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p Unfortunately I cannot read Hamsun in the original. And the translation which I have at hand is not faultless. The translator, Mr. Y. Danilin, is like a foreigner who has acquired a good command of Russian hut is not aware of all its fine points. We occasionally find such expressions as: "you won’t he offended if I tell you anything, will you?" (p. 56). Whereas it is obviousfrom the course of the action that the character who utters this sentence (Jerven) wants to say not “anything”, but something quite definite: "you need money,” he says, etc. Therefore this should have been translated not as "tell you anything”, but as "tell you something”. There is a great difference. And even the character who uses the mistranslated expression to which I havedrawn attention is incorrectly named, if I am not mistaken: his name should have been written not as “Mepeen”, but simply as “Epeen”.  Our “e” is the iotacised “e” of the West European languages. In the same way people here wrongly write HCKK (the German author of the history of the International) instead of EKK.  Another character in the drama (the journalist Bondesen) exclaims: "Only not now, for God’s sake. Not now. Because then I won’t be able to talk to you any more" (p. 59). But again it is obvious that Bondesen is afraid not that he will not be able to, i.e., that he will lose the ability to talk, but that he will lose the opportunity to make use of his ability. The main characterin the play (the writer Ivar Kareno) also expresses himself in such language. According to him (i.e., to Mr. Danilin’s translation), if the autumn is a warm one he "will be able to work in the garden" (p. 81). But here too it is clear that a cold autumn would deprive Kareno not of the ability to work in the garden, but only of the opportunity to make use of this ability. These are trifles, of course. But they are very irritating trifles. Why spoil our powerful and rich Russian language with clumsy provincialisms? 591 In addition, the play contains many misprints. This is also a trifle, and also a very irritating trifle.

p There is another translation of this play, I believe, but I do not possess it. Therefore I shall make use of Mr. Y. Danilin’s translation.

p Hamsun’s play actually contains two dramas: one of a personal, the other of a social nature. One is written on a theme that is very old, but eternally new; the other has a completely new theme, but this new theme is redolent of impotent senility, true decadence. The first reveals Hamsun’s great artistic talent; the second produces a comic impression in spite of the author’s attempts to impart a tragic nature to the action. In short, the first drama is a success, whereas the second must be recognised as extremely unsuccessful.

p I shall not dwell at length on the first, i.e., the successful drama. I have already said that its theme is very old, although it remains eternally new. A young woman, Fru Elina Kareno, who is intellectually undeveloped and perhaps even limited, but at least in perfect moral health, loves her husband, Ivar Kareno, a bachelor of philosophy, who repays her if not with total indifference, at least with a lack of attention which is most insulting and painful for her. Deep down in his heart he loves her, but he has no time to engage in love. He is writing a book which he thinks will strike a bitter blow at very many harmful prejudices. He is completely absorbed in his work. Fru Kareno complains to Bondesen: "He does not think about me, he does not think about himself either, only about his work. It has been like this for a whole three years. But he says three years is nothing, he even considers that ten years is not a long time. I have begun to think that if he behaves like this it means he does not love me any more. I never see him; at night he sits at his desk and works until dawn. It is all so awful! Everything in my head has become so confused" (p. 76). And everything in her head has indeed become confused. Insulted at every turn by her husband’s lack of attention, she tries to find out the reason for this inattention and becomes jealous without good cause. She is not only jealous of her maid Ingeborg, whom he sees frequently of necessity, but also of his friend Jerven’s fiancee Fr0ken Nathalia Hovind, whom he meets for the first time in his life and who exchanges a few completely insignificant words with him. Finally, the poor Fru Kareno begins to dissemble. She wants to make her husband jealous and to this end begins flirting with the journalist Bondesen. But Kareno does not even notice her tricks. So she increases the dose of flirting and ... gets caught in her own trap: she falls in love with the worthless and vulgar Bondesen. Kareno opens his eyes to the behaviour of his wife only when the things have gone too far to be remedied. Then he himself makes several 592 attempts to avert the disaster that threatens him, but they are in vain. His wife leaves him and goes to her parents accompanied by Bondesen, and on this the first drama ends.

