There is no loneliness like the loneliness of a stranger in a strange city.

This is to me one of the most poignant communities of the world: a great, sad city, where the spark of human genius has always had to penetrate the darkness, the dampness, and the cold in order to make its light felt, and has acquired, for that very reason, a strange warmth, a strange intensity, a strange beauty. I know that in this city, where I have never lived, there has nevertheless, by some strange quirk of fate—a previous life, perhaps?—been deposited a portion of my own capacity to feel and to love, a portion, in other words, of my own life; and that this is something which no American will ever understand and no Russian ever believe.

So in the streets of Calcutta I sometimes imagine myself a foreigner, and only then do I discover how much is to be seen, which is lost so long as its full value in attention is not paid. It is the hunger to really see which drives people to travel to strange places.

From the City of Constellations to the wanderer and a Place of Rains he journeys on... ...the City of hesitation and doubt the Island of the house the colour of the sea the Plain of Mementoes he journeys on to find his love... ...the Valley of lost time the City of End and Endlessness the Isle of Revenents he journeys on...

I passed my hand up along my cheeks: thin - of course I was thin, my cheeks were like two bowls with the bottoms in. Oh Lord! I shuffled on. But I stopped again. I must be just incredibly thin. My eyes were sinking deep into my skull. What, exactly, did I look like? The devil only knew why you had to be turned into a veritable freak just because of hunger! I experienced rage once more, its final flare-up, a spasm. God help us, what a face, eh? Here I was, with a head on my shoulders without its equal in the whole country, and with a pair of fists, by golly, that could grind the town porter to fine dust, and yet I was turning into a freak from hunger, right here in the city of Kristiania! Was there any rhyme or reason in that? I had put my shoulders to the wheel and toiled day and night, like a nag lugging a parson; I had read till my eyes were bursting from their sockets and starved till my wits took leave of my brain - and where the hell had it gotten me? Even the streetwalkers prayed to God to free them from the sight of me. But now it was going to stop, understand; it was going to stop, or I'd be damned! . . .

For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene.

"The City"

You said, “I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, a better one than this.
Every effort of mine is a condemnation of fate;
and my heart is — like a corpse — buried.
How long will my mind remain in this wasteland.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years destroying and wasting.”

You will find no new lands, you will find no other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
and you will grow gray in these same houses.
Always you will arrive in this city. Do not hope for any other — There is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have destroyed your life here
in this little corner, you have ruined it in the entire world.

I prowled the city with my Ford: I found mysterious alleys, lonely trees, rotting old houses out of a vanished past. Day and night I lived in my Ford, pausing only long enough to order a hamburger and a cup of coffee at strange roadside cafes.

I, who loved and knew you, In the city that slew you, Still hunger on, and thirst, and climb, proud-hearted and alone: Serpent-fears enfold me, Syren-visions hold me, And, like a wave, I gather strength, and gathering strength, I moan; Yea, the pale moon beckons, Still I follow, aching, And gather strength, only to make a louder moan, in breaking!

For always roaming with a hungry heart / Much have I seen and known.

Buildings tower round me like they're waiting for the kill.
For days I haven't eaten and I really do feel ill.
If I cry for help, would you hear my call?
If I stumble now, would you let me fall?
Won't you give me a hand,
try to understand
that I'm a stranger in the city?
Stuck inside these streets it's like a human traffic jam.
People walk right over me, now they don't give a damn.
If I ask for death, would you give me a gun?
If I took your hand, would you turn and run?
Won't you pity me, just try to see
that I'm a stranger in the city?

Alone I go with my grief
Alone my curse goes
Running is my destiny
To get around the law
Lost in the heart
Of the big Babylon
They call me the clandestine
For not carrying papers To a northern city
I went to work
I left my life
Between and I am a line in the sea
A ghost in the city
My life is forbidden
Says the authority

I had been hungry all the years-
My noon had come, to dine-
I, trembling, drew the table near
And touched the curious wine.

'Twas this on tables I had seen
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.

I did not know the ample bread,
'Twas so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature's diningroom.

The plenty hurt me, 'twas so new, — Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.

Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly,
have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!