and although her father captained a merchant ship, she is now forced to eke out an impoverished existence selling eggs in the marketplace. With her prematurely gray hair (caused, Nagel believes, by suffering) and her black eyes and eyebrows, she possesses a strange and exotic beauty. She is strictly honest and shy; to Nagel, she seems nunlike.

Nagel appears nearly as mysterious to readers as he does to the townspeople. Despite two long monologues which narrate Nagel’s chaotic thoughts directly, little of substance is conveyed; the remainder of the book, a third-person narrative, reveals remarkably little about his past, his true identity, or even his real name. A woman known as “Kamma,” with whom he was previously involved briefly, visits him in his hotel room, calls him “Simonsen,” is amused by his assumed identity of agronomist, tearfully declares that she still loves him (although she knows he no longer cares for her), accepts the money he proffers, and leaves on the next steamer.

Nagel’s character is mercurial, paradoxical, and exasperating. He alternates between ecstasy and despair, clarity and confusion, impulse and contemplation, self-abasement and self-exaltation, and loathing and love of his fellow human beings. He contemptuously denounces charity as a form of egoism but continually gives away money. In his flights of fancy, his stories of the supernatural, and his fantasies, he appears to be a poet, but he is also given to an incomprehensible garrulousness which embarrasses even him. There are other inconsistencies: The violin case he so prominently displays in his room contains nothing but dirty linen; he denies that he is a rich man but consistently behaves as one; and his luggage appears costly, but he wears a cheap iron ring of some mysterious significance. His strategy of causing others to believe the worst of him is another perplexity. He lies about a medal that he carries, bestowed to him for saving a drowning man, and tells Dagny that he bought it. The truth is that he did earn the medal, but he has doubts about how heroic it may be to save a man who wants to drown.

The Midget is equally problematic. He appears to accept with exemplary Christian submission the many cruelties and humiliations the townspeople (and life) have heaped upon him. He appears to be all forgiveness to his enemies and all gratitude to his benefactor. Yet Nagel comes to believe that the Midget’s behavior is an act beneath which lurks a scoundrel. Inexplicably, Nagel for a time even suspects the Midget of having murdered Karlsen, the divinity student, although the evidence clearly indicates suicide and the Midget’s motive would be difficult to fathom. Knut Hamsun once said that the Midget was Nagel’s alter ego, but this idea does not seem well developed. The powerful influence of Fyodor Dostoevski, with his interest in doubles and divided selves, however, is apparent here as elsewhere in the novel. “Your virtue brings out the brute in me,” Nagel shouts at the Midget, recalling Dostoevski’s perception that the higher part of the soul calls forth the lower part.

Dagny Kielland and Martha Gude appear as opposites: the one, proudly beautiful, self-assured, much sought-after; the other, awkward, plain, and looking older than she is. The two correspond to a story that Nagel tells about the beautiful Klara and her hunchbacked sister (although Martha is by no means deformed or repulsive). True to that story, Dagny does not want Nagel, but she also does not want Martha to have him. Thus she intervenes, successfully destroying his chances with Martha and, ultimately, his hope and his life. It is important to realize, however, that at no point does Hamsun make use of the possibilities of third-person narrative technique to reveal the inner thoughts of his female characters or of any character other than Nagel. Thus, all judgments about character are necessarily colored by Nagel’s view.