Winter had set in--a raw, wet winter, almost without snow. A foggy,
dark, and everlasting night, without a single blast of fresh wind the
whole week through. The gas was lighted almost all the day in the
streets, and yet people jostled one another in the fog. Every sound,
the clang of the church bells, the jingling of the harness of the
droske horses, the people’s voices, the beat of the hoofs, everything,
sounded choked and jangling through the close air, that penetrated and
muffled everything.
Week followed week, and the weather was, and remained, still the same.
And I stayed steadily down in Vaterland. I grew more and more closely
bound to this inn, this lodging-house for travellers, where I had found
shelter, in spite of my starving condition. My money was exhausted long
since; and yet I continued to come and go in this place as if I had
a right to it, and was at home there. The landlady had, as yet, said
nothing; but it worried me all the same that I could not pay her. In
this way three weeks went by. I had already, many days ago, taken to
writing again; but I could not succeed in putting anything together
that satisfied me. I had no longer any luck, although I was very
painstaking, and strove early and late; no matter what I attempted, it
was useless. Good fortune had flown; and I exerted myself in vain.
It was in a room on the second floor, the best guest-room, that I sat
and made these attempts. I had been undisturbed up there since the
first evening when I had money and was able to settle for what I got.
All the time I was buoyed up by the hope of at last succeeding in
getting together an article on some subject or another, so that I could
pay for my room, and for whatever else I owed. That was the reason I
worked on so persistently. I had, in particular, commenced a piece from
which I expected great things--an allegory about a fire--a profound
thought upon which I intended to expend all my energy, and bring it
to the “Commandor” in payment. The “Commandor” should see that he had
helped a talent this time. I had no doubt but that he would eventually
see that; it only was a matter of waiting till the spirit moved me;
and why shouldn’t the spirit move me? Why should it not come over me
even now, at a very early date? There was no longer anything the matter
with me. My landlady gave me a little food every day, some bread and
butter, mornings and evenings, and my nervousness had almost flown. I
no longed used cloths round my hands when I wrote; and I could stare
down into the street from my window on the second floor without getting
giddy. I was much better in every way, and it was becoming a matter
of astonishment to me that I had not already finished my allegory. I
couldn’t understand why it was....
But a day came when I was at last to get a clear idea of how weak I
had really become; with what incapacity my dull brain acted. Namely,
on this day my landlady came up to me with a reckoning which she asked
me to look over. There must be something wrong in this reckoning, she
said; it didn’t agree with her own book; but she had not been able to
find out the mistake.
I set to work to add up. My landlady sat right opposite and looked at
me. I added up these score of figures first once down, and found the
total right; then once up again, and arrived at the same result. I
looked at the woman sitting opposite me, waiting on my words. I noticed
at the same time that she was pregnant; it did not escape my attention,
and yet I did not stare in any way scrutinizingly at her.
“The total is right,” said I.
“No; go over each figure now,” she answered. “I am sure it can’t be so
much; I am positive of it.”
And I commenced to check each line--2 loaves at 2¹⁄₂d., 1 lamp chimney,
3d., soap, 4d., butter, 5d.... It did not require any particularly
shrewd head to run up these rows of figures--this little huckster
account in which nothing very complex occurred. I tried honestly to
find the error that the woman spoke about, but couldn’t succeed. After
I had muddled about with these figures for some minutes I felt that,
unfortunately, everything commenced to dance about in my head; I
could no longer distinguish debit or credit; I mixed the whole thing
up. Finally, I came to a dead stop at the following entry--“3⁵⁄₁₆ths
of a pound of cheese at 9d.” My brain failed me completely; I stared
stupidly down at the cheese, and got no farther.
“It is really too confoundedly crabbed writing,” I exclaimed in
despair. “Why, God bless me, here is ⁵⁄₁₆ths of a pound of cheese
entered--ha, ha! did any one ever hear the like? Yes, look here; you
can see for yourself.”
“Yes,” she said; “it is often put down like that; it is a kind of Dutch
cheese. Yes, that is all right--five-sixteenths is in this case five
ounces.”
“Yes, yes; I understand that well enough,” I interrupted, although in
truth I understood nothing more whatever.
I tried once more to get this little account right, that I could have
totted up in a second some months ago. I sweated fearfully, and thought
over these enigmatical figures with all my might, and I blinked my
eyes reflectingly, as if I was studying this matter sharply, but I had
to give it up. These five ounces of cheese finished me completely; it
was as if something snapped within my forehead. But yet, to give the
impression that I still worked out my calculation, I moved my lips and
muttered a number aloud, all the while sliding farther and farther
down the reckoning as if I were steadily coming to a result. She sat
and waited. At last I said:
“Well, now, I have gone through it from first to last, and there is no
mistake, as far as I can see.”
“Isn’t there?” replied the woman, “isn’t there really?” But I saw well
that she did not believe me, and she seemed all at once to throw a dash
of contempt into her words, a slightly careless tone that I had never
heard from her before. She remarked that perhaps I was not accustomed
to reckon in sixteenths; she mentioned also that she must only apply to
some one who had a knowledge of sixteenths, to get the account properly
revised. She said all this, not in any hurtful way to make me feel
ashamed, but thoughtfully and seriously. When she got as far as the
door, she said, without looking at me:
“Excuse me for taking up your time then.”
Off she went.
A moment after, the door opened again, and she re-entered. She could
hardly have gone much farther than the stairs before she had turned
back.
“That’s true,” said she; “you mustn’t take it amiss; but there is a
little owing to me from you now, isn’t there? Wasn’t it three weeks
yesterday since you came?” Yes, I thought it was. “It isn’t so easy to
keep things going with such a big family, so that I can’t give lodging
on credit, more’s the....”
I stopped her. “I am working at an article that I think I told you
about before,” said I, “and as soon as ever that is finished, you shall
have your money; you can make yourself quite easy....”
“Yes; but you’ll never get that article finished, though.”
“Do you think that? Maybe the spirit will move me tomorrow, or perhaps
already, tonight; it isn’t at all impossible but that it may move me
some time tonight, and then my article will be completed in a quarter
of an hour at the outside. You see, it isn’t with my work as with other
people’s; I can’t sit down and get a certain amount finished in a day.
I have just to wait for the right moment, and no one can tell the day
or hour when the spirit may move one--it must have its own time....”
My landlady went, but her confidence in me was evidently much shaken.
As soon as I was left alone I jumped up and tore my hair in despair.
No, in spite of all, there was really no salvation for me--no
salvation! My brain was bankrupt! Had I then really turned into a
complete dolt since I could not even add up the price of a piece of
Dutch cheese? But could it be possible I had lost my senses when I
could stand and put such questions to myself? Had not I, into the
bargain, right in the midst of my efforts with the reckoning, made the
lucid observation that my landlady was in the family way? I had no
reason for knowing it, no one had told me anything about it, neither
had it occurred to me gratuitously. I sat and saw it with my own eyes,
and I understood it at once, right at a despairing moment where I sat
and added up sixteenths. How could I explain this to myself?
I went to the window and gazed out; it looked out into Vognmandsgade.
Some children were playing down on the pavement; poorly dressed
children in the middle of a poor street. They tossed an empty bottle
between them and screamed shrilly. A load of furniture rolled slowly
by; it must belong to some dislodged family, forced to change residence
between “flitting time.”[6] This struck me at once. Bed-clothes and
furniture were heaped on the float, moth-eaten beds and chests of
drawers, red-painted chairs with three legs, mats, old iron, and
tin-ware. A little girl--a mere child, a downright ugly youngster, with
a running cold in her nose--sat up on top of the load, and held fast
with her poor little blue hands in order not to tumble off. She sat on
a heap of frightfully stained mattresses, that children must have lain
on, and looked down at the urchins who were tossing the empty bottle to
one another....
I stood gazing at all this; I had no difficulty in apprehending
everything that passed before me. Whilst I stood there at the window
and observed this, I could hear my landlady’s servant singing in the
kitchen right alongside of my room. I knew the air she was singing, and
listened to hear if she would sing false, and I said to myself that an
idiot could not have done all this.
