Hunger (transl. Robert Bly, 1969) by Knut Hamsun

Author:Knut Hamsun [Hamsun, Knut]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Published: 2015-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

The next day it snowed still more, a heavy wet snow, great blue flakes that fell and turned to slush. The air was raw and cold.

I woke up rather late, my brain strangely confused by all the excitement of the night before, and my heart drunk from that beautiful meeting. In delight I lay awhile awake, imagining that Ylayali was lying beside me: I reached my arms out, embraced myself, and kissed the air. Finally I got up, went out, and bought a fresh glass of milk, and immediately after, some roast beef. I was no longer hungry--but my nerves were still jangled.

I went off to look for some used clothes. It struck me that I could perhaps buy a used waistcoat very cheaply, something to have on under my coat, anything would do. I walked up the stairs to the secondhand store and picked up a waistcoat which I started to examine. While I was fooling with that, an acquaintance came by, nodded and called to me. I left the waistcoat lying there and walked down to him. He was an engineer on his way to his office.

"Come along and have a glass of beer," he said. "Only come right now, I don't have much time. . . . Who was that woman you were walking with last night?

"Suppose I informed you," I said, jealous merely that he thought of her, "that she is my fiancée?"

"Marvelous!" he said.

"Yes, that was all arranged last night."

I had knocked him down with that, he believed me without qualification. I lied through my teeth to get rid of him. We got our beer, drank it, and left.

"Good morning! . . . By the way," he said suddenly, "I owe you, you know, several kroner, and it is a crime that I haven't paid them back long ago. But I will pay them back first thing."

"Good, thank you," I said. But I knew he would never pay me back.

The beer unfortunately went to my head, I became extremely warm. Thoughts of last night's adventure flooded over me, made me almost delirious. What if she didn't come on Tuesday? What if she had started thinking it over and became suspicious! . . . Suspicious about what?. . . My mind suddenly went off on a tangent, and became obsessed with the matter of the money. I felt appalled at myself, deathly afraid. The theft stood out before me in all its details: I saw the little shop, the counter, my emaciated hand as I picked up the money, and I imagined to myself the police procedure as they came to arrest me. Irons on wrists and ankles--no, only on wrists, perhaps only one wrist; then hearing the clerk filling out forms, the sound of his pen scraping, his glance, his terrible glance: Now, Mr. Tangen: the cell, eternal darkness. . . .

Hmm. I clenched my fists hard to give me courage, walked faster, and got to the main market square. Here I sat down.

No pranks

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