menu_book Chapter 1

it was during the time i wandered about and starved in christiana christiana the singular city from which no man departs without carrying away the traces of his sojourn there i was lying awake in my attic and i heard a clock below strike six it was already broad daylight and people had begun to go up and down the stairs by the door where the wall of the room was papered with old numbers of the morganbladet i could distinguish clearly a notice from the director of lighthouses and a little to the left of that an inflated advertisement of fabian olson's new-baked bread the instant i opened my eyes i began from sheer force of habit to think if i had anything to rejoice over that day i had been somewhat hard up lately and one after another of my belongings had been taken to my uncle i had grown nervous and irritable a few times i had kept my bed for the day with vertigo now and then when luck had favored me i had managed to get five shillings for a fullitan from some newspaper or other it grew lighter and lighter and i took to reading the advertisements near the door

i could even make out the grinning lean letters of winding-sheets to be had at miss anderson's on the right of it that occupied me for a long while i heard the clock below strike eight as i got up and put on my clothes i opened the window and looked out from where i was standing i had a view of a clothes-line and an open field farther away lay the ruins of a burnt-out smithy which some laborers were busy clearing away i leant out with my elbows resting on the window frame and gazed into open space it promised to be a clear day autumn that tender cool time of year when all things change their color and die had come to us the ever-increasing noise in the streets lured me out the bare room the floor of which rocked up and down with every step i took across it seemed like a gasping sinister coffin there was no proper fastening to the door either and no stove i used to lie on my socks at night to dry them a little by the morning the only thing i had to divert myself with was a little red rocking-chair in which i used to sit in the evenings and doze and muse on all manner of things

when it blew hard and the door below stood open all kinds of eerie sounds moaned up through the floor and from out of the walls and the morgan blotted near the door was rent in strips a span long i stood up and searched through a bundle in the corner by the bed for a bite for breakfast but found nothing and went back to the window god knows thought i if looking for employment will ever again avail me aught the frequent repulses half-promises and curt noes the cherished deluded hopes and fresh endeavours that always resulted in nothing had done my courage to death as a last resource i had applied for a place as debt collector but i was too late and besides i could not have found the fifty shillings demanded as security there was always something or another in my way i had even offered to enlist in the fire brigade there we stood and waited in the vestibule some half-hundred men thrusting our chests out to give an idea of strength and bravery whilst an inspector walked up and down and scanned the applicants felt their arms and put one question or another to them

me he passed by merely shaking his head saying i was rejected on account of my sight i applied again without my glasses stood there with knitted brows and made my eyes as sharp as needles but the man passed me by again with a smile he had recognized me and worse than all i could no longer apply for a situation in the garb of a respectable man how regularly and steadily things had gone down-hill with me for a long time till in the end i was so curiously bared of every conceivable thing i had not even a comb left not even a book to read when things grew all too sad with me all through the summer up in the churchyards or parks where i used to sit and write my articles for the newspapers i had thought out column after column on the most miscellaneous subjects strange ideas quaint fancies conceits of my restless brain in despair i had often chosen the most remote themes that cost me long hours of intense effort and never were accepted when one piece was finished i set to work at another i was not often discouraged by the editor's no i used to tell myself constantly that some day i was bound to succeed and really occasionally when i was in luck's way and made a hit with something i could get five shillings for an afternoon's work

once again i raised myself from the window went over to the washing-stand and sprinkled some water on the shiny knees of my trousers to dull them a little and make them look a trifle newer having done this i pocketed paper and pencil as usual and went out i stole very quietly down the stairs in order not to attract my landlady's attention a few days had elapsed since my rent had fallen due and i had no longer anything wherewith to raise it it was nine o'clock the roll of vehicles and hum of voices filled the air a mighty morning choir mingled with the footsteps of the pedestrians and the crack of the hack drivers whips the clamorous traffic everywhere exhilarated me at once and i began to feel more and more contented nothing was farther from my intention than to merely take a morning walk in the open air what had the air to do with my lungs i was strong as a giant could stop a dray with my shoulders a sweet unwonted mood a feeling of lightsome happy-go-luckiness took possession of me i fell to observing the people i met and who passed me to reading the placards on the wall noted even the impression of a glance thrown at me from a passing tram-car let each bagatelle each trifling incident that crossed or vanished from my path impress me