I was, God be praised, all right in my senses as any man.
Suddenly, I saw two of the children down in the street fire up and
begin to abuse one another. Two little boys; I recognized one of them;
he was my landlady’s son. I open the window to hear what they are
saying to one another, and immediately a flock of children crowded
together under my window, and looked wistfully up. What did they
expect? That something would be thrown down? Withered flowers, bones,
cigar ends, or one thing or another, that they could amuse themselves
with? They looked up with their frost-pinched faces and unspeakably
wistful eyes. In the meantime, the two small foes continued to revile
one another.
Words like great buzzing noxious insects swarm out of their childish
mouths; frightful nicknames, thieves’ slang, sailors’ oaths, that they
perhaps had learnt down on the wharf; and they are both so engaged that
they do not notice my landlady, who rushes out to see what is going on.
“Yes,” explains her son, “he catched me by the throat; I couldn’t
breathe for ever so long,” and turning upon the little man who is the
cause of the quarrel, and who is standing grinning maliciously at him,
he gets perfectly furious, and yells, “Go to hell, Chaldean ass that
you are! To think such vermin as you should catch folk by the throat.
I will, may the Lord....”
And the mother, this pregnant woman, who dominates the whole street
with her size, answers the ten-year-old child, as she seizes him by the
arm and tries to drag him in:
“Sh--sh. Hold your jaw! I just like to hear the way you swear, too, as
if you had been in a brothel for years. Now, in with you.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
“No, I won’t.”
I stand up in the window and see that the mother’s temper is rising;
this disagreeable scene excites me frightfully. I can’t endure it any
longer. I call down to the boy to come up to me for a minute; I call
twice, just to distract them--to change the scene. The last time I call
very loudly, and the mother turns round flurriedly and looks up at me.
She regains her self-possession at once, looks insolently at me, nay,
downright maliciously, and enters the house with a chiding remark to
her offspring. She talks loudly, so that I may hear it, and says to
him, “Fie, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to let people see how
naughty you are.”
Of all this that I stood there and observed not one thing, not even one
little accessory detail, was lost on me; my attention was acutely keen;
I absorbed carefully every little thing as I stood and thought out
my own thought, about each thing according as it occurred. So it was
impossible that there could be anything the matter with my brain. How
could there, in this case, be anything the matter with it?
Listen; do you know what, said I all at once to myself, that you have
been worrying yourself long enough about your brain, giving yourself
no end of worry in this matter? Now, there must be an end to this
tomfoolery. Is it a sign of insanity to notice and apprehend everything
as accurately as you do? You make me almost laugh at you, I reply.
To my mind it is not without its humorous side, if I am any judge of
such a case. Why, it happens to every man that he once in a way sticks
fast, and that, too, just with the simplest question. It is of no
significance, it is often a pure accident. As I have remarked before,
I am on the point of having a good laugh at your expense. As far as
that huckster account is concerned, that paltry five-sixteenths of
beggar-man’s cheese, I can happily dub it so. Ha, ha!--a cheese with
cloves and pepper in it; upon my word, a cheese in which, to put the
matter plainly, one could breed maggots. As far as that ridiculous
cheese is concerned, it might happen to the cleverest fellow in the
world to be puzzled over it! Why, the smell of the cheese was enough
to finish a man; ... and I made the greatest fun of this and all other
Dutch cheeses.... No; set me to reckon up something really eatable,
said I--set me, if you like, at five-sixteenths of good dairy butter.
That is another matter.
I laughed feverishly at my own whim, and found it peculiarly diverting.
There was positively no longer anything the matter with me. I was in
good form--was, so to say, still in the best of form; I had a level
head, nothing was wanting there, God be praised and thanked! My mirth
rose in measure as I paced the floor and communed with myself. I
laughed aloud, and felt amazingly glad. Besides, it really seemed,
too, as if I only needed this little happy hour, this moment of airy
rapture, without a care on any side, to get my head into working order
once more.
I seated myself at the table, and set to work at my allegory; it
progressed swimmingly, better than it had done for a long time;
not very fast, ’tis true, but it seemed to me that what I did was
altogether first-rate. I worked, too, for the space of an hour without
getting tired.
I am sitting working at a most crucial point in this Allegory of a
Conflagration in a Bookshop. It appears to me so momentous a point,
that all the rest I have written counted as nothing in comparison.
I was, namely, just about to weave in, in a downright profound way,
this thought. It was not books that were burning, it was brains, human
brains; and I intended to make a perfect Bartholomew’s night of these
burning brains.
Suddenly my door was flung open with a jerk and in much haste; my
landlady came sailing in. She came straight over to the middle of the
room, she did not even pause on the threshold.
I gave a little hoarse cry; it was just as if I had received a blow.
“What?” said she, “I thought you said something. We have got a
traveller, and we must have this room for him. You will have to sleep
downstairs with us tonight. Yes; you can have a bed to yourself
there too.” And before she got my answer, she began, without further
ceremony, to bundle my papers together on the table, and put the whole
of them into a state of dire confusion.
My happy mood was blown to the winds; I stood up at once, in anger and
despair. I let her tidy the table, and said nothing, never uttered a
syllable. She thrust all the papers into my hand.
There was nothing else for me to do. I was forced to leave the room.
And so this precious moment was spoilt also. I met the new traveller
already on the stairs; a young man with great blue anchors tattooed on
the backs of his hands. A quay porter followed him, bearing a sea-chest
on his shoulders. He was evidently a sailor, a casual traveller for the
night; he would therefore not occupy my room for any lengthened period.
Perhaps, too, I might be lucky tomorrow when the man had left, and have
one of my moments again; I only needed an inspiration for five minutes,
and my essay on the conflagration would be completed. Well, I should
have to submit to fate.
I had not been inside the family rooms before, this one common room in
which they all lived, both day and night--the husband, wife, wife’s
father, and four children. The servant lived in the kitchen, where she
also slept at night. I approached the door with much repugnance, and
knocked. No one answered, yet I heard voices inside.
The husband did not speak as I stepped in, did not acknowledge my nod
even, merely glanced at me carelessly, as if I were no concern of
his. Besides, he was sitting playing cards with a person I had seen
down on the quays, with the by-name of “Pane o’ glass.” An infant
lay and prattled to itself over in the bed, and an old man, the
landlady’s father, sat doubled together on a settle-bed, and bent his
head down over his hands as if his chest or stomach pained him. His
hair was almost white, and he looked in his crouching position like a
poke-necked reptile that sat cocking its ears at something.
“I come, worse luck, to beg for house-room down here tonight,” I said
to the man.
“Did my wife say so?” he inquired.
“Yes; a new lodger came to my room.”
To this the man made no reply, but proceeded to finger the cards.
There this man sat, day after day, and played cards with anybody who
happened to come in--played for nothing, only just to kill time, and
have something in hand. He never did anything else, only moved just as
much as his lazy limbs felt inclined, whilst his wife bustled up and
down stairs, was occupied on all sides, and took care to draw customers
to the house. She had put herself in connection with quay-porters and
dock-men, to whom she paid a certain sum for every new lodger they
brought her, and she often gave them, in addition, a shelter for the
night. This time it was “Pane o’ glass” that had just brought along the
new lodger.
A couple of the children came in--two little girls, with thin,
freckled, gutter-snipe faces; their clothes were positively wretched.
A while after the landlady herself entered. I asked her where she
intended to put me up for the night, and she replied that I could lie
in here together with the others, or out in the ante-room on the sofa,
as I thought fit. Whilst she answered me she fussed about the room and
busied herself with different things that she set in order, and she
never once looked at me.
My spirits were crushed by her reply.
I stood down near the door, and made myself small, tried to make it
appear as if I were quite content all the same to change my room for
another for one night’s sake. I put on a friendly face on purpose not
to irritate her and perhaps be hustled right out of the house.
“Ah, yes,” I said, “there is sure to be some way!” and then held my
tongue.
She still bustled about the room.
“For that matter, I may as well just tell you that I can’t afford to
give people credit for their board and lodging,” said she, “and I told
you that before, too.”
