Anarchistbanjo's World

The Voice of Life

by Knut Hamsun

Translated by Joe Bandel

My friend, the writer H** recounts: Along the inner harbor of Copenhagen there is a street called Vestavold, a new and lonely boulevard. There are few houses, few lanterns and almost no people to be seen. Even now in the summer season, it rarely happens that someone takes a stroll there.

Well! The night before last I experienced something in this street, and I will tell you what I experienced there. I had walked up and down the sidewalk a few times when a lady approached me. There are no other people in sight. The lanterns are lit, but it is dark and I cannot see the lady’s face.

“She’s just one of the night’s common children,” I thought, and walked past her.

At the end of the boulevard, I turned around and walked back. The lady had also turned around, and I met her again. I thought to myself: ‘She’s waiting for someone. Let’s see who she’s waiting for.’ And again I passed her.

When I met her for the third time, I touched my hat and said hello. “Good evening! Are you waiting for someone here?”

She jumped. ”No – yes, I am waiting for someone.”

“Do you mind if I keep you company until the person you are waiting for arrives?”

No, she didn’t mind. She thanked me. By the way, she said, she wasn’t waiting for anyone, she was just taking a walk here because it was so quiet.

We strolled along side by side and started talking to each other about equally valid things: I offered her my arm.

“Oh no!” she said and shook her head.

The matter became boring to me. In the prevailing darkness I couldn’t see her, so I lit a match and tried to illuminate her while I looked at the clock.

“Half past nine, a good half past nine,” I said.

She shuddered as if she were cold. I seized the opportunity and asked, “It’s freezing. Wouldn’t you like to go somewhere and get a drink? To Tivoli, or to the National?”

“No, I can’t go anywhere now, as you can see,” she replied.

And only now did I notice that she was wearing a long, black mourning dress.

I apologized and blamed the darkness. And the way she accepted my apology suddenly convinced me that she was no ordinary night owl.

“Take my arm,” I said again, ‘it’s warm.”

She took my arm.

We walked up and down several times. She asked me to check the time.

“It’s past ten,” I said. “Where do you live?”

“On Gamle Kongevej.”

I held her back.

“And may I accompany you to your doorstep?”

“No, you can’t,” she replied. “No, you can’t. You live on Bredgade?”

“How did you know that?’ I asked in surprise.

“I know who you are,” she replied.

We walked arm in arm and turned into the illuminated streets. She walked quickly, her long veil fluttering. She said:

“Let’s go quickly, please.”

At her front door on Gamle Kongevej, she turned around to me as if to thank me for my company. I opened the door for her, and she walked in slowly, looking back at me. I put my shoulder lightly against the door and walked in behind her. Then she took my hand. Neither of us said a word.

We went up a few stairs and stopped on the second floor. She opened the vestibule door herself, opened another door, took me by the hand and led me in. It had to be a room: I heard a clock ticking. The lady stopped at the door for a moment, suddenly wrapped her arms around me and kissed me hotly and tremblingly on the mouth. Right on the mouth.

“Sit down now,” she said. “There’s a sofa here. I’ll go and turn on the light.”

And she turned on the light.

I looked around, confused and curious. It was a large, very nicely furnished living room in which I found myself: doors to several adjoining rooms were also open. I couldn’t understand. I wondered what kind of person this girl was, with whom I had been so wonderfully reunited, and I said:

“How pretty it is here! Do you live here?”

“Yes, this is my home,” she replied.

“This is your home? So you are the daughter of the house?”

She laughed and said:

“No, no. I am an old woman. Now you will see!” And she took off her hat with the veil.

“There you see!” she said and hugged me again, suddenly, as if driven by irrepressible passion.

The great, crazy child! She might have been twenty-three or so: she wore a wedding ring on her right hand and could therefore legitimately be a married woman. Pretty? No. She had too many freckles and almost no eyebrows. But she radiated a wild, surging life, and her mouth was downright beautiful.

I wanted to ask her name, where her husband was, if she had one; I wanted to know whose house I was in: but she snuggled up close to me as soon as I opened my mouth and forbade me to be curious.

“My name is Ellen,” she said. “Would you like to enjoy yourself a little? It doesn’t matter, I can ring the bell very well. You just have to go into the bedroom.”

I went into the bedroom. The lamp from the living room cast a dim light on me. I saw two beds. Ellen rang the bell and asked for wine. I heard a maid bring the wine and leave. After a little while, Ellen came into the bedroom. She stopped at the door. I took a step towards her, and she let out a little scream and at the same moment came within my reach.

That was the night before last.

What happened next? Just be patient, more happened. Yesterday morning, when I woke up, it was beginning to dawn, daylight was entering the room through the blinds on both sides. Ellen had also woken up. She sighed wearily and just smiled. Her arms were white and velvety, her breasts swelling. I whispered something to her, and she closed my mouth with hers, mute with tenderness. It dawned more and more.

Two hours later I was on my feet, and Ellen got up too, fumbling with her clothes. She already had shoes on. And now I experienced something that still shivers through me like a bad dream. I am standing at the washbasin. Ellen has something to do in the next room, and when she opens the door, I turn around and look inside. A cold breath of air comes towards me from the open windows, and in the middle of the room, on a long table, I see a corpse. A corpse lying in a coffin, with a gray beard, the corpse of a man. His skinny arms stick out with two angry fists clenched under the shroud, and his face is all yellow and terrifying. I see everything in the light.

Daylight. I turn away and say not a word.

When Ellen returned, I was dressed and ready to go. I was hardly able to return her embrace. She was dressed completely; she wanted to accompany me down to the gate, and I let her go and still said nothing. Downstairs in the gate, she pressed herself against the wall so as not to be seen and whispered,

“Goodbye!”

“Tomorrow?” I asked hesitantly.

“No, not tomorrow!”

“Why not tomorrow?”

“Be quiet, my dear, I’m going to the funeral tomorrow. A relative of mine has died. So, now you know!”

“But the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, the day after tomorrow, I’ll be waiting for you here in the alley. Goodbye!”

I left.———————-

Who was she? And the corpse? How it clenched its fists, and how the corners of its mouth hung down in ugly comedy! The day after tomorrow she would be waiting for me again. Should I go to her again?

I direct my steps straight to Café Bernina, where I ask for the address book – I open it, Gamle Kongevej, this and that number, good, I see the name and know what Ellen’s name is. I wait a while for the morning paper and then dive into the pages to study the obituaries. Yes, there it is: the first in the long series, in bold letters: “After a long illness, my husband passed away yesterday at the age of 53.” The ad was dated from yesterday.

I sit there for a long time, pondering.

A man has a wife, she is thirty years younger than he is, he is sick for many years and then dies one day. The young widow breathes a sigh of relief. Life calls to her with its delightful madness. She obeys its voice and answers: I’m coming! And that very evening she is walking on the Vestavold. — — —

Ellen, Ellen, the day after tomorrow!

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