Page:Hunger (Hamsun).djvu/75

Rh No answer.

"He has left, he has left," I think. I try the door which is open, knock once again, and enter. The editor is sitting at his table, his face towards the window, pen in hand, about to write. When he hears my breathless greeting he turns half round, steals a quick look at me, shakes his head, and says:

"Oh, I haven't found time to read your sketch yet."

I am so delighted, because in that case he has not rejected it, that I answer:

"Oh, pray, sir, don't mention it. I quite understand—there is no hurry; in a few days, perhaps"

"Yes, I shall see; besides, I have your address."

I forget to inform him that I no longer had an address, and the interview is over. I bow myself out, and leave. Hope flames up again in me; as yet, nothing is lost—on the contrary, I might, for that matter, yet win all. And my brain began to spin a romance about a great council in Heaven, in which it had just been resolved that I should win—ay, triumphantly win ten shillings for a story.

If I only had some place in which to take