The Best of Knut Hamsun. Knut Hamsun
into the meat, tore off a morsel, and gulped it down by sheer strength of will; and yet it was of no use. Just as soon as the little fragments of meat became warm in my stomach up they came again, worse luck. I clenched my hands in frenzy, burst into tears from sheer helplessness, and gnawed away as one possessed. I cried, so that the bone got wet and dirty with my tears, vomited, cursed and groaned again, cried as if my heart would break, and vomited anew. I consigned all the powers that be to the lowermost torture in the loudest voice.
Quiet--not a soul about--no light, no noise; I am in a state of the most fearful excitement; I breathe hardly and audibly, and I cry with gnashing teeth, each time that the morsel of meat, which might satisfy me a little, comes up. As I find that, in spite of all my efforts, it avails me naught, I cast the bone at the door. I am filled with the most impotent hate; shriek, and menace with my fists towards Heaven; yell God's name hoarsely, and bend my fingers like claws, with ill-suppressed fury....
I tell you, you Heaven's Holy Baal, you don't exist; but that, if you did, I would curse you so that your Heaven would quiver with the fire of hell! I tell you, I have offered you my service, and you repulsed me; and I turn my back on you for all eternity, because you did not know your time of visitation! I tell you that I am about to die, and yet I mock you! You Heaven God and Apis! with death staring me in the face--I tell you, I would rather be a bondsman in hell than a freedman in your mansions! I tell you, I am filled with a blissful contempt for your divine paltriness; and I choose the abyss of destruction for a perpetual resort, where the devils Judas and Pharaoh are cast down!
I tell you your Heaven is full of the kingdom of the earth's most crass- headed idiots and poverty-stricken in spirit! I tell you, you have filled your Heaven with the grossest and most cherished harlots from here below, who have bent their knees piteously before you at their hour of death! I tell you, you have used force against me, and you know not, you omniscient nullity, that I never bend in opposition! I tell you, all my life, every cell in my body, every power of my soul, gasps to mock you--you Gracious Monster on High. I tell you, I would, if I could, breathe it into every human soul, every flower, every leaf, every dewdrop in the garden! I tell you, I would scoff you on the day of doom, and curse the teeth out of my mouth for the sake of your Deity's boundless miserableness! I tell you from this hour I renounce all thy works and all thy pomps! I will execrate my thought if it dwell on you again, and tear out my lips if they ever utter your name! I tell you, if you exist, my last word in life or in death--I bid you farewell, for all time and eternity--I bid you farewell with heart and reins. I bid you the last irrevocable farewell, and I am silent, and turn my back on you and go my way.... Quiet.
I tremble with excitement and exhaustion, and stand on the same spot, still whispering oaths and abusive epithets, hiccoughing after the violent crying fit, broken down and apathetic after my frenzied outburst of rage. I stand there for maybe an hour, hiccough and whisper, and hold on to the door. Then I hear voices--a conversation between two men who are coming down the passage. I slink away from the door, drag myself along the walls of the houses, and come out again into the light streets. As I jog along Young's Hill my brain begins to work in a most peculiar direction. It occurs to me that the wretched hovels down at the corner of the market- place, the stores for loose materials, the old booths for second-hand clothes, are really a disgrace to the place--they spoilt the whole appearance of the market, and were a blot on the town, Fie! away with the rubbish! And I turned over in my mind as I walked on what it would cost to remove the Geographical Survey down there--that handsome building which had always attracted me so much each time I passed it. It would perhaps not be possible to undertake a removal of that kind under two or three hundred pounds. A pretty sum--three hundred pounds! One must admit, a tidy enough little sum for pocket-money! Ha, ha! just to make a start with, eh? and I nodded my head, and conceded that it was a tidy enough bit of pocket-money to make a start with. I was still trembling over my whole body, and hiccoughed now and then violently after my cry. I had a feeling that there was not much life left in me--that I was really singing my last verse. It was almost a matter of indifference to me; it did not trouble me in the least. On the contrary, I wended my way down town, down to the wharf, farther and farther away from my room. I would, for that matter, have willingly laid myself down flat in the street to die. My sufferings were rendering me more and more callous. My sore foot throbbed violently; I had a sensation as if the pain was creeping up through my whole leg. But not even that caused me any particular distress. I had endured worse sensations.
In this manner, I reached the railway wharf. There was no traffic, no noise--only here and there a person to be seen, a labourer or sailor slinking round with their hands in their pockets. I took notice of a lame man, who looked sharply at me as we passed one another. I stopped him instinctively, touched my hat, and inquired if he knew if the Nun had sailed. Someway, I couldn't help snapping my fingers right under the man's nose, and saying, "Ay, by Jove, the Nun; yes, the Nun!" which I had totally forgotten. All the same, the thought of her had been smouldering in me. I had carried it about unconsciously.
Yes, bless me, the Nun had sailed.
He couldn't tell me where she had sailed to?
The man reflects, stands on his long leg, keeps the other up in the air; it dangles a little.
"No," he replies. "Do you know what cargo she was taking in here?"
"No," I answer. But by this time I had already lost interest in the Nun, and I asked the man how far it might be to Holmestrand, reckoned in good old geographical miles.
"To Holmestrand? I should think..."
"Or to Voeblungsnaess?"
"What was I going to say? I should think to Holmestrand..."
"Oh, never mind; I have just remembered it," I interrupted him again. "You wouldn't perhaps be so kind as to give me a small bit of tobacco--only just a tiny scrap?"
I received the tobacco, thanked the man heartily, and went on. I made no use of the tobacco; I put it into my pocket. He still kept his eye on me-- perhaps I had aroused his suspicions in some other way or another. Whether I stood still or walked on, I felt his suspicious look following me. I had no mind to be persecuted by this creature. I turn round, and, dragging myself back to him, say:
"Binder"--only this one word, "Binder!" no more. I looked fixedly at him as I say it, indeed I was conscious of staring fearfully at him. It was as if I saw him with my entire body instead of only with my eyes. I stare for a while after I give utterance to this word, and then I jog along again to the railway square. The man does not utter a syllable, he only keeps his gaze fixed upon me.
"Binder!" I stood suddenly still. Yes, wasn't that just what I had a feeling of the moment I met the old chap; a feeling that I had met him before! One bright morning up in Graendsen, when I pawned my waistcoat. It seemed to me an eternity since that day.
Whilst I stand and ponder over this, I lean and support myself against a house wall at the corner of the railway square and Harbour Street. Suddenly, I start quickly and make an effort to crawl away. As I do not succeed in it, I stare case-hardened ahead of me and fling all shame to the winds. There is no help for it. I am standing face to face with the "Commandor." I get devil-may-care--brazen. I take yet a step farther from the wall in order to make him notice me. I do not do it to awake his compassion, but to mortify myself, place myself, as it were, on the pillory. I could have flung myself down in the street and begged him to walk over me, tread on my face. I don't even bid him good-evening.
Perhaps the "Commandor" guesses that something is amiss with me. He slackens his pace a little, and I say, in order to stop him, "I would have called upon you long ago with something, but nothing has come yet!"
"Indeed?" he replies in an interrogative tone. "You haven't got it finished, then?"
"No, it didn't get finished."
My eyes by this time are filled with tears at his friendliness, and I cough with a bitter effort to regain my composure. The "Commandor" tweaks his nose and looks at me.
"Have you anything to live on in the meantime?" he questions.
"No," I reply. "I haven't that either; I haven't eaten anything today, but...."
"The Lord preserve you, man,