“Yes; but, my dear woman, it is only for these few days, until I get my
article finished,” I answered, “and I will willingly give you an extra
five shillings--willingly.”
But she had evidently no faith in my article, I could see that; and I
could not afford to be proud, and leave the house, just for a slight
mortification; I knew what awaited me if I went out.
* * * * *
A few days passed over.
I still associated with the family below, for it was too cold in the
ante-room where there was no stove. I slept, too, at night on the floor
of the room.
The strange sailor continued to lodge in my room, and did not seem like
moving very quickly. At noon, too, my landlady came in and related
how he had paid her a month in advance, and besides, he was going to
take his first-mate’s examination before leaving, that was why he was
staying in town. I stood and listened to this, and understood that my
room was lost to me for ever.
I went out to the ante-room, and sat down. If I were lucky enough
to get anything written, it would have perforce to be here where it
was quiet. It was no longer the allegory that occupied me; I had got
a new idea, a perfectly splendid plot; I would compose a one-act
drama--“The Sign of the Cross.” Subject taken from the Middle Ages. I
had especially thought out everything in connection with the principal
characters: a magnificently fanatical harlot who had sinned in the
temple, not from weakness or desire, but for hate against heaven;
sinner right at the foot of the altar, with the altar-cloth under her
head, just out of delicious contempt for heaven.
I grew more and more obsessed by this creation as the hours went on.
She stood at last, palpably, vividly embodied before my eyes, and was
exactly as I wished her to appear. Her body was to be deformed and
repulsive, tall, very lean, and rather dark; and when she walked, her
long limbs should gleam through her draperies at every stride she took.
She was also to have large outstanding ears. Curtly, she was nothing
for the eye to dwell upon, barely endurable to look at. What interested
me in her was her wonderful shamelessness, the desperately full measure
of calculated sin which she had committed. She really occupied me too
much, my brain was absolutely inflated by this singular monstrosity of
a creature, and I worked for two hours, without a pause, at my drama.
When I had finished half-a score of pages, perhaps twelve, often with
much effort, at times with long intervals, in which I wrote in vain
and had to tear the page in two, I had become tired, quite stiff with
cold and fatigue, and I arose and went out into the street. For the
last half-hour, too, I had been disturbed by the crying of the children
inside the family room, so that I could not, in any case, have written
any more just then. So I took a long time up over Drammensveien, and
stayed away till the evening, pondering incessantly, as I walked along,
as to how I would continue my drama. Before I came home in the evening
of this day, the following happened:
I stood outside a shoemaker’s shop far down in Carl Johann Street,
almost at the railway square. God knows why I stood just outside this
shoemaker’s shop. I looked into the window as I stood there, but
did not, by the way, remember that I needed shoes then; my thoughts
were far away in other parts of the world. A swarm of people talking
together passed behind my back, and I heard nothing of what was said.
Then a voice greeted me loudly:
“Good-evening.”
It was “Missy” who bade me good-evening! I answered at random, I looked
at him, too, for a while, before I recognized him.
“Well, how are you getting along?” he inquired.
“Oh, always well ... as usual.”
“By the way, tell me,” said he, “are you, then, still with Christie?”
“Christie?”
“I thought you once said you were book-keeper at Christie’s?”
“Ah, yes. No; that is done with. It was impossible to get along with
that fellow; that came to an end very quickly of its own accord.”
“Why so?”
“Well, I happened to make a mis-entry one day, and so--”
“A false entry, eh?”
False entry! There stood “Missy,” and asked me straight in the face if
I had done this thing. He even asked eagerly, and evidently with much
interest. I looked at him, felt deeply insulted, and made no reply.
“Yes, well, Lord! that might happen to the best fellow,” he said, as if
to console me. He still believed I had made a false entry designedly.
“What is it that, ‘Yes, well, Lord! indeed might happen to the best
fellow’?” I inquired. “To do that. Listen, my good man. Do you stand
there and really believe that I could for a moment be guilty of such a
mean trick as that? I!”
“But, my dear fellow, I thought I heard you distinctly say that.”
“No; I said that I had made a mis-entry once, a bagatelle; if you
want to know, a false date on a letter, a single stroke of the pen
wrong--that was my whole crime. No, God be praised, I can tell right
from wrong yet a while. How would it fare with me if I were, into the
bargain, to sully my honour? It is simply my sense of honour that keeps
me afloat now. But it is strong enough too; at least, it has kept me up
to date.”
I threw back my head, turned away from “Missy,” and looked down the
street. My eyes rested on a red dress that came towards us; on a woman
at a man’s side. If I had not had this conversation with “Missy,” I
would not have been hurt by his coarse suspicion, and I would not have
given this toss of my head, as I turned away in offence; and so perhaps
this red dress would have passed me without my having noticed it. And
at bottom what did it concern me? What was it to me if it were the
dress of the Hon. Miss Nagel, the lady-in-waiting? “Missy” stood and
talked, and tried to make good his mistake again. I did not listen to
him at all; I stood the whole time and stared at the red dress that was
coming nearer up the street, and a stir thrilled through my breast, a
gliding delicate dart. I whispered in thought without moving my lips:
“Ylajali!”
Now “Missy” turned round also and noticed the two--the lady and the man
with her,--raised his hat to them, and followed them with his eyes. I
did not raise my hat, or perhaps I did unconsciously. The red dress
glided up Carl Johann, and disappeared.
“Who was it was with her?” asked “Missy.”
“The Duke, didn’t you see? The so-called ‘Duke.’ Did you know the lady?”
“Yes, in a sort of way. Didn’t _you_ know her?”
“No,” I replied.
“It appears to me you saluted profoundly enough.”
“Did I?”
“Ha, ha! perhaps you didn’t,” said “Missy.” “Well, that is odd. Why, it
was only at you she looked, too, the whole time.”
“When did you get to know her?” I asked.
He did not really know her. It dated from an evening in autumn. It was
late; they were three jovial souls together, they came out late from
the Grand, and met this being going along alone past Cammermeyer’s,
and they addressed her. At first she answered rebuffingly; but one of
the jovial spirits, a man who neither feared fire nor water, asked
her right to her face if he might not have the civilized enjoyment
of accompanying her home? He would, by the Lord, not hurt a hair on
her head, as the saying goes--only go with her to her door, reassure
himself that she reached home in safety, otherwise he could not rest
all night. He talked incessantly as they went along, hit upon one thing
or another, dubbed himself Waldemar Atterdag, and represented himself
as a photographer. At last she was obliged to laugh at this merry soul
who refused to be rebuffed by her coldness, and it finally ended by his
going with her.
“Indeed, did it? and what came of it?” I inquired; and I held my breath
for his reply.
“Came of it? Oh, stop there; there is the lady in question.”
We both kept silent a moment, both “Missy” and I.
“Well, I’m hanged, was that ‘the Duke’? So that’s what he looks like,”
he added, reflectively. “Well, if she is in contact with that fellow;
well, then, I wouldn’t like to answer for her.”
I still kept silent. Yes, of course “the Duke” would make the pace with
her. Well, what odds? How did it concern me? I bade her good-day with
all her wiles: a good-day I bade her; and I tried to console myself by
thinking the worst thoughts about her; took a downright pleasure in
dragging her through the mire. It only annoyed me to think that I had
doffed my hat to the pair, if I really had done so. Why should I raise
my hat to such people? I did not care for her any longer, certainly
not; she was no longer in the very slightest degree lovely to me; she
had fallen off. Ah, the devil knows how soiled I found her! It might
easily have been the case that it was only me she looked at; I was
not in the least astounded at that; it might be regret that began to
stir in her. But that was no reason for me to go and lower myself
and salute, like a fool, especially when she had become so seriously
besmirched of late. “The Duke” was welcome to her; I wish him joy!
The day might come when I would just take into my head to pass her
haughtily by without glancing once towards her. Ay, it might happen
that I would venture to do this, even if she were to gaze straight
into my eyes, and have a blood-red gown on into the bargain. It might
very easily happen! Ha, ha! that would be a triumph. If I knew myself
aright, I was quite capable of completing my drama during the course of
the night, and, before eight days had flown, I would have brought this
young woman to her knees--with all her charms, ha, ha! with all her
charms....