if only one had just a little to eat on such a lightsome day the sense of the glad morning overwhelmed me my satisfaction became ill-regulated and for no definite reason i began to hum joyfully at a butcher's stall a woman stood speculating on sausage for dinner as i passed her she looked up at me she had but one tooth in the front of her head i had become so nervous and easily affected in the last few days that the woman's face made a loathsome impression upon me the long yellow snag looked like a little finger pointing out of her gum and her gaze was still full of sausage as she turned it upon me i immediately lost all appetite and a feeling of nausea came over me when i reached the market-place i went to the fountain and drank a little i looked up the dial marked ten on our saviour's tower i went on through the streets listlessly without troubling myself about anything at all stopped aimlessly at a corner turned off into a side street without having any errand there i simply let myself go wandered about in the pleasant morning swinging myself care-free to and fro amongst other happy human beings

this air was clear and bright and my mind too was without a shadow for quite ten minutes i had an old lame man ahead of me he carried a bundle in one hand and exerted his whole body using all his strength in his endeavours to get along speedily i could hear how he panted from the exertion and it occurred to me that i might offer to bear his bundle for him but yet i made no effort to overtake him up in gronsden i met hans paulie who nodded and hurried past me why was he in such a hurry i had not the slightest intention of asking him for a shilling and more than that i intended at the very first opportunity to return him a blanket which i had borrowed from him some weeks before just wait until i could get my foot on the ladder i would be beholden to no man not even for a blanket perhaps even this very day i might commence an article on the crimes of futurity freedom of will or what not at any rate something worth reading something for which i would at least get ten shillings and at the thought of this article i felt myself fired with a desire to set to work immediately and to draw from the contents of my overflowing brain i would find a suitable place to write in the park and not rest until i had completed my article

but the old cripple was still making the same sprawling movements ahead of me up the street the sight of this infirm creature constantly in front of me commenced to irritate me his journey seemed endless perhaps he had made up his mind to go to exactly the same place as i had and i must needs have him before my eyes the whole way in my irritation it seemed to me that he slackened his pace a little at every cross street as if waiting to see which direction i intended to take upon which he would again swing his bundle in the air and peg away with all his might to keep ahead of me i follow and watch this tiresome creature and get more and more exasperated with him i am conscious that he has little by little destroyed my happy mood and dragged the pure beautiful morning down to the level of his own ugliness he looks like a great sprawling reptile striving with might and main to win a place in the world and reserve the footpath for himself when we reach the top of the hill i determine to put up with it no longer

i turned to a shop-window and stopped in order to give him an opportunity of getting ahead but when after a lapse of some minutes i again walked on there was the man still in front of me he too had stood stock-still without stopping to reflect i made three or four furious onward strides caught him up and slapped him on the shoulder he stopped directly and we both stared at one another fixedly a halfpenny for milk he whined twisting his head askew so that was how the wind blew i felt in my pockets and said for milk eh money's scarce these times and i don't really know how much you are in need of it i haven't eaten a morsel since yesterday in drommen i haven't got a farthing nor have i got any work yet are you an artisan yes a binder a what a shoe-binder for that matter i can make shoes too ah that alters the case said i you wait here for some minutes and i shall go and get a little money for you just a few pence i hurried as fast as i could down pile street where i knew of a pawnbroker on a second floor one besides to whom i had never been before

