Page:Hunger (Hamsun).djvu/66

50 that I had left nothing behind, and as I could not find anything, went over to the window and looked out.

The morning was gloomy and wet; there was no one about at the burnt-out smithy, and the clothes-line down in the yard stretched tightly from wall to wall shrunken by the wet. It was all familiar to me, so I stepped back from the window, took the blanket under my arm, and made a low bow to the lighthouse director's announcement, bowed again to Miss Andersen's winding-sheet advertisement, and opened the door. Suddenly the thought of my landlady struck me; she really ought to be informed of my leaving, so that she could see she had had an honest soul to deal with.

I wanted also to thank her in writing for the few days' overtime in which I occupied the room. The certainty that I was now saved for some time to come increased so strongly in me that I even promised her five shillings. I would call in some day when passing by.

Besides that, I wanted to prove to her what an upright sort of person her roof had sheltered.

I left the note behind me on the table.

Once again I stopped at the door and turned round, the buoyant feeling of having risen once