely to me, "Show this gentleman up to the reserved section. Good-night!" I felt ice run down my back at my own boldness, and I clenched my hands to steady myself a bit. If I only hadn't dragged in the Morgenbladet. I knew Friele could show his teeth when he liked, and I was reminded of that by the grinding of the key turning in the lock. "The gas will burn for ten minutes," remarked the policeman at the door. "And then does it go out?" "Then it goes out!" I sat on the bed and listened to the turning of the key. The bright cell had a friendly air; I felt comfortably and well sheltered; and listened with pleasure to the rain outside--I couldn't wish myself anything better than such a cosy cell. My contentment increased. Sitting on the bed, hat in hand, and with eyes fastened on the gas jet over in the wall, I gave myself up to thinking over the minutes of my first interview with the police. This was the first time, and how hadn't I fooled them? "Journalist!--Tangen! if you please! and then Morgenbladet!" Didn't I appeal straight to his heart with Morgenbladet? "We won't mention that! Eh? Sat in state in the Stiftsgaarden till two o'clock; forgot door- key and a pocket-book with a thousand kroner at home. Show this gentleman up to the reserved section!"... All at once out goes the gas with a strange suddenness, without diminishing or flickering. I sit in the deepest darkness; I cannot see my hand, nor the white walls-- nothing. There was nothing for it but to go to bed, and I undressed. But I was not tired from want of sleep, and it would not come to me. I lay a while gazing into the darkness, this dense mass of gloom that had no bottom--my thoughts could not fathom it. It seemed beyond all measure dense to me, and I felt its presence oppress me. I closed my eyes, commenced to sing under my breath, and tossed to and fro, in order to distract myself, but to no purpose. The darkness had taken possession of my thoughts and left me not a moment in peace. Supposing I were myself to be absorbed in darkness; made one with it? I raise myself up in bed and fling out my arms. My nervous condition has got the upper hand of me, and nothing availed, no matter how much I tried to work against it. There I sat, a prey to the most singular fantasies, listening to myself crooning lullabies, sweating with the exertion of striving to hush myself to rest. I peered into the gloom, and I never in all the days of my life felt such darkness. There was no doubt that I found myself here, in face of a peculiar kind of darkness; a desperate element to which no one had hitherto paid attention. The most ludicrous thoughts busied me, and everything made me afraid. A little hole in the wall at the head of my bed occupies me greatly--a nail hole. I find the marks in the wall--I feel it, blow into it, and try to guess its depth. That was no innocent hole--not at all. It was a downright intricate and mysterious hole, which I must guard against! Possessed by the thought of this hole, entirely beside myself with curiosity and fear, I get out of bed and seize hold of my penknife in order to gauge its depth, and convince myself that it does not reach right into the next wall. I lay down once more to try and fall asleep, but in reality to wrestle again with the darkness. The rain had ceased outside, and I could not hear a sound. I continued for a long time to listen for footsteps in the street, and got no peace until I heard a pedestrian go by--to judge from the sound, a constable. Suddenly I snap my fingers many times and laugh: "That was the very deuce! Ha--ha!" I imagined I had discovered a new word. I rise up in bed and say, "It is not in the language; I have discovered it. 'Kuboa.' It has letters as a word has. By the benign God, man, you have discovered a word!... 'Kuboa' ... a word of profound import." I sit with open eyes, amazed at my own find, and laugh for joy. Then I begin to whisper; some one might spy on me, and I intended to keep my discovery a secret. I entered into the joyous frenzy of hunger. I was empty and free from pain, and I gave free rein to my thoughts. In all calmness I revolve things in my mind. With the most singular jerks in my chain of ideas I seek to explain the meaning of my new word. There was no occasion for it to mean either God or the Tivoli; 4 and who said that it was to signify cattle show? I clench my hands fiercely, and repeat once again, "Who said that it was to signify cattle show?" No; on second thoughts, it was not absolutely necessary that it should mean padlock, or sunrise. It was not difficult to find a meaning for such a word as this. I would wait and see. In the meantime I could sleep on it. I lie there on the stretcher-bed and laugh slily, but say nothing; give vent to no opinion one way or the other. Some minutes pass over, and I wax nervous; this new word torments me unceasingly, returns again and again, takes up my thoughts, and makes me serious. I had fully formed an opinion as to what it should not signify, but had come to no conclusion as to what it should signify. "That is quite a matter of detail," I said aloud to myself, and I clutched my arm and reiterated: "That is quite a matter of detail." The word was found, God be praised! and that was the principal thing. But ideas worry me without end and hinder me from falling asleep. Nothing seemed good enough to me for this unusually rare word. At length I sit up in bed again, grasp my head in both hands, and say, "No! it is just this, it is impossible to let it signify emigration or tobacco factory. If it could have meant anything like that I would have decided upon it long since and taken the consequences." No; in reality the word is fitted to signify something psychical, a feeling, a state. Could I not apprehend it? and I reflect profoundly in order to find something psychical. Then it seems to me that some one is interposing, interrupting my confab. I answer angrily, "Beg pardon! Your match in idiocy is not to be found; no, sir! Knitting cotton? Ah! go to hell!" Well, really I had to laugh. Might I ask why should I be forced to let it signify knitting cotton, when I had a special dislike