Υλαγιαλή

Oslo, October 2015 / © I.A. Daglis

I sat looking at her with rapt attention. My heart was thumping, the blood coursing warmly through my veins. What a wonderful pleasure to be sitting in a human dwelling again, hear a clock ticking, and talk with a lively young girl instead of with myself!
"Why don't you say something?"
"Ah, how sweet you are!" I said. "I'm sitting here getting fascinated by you, at this moment I'm thoroughly fascinated. I can't help it. You are the strangest person that... Sometimes your eyes are so radiant, I've never seen anything like it, they look like flowers. Eh? No, no, maybe not like flowers but... I'm madly in love with you, and it won't do me a bit of good. What's your name? Really, you must tell me what your name is..."
"No, what's your name? Goodness, I almost forgot again! I was thinking all day yesterday that I must ask you. Well, that is, not all day yesterday, I certainly didn't think about you all day yesterday."
"Do you know what I've called you? I have called you Ylajali. How do you like it? Such a gliding sound-"
"Ylajali?"
"Yes."
"Is it a foreign language?"
"Hmm. No, it's not."
"Well, it isn't ugly.”

Knut Hamsun [Hunger, 1890]

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