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Hamsun, Knut, 1859-1952

"Shallow Soil"


And she was tall and white, and her eyes were like two blue flowers
which brushed my soul when she looked at me; and when she spoke to me
she entreated me and urged me toward her, and her voice was like a
sweet phosphorescence with a taste of the sea.
I rose from the earth and stretched forth my arms toward her, and when
I stretched both my arms toward her she again implored me, and her
body was odorous with rapture. And I was gloriously stirred in my
inmost being, and I rose and gave her my lips in the morning glow,
and my eyes fell.
When I looked up again the woman was old. And the woman was old and
hoary with years, and her body had shrunk with age, and she had very
little life left. But when I looked up the sky was darkling toward
night, yes dark like night, and the woman was without hair. I looked
to her and knew her not and knew not the sky, and when I looked toward
the woman she was gone.
"This was Beauty!" said Jehovah. "Beauty wanes. I am Jehovah!"
And Jehovah touched my eyes again, and I beheld:
I saw a terrace, high, beneath a castle. There were two people there,
and the two people on the terrace were young and full of joy.


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