Hunger (22 page)

“Oo, the maid will be home soon!” she said. This was the first thing she said.

I understood the hint and stood up. She reached for her coat as if to put it on but changed her mind, let it lie where it was and went over to the fireplace. She was pale and grew more and more restless. So it shouldn't look like she was throwing me out, I said, “Was your father a military man?” At the same time I got ready to leave.

“Yes, he was. How did you know?”

“I didn't, it just occurred to me.”

“That's odd.”

“Well, yes.” There were certain places I went where I would get hunches. “Heh-heh, it's part of my madness, you know. . . .”

She looked up quickly but didn't answer. I felt my presence was painful to her and wanted to get it over with. I went to the door. She wouldn't kiss me anymore, would she? Not even give me her hand? I was waiting.

“Are you going now?” she said, still standing quietly over by the fireplace.

I didn't answer. I felt humiliated and confused and looked at her without speaking. Oh, what a mess I'd made!
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It didn't seem to affect her that I stood there ready to go; all at once she was completely lost to me, and I searched for something to say to her for goodbye, some deep, weighty word that would cut into her and maybe impress her a little. But in the teeth of my firm resolve, hurt, uneasy and offended instead of proud and cold, I just started talking about trifles. The cutting word didn't come, I behaved very thoughtlessly. It ended up being claptrap and rhetoric again.
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Why couldn't she just tell me, in no uncertain terms, to leave? I asked. Yes, yes, why not? There was no need to feel embarrassed about it. Instead of reminding me that the maid would soon be home, she could simply have said the following: Now you must get lost, because I'm going to pick up my mother, and I don't want to be seen walking down the street with you. So, that was not what she'd been thinking? Oh yes, that was what she'd been thinking, all right, I understood that at once. It took so little to put me on the track; just the way she had reached for her coat and then left it where it was had convinced me immediately. As I had said before, I had a knack for hunches. And it might not be that crazy either, not really—.

“But good heavens, can't you forgive me for that one word! It just slipped out,” she cried. But she still stood motionless and didn't come over to me.

I was unrelenting and went on. I stood there jabbering away, having the unpleasant feeling that I was boring her, that not a single one of my words hit home, and yet I didn't stop. One could, after all, be quite a sensitive person even if one wasn't crazy, I said; there were natures that fed on trifles and died from a harsh word. I gave her to understand that I had such a nature. The fact of the matter was that my poverty had sharpened certain aptitudes in me to such a degree that it got me into outright trouble—“yes, I assure you, outright trouble, I'm sorry to say.” But it also had its advantages, it helped me in certain situations. The intelligent poor individual was a much finer observer than the intelligent rich one. The poor individual looks around him at every step, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets; thus, every step he takes presents a problem, a task, for his thoughts and feelings. He is alert and sensitive, he is experienced, his soul has been burned. . . .

I talked at length about these burns which my soul had suffered. But the longer I talked, the more anxious she became; finally she said “Oh, my God!” in despair a couple of times, wringing her hands. I could see quite well that I was torturing her, and I didn't want to torture her but did so anyway. At last I thought I had managed to tell her the broad essentials of what I had to say. I was moved by her despairing look and cried:

“I'm leaving, I'm leaving! Can't you see I have my hand on the latch already? Goodbye! Goodbye, do you hear? You could at least answer when I say goodbye twice, all ready to leave. I don't even ask to see you again, because it would cause you pain. But tell me, Why didn't you leave me alone? What have I ever done to you? I didn't get in your way, did I? Why do you suddenly turn away from me, as if you don't know me any longer? You have plucked me thoroughly clean, made me more wretched than I've ever been. But, good God, I'm not insane. You know very well if you stop and think that there's nothing wrong with me now. So, come here and give me your hand! Or let me come to you. Will you? I won't do you any harm, I'll just kneel before you a moment, kneel on the floor right there, in front of you, for just a moment; may I? No, no, then I won't do it, I can see you're scared, I won't, I
won't
do it, do you hear? Good God, why are you getting so frightened? I'm standing still after all, I'm not budging. I would've kneeled down on the carpet for a minute, right there, on that red spot near your feet. But you got scared, I could tell by your eyes right away that you got scared, and so I stood still. I didn't move one step while I was asking you to let me, did I? I stood just as motionless as I do now, showing you the place where I would've kneeled before you, over there on that red rose in the carpet. I'm not even pointing with my finger, I'm not pointing at all, I'm holding off not to alarm you; I'm just nodding and looking over there, like this! You understand very well which rose I mean, but you won't allow me to kneel there; you're afraid of me and don't dare come near me. I don't understand how you could have the heart to call me crazy. You don't believe that any longer, do you? There was a time last summer, long ago, when I was crazy; I was working too hard and forgot to go to dinner on time when I had a lot to think about. It happened day after day; I ought to have remembered but constantly forgot about it. I swear to God, it's true! May God never let me out of this place alive if I'm lying! So, you see, you're doing me an injustice. It wasn't out of need that I did it; I have credit, lots of credit, at Ingebret's and Gravesen's. Also, I often had plenty of money in my pocket, and yet I didn't buy any food because I forgot to. Do you hear? You don't say a word, you don't answer me, you don't budge from the fireplace, you just stand there waiting for me to go. . . .”

She came quickly over to me and held out her hand. I looked at her full of distrust. Was she doing this freely, with a light heart? Or was she doing it just to get rid of me? She put her arm around my neck, tears in her eyes. I just stood and looked at her. She offered me her mouth but I couldn't believe her, it was bound to be a sacrifice on her part, a means of getting it over with.