“Good-bye,” I muttered, shortly; but “Missy” held me back. He queried:
“But what do you do all day now?”
“Do? I write, naturally. What else should I do? Is it not that I live
by? For the moment, I am working at a great drama, ‘The Sign of the
Cross.’ Theme taken from the Middle Ages.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed “Missy,” seriously. “Well, if you succeed with
that, why....”
“I have no great anxiety on that score,” I replied. “In eight days’
time or so, I think you and all the folks will have heard a little more
of me.”
With that I left him.
When I got home I applied at once to my landlady, and requested a lamp.
It was of the utmost importance to me to get this lamp; I would not
go to bed tonight; my drama was raging in my brain, and I hoped so
surely to be able to write a good portion of it before morning. I put
forward my request very humbly to her, as I had noticed that she made
a dissatisfied face on my re-entering the sitting-room. I said that
I had almost completed a remarkable drama, only a couple of scenes
were wanting; and I hinted that it might be produced in some theatre
or another, in no time. If she would only just render me this great
service now....
But madam had no lamp. She considered a bit, but could not call to
mind that she had a lamp in any place. If I liked to wait until twelve
o’clock, I might perhaps get the kitchen lamp. Why didn’t I buy myself
a candle?
I held my tongue. I hadn’t a farthing to buy a candle, and knew that
right well. Of course I was foiled again! The servant-girl sat inside
with us--simply sat in the sitting-room, and was not in the kitchen
at all; so that the lamp up there was not even lit. And I stood and
thought over this, but said no more. Suddenly the girl remarked to me:
“I thought I saw you come out of the palace a while ago; were you at a
dinner party?” and she laughed loudly at this jest.
I sat down, took out my papers, and attempted to write something here,
in the meantime. I held the paper on my knees, and gazed persistently
at the floor to avoid being distracted by anything; but it helped not
a whit; nothing helped me; I got no farther. The landlady’s two little
girls came in and made a row with the cat--a queer, sick cat that had
scarcely a hair on it; they blew into its eyes until water sprang out
of them and trickled down its nose. The landlord and a couple of others
sat at a table and played _cent et un_. The wife alone was busy as
ever, and sat and sewed at some garment. She saw well that I could not
write anything in the midst of all this disturbance; but she troubled
herself no more about me; she even smiled when the servant-girl asked
me if I had been out to dine. The whole household had become hostile
towards me. It was as if I had only needed disgrace of being obliged
to resign my room to a stranger to be treated as a man of no account.
Even the servant, a little, brown-eyed, street-wench, with a big
fringe over her forehead, and a perfectly flat bosom, poked fun at me
in the evening when I got my ration of bread and butter. She inquired
perpetually where, then, was I in the habit of dining, as she had never
seen me picking my teeth outside the Grand? It was clear that she was
aware of my wretched circumstances, and took a pleasure in letting me
know of it.
I fall suddenly into thought over all this, and am not able to find a
solitary speech for my drama. Time upon time I seek in vain; a strange
buzzing begins inside my head, and I give it up. I thrust the papers
into my pocket, and look up. The girl is sitting straight opposite
me. I look at her--look at her narrow back and drooping shoulders,
that are not yet fully developed. What business was it of hers to fly
at me? Even supposing I did come out of the palace, what then? Did
it harm her in any way? She had laughed insolently in the past few
days at me, when I was a bit awkward and stumbled on the stairs, or
caught fast on a nail and tore my coat. It was not later than yesterday
that she gathered up my rough copy, that I had thrown aside in the
ante-room--stolen these rejected fragments of my drama, and read them
aloud in the room here; made fun of them in every one’s hearing, just
to amuse herself at my expense. I had never molested her in any way,
and could not recall that I had ever asked her to do me a service. On
the contrary, I made up my bed on the floor in the ante-room myself,
in order not to give her any trouble with it. She made fun of me, too,
because my hair fell out. Hair lay and floated about in the basin I
washed in in the mornings, and she made merry over it. Then my shoes,
too, had grown rather shabby of late, particularly the one that had
been run over by the bread-van, and she found subject for jesting in
them. “God bless you and your shoes!” said she, looking at them; “they
are as wide as a dog’s house.” And she was right; they were trodden
out. But then I couldn’t procure myself any others just at present.
Whilst I sit and call all this to mind, and marvel over the evident
malice of the servant, the little girls have begun to tease the old
man over in the bed; they are jumping around him, fully bent on this
diversion. They both found a straw, which they poked into his ears. I
looked on at this for a while, and refrained from interfering. The old
fellow did not move a finger to defend himself; he only looked at his
tormentors with furious eyes each time they prodded him, and jerked his
head to escape when the straws were already in his ears. I got more and
more irritated at this sight, and could not keep my eyes away from it.
The father looked up from his cards, and laughed at the youngsters; he
also drew the attention of his comrades at play to what was going on.
Why didn’t the old fellow move? Why didn’t he fling the children aside
with his arms? I took a stride, and approached the bed.
“Let them alone! let them alone! he is paralysed,” called the landlord.
And out of fear to be shown the door for the night, simply out of
fear of rousing the man’s displeasure by interfering with this scene,
I stepped back silently to my old place and kept myself quiet. Why
should I risk my lodging and my portion of bread and butter by poking
my nose into the family squabbles? No idiotic pranks for the sake of
a half-dying old man, and I stood and felt as delightfully hard as a
flint.
The little urchins did not cease their plaguing; it amused them that
the old chap could not hold his head quiet, and they aimed at his eyes
and nostrils. He stared at them with a ludicrous expression; he said
nothing, and could not stir his arms. Suddenly he raised the upper part
of his body a little and spat in the face of one of the little girls,
drew himself up again and spat at the other, but did not reach her.
I stood and looked on, saw that the landlord flung the cards on the
table at which he sat, and sprang over towards the bed. His face was
flushed, and he shouted:
“Will you sit and spit right into people’s eyes, you old boar?”
“But, good Lord, he got no peace from them!” I cried, beside myself.
But all the time I stood in fear of being turned out, and I certainly
did not utter my protest with any particular force; I only trembled
over my whole body with irritation. He turned towards me, and said:
“Eh, listen to him, then. What the devil is it to you? You just keep
your tongue in your jaw, you--just mark what I tell you, ’twill serve
you best.”
But now the wife’s voice made itself heard, and the house was filled
with scolding and railing.
“May God help me, but I think you are mad or possessed, the whole pack
of you!” she shrieked. “If you want to stay in here you’ll have to be
quiet, both of you! Humph! it isn’t enough that one is to keep open
house and food for vermin, but one is to have sparring and rowing and
the devil’s own to-do in the sitting-room as well. But I won’t have
any more of it, not if I know it. Sh--h! Hold your tongues, you brats
there, and wipe your noses, too; if you don’t, I’ll come and do it. I
never saw the like of such people. Here they walk in out of the street,
without even a penny to buy flea-powder, and begin to kick up rows in
the middle of the night and quarrel with the people who own the house.
I don’t mean to have any more of it, do you understand that? and you
can go your way, every one who doesn’t belong home here. I am going to
have peace in my own quarters, I am.”
I said nothing, I never opened my mouth once. I sat down again next the
door and listened to the noise. They all screamed together, even the
children, and the girl who wanted to explain how the whole disturbance
commenced. If I only kept quiet, it would all blow over sometime; it
would surely not come to the worst if I only did not utter a word; and
what word after all could I have to say? Was it not perhaps winter
outside, and far advanced into the night, besides? Was that a time to
strike a blow, and show one could hold one’s own? No folly now!... So I
sat still and made no attempt to leave the house; I never even blushed
at keeping silent, never felt ashamed, although I had almost been shown
the door. I stared coolly, case-hardened, at the wall where Christ
hung in an oleograph, and held my tongue obstinately during all the
landlady’s attack.