when i got inside the hall i hastily took off my waistcoat rolled it up and put it under my arm after which i went upstairs and knocked at the office door i bowed on entering and threw the waistcoat on the counter one and six said the man yes yes thanks i replied if it weren't that it was beginning to be a little tight for me of course i wouldn't part with it i got the money and the ticket and went back considering all things pawning that waistcoat was a capital notion i would have money enough over for a plentiful breakfast and before evening my thesis on the crimes of futurity would be ready i began to find existence more alluring and i hurried back to the man to get rid of him there it is said i i am glad you applied to me first the man took the money and scrutinized me closely at what was he standing there staring i had a feeling that he had particularly examined the knees of my trousers and his shameless effrontery bored me did the scoundrel imagine that i was really as poor as i looked had i not as good as begun to write an article for half a sovereign besides i had no fear whatever for the future i had many irons in the fire

what on earth business was it of an utter stranger if i chose to stand him a drink on such a lovely day the man's look annoyed me and i made up my mind to give him a good dressing-down before i left i threw back my shoulders and said my good fellow you have adopted a most unpleasant habit of staring at a man's knees when he gives you a shilling he leant his head back against the wall and opened his mouth widely something was working in that empty pate of his and he evidently came to the conclusion that i meant to best him in some way for he handed me back the money i stamped on the pavement and swearing at him told him to keep it did he imagine i was going to all that trouble for nothing if all came to all perhaps i owed him the shilling i had just recollected an old debt he was standing before an honest man honourable to his finger-tips in short the money was his oh no thanks were needed it had been a pleasure to me good-bye i went on at last i was freed from this work-ridden plague and i could go my own way in peace

i turned down pile street again and stopped before a grocer's shop the whole window was filled with eatables and i decided to go in and get something to take with me a piece of cheese and a french roll i said and threw my sixpence on the counter bread and cheese for the whole lot of it asked the woman ironically without looking up at me for the whole sixpence yes i answered unruffled i took them up bade the fat old woman good-morning with the utmost politeness and sped full tilt up castle hill to the park i found a bench to myself and began to bite greedily into my provender it did me good it was a long time since i had had such a square meal and by degrees i felt the same sated quiet steal over me that one feels after a good long cry my courage rose mightily i could no longer be satisfied with writing an article about anything so simple and straight ahead as the crimes of futurity that any ass might arrive at i simply deduct from history i felt capable of a much greater effort than that

i was in a fitting mood to overcome difficulties and i decided on a treatise in three sections on philosophical cognition this would naturally give me an opportunity of crushing pitiably some of kant's sophistries but on taking out my writing materials to commence work i discovered that i no longer owned a pencil i had forgotten it in the pawn office my pencil was lying in my waistcoat pocket good lord how everything seems to take a delight in thwarting me to-day i swore a few times rose from the seat and took a couple of turns up and down the path it was very quiet all around me down near the queen's arbor two nursemaids were trundling their perambulators otherwise there was not a creature anywhere in sight i was in a thoroughly embittered temper i paced up and down before my seat like a maniac how strangely awry things seemed to go to think that an article in three sections should be downright stranded by the simple fact of my not having a pennyworth of pencil in my pocket suppose i were to return to pyle street and ask to get my pencil back

there would still be time to get a good piece finished before the promenading public commenced to fill the parks so much too depended upon this treatise on philosophical cognition mayhap many beings welfare no one could say and i told myself it might be of the greatest possible help to many young people on second thoughts i would not lay violent hands on kant i might easily avoid doing that i would only need to make an almost imperceptible gliding over when i came to query time and space but i would not answer for renan old parson renan at all events an article of so-and-so many columns has to be completed for the unpaid rent and the landlady's inquiring look on the morning when i met her on the stairs tormented me the whole day it rose up and confronted me again and again even in my pleasant hours when i had otherwise not a gloomy thought i must put an end to it so i left the park hurriedly to fetch my pencil from the pawnbroker's

