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enough to find one I could fill: a shopkeeper on Grøn-landsleret Street wanted someone for a couple of hours’ bookkeeping every evening; wages by agreement. I took down the person’s address and prayed silently to God for this job—I would ask less than anyone else for the work, fifty øre was plenty, or perhaps forty øre, come what may.
    When I got home there was a note on my table from the landlady in which she asked me to pay my rent in advance or move out as soon as I could. I mustn’t mind her telling me, it was nothing but a necessary request. Cordially, Mrs. Gundersen.
    I wrote an application to Christie’s, the shopkeeper, at 31 Grønlandsleret Street, put it in an envelope and took it down to the mailbox at the corner. Then I went back up to my room and sat down to think in my rocking chair, while the darkness grew more and more impenetrable. It was beginning to be difficult to stay up now.
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    The next morning I awoke very early. It was still quite dark when I opened my eyes, and only much later did I hear the clock in the downstairs apartment strike five. I wanted to go to sleep again but wasn’t able to, I felt more and more awake and lay there thinking about a million things.
    Suddenly one or two good sentences occur to me, suitable for a sketch or story, nice linguistic flukes the likes of which I had never experienced before. I lie there repeating these words to myself and find that they are excellent. Presently they’re joined by others, I’m at once wide-awake, sit up and grab paper and pencil from the table behind my bed. It was as though a vein had burst inside me—one word follows another, they connect with one another and turn into situations; scenes pile on top of other scenes, actions and dialogue well up in my brain, and a wonderful sense of pleasure takes hold of me. I write as if possessed, filling one page after another without a moment’s pause. My thoughts strike me so suddenly and continue to pour out so abundantly that I lose a lot of minor details I’m not able to write down fast enough, though I am working at full blast. They continue to crowd in on me, I am full of my subject, and every word I write is put in my mouth.
    It goes on and on, it takes such a wonderfully long time before this singular moment ceases to be; I have fifteen to twenty written pages lying on my knees in front of me when I finally stop and put my pencil away. Now, if these pages were really worth something, then I was saved! I jump out of bed and get dressed. It is growing lighter and lighter and I can dimly make out the notice from the Director of Lighthouses over by the door, and at the window there is already enough daylight so I could see to write, at a pinch. I start making a clean copy of my pages right away.
    A strange dense vapor of light and color rises up from these fantasies; I’m agog with surprise seeing one good thing after another, telling myself that it is the best thing I have ever read. Elated with a sense of fulfillment and puffed up with joy, I feel on top of the world. I weigh the piece in my hand and appraise it on the spot at five kroner, by a rough estimate. It wouldn’t occur to anybody to haggle about five kroner; on the contrary, judging by the quality of the contents one would have to call it a bargain at ten. I had no intention of undertaking such a special piece of work for nothing; as far as I knew, you didn’t find stories like that by the wayside. I decided in favor of ten kroner.
    It was growing lighter and lighter in the room; glancing toward the door, I could read without great difficulty the fine, skeleton-like letters concerning Madam Andersen’s shrouds, main entrance to the right. Anyway, the clock had struck seven a good while ago.
    I got up and stood in the middle of the floor. Everything considered, Mrs. Gundersen’s notice was quite opportune. This wasn’t really a room for me; the green curtains