“Well, if it is me you want to get quit of, ma’am, there will be
nothing in the way as far as I am concerned,” said one of the
card-players as he stood up. The other card-players rose as well.
“No, I didn’t mean you--nor you either,” replied the landlady to them.
“If there’s any need to, I will show well enough who I mean, if
there’s the least need to, if I know myself rightly. Oh, it will be
shown quick enough who it is....”
She talked with pauses, gave me these thrusts at short intervals, and
spun it out to make it clearer and clearer that it was me she meant.
“Quiet,” said I to myself; “only keep quiet!” She had not asked me to
go--not expressly, not in plain words. Just no putting on side on my
part--no untimely pride! Brave it out!... That was really most singular
green hair on that Christ in the oleograph. It was not too unlike green
grass, or expressed with exquisite exactitude thick meadow grass. Ha!
a perfectly correct remark--unusually thick meadow grass.... A train
of fleeting ideas darts at this moment through my head. From green
grass to the text, Each life is like unto grass that is kindled; from
that to the Day of Judgment, when all will be consumed; then a little
detour down to the earthquake in Lisbon, about which something floated
before me in reference to a brass Spanish spittoon and an ebony pen
handle that I had seen down at Ylajali’s. Ah, yes, all was transitory,
just like grass that was kindled. It all ended in four planks and a
winding-sheet. “Winding-sheets to be had from Miss Andersen’s, on the
right of the door.”... And all this was tossed about in my head during
the despairing moment when my landlady was about to thrust me from her
door.
“He doesn’t hear,” she yelled. “I tell you, you’ll quit this house.
Now you know it. I believe, God blast me, that the man is mad, I do!
Now, out you go, on the blessed spot, and so no more chat about it.”
I looked towards the door, not in order to leave--no, certainly not in
order to leave. An audacious notion seized me--if there had been a key
in the door, I would have turned it and locked myself in along with the
rest to escape going. I had a perfectly hysterical dread of going out
into the streets again.
But there was no key in the door.
Then, suddenly my landlord’s voice mingled with that of his wife, and I
stood still with amazement. The same man who had threatened me a while
ago took my part, strangely enough now. He said:
“No, it won’t do to turn folk out at night; do you know one can be
punished for doing that?”
“I didn’t know if there was a punishment for that; I couldn’t say, but
perhaps it was so,” and the wife bethought herself quickly, grew quiet,
and spoke no more.
She placed two pieces of bread and butter before me for supper, but I
did not touch them, just out of gratitude to the man; so I pretended
that I had had a little food in town.
When at length I took myself off to the ante-room to go to bed, she
came out after me, stopped on the threshold, and said loudly, whilst
her unsightly figure seemed to strut out towards me:
“But this is the last night you sleep here, so now you know it.”
“Yes, yes,” I replied.
There would perhaps be some way of finding a shelter tomorrow, if I
tried hard for it. I would surely be able to find some hiding-place.
For the time being I would rejoice that I was not obliged to go out
tonight.
I slept till between five and six in the morning--it was not yet light
when I awoke--but all the same I got up at once. I had lain in all
my clothes on account of the cold, and had no dressing to do. When I
had drunk a little cold water and opened the door quietly, I went out
directly, for I was afraid to face my landlady again.
A couple of policemen who had been on watch all night were the only
living beings I saw in the street. A while after, some men began to
extinguish the lamps. I wandered about without aim or end, reached
Kirkegaden and the road down towards the fortress. Cold and still
sleepy, weak in the knees and back after my long walk, and very hungry,
I sat down on a seat and dozed for a long time. For three weeks I had
lived exclusively on the bread and butter that my landlady had given me
morning and evening. Now it was twenty-four hours since I had had my
last meal. Hunger began to gnaw badly at me again; I must seek a help
for it right quickly. With this thought I fell asleep again upon the
seat....
I was aroused by the sound of people speaking near me, and when I had
collected myself a little, I saw that it was broad day, and that every
one was up and about. I got up and walked away. The sun burst over the
heights, the sky was pale and tender, and in my delight over the lovely
morning, after the many dark gloomy weeks, I forgot all cares, and it
seemed to me as if I had fared worse on other occasions. I clapped
myself on the chest and sang a little snatch for myself. My voice
sounded so wretched, downright exhausted it sounded, and I moved myself
to tears with it. This magnificent day, the white heavens swimming in
light, had far too mighty an effect upon me, and I burst into loud
weeping.
“What is the matter with you?” inquired a man. I did not answer, but
hurried away, hiding my face from all men. I reached the bridge. A
large barque with the Russian flag lay and discharged coal. I read
her name, _Copégoro_, on her side. It distracted me for a time to
watch what took place on board this foreign ship. She must be almost
discharged; she lay with IX foot visible on her side, in spite of all
the ballast she had already taken in, and there was a hollow boom
through the whole ship whenever the coal-heavers stamped on the deck
with their heavy boots.
The sun, the light, and the salt breath from the sea, all this busy,
merry life pulled me together a bit, and caused my blood to run
lustily. Suddenly it entered my head that I could work at a few scenes
of my drama whilst I sat here, and I took my papers out of my pocket.
I tried to place a speech into a monk’s mouth--a speech that ought to
swell with pride and intolerance, but it was of no use; so I skipped
over the monk and tried to work out an oration--the Deemster’s oration
to the violator of the Temple,--and I wrote half-a-page of this
oration, upon which I stopped. The right local colour would not tinge
my words, the bustle about me, the shanties, the noise of the gangways,
and the ceaseless rattle of the iron chains, fitted in so little with
the atmosphere of the musty air of the dim Middle Ages, that was to
envelop my drama as with a mist.
I bundled my papers together and got up.
All the same, I got into a happy vein--a grand vein,--and I felt
convinced that I could effect something if all went well.
If I only had a place to go to. I thought over it--stopped right there
in the street and pondered, but I could not bring to mind a single
quiet spot in the town where I could seat myself for an hour. There
was no other way open; I would have to go back to the lodging-house in
Vaterland. I shrank at the thought of it, and I told myself all the
while that it would not do. I went ahead all the same, and approached
nearer and nearer to the forbidden spot. Of course it was wretched. I
admitted to myself that it was degrading--downright degrading, but
there was no help for it. I was not in the least proud; I dared make
the assertion roundly, that I was one of the least arrogant beings up
to date. I went ahead.
I pulled up at the door and weighed it over once more. Yes, no matter
what the result was, I would have to dare it. After all said and done,
what a bagatelle to make such a fuss about. For the first, it was only
a matter of a couple of hours; for the second, the Lord forbid that I
should ever seek refuge in such a house again. I entered the yard. Even
whilst I was crossing the uneven stones I was irresolute, and almost
turned round at the very door. I clenched my teeth. No! no pride! At
the worst I could excuse myself by saying I had come to say good-bye,
to make a proper adieu, and come to a clear understanding about my debt
to the house.
I opened the door of the long room. I entered and stood stock-still
when I got inside. Right in front of me, only a few paces away, stood
the landlord himself. He was without hat or coat, and was peeping
through the keyhole into the family room. He made a sign, a warning
sign with his hand to me to keep quiet, and peeped again through the
hole.
“Come here,” he whispered. I approached on tip-toe.
“Look there,” he said, and laughed, with a quiet, eager laugh. “Peep
in! Hi, hi! there they are! Look at the old chap! Can you see the old
chap?”
In the bed under the Christ in oleograph I saw two figures, the
landlady and the strange sailor: her legs gleamed whitely against
the dark coverlid, and in bed against the wall sat her father, the
paralysed old man, and looked on, bending over his hands, crouched
together as always, without being able to move.
I turned round towards my landlord. He had the greatest trouble to keep
himself from laughing out loudly.
“Did you see the old chap?” he whispered. “Ah Lord! did you see the old
chap? He is sitting looking on,” and he placed himself once more before
the keyhole.
I went over to the window, and sat down. This sight had brought all my
thoughts into merciless disorder, and put an end to my bright mood.