as i arrived at the foot of the hill i overtook two ladies whom i passed as i did so i brushed one of them accidentally on the arm i looked up she had a full rather pale face but she blushes and becomes suddenly surprisingly lovely i know not why she blushes maybe at some words she hears from a passer-by maybe only at some lurking thought of her own or can it be because i touched her arm her high full bosom heaves violently several times and she closes her hand tightly above the handle of her parasol what has come to her i stopped and let her pass ahead again i could for the moment go no further the whole thing struck me as being so singular i was in a tantalizing mood annoyed with myself on account of the pencil incident and in a high degree disturbed by all the food i had taken on a totally empty stomach suddenly my thoughts as if whimsically inspired take a singular direction i feel myself seized with an odd desire to make this lady afraid to follow her and annoy her in some way

i overtake her again pass her by turn quickly round and meet her face to face in order to observe her well i stand and gaze into her eyes and hit upon the spur of the moment on a name which i had never heard before a name with a gliding nervous sound yaha'li when she is quite close to me i draw myself up and say impressively you are losing your book madam i could hear my heart beat audibly as i said it my book she asks her companion and she walks on my devilment waxed apace and i followed them at the same time i was fully conscious that i was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself my disordered condition ran away with me i was inspired with the craziest notions which i followed blindly as they came to me i couldn't help it no matter how much i told myself that i was playing the fool i made the most idiotic grimaces behind the lady's back and coughed frantically as i passed her by walking on in this manner very slowly and always a few steps in advance

i felt her eyes on my back and involuntarily put down my head with shame for having caused her annoyance by degrees a wonderful feeling stole over me of being far far away in other places i had a half-undefined sense that it was not i who was going over the gravel hanging my head a few minutes later they reached pasha's bookshop i had already stopped at the first window and as they go by i step forward and repeat you are losing your book madam no what book she asks affrightedly can you make out what book he is talking about and she comes to a stop i hug myself with delight at her confusion the irresolute perplexity in her eyes positively fascinates me her mind cannot grasp my short passionate address she has no book with her not a single page of a book and yet she fumbles in her pockets looks down repeatedly at her hands turns her head and scrutinizes the street behind her exerts her sensitive little brain to the utmost in trying to discover what book it is i am talking about

her face changes color has now one now another expression and she is breathing quite audibly even the very buttons on her gown seem to stare at me like a row of frightened eyes don't bother about him says her companion taking her by the arm he is drunk can't you see that the man is drunk strange as i was at this instant to myself so absolutely a prey to peculiar invisible inner influences nothing occurred around me without my observing it a large brown dog sprang right across the street towards the shrubbery and then down towards the tivoli he had on a very narrow collar of german silver farther up the street a window opened on the second floor and a servant-maid leant out of it with her sleeves turned up and began to clean the panes on the outside nothing escaped my notice i was clear-headed and ready-witted everything rushed in upon me with a gleaming distinctness as if i were suddenly surrounded by a strong light the ladies before me had a blue bird's wing in their hats and a plaid silk ribbon round their necks it struck me that they were sisters

they turned stopped at sisler's music shop and spoke together i stopped also thereupon they both came back went the same road as they had come passed me again and turned the corner of university street and up toward st olaf's place i was all the time as close at their heels as i dared to be they turned round once and sent me a half-fearful half-questioning look and i saw no resentment nor any trace of a frown in it this forbearance with my annoyance shamed me thoroughly and made me lower my eyes i would no longer be a trouble to them out of sheer gratitude i would follow them with my gaze not lose sight of them until they entered some place safely and disappeared outside number two a large four-storied house they turned again before going in i leant against a lamp-post near the fountain and listened for their footsteps on the stairs they died away on the second floor i advanced from the lamp-post and looked up at the house then something odd happened the curtains above were stirred and a second after a window opened a head popped out and two singular-looking eyes dwelt on me yahali i muttered half aloud and i felt i grew red