to its signifying knitting cotton? I had discovered the word myself, so, for that matter, I was perfectly within my right in letting it signify whatsoever I pleased. As far as I was aware, I had not yet expressed an opinion as to.... But my brain got more and more confused. At last I sprang out of bed to look for the water-tap. I was not thirsty, but my head was in a fever, and I felt an instinctive longing for water. When I had drunk some I got into bed again, and determined with all my might to settle to sleep. I closed my eyes and forced myself to keep quiet. I lay thus for some minutes without making a movement, sweated and felt my blood jerk violently through my veins. No, it was really too delicious the way he thought to find money in the paper cornet! He only coughed once, too! I wonder if he is pacing up and down there yet! Sitting on my bench? the pearly blue sea ... the ships.... I opened my eyes; how could I keep them shut when I could not sleep? The same darkness brooded over me; the same unfathomable black eternity which my thoughts strove against and could not understand. I made the most despairing efforts to find a word black enough to characterize this darkness; a word so horribly black that it would darken my lips if I named it. Lord! how dark it was! and I am carried back in thought to the sea and the dark monsters that lay in wait for me. They would draw me to them, and clutch me tightly and bear me away by land and sea, through dark realms that no soul has seen. I feel myself on board, drawn through waters, hovering in clouds, sinking--sinking. I give a hoarse cry of terror, clutch the bed tightly--I had made such a perilous journey, whizzing down through space like a bolt. Oh, did I not feel that I was saved as I struck my hands against the wooden frame! "This is the way one dies!" said I to myself. "Now you will die!" and I lay for a while and thought over that I was to die. Then I start up in bed and ask severely, "If I found the word, am I not absolutely within my right to decide myself what it is to signify?"... I could hear myself that I was raving. I could hear it now whilst I was talking. My madness was a delirium of weakness and prostration, but I was not out of my senses. All at once the thought darted through my brain that I was insane. Seized with terror, I spring out of bed again, I stagger to the door, which I try to open, fling myself against it a couple of times to burst it, strike my head against the wall, bewail loudly, bite my fingers, cry and curse.... All was quiet; only my own voice echoed from the walls. I had fallen to the floor, incapable of stumbling about the cell any longer. Lying there I catch a glimpse, high up, straight before my eyes, of a greyish square in the wall, a suggestion of white, a presage--it must be of daylight. I felt it must be daylight, felt it through every pore in my body. Oh, did I not draw a breath of delighted relief! I flung myself flat on the floor and cried for very joy over this blessed glimpse of light, sobbed for very gratitude, blew a kiss to the window, and conducted myself like a maniac. And at this moment I was perfectly conscious of what I was doing. All my dejection had vanished; all despair and pain had ceased, and I had at this moment, at least as far as my thought reached, not a wish unfilled. I sat up on the floor, folded my hands, and waited patiently for the dawn. What a night this had been! That they had not heard any noise! I thought with astonishment. But then I was in the reserved section, high above all the prisoners. A homeless Cabinet Minister, if I might say so. Still in the best of humours, with eyes turned towards the lighter, ever lighter square in the wall, I amused myself acting Cabinet Minister; called myself Von Tangen, and clothed my speech in a dress of red-tape. My fancies had not ceased, but I was far less nervous. If I only had not been thoughtless enough to leave my pocket-book at home! Might I not have the honour of assisting his Right Honourable the Prime Minister to bed? And in all seriousness, and with much ceremony I went over to the stretcher and lay down. By this it was so light that I could distinguish in some degree the outlines of the cell and, little by little, the heavy handle of the door. This diverted me; the monotonous darkness so irritating in its impenetrability that it prevented me from seeing myself was broken; my blood flowed more quietly; I soon felt my eyes close. I was aroused by a couple of knocks on my door. I jumped up in all haste, and clad myself hurriedly; my clothes were still wet through from last night. "You'll report yourself downstairs to the officer on duty," said the constable. Were there more formalities to be gone through, then? I thought with fear. Below I entered a large room, where thirty or forty people sat, all homeless. They were called up one by one by the registering clerk, and one by one they received a ticket for breakfast. The officer on duty repeated constantly to the policeman at his side, "Did he get a ticket? Don't forget to give them tickets; they look as if they wanted a meal!" And I stood and looked at these tickets, and wished I had one. "Andreas Tangen--journalist." I advanced and bowed. "But, my dear fellow, how did you come here?" I explained the whole state of the case, repeated the same story as last night, lied without winking, lied with frankness--had been out rather late, worse luck ... café ... lost door-key.... "Yes," he said, and he smiled; "that's the way! Did you sleep well then?" I answered, "Like a Cabinet Minister--like a Cabinet Minister!" "I am glad to hear it," he said, and he stood up. "Good-morning." And I went! A ticket! a ticket for me too! I have not eaten for more than three long days and nights. A loaf! But no one offered me a ticket, and I dared not demand one. It would have roused suspicion at once. They would begin to poke their noses into my private affairs, and discover who I really was; they might arrest me for false pretences; and so, with elevated head, the carriage of a millionaire, and hands thrust under my coat-tails, I stride out of the guard-house.