Well, what concern was it of mine? When the husband himself agreed
to it, ay, even found his greatest diversion in it, there was no
reason why I should take it to heart. And as far as the old fellow was
concerned, well, the old fellow was, once for all, an old fellow, and
no more. Perhaps he didn’t even notice it. Maybe that he just sat and
dozed. God knows, he may have been dead; it would not surprise me in
the least if he were dead; I would have no scruples of conscience on
this score.
I took forth my papers once more, and determined to thrust all
irrelevant impressions aside. I had left off right in the middle of a
sentence in the inquisitor’s address--“Thus dictate God and the law
to me, thus dictates also the counsel of my wise men, thus dictate I
and my own conscience....” I looked out of the window to think over
what his conscience should dictate to him. A little row reached me from
the room inside. Well, it was no affair of mine anyway. Besides, the
old chap was surely dead--died perhaps this morning about four; it was
therefore entirely and totally indifferent to me what noise arose. Why
the devil should I sit thinking about it? Keep quiet now! “Thus dictate
I and my own conscience....” But everything conspired against me; the
man over at the keyhole did not stand quiet a second. I could now and
then hear his stifled laughter, and see how he shook. Outside in the
street, too, something was taking place that disturbed me. A little lad
sat and amused himself in the sun on the opposite side of the pavement.
He was happy and in fear of no danger--just sat and knotted together
a lot of paper streamers, and injured no one. Suddenly he jumps up
and begins to curse; he goes backwards to the middle of the street
and catches sight of a man, a grown-up man, with a red beard, who is
leaning out of an open window in the second storey, and who spat down
on his head. The little chap cried with rage, and swore impatiently up
at the window; and the man laughed in his face. Perhaps five minutes
passed in this way. I turned aside to avoid seeing the little lad’s
tears.
“Thus dictate I and my own conscience....” I found it impossible to
get any farther. At last everything began to get confused; it seemed
to me that even that which I had already written was unfit to use, ay,
that the whole idea was contemptible rubbish. How could one possibly
talk of conscience in the Middle Ages? Conscience was first invented by
Dancing-master Shakespeare, consequently my whole address was wrong.
Was there, then, nothing of value in these pages? I ran through them
anew, and solved my doubt at once. I discovered grand pieces--downright
lengthy pieces of remarkable merit--and once again the intoxicating
desire to set to work again darted through my breast--the desire to
finish my drama.
I got up and went to the door, without paying any attention to my
landlord’s furious signs to go out quietly; I walked out of the room
firmly, and with my mind made up. I went upstairs to the second floor,
and entered my former room. The man was not there, and what was to
hinder me from sitting here for a moment? I would not touch one of his
things. I wouldn’t even once use his table; I would just seat myself
on a chair near the door, and be happy. I spread the papers hurriedly
out on my knees. Things went splendidly for a few minutes. Retort upon
retort stood ready in my head, and I wrote uninterruptedly. I filled
one page after the other, dashed ahead over stock and stone, chuckled
softly in ecstasy over my happy vein, and was scarcely conscious of
myself. The only sound I heard in this moment was my own merry chuckle.
A singularly happy idea had just struck me about a church bell--a
church bell that was to peal out at a certain point in my drama. All
was going ahead with overwhelming rapidity. Then I heard a step on the
stairs. I tremble, and am almost beside myself; sit ready to bolt,
timorous, watchful, full of fear at everything, and excited by hunger.
I listen nervously, just hold the pencil still in my hand, and listen.
I cannot write a word more. The door opens and the pair from below
enter.
Even before I had time to make an excuse for what I had done, the
landlady calls out, as if struck of a heap with amazement:
“Well, God bless and save us, if he isn’t sitting here again!”
“Excuse me,” I said, and I would have added more, but got no farther;
the landlady flung open the door, as far as it would go, and shrieked:
“If you don’t go out, now, may God blast me, but I’ll fetch the police!”
I got up.
“I only wanted to say good-bye to you,” I murmured; “and I had to wait
for you. I didn’t touch anything; I only just sat here on the chair....”
“Yes, yes; there was no harm in that,” said the man. “What the devil
does it matter? Let the man alone; he--”
By this time I had reached the end of the stairs. All at once I got
furious with this fat, swollen woman, who followed close to my heels
to get rid of me quickly, and I stood quiet a moment with the worst
abusive epithets on my tongue ready to sling at her. But I bethought
myself in time, and held my peace, if only out of gratitude to the
stranger man, who followed her, and would have to hear them. She trod
close on my heels, railing incessantly, and my anger increased with
every step I took.
We reached the yard below. I walked very slowly, still debating whether
I would not have it out with her. I was at this moment completely
blinded with rage, and I searched for the worst word--an expression
that would strike her dead on the spot, like a kick in her stomach. A
commissionaire passes me at the entrance. He touches his hat; I take
no notice; he applies to her; and I hear that he inquires for me, but
I do not turn round. A couple of steps outside the door he overtakes
and stops me. He hands me an envelope. I tear it open, roughly and
unwillingly. It contains half-a-sovereign--no note, not a word. I look
at the man, and ask:
“What tomfoolery is this? Who is the letter from?”
“Oh, that I can’t say!” he replies; “but it was a lady who gave it to
me.”
I stood still. The commissionaire left.
I put the coin into the envelope again, crumple it up, coin and
envelope, wheel round and go straight towards the landlady, who is
still keeping an eye on me from the doorway, and throw it in her face.
I said nothing; I uttered no syllable--only noticed that she was
examining the crumpled paper as I left her.... Ha! that is what one
might call comporting oneself with dignity. Not to say a word, not to
mention the contents, but crumple together, with perfect calmness,
a large piece of money, and fling it straight in the face of one’s
persecutor! One might call that making one’s exit with dignity. That
was the way to treat such beasts!...
When I got to the corner of Tomtegaden and the railway place, the
street commenced suddenly to swim round before my eyes; it buzzed
vacantly in my head, and I staggered up against the wall of a house.
I could simply go no farther, couldn’t even straighten myself from
the cramped position I was in. As I fell up against it, so I remained
standing, and I felt that I was beginning to lose my senses. My insane
anger had augmented this attack of exhaustion. I lifted my foot, and
stamped on the pavement. I also tried several other things to try and
regain my strength: I clenched my teeth, wrinkled my brows, and rolled
my eyes despairingly; it helped a little. My thoughts grew more lucid.
It was clear to me that I was about to succumb. I stretched out my
hands, and pushed myself back from the wall. The street still danced
wildly round me. I began to hiccough with rage, and I wrestled from
my very inmost soul with my misery; made a right gallant effort not
to sink down. It was not my intention to collapse; no, I would die
standing. A dray rolls slowly by, and I notice there are potatoes in
it; but out of sheer fury and stubbornness, I take it into my head to
assert that they are not potatoes, but cabbages, and I swore frightful
oaths that they were cabbages. I heard quite well what I was saying,
and I swore this lie wittingly; repeating time after time, just to have
the vicious satisfaction of perjuring myself. I got intoxicated with
the thought of this matchless sin of mine. I raised three fingers in
the air, and swore, with trembling lips, in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, that they were cabbages.
Time went. I let myself sink down on the steps near me, and dried the
sweat from my brow and throat, drew a couple of long breaths, and
forced myself into calmness. The sun slid down; it declined towards the
afternoon. I began once more to brood over my condition. My hunger was
really something disgraceful, and, in a few hours more, night would be
here again. The question was, to think of a remedy while there was yet
time. My thoughts flew again to the lodging-house from which I had been
hunted away. I could on no account return there; but yet one could not
help thinking about it. Properly speaking, the woman was acting quite
within her rights in turning me out. How could I expect to get lodging
with any one when I could not pay for it? Besides, she had occasionally
given me a little food; even yesterday evening, after I had annoyed
her, she offered me some bread and butter. She offered it to me out
of sheer good nature, because she knew I needed it, so I had no cause
to complain. I began, even whilst I sat there on the step, to ask her
pardon in my own mind for my behaviour. Particularly, I regretted
bitterly that I had shown myself ungrateful to her at the last, and
thrown half-a-sovereign in her face....