She said something, it sounded to me like, “I love you anyway!” She said it very softly and indistinctly, I may not have heard it correctly, perhaps she didn't say exactly those words. But she threw herself passionately on my neck, held both arms around my neck a little while, even raised herself on tiptoe to reach well up, and stood thus.

Afraid that she was forcing herself to show me this tenderness, I merely said, “How beautiful you are now!”

That was all I said.
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I stepped back, bumped against the door and walked out backwards. She was left standing inside.

PART FOUR

WINTER HAD COME, a raw and wet winter with hardly any snow, a dark and foggy everlasting night without a single fresh gust of wind all week long. The street lamps were lighted almost all day, and yet people kept running into one another in the fog. All sounds, the peal of the church bells, the harness bells on the cab horses, peoples's voices, the hoofbeats—everything came through so muffled in the heavy air, as though it was buried. Week after week went by and the weather remained the same.

I was still staying down in the Vaterland section.

I became more and more attached to this tavern, this rooming house for travelers, where I had been allowed to stay despite being so down-and-out. My money had been used up long ago, but I continued to come and go in the house, as if I were entitled to it and belonged there. The landlady hadn't said a word yet, but it worried me nonetheless that I couldn't pay her. Three weeks went by in this way.

I had resumed my writing several days ago, but I was no longer able to come up with anything I was satisfied with; I had no luck at all anymore, though I worked very hard and kept trying at all times. It was no use whatever I tried, my luck was gone.

I was sitting in a room on the second floor, the best guest room, when I made these attempts. I had been left undisturbed up there since that first evening, when I had money and could pay up. I kept hoping all along I might finally put together an article about something or other, so I could pay for my room and whatever else I owed; that was why I was working so hard. In particular, I had started a piece for which I had high expectations, an allegory about a fire in a bookstore, a profound idea that I would take the utmost pains to work out and bring to the “Commander” as an installment on my debt. Then the “Commander” would realize he had helped a real talent this time; I had no doubt he would realize that, I just had to wait for the inspiration to come. And why shouldn't the inspiration come, even very soon? There was nothing the matter with me anymore; I got a little food from my landlady every day, a few sandwiches morning and evening, and my nervousness was all but gone. I no longer had rags around my hands when I wrote, and I could look down into the street from my second-floor windows without getting dizzy. I was doing much better in every way, and I was actually beginning to wonder why I hadn't yet finished my allegory. I couldn't understand what the explanation was.

One day I was at last to get an inkling of how weak I had really become, how sluggishly and ineptly my brain was working. That day my landlady came upstairs with a bill which she asked me to look at. There must be something wrong with the bill, she said, it didn't tally with her own books; but she hadn't been able to find the mistake.

I set about adding it up; my landlady sat directly opposite, watching me. I added up the twenty items first once down, and found the total to be correct, then once up and came again to the same result. I looked at the woman sitting right in front of me, waiting for my word; I noticed immediately that she was pregnant, it didn't escape my attention though I looked anything but closely at her.

“The sum is correct,” I said.

“Check every item, will you,” she answered. “It can't be that much, I'm sure it can't.”

I began to review every item: two loaves of bread at 25 each; one lamp glass, 18; soap, 20; butter, 32. . . . No clever head was needed to go through these rows of numbers, this piddling huckster's bill which wasn't the least bit complicated, and I tried honestly to find the mistake the woman was talking about, but couldn't. After grappling with these figures for a few minutes, I felt, unhappily, that everything started spinning in my head; I no longer distinguished between debit and credit but mixed it all up. Finally, I froze in my tracks all of a sudden at the following item: 1
pounds of cheese at 32 a pound. My brain was completely stumped, I stared stupidly down at that cheese and couldn't get anywhere.

“I'm damned if I ever saw such a screwed-up way of putting things!” I said desperately. “Here it says flatly, God help me, ten-sixteenths of cheese. Ha-ha, who ever heard of anything like that! Here, see for yourself!”

“Yes,” the matron answered, “that's the way it's usually written. It's the clove cheese. Oh yes, that's correct! Ten-sixteenths, that's ten ounces—”

“That much I understand!” I broke in, though in fact I didn't understand a thing anymore.

I tried again to tackle this little sum, which I could have added up in a minute a few months ago. Perspiring heavily, I applied myself to those enigmatic figures with all my might, blinking my eyes thoughtfully as if I were studying the matter real hard; but I had to give up. Those ten ounces of cheese finished me completely; it was as though something had snapped in my head.

However, to give the impression that I was still working on my computations, I moved my lips and spoke some number aloud every now and then, all the while sliding further and further down the bill as if I were making steady progress and getting close to the finish. The matron was waiting. Finally I said, “Well, now I have gone through it from beginning to end, and there is really no mistake, as far as I can see.”

“There isn't?” the woman replied. “What, there isn't?” But it was quite apparent that she didn't believe me. And suddenly her speech seemed to take on a touch of contempt, a slightly indifferent tone which I hadn't heard in her voice before. She said that maybe I wasn't used to figuring with sixteenths; she also said she would have to turn to someone who was up on things to get the bill properly checked. She didn't say all this in any hurtful manner, to put me to shame, but thoughtfully and seriously. When she stood at the door about to leave, she said, without looking at me, “Excuse me for taking up your time!”