p I have said that this drama reveals Hamsun’s great artistic talent. In support of my statement it is enough to point to the subtlety with which Fru Kareno’s emotions are delineated. The character of this unhappy woman is created brilliantly in the full sense of the word. And Bondesen of whom she is enamoured is equally well portrayed. With a few strokes Hamsun has portrayed extremely vividly the unprincipled quill-driver, ready to sell himself for so and so much a newspaper line. But not only Bondesen! And not only Frn Kareno! The man who stuffs birds is an episodic character in the play, yet he 1oo is a plastic image. In a word, the first drama is excellent confirmation of the old rule: the job fears the master.

p Why then does the second drama not confirm it also? Did it not come from the pen of the same outstanding master?

p To answer this we must first make the acquaintance of the writer Ivar Kareno, who is the main character in the second drama, just as his wife plays the main role in the first.

p I have said that he is writing a book which, in his opinion, is of tremendous importance. I did not put it strongly enough. Kareno himself puts it far more strongly. Here is an example: "Last night, when I was writing,” he says to his wife in the third act, "thoughts swarmed in my head. You won’t believe me, but I have solved all questions, I have understood the meaning of being; I have felt an upsurge of great strength" (p. 70). Great strength is indeed required to solve "all questions”. But how does Ivar Kareno solve all questions? He does not always express himself clearly enough on this point. Here is an example. Having told his wife that he lias succeeded in understanding being, he adds: "Last night it seemed to me that I was all alone on this earth. There was a wall between people and the outside world; but now this wall had become thin, and I would try to break it, to stick my head out and take a look" (pp. 70-71). This is very vague. Moreover, it is strange that a man who has already solved all questions should nevertheless think it necessary to break the wall, stick his head out and take a look. What for? When all questions have been solved, there is nothing to “look” at and one can take a rest. But in Kareno’s same conversation with his wife there is a more definite allusion to his views. Kareno calls himself a man who is knocking at people’s doors "with thoughts that are as free as a bird”. It follows that after breaking the wall and sticking his head out our hero sees the ideal of freedom. This is not so vague. But freedom can bo understood in different ways. What is the content of Ivar Karono’s free thoughts’:’ The following long tirade gives a very clear idea of it:

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p “Look,” he says to his wife, spreading out his manuscript in front of her, "all this is about the rule of the majority, and I reject it. It is a teaching for the English, I write, a gospel that is offered in the market-place, preached in the London docks, about how to bring mediocrity to power and right. This here is on resistance, this on hatred, this on revenge, ethical forces which are now in decline. I have written about all this. No, listen a little more carefully, Elina, and you will understand. This is the question of eternal peace. Everyone thinks that eternal peace would be a wonderful thing, but I say that it is a teaching worthy of the half-baked brain that concocted it. Yes. I ridicule eternal peace because of its insolent contempt for pride. Let there be war, what’s the point in worrying about preserving such and such a number of lives: the source of life is bottomless and inexhaustible; all that matters is for people to march boldly ahead. Look, this is the main article on liberalism. I do not spare liberalism, I attack it from the depths of my heart. But people don’t understand that. The English and Professor Gylling are liberals, but I’m not a liberal, and that is all they understand. I do not believe in liberalism, I do not believe in elections, I do not believe in popular representation. And I’ve said all that here (he reads): ’This liberalism, which has again introduced the old, unnatural lie that a crowd of people five feet high can elect itself a leader who is seven feet high—’ You yourself understand: that’s what always happens.... Look! That is the conclusion. Here, on these ruins, I have erected a new edifice, a proud castle, Elina. I have taken my revenge. I believe in the born ruler, the despot by nature, the sovereign, the man who is not elected, but himself becomes the leader of the nomadic hordes on this earth. I believe and hope for one thing only—the return of the great terrorist, the quintessential man, Caesar...” (pp. 106-07).