Half-a-sovereign! I gave a whistle. The letter the messenger brought
me, where did it come from? It was only this instant I thought clearly
over this, and I divined at once how the whole thing hung together. I
grew sick with pain and shame. I whispered “Ylajali” a few times, with
hoarse voice, and flung back my head. Was it not I who, no later than
yesterday, had decided to pass her proudly by if I met her, to treat
her with the greatest indifference? Instead of that, I had only aroused
her compassion, and coaxed an alms from her. No, no, no; there would
never be an end to my degradation! Not even in her presence could I
maintain a decent position. I sank, simply sank, on all sides--every
way I turned; sank to my knees, sank to my waist, dived under in
ignominy, never to rise again--never! This was the climax! To accept
half-a-sovereign in alms without being able to fling it back to the
secret donor; scramble for halfpence whenever the chance offered, and
keep them, use them for lodging money, in spite of one’s intense inner
aversion....
Could I not regain the half-sovereign in some way or another? To go
back to the landlady and try to get it from her would be of no use.
There must be some way, if I were to consider--if I were only to exert
myself right well, and consider it over. It was not, in this case,
great God, sufficient to consider in just an ordinary way! I must
consider so that it penetrated my whole sentient being; consider and
find some way to procure this half-sovereign. And I set to, to consider
the answer to this problem.
It might be about four o’clock; in a few hours’ time I could perhaps
meet the manager of the theatre; if only I had my drama completed.
I take out my MSS. there where I am sitting, and resolve, with might
and main, to finish the last few scenes. I think until I sweat, and
re-read from the beginning, but make no progress. No bosh! I say--no
obstinacy, now! and I write away at my drama--write down everything
that strikes me, just to get finished quickly and be able to go away.
I tried to persuade myself that a new supreme moment had seized me; I
lied right royally to myself, deceived myself knowingly, and wrote on,
as if I had no need to seek for words.
That is capital! That is really a find! whispered I, interpolatingly;
only just write it down! Halt! they sound questionable; they contrast
rather strongly with the speeches in the first scenes; not a trace
of the Middle Ages shone through the monk’s words. I break my pencil
between my teeth, jump to my feet, tear my manuscript in two, tear each
page in two, fling my hat down in the street and trample upon it. I am
lost! I whisper to myself. Ladies and gentlemen, I am lost! I utter no
more than these few words as long as I stand there, and tramp upon my
hat.
A policeman is standing a few steps away, watching me. He is standing
in the middle of the street, and he only pays attention to me. As I
lift my head, our eyes meet. Maybe he has been standing there for a
long time watching me. I pick up my hat, put it on, and go over to him.
“Do you know what time it is?” I ask.
He pauses a bit as he hauls out his watch, and never takes his eyes off
me the whole time.
“About four,” he replies.
“Accurately,” I say, “about four, perfectly accurate. You know your
business, and I’ll bear you in mind.” Thereupon I left him. He looked
utterly amazed at me, stood and looked at me, with gaping mouth, still
holding his watch in his hand.
When I got in front of the Royal Hotel I turned and looked back. He was
still standing in the same position, following me with his eyes.
Ha, ha! That is the way to treat brutes! With the most refined
effrontery! That impresses the brutes--puts the fear of God into
them.... I was peculiarly satisfied with myself, and began to sing a
little strain. Every nerve was tense with excitement. Without feeling
any more pain, without even being conscious of discomfort of any kind,
I walked, light as a feather, across the whole market, turned round at
the stalls, and came to a halt--sat down on a bench near Our Saviour’s
Church. Might it not just as well be a matter of indifference whether
I returned the half-sovereign or not? When once I received it, it was
mine; and there was evidently no want where it came from. Besides, I
was obliged to take it when it was sent expressly to me; there could be
no object in letting the messenger keep it. It wouldn’t do, either, to
send it back--a whole half-sovereign that had been sent to me. So there
was positively no help for it.
I tried to watch the bustle about me in the market, and distract myself
with indifferent things, but I did not succeed; the half-sovereign
still busied my thoughts. At last I clenched my fists and got angry. It
would hurt her if I were to send it back. Why, then, should I do so?
Always ready to consider myself too good for everything--to toss my
head and say, No, thanks! I saw now what it led to. I was out in the
street again. Even when I had the opportunity I couldn’t keep my good
warm lodging. No; I must needs be proud, jump up at the first word,
and show I wasn’t the man to stand trifling, chuck half-sovereigns
right and left, and go my way.... I took myself sharply to task for
having left my lodging and brought myself into the most distressful
circumstances.
As for the rest, I consigned the whole affair to the keeping of the
yellowest of devils. I hadn’t begged for the half-sovereign, and I had
barely had it in my hand, but gave it away at once--paid it away to
utterly strange people whom I would never see again. That was the sort
of man I was; I always paid out to the last doit whatever I owed. If I
knew Ylajali aright, neither did she regret that she had sent me the
money, therefore why did I sit there working myself into a rage? To put
it plainly, the least she could do was to send me half-a-sovereign now
and then. The poor girl was indeed in love with me--ha! perhaps even
fatally in love with me; ... and I sat and puffed myself up with this
notion. There was no doubt that she was in love with me, the poor girl.
It struck five o’clock! Again I sank under the weight of my prolonged
nervous excitement. The hollow whirring in my head made itself felt
anew. I stared straight ahead, kept my eyes fixed, and gazed at the
chemist’s under the sign of the elephant. Hunger was waging a fierce
battle in me at this moment, and I was suffering greatly. Whilst I sit
thus and look out into space, a figure becomes little by little clear
to my fixed stare. At last I can distinguish it perfectly plainly, and
I recognize it. It is that of the cake-vendor who sits habitually
near the chemist’s under the sign of the elephant. I give a start, sit
half-upright on the seat, and begin to consider. Yes, it was quite
correct--the same woman before the same table on the same spot! I
whistle a few times and snap my fingers, rise from my seat, and make
for the chemist’s. No nonsense at all! What the devil was it to me if
it was the wages of sin, or well-earned Norwegian huckster pieces of
silver from Kongsberg? I wasn’t going to be abused; one might die of
too much pride....
I go on to the corner, take stock of the woman, and come to a
standstill before her. I smile, nod as to an acquaintance, and shape my
words as if it were a foregone conclusion that I would return sometime.
“Good-day,” say I; “perhaps you don’t recognize me again.”
“No,” she replied slowly, and looks at me.
I smile still more, as if this were only an excellent joke of hers,
this pretending not to know me again, and say:
“Don’t you recollect that I gave you a lot of silver once? I did not
say anything on the occasion in question; as far as I can call to
mind, I did not; it is not my way to do so. When one has honest folk
to deal with, it is unnecessary to make an agreement, so to say, draw
up a contract for every trifle. Ha, ha! Yes, it was I who gave you the
money!”
“No, then, now; was it you? Yes, I remember you, now that I come to
think over it....”
I wanted to prevent her from thanking me for the money, so I say,
therefore, hastily, whilst I cast my eye over the table in search of
something to eat:
“Yes; I’ve come now to get the cakes.”
She did not seem to take this in.
“The cakes,” I reiterate; “I’ve come now to get them--at any rate, the
first instalment; I don’t need all of them today.”
“You’ve come to get them?”
“Yes; of course I’ve come to get them,” I reply, and I laugh
boisterously, as if it ought to have been self-evident to her from the
outset that I came for that purpose. I take, too, a cake up from the
table, a sort of white roll that I commenced to eat.
When the woman sees this, she stirs uneasily inside her bundle of
clothes, makes an involuntary movement as if to protect her wares, and
gives me to understand that she had not expected me to return to rob
her of them.
“Really not?” I say, “indeed, really not?” She certainly was an
extraordinary woman. Had she, then, at any time, had the experience
that some one came and gave her a heap of shillings to take care of,
without that person returning and demanding them again? No; just look
at that now! Did she perhaps run away with the idea that it was stolen
money, since I slung it at her in that manner? No; she didn’t think
that either. Well, that at least was a good thing--really a good
thing. It was, if I might so say, kind of her, in spite of all, to
consider me an honest man. Ha, ha! yes indeed, she really was good!