why does she not call for help or push over one of these flower-pots and strike me on the head or send some one down to drive me away we stand and look into one another's eyes without moving it lasts a minute thoughts dart between the window and the street and not a word spoken she turns round i feel a wrench in me a delicate shock through my senses i see a shoulder that turns a back that disappears across the floor that reluctant turning from the window the accentuation in that movement of the shoulders was like a nod to me my blood was sensible of all the delicate dainty greeting and i felt all at once rarely glad then i wheeled round and went down the street i dared not look back and knew not if she had returned to the window the more i considered this question the more nervous and restless i became probably at this very moment she was standing watching closely all my movements it is by no means comfortable to know that you are being watched from behind your back

i pulled myself together as well as i could and proceeded on my way my legs began to jerk under me my gait became unsteady just because i purposely tried to make it look well in order to appear at ease and indifferent i flung my arms about spat out and threw my head well back all without avail for i continually felt the pursuing eyes on my neck and a cold shiver ran down my back at length i escaped down a side street from which i took the road to pyle street to get my pencil i had no difficulty in recovering it the man brought me the waistcoat himself and as he did so begged me to search through all the pockets i found also a couple of pawn-tickets which i pocketed as i thanked the obliging little man for his civility i was more and more taken with him and grew all of a sudden extremely anxious to make a favorable impression on this person i took a turn towards the door and then back again to the counter as if i had forgotten something it struck me that i owed him an explanation that i ought to elucidate matters a little i began to hum in order to attract his attention then taking the pencil in my hand i held it up and said

it would never have entered my head to come such a long way for any and every bit of pencil but with this one it was quite a different matter there was another reason a special reason insignificant as it looked this stump of pencil has made me what i am in the world so to say placed me in life i said no more and the man had come right over to the counter indeed said he and he looked inquiringly at me it was with this pencil i continued in cold blood that i wrote my dissertation on philosophical cognition in three volumes had he never heard mention of it well he did seem to remember having heard the name rather the title yes said i that was by me so it was so he really must not be astonished that i should be desirous of having the little bit of pencil back again i valued it far too highly to lose it why it was almost as much to me as a little human creature for the rest i was honestly grateful to him for his civility and i would bear him in mind for it yes truly i really would a promise was a promise that was the sort of man i was and he really deserved it

good-bye i walked to the door with the bearing of one who had it in his power to place a man in a high position say in a fire-office the honest pawnbroker bowed twice profoundly to me as i withdrew i turned again and repeated my good-bye on the stairs i met a woman with a traveling bag in her hand who squeezed diffidently against the wall to make room for me and i voluntarily thrust my hand in my pocket for something to give her and looked foolish as i found nothing and passed on with my head down i heard her knock at the office door there was an alarm over it and i recognized the jingling sound it gave when anyone rapped on the door with his knuckles the sun stood in the south it was about twelve the whole town began to get on its legs as it approached the fashionable hour for promenading bowing and laughing folk walked up and down karl johann street i stuck my elbows closely to my sides tried to make myself look small and slipped unperceived past some acquaintances who had taken up their stand at the corner of university street to gaze at the passers-by

i wandered up castle hill and fell into a reverie how gaily and lightly these people i met carried their radiant heads and swung themselves through life as through a ball-room there was no sorrow in a single look i met no burden on any shoulder perhaps not even a clouded thought not a little hidden pain in any of the happy souls and i walking in the very midst of these people young and newly fledged as i was had already forgotten the very look of happiness i hugged these thoughts to myself as i went on and found that a great injustice had been done me why had the last months pressed so strangely hard on me i failed to recognize my own happy temperament and i met with the most singular annoyances from all quarters i could not sit down on a bench by myself or set my foot any place without being assailed by insignificant accidents miserable details that forced their way into my imagination and scattered my powers to all the four winds

a dog that dashed by me a yellow rose in a man's buttonhole had the power to send my thoughts vibrating and occupy me for a length of time end of section one