Knut Hamsun

We moved on; she walked at my right side. A strange, beautiful feeling empowered me; the certainty of being near a young girl. I looked at her the whole way along. The scent of her hair; the warmth that irradiated from her body; the perfume of woman that accompanied her; the sweet breath every time she turned her face towards me--everything penetrated in an ungovernable way through all my senses.

It was only animals in all their peculiar fearfulness and peculiar savagery that possessed a charm. The soundless, stealthy tread in the total darkness of night; the hidden monsters of the woods; the shrieks of a bird flying past; the wind, the smell of blood, the rumbling in space; in short, the reigning spirit of the kingdom of savage creatures hovering over savagery ... the unconscious poetry!...

The consciousness of my great poverty seized me anew, and crushed me.

Why did she think that?

Oh, I had laughed so.

"Really, a-ah yes; I used to laugh a lot in those days."

"But now not any more?"

"Oh yes; now too. It is a splendid thing to exist sometimes."

How was one to keep up one's courage when one was so broken down?

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.

Madness rages through my brain, and I let it rage.

I am fully conscious that I am succumbing to influences over which I have no control

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.

I tell you, I have offered you my service, and you repulsed me;