But why did I give her the money, then? The woman was exasperated, and
called out loudly about it. I explained why I had given her the money,
explained it temperately and with emphasis. It was my custom to act
in this manner, because I had such a belief in every one’s goodness.
Always when any one offered me an agreement, a receipt, I only shook my
head and said: No, thank you! God knows I did.
But still the woman failed to comprehend it. I had recourse to other
expedients--spoke sharply, and bade a truce to all nonsense. Had it
never happened to her before that any one had paid her in advance
in this manner? I inquired--I meant, of course, people who could
afford it--for example, any of the consuls? Never? Well, I could not
be expected to suffer because it happened to be a strange mode of
procedure to her. It was a common practice abroad. She had perhaps
never been outside the boundaries of her own country? No? Just look
at that now! In that case, she could of course have no opinion on the
subject; ... and I took several more cakes from the table.
She grumbled angrily, refused obstinately to give up any more of her
stores from off the table, even snatched a piece of cake out of my hand
and put it back into its place. I got enraged, banged the table, and
threatened to call the police. I wished to be lenient with her, I said.
Were I to take all that was lawfully mine, I would clear her whole
stand, because it was a big sum of money that I had given to her. But
I had no intention of taking so much, I wanted in reality only half
the value of the money, and I would, into the bargain, never come back
to trouble her again. Might God preserve me from it, seeing that that
was the sort of creature she was.... At length she shoved some cakes
towards me, four or five, at an exorbitant price, the highest possible
price she could think of, and bade me take them and begone. I wrangled
still with her, persisted that she had at least cheated me to the
extent of a shilling, besides robbing me with her exorbitant prices.
“Do you know there is a penalty for such rascally trickery,” said I;
“God help you, you might get penal servitude for life, you old fool!”
She flung another cake to me, and, with almost gnashing teeth, begged
me to go.
And I left her.
Ha! a match for this dishonest cake-vendor was not to be found. The
whole time, whilst I walked to and fro in the market-place and ate
my cakes, I talked loudly about this creature and her shamelessness,
repeated to myself what we both had said to one another, and it seemed
to me that I had come out of this affair with flying colours, leaving
her nowhere. I ate my cakes in face of everybody and talked this over
to myself.
The cakes disappeared one by one; they seemed to go no way; no matter
how I ate I was still greedily hungry. Lord, to think they were of
no help! I was so ravenous that I was even about to devour the last
little cake that I had decided to spare, right from the beginning, to
put it aside, in fact, for the little chap down in Vognmandsgade--the
little lad who played with the paper streamers. I thought of him
continually--couldn’t forget his face as he jumped and swore. He had
turned round towards the window when the man spat down on him, and he
had just looked up to see if I was laughing at him. God knows if I
should meet him now, even if I went down that way.
I exerted myself greatly to try and reach Vognmandsgade, passed quickly
by the spot where I had torn my drama into tatters, and where some
scraps of papers still lay about; avoided the policeman whom I had
amazed by my behaviour, and reached the steps upon which the laddie had
been sitting.
He was not there. The street was almost deserted--dusk was gathering
in, and I could not see him anywhere. Perhaps he had gone in. I laid
the cake down, stood it upright against the door, knocked hard, and
hurried away directly. He is sure to find it, I said to myself; the
first thing he will do when he comes out will be to find it. And my
eyes grew moist with pleasure at the thought of the little chap finding
the cake.
I reached the terminus again.
Now I no longer felt hungry, only the sweet stuff I had eaten began to
cause me discomfort. The wildest thoughts, too, surged up anew in my
head.
Supposing I were in all secretness to cut the hawser mooring one of
those ships? Supposing I were to suddenly yell out “Fire”? I walk
farther down the wharf, find a packing-case and sit upon it, fold my
hands, and am conscious that my head is growing more and more confused.
I do not stir; I simply make no effort whatever to keep up any longer.
I just sit there and stare at the _Copégoro_, the barque flying the
Russian flag.
I catch a glimpse of a man at the rail; the red lantern slung at the
port shines down upon his head, and I get up and talk over to him. I
had no object in talking, as I did not expect to get a reply, either. I
said:
“Do you sail tonight, Captain?”
“Yes; in a short time,” answered the man. He spoke Swedish.
“Hem, I suppose you wouldn’t happen to need a man?”
I was at this instant utterly indifferent as to whether I was met by a
refusal or not; it was all the same to me what reply the man gave me,
so I stood and waited for it.
“Well, no,” he replied; “unless it chanced to be a young fellow.”
“A young fellow!” I pulled myself together, took off my glasses
furtively and thrust them into my pocket, stepped up the gangway, and
strode on deck.
“I have no experience,” said I; “but I can do anything I am put to.
Where are you bound for?”
“We are in ballast for Leith, to fetch coal for Cadiz.”
“All right,” said I, forcing myself upon the man; “it’s all the same to
me where I go; I am prepared to do my work.”
“Have you never sailed before?” he asked.
“No; but as I tell you, put me to a task, and I’ll do it. I am used to
a little of all sorts.”
He bethought himself again.
I had already taken keenly into my head that I was to sail this voyage,
and I began to dread being hounded on shore again.
“What do you think about it, Captain?” I asked at last. “I can really
do anything that turns up. What am I saying? I would be a poor sort of
chap if I couldn’t do a little more than just what I was put to. I can
take two watches at a stretch, if it comes to that. It would only do me
good, and I could hold out all the same.”
“All right, have a try at it. If it doesn’t work, well, we can part in
England.”
“Of course,” I reply in my delight, and I repeated over again that we
could part in England if it didn’t work.
And he set me to work....
Out in the fjord I dragged myself up once, wet with fever and
exhaustion, and gazed landwards, and bade farewell for the present to
the town--to Christiania, where the windows gleamed so brightly in all
the homes.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[6] In Norway, 14th of March and October.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation
has been standardized.
Spellings of “an hotel” were changed to “a hotel.”
Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
changes:
Page 3: “Olsens’ new-baked bread” “Olsen’s new-baked bread”
Page 23: “God Almighty simpˡy” “God Almighty simply”
Page 25: “could not pull myseelf” “could not pull myself”
Page 33: “Johannn Arendt Happolati!” “Johann Arendt Happolati!”
Page 34: “ran, down the patch” “ran, down the path”
Page 38: “parcel lay openel” “parcel lay opened”
Page 40: “I can half distinguih” “I can half distinguish”
Page 41: “clock has struck seven” “clock had struck seven”
Page 42: “not adopted for the” “not adapted for the”
Page 55: “came at length at” “came at length to”
Page 56: “corned beef or salt port” “corned beef or salt pork”
Page 57: “ear was gathering a little” “ear was aching a little”
Page 61: “bristled with range” “bristled with rage”
Page 74: “try and deciper” “try and decipher”
Page 75: “jump at the corner” “jump at the cornet”
Page 75: “It sat and laughed” “I sat and laughed”
Page 75: “and laughed at his” “and laughed at this”
Page 81: “beieng able to make” “being able to make”
Page 92: “By this it was” “By this time it was”
Page 101: “play the hyprocrite” “play the hypocrite”
Page 105: “I stead noiselessly” “I tread noiselessly”
Page 118: “asks to be locked” “ask to be locked”
Page 122: “must be on end of” “must be an end of”
Page 151: “tears near my ears” “tears near my eyes”
Page 157: “left in my dessicated” “left in my desiccated”
Page 157: “see animals in cases” “see animals in cages”
Page 165: “me in all it details” “me in all its details”
Page 175: “make signs to hush me” “makes signs to hush me”
Page 180: “a couple of tones” “a couple of toes”
Page 180: “I help up my foot” “I held up my foot”
Page 187: “feeling that I had me” “feeling that I had met”
Page 190: “lazied about the whole” “lazed about the whole”
Page 213: “I had not longer any” “I had no longer any”
Page 216: “3. ⁵⁄₁₆ths of a” “3⁵⁄₁₆ths of a”
Page 220: “I couldn’t breaths for” “I couldn’t breathe for”
Page 262: “banked the table” “banged the table”