Hunger by Knut Hamsun Page B

name a couple of times and started laughing. “Well, here you are,” he said, taking my letter from his breast pocket. “Sir, take note, if you please, of the way you deal with figures. You have dated your letter 1848!” And the man roared with laughter.
    â€œYes, that’s pretty bad,” I said, crestfallen—a slip, absent mindedness, I admitted that.
    â€œYou see, I must have someone who won’t ever make a mistake with figures,” he said. “I’m very sorry—your handwriting is so clear, and I also like your letter otherwise, but . . .”
    I waited awhile; this couldn’t possibly be the man’s last word. He addressed himself to his bags again.
    â€œWell, that’s a shame,” I said, “an awful shame, really.” But needless to say, it would never happen again, and that little slip of the pen couldn’t have made me unfit for keeping books altogether, could it?
    â€œNo, I’m not saying that,” he replied, “but still it carried so much weight with me that I decided in favor of someone else right away.”
    â€œSo the position is taken?” I asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOh, dear! Well, there’s nothing more to be done about that, is there?”
    â€œNo. I’m sorry, but—”
    â€œGoodbye,” I said.
    A brutal, red-hot anger flared up in me. I fetched my parcel in the entranceway, clenched my teeth, ran into peaceful folk on the sidewalk without apologizing. When a gentleman stopped and reprimanded me sharply for my behavior, I turned around and screamed a single meaningless word into his ear, shook my fists under his nose and walked on, appalled by a blind rage that I couldn’t control. He called a policeman, and I could wish for nothing better than to get my hands on a policeman for a moment, so I slowed my pace on purpose to give him a chance to overtake me; but he didn’t come. What sense could there possibly be to having absolutely all one’s most sincere and diligent endeavors come to nothing? Why had I written 1848 anyway? What was that damned year to me? Here I was walking around so hungry that my intestines were squirming inside me like snakes, and I had no guarantee there would be something in the way of food later in the day either. And as time went on I was getting more and more hollowed out, spiritually and physically, and I stooped to less and less honorable actions every day. I lied without blushing to get my way, cheated poor people out of their rent, even had to fight off the thought, mean as could be, of laying hands on other people’s blankets, all without remorse, without a bad conscience. Rotten patches were beginning to appear in my inner being, black spongy growths that were spreading more and more. And God sat up in his heaven keeping a watchful eye on me, making sure that my destruction took place according to all the rules of the game, slowly and steadily, with no letup. But in the pit of hell the devils were raising their hackles in fury because it was taking me such a long time to commit a cardinal sin, an unforgivable sin for which God in his righteousness had to cast me down. . . .
    I quickened my walk, forging ahead faster and faster, swung suddenly to the left and, excited and angry, stepped into a light, decorated entranceway. I didn’t stop, not even for a second, but the entire curious décor of the entrance immediately penetrated my consciousness. As I ran up the stairs the most trifling details of the doors, the ornaments, and the paving stood out clearly in my mind’s eye. I furiously rang a bell on the second floor. Why did I stop exactly on the second floor? And why grab exactly this bell rope, which was the farthest from the stairway?
    A young lady in a gray dress with black trimmings opened the door. She looked at me in amazement for a moment, then she shook her head and said, “We don’t have anything today.” And she made as