Page:Hunger (Hamsun).djvu/246

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Hunger

. . . sometimes your eyes gleam so, that I never saw their match; they look like flowers . . . eh? No, well no, perhaps not like flowers, either, but . . . I am so desperately in love with you, and it is so preposterous . . . for, great Scott! there is naturally not an atom of chance for me. . . . What is your name? Now, you really must tell me what you are called."

"No; what is your name? Gracious, I was nearly forgetting that again! I thought about it all yesterday, that I meant to ask you—yes, that is to say, not all yesterday, but——"

"Do you know what I named you? I named you Ylajali. How do you like that? It has a gliding sound. . . ."

"Ylajali?"

"Yes."

"Is that a foreign language?"

"Humph—no, it isn't that either!"

"Well, it isn't ugly!"

After a long discussion we told one another our names. She seated herself close to my side on the sofa, and shoved the chair away with her foot, and we began to chatter afresh.

"You are shaved this evening, too," she said; "look on the whole a little better than the last