Hunger quotes

It was during the time I wandered about and starved in Christiania: Christiania, this 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.

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 the other 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 favoured me, I had managed to get five shillings for a feuilleton from some newspaper or other.

From the day in May when my ill-luck began I could so clearly notice my gradually increasing debility; I had become, as it were, too languid to control or lead myself whither I would go.

A swarm of tiny noxious animals had bored a way into my inner man and hollowed me out.

Supposing God Almighty simply intended to annihilate me? I got up and paced backwards and forwards before the seat.

I had become, as it were, too languid to control or lead myself whither I would go. A swarm of tiny noxious animals had bored a way into my inner man and hollowed me out.

Supposing God Almighty simply intended to annihilate me?

I got up and paced backwards and forwards before the seat.

It seemed to me in the highest degree indefensible of Him to interfere every time I sought for a place, and to upset the whole thing, while all the time I was but imploring enough for a daily meal.

I had remarked so plainly that, whenever I had been hungry for any length of time, it was just as if my brains ran quite gently out of my head and left me with a vacuum

—my head grew light and far off, I no longer felt its weight on my shoulders, and I had a consciousness that my eyes stared far too widely open when I looked at anything.

As if I had never seen my shoes before, I set myself to study their looks, their characteristics, and, when I stir my foot, their shape and their worn uppers. I discover that their creases and white seams give them expression—impart a physiognomy to them.

Something of my own nature had gone over into these shoes; they affected me, like a ghost of my other I⁠—a breathing portion of my very self.

I sat and toyed with these fancies a long time, perhaps an entire hour. A little, old man came and took up the other end of the seat; as he seated himself he panted after his walk, and muttered:

Every growing thing has received its peculiar impress: the delicately blown breath of the first cold. The stubbles straggle wanly sunwards, and the falling leaves rustle to the earth, with a sound as of errant silkworms.

It is the reign of Autumn, the height of the Carnival of Decay, the roses have got inflammation in their blushes, an uncanny hectic tinge, through their soft damask.

I felt myself like a creeping thing on the verge of destruction, gripped by ruin in the midst of a whole world ready for lethargic sleep. I rose, oppressed by weird terrors, and took some furious strides down the path. “No!”

I sat and laughed at this trick, rubbed my hands with glee, and swore with rollicking recklessness. What a disappointment he will get, the dog! Wouldn’t this piece of villainy make him inclined to sink into hell’s hottest pool of torment!

I was drunk with starvation; my hunger had made me tipsy.

A few minutes later the policeman comes by, clinking his iron heels on the pavement, peering on all sides. He takes his time; he has the whole night before him; he does not notice the paper bag—not till he comes quite close to it.

I had fallen asleep where I lay, and was awakened by the policeman. There I sat, recalled mercilessly to life and misery. My first feeling was of stupid amazement at finding myself in the open air; but this was quickly replaced by a bitter despondency.

I was near crying with sorrow at being still alive.

It had rained whilst I slept, and my clothes were soaked through and through, and I felt a damp cold in my limbs.

When I got outside, I came to a standstill and said loudly in the open street, as I clenched my hands:

“I will tell you one thing, my good Lord God, you are a bungler!”

and I nod furiously, with set teeth, up to the clouds; “I will be hanged if you are not a bungler.”

The flute-like sorrowfulness of the organ thrills through my blood; my nerves vibrate in responsive echo. A moment later, and I fall back on the seat, whimpering and crooning in time to it.

Oh, what strange freaks one’s thoughts are guilty of when one is starving.

I feel myself lifted up by these notes, dissolved in tones, and I float out, I feel so clearly. How I float out, soaring high above the mountains, dancing through zones of light! …

I tore myself out, sick with hunger, and boiling with shame.

I had turned myself into a dog for the sake of a miserable bone, and I had not got it.

Nay, now there must be an end of this! It had really gone all too far with me.

And Ylajali? Had I, too, not polluted her with the touch of my sinful hands? Lord, O Lord my God, Ylajali!

I felt as drunk as a bat, jumped up suddenly, and went straight over to the cake woman

who was sitting near the chemist’s under the sign of the elephant. I might even yet lift myself above dishonour; it was far from being too late; I would show the whole world that I was capable of doing so.

I spoke not a word, turned on my heel, and went my way.

What a wonderful savour there was in feeling oneself an honest man once more!

My empty pockets troubled me no longer; it was simply a delightful feeling to me to be cleaned out. When I weighed the whole matter thoroughly, this money had in reality cost me much secret anguish;

Thou good God, what a miserable plight I have come to!

I was so heartily tired and weary of all my miserable life that I did not find it worth the trouble of fighting any longer to preserve it.

Αdversity had gained the upper hand; it had been too strong for me. I had become so strangely poverty-stricken and broken, a mere shadow of what I once had been;

I commenced to be sensible of a shameless appetite again; a ravenous lust of food, which grew steadily worse and worse. It gnawed unmercifully in my breast; carrying on a silent, mysterious work in there.

It was as if a score of diminutive gnome-like insects set their heads on one side and gnawed for a little, then laid their heads on the other side and gnawed a little more

, then lay quite still for a moment’s space, and then began afresh, boring noiselessly in, and without any haste, and left empty spaces everywhere after them as they went on. …

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!

“Well, gracious, so am I, too,” she said, with a cheerful movement of her head.

Every one of her words intoxicated me, fell on my heart like drops of wine.

She enchanted me with the trick she had of putting her head a little on one side, and listening when I said anything, and I could feel her breath brush my face.

The fact was, that my poverty had in that degree sharpened certain powers in me, so that they caused me unpleasantness. Yes, I assure you honestly, unpleasantness; worse luck! But this had also its advantages. It helped me in certain situations in life.

The poor intelligent man is a far nicer observer than the rich intelligent man.

The poor man looks about him at every step he takes, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets, every step he takes affords in this way a task for his thoughts and feelings—an occupation.

At last everything began to get confused; it seemed to me that even that which I had already written was unfit to use, ay, that the whole idea was contemptible rubbish. How could one possibly talk of conscience in the Middle Ages?

Conscience was first invented by Dancing-master Shakespeare, consequently my whole address was wrong.

Was there, then, nothing of value in these pages? I ran through them anew, and solved my doubt at once.

Instead of that, I had only aroused her compassion, and coaxed an alms from her. No, no, no; there would never be an end to my degradation! Not even in her presence could I maintain a decent position.

I sank, simply sank, on all sides⁠—every way I turned; sank to my knees, sank to my waist, dived under in ignominy, never to rise again⁠—never!

This was the climax! To accept half-a-sovereign in alms without being able to fling it back to the secret donor; scramble for halfpence whenever the chance offered, and keep them, use them for lodging money, in spite of one’s own intense inner aversion. …

No bosh! I say—no obstinacy, now! and I write away at my drama—write down everything that strikes me, just to get finished quickly and be able to go away. I tried to persuade myself that a new supreme moment had seized me;

I lied right royally to myself, deceived myself knowingly, and wrote on, as if I had no need to seek for words.

That is capital! That is really a find! whispered I, interpolatingly; only just write it down! Halt! they sound questionable; they contrast rather strongly with the speeches in the first scenes; not a trace of the Middle Ages shone through the monk’s words.