ent; the
noise of cars, the tramp of hoofs, and chatter of tongues filled the
air. I might try with the buttons. Of course there would be no use in
trying; and besides, I was now in a rather bad way; but when I came to
consider the matter closely, I would be obliged, as it were, to pass in
the direction of my "Uncle's" as I went home. At last I got up,
dragging myself slowly to my feet, and reeled down the streets. It
began to burn over my eyebrows--fever was setting in, and I hurried as
fast as I could. Once more I passed the baker's shop where the little
loaf lay. "Well, we must stop here!" I said, with affected decision.
But supposing I were to go in and beg for a bit of bread? Surely that
was a fleeting thought, a flash; it could never really have occurred to
me seriously. "Fie!" I whispered to myself, and shook my head, and held
on my way. In Rebslager a pair of lovers stood in a doorway and talked
together softly; a little farther up a girl popped her head out of a
window. I walked so slowly and thoughtfully, that I looked as if I
might be deep in meditation on nothing in particular, and the wench
came out into the street. "How is the world treating you, old fellow?
Eh, what, are you ill? Nay, the Lord preserve us, what a face!" and she
drew away frightened. I pulled up at once: What's amiss with my face?
Had I really begun to die? I felt over my cheeks with my hand;
thin--naturally, I was thin--my cheeks were like two hollowed bowls;
but Lord ... I reeled along again, but again came to a standstill; I
must be quite inconceivably thin. Who knows but that my eyes were
sinking right into my head? How did I look in reality? It was the very
deuce that one must let oneself turn into a living deformity for sheer
hunger's sake. Once more I was seized by fury, a last flaring up, a
final spasm. "Preserve me, what a face. Eh?" Here I was, with a head
that couldn't be matched in the whole country, with a pair of fists
that, by the Lord, could grind a navvy into finest dust, and yet I went
and hungered myself into a deformity, right in the town of Christiania.
Was there any rhyme or reason in that? I had sat in saddle, toiled day
and night like a carrier's horse.

I had read my eyes out of their sockets, had starved the brains out of
my head, and what the devil had I gained by it? Even a street hussy
prayed God to deliver her from the sight of me. Well, now, there should
be a stop to it. Do you understand that? Stop it shall,