p We shall soon see what Professor Gylling, against whom Kareno has taken up arms, wants. For the moment, however, let us note that our hero’s "free thoughts" amount to a struggle against the power of the majority. This is the main theme of his book. And in this sense he is the true son of Ibsen’s Doctor Stockmann. But his way of thinking is far more concrete than that of the good doctor. To begin with, Stockmann actually talks about the majority through a misunderstanding, because his struggle is in fact against the minority (i.e., the joint-stock company which is exploiting the spa where he is a doctor) in the interests of the majority (i.e., the patientSj who come and may come to the spa). And his arguments culminate in his attempt to prove that all truth must age with time and give way to another, new truth.  [593•*  True, 594 in proving this "on scientific grounds”, he makes some most unsuccessful excursions into the sphere of social relations.  [594•*  But these unsuccessful excursions remain excursions only. They do not determine Doctor Stockmann’s practical programme. Indeed he does not appear to have such a programme. But his son, Ivar Kareno, talks about the struggle against the majority not through a misunderstanding, but by virtue of a well-considered conviction. And he has a definite practical programme. He not only "does not believe in liberalism" and not only does not spare it; he does not believe in elections or in popular representation either and does not want them. He “believes” in despotism, he desires the return of the great terrorist whom he regards as the quintessential man. Do you see what sort of “freedom” our hero wants? The freedom of the despot. After breaking the wall and sticking his head out, he saw the forthcoming return of the "great terrorist" who subjects the majority to his iron will. And in order to facilitate his return, he carries on corresponding moral preaching. He preaches “hatred”, “revenge”, and “pride”—not the pride that will not permit a man to be a slave, but the pride that expresses itself in the striving to possess slaves or, at least, to ensure that the "great terrorist" and “despot” does not lack them. It is therefore not surprising that the good Kareno calls the idea of peace "a teaching worthy of the half-baked brain that concocted it”. What is the point in worrying about "preserving such and such a number of lives!" "All that matters is for people to march boldly ahead”, i.e., evidently for them not to refuse to go to the slaughter when the "great terrorist" and “despot” finds it necessary to engage in a little blood-letting. All this seems definite enough. However, indefmiteness is not totally absent from this tirade. In the first lines the majority is called mediocrity, as we have seen, and this expression gives Ivar Kareno’s speech a touch of the vague idealism with which the speeches of his father, Doc- 595 tor Stockmann, were so imbued. In other passages this touch is quite absent. In the article apropos of which he has an interesting conversation with Professor Gylling, he condemns "the presentday humane treatment of the workers" as ridiculous and writes: "The workers have only just ceased to be a vegetating force and their position as an essential class has been destroyed.... When they were slaves, they had their function: they worked. Today however machines are working in their place with the help of steam, electricity, water and wind. As a result of this workers are becoming an increasingly superfluous class. The slave has become a worker, and the worker a parasite who now no longer has any function. And it is these people, who have even lost their position as essential members of society, that the state is striving to elevate into a political party. Gentlemen who speak of humaneness, you should not pet the workers; youfshould rather guard us against their existence, prevent them from growing stronger. You should destroy them" (p. 21).

p Destroy the workers! So this is the definite form which the task, formerly very indefinite, of struggling against the “majority” has assumed for Ivar Kareno, a task inherited by him from his father, Doctor Stockmann. In order to solve this perfectly definite (I did not say soluble) task, Kareno even begins to^draw up what the socialists call a minimum programme. True, so far he has written only one point into this programme, but this point is extremely characteristic. Kareno recommends high grain taxes to protect the peasant, who must live, and force the worker, who must perish, to starve to death. There is not a hint of vague idealism in this practical programme; on the contrary, it is full of the spirit of a peculiar "economic materialism”. And it leaves no doubt whatever as to the content of Kareno’s "free thoughts": he is a typical reactionary.

Doctor Stockmann was called an enemy of the people, as we know. This was unfair. Doctor Stockmann was never an enemy of the people, although in his struggle against what he called the majority, because of his extreme awkwardness and inexperience in questions of a social nature, he occasionally expressed himself as do real enemies of the people: appropriators of the surplus product or surplus value. But not so with Doctor Stockmann’s son, Ivar Kareno. He expresses himself as an enemy of the people not because of a misunderstanding. He is indeed an enemy of the people, i.e., an enemy of the class which plays the main role in the production process of modern society. The "ultimate goal" which he sets himself in his struggle against the proletariat is, of course, absurd in the full sense of the word. It is impossible to "destroy the workers”. If Kareno has set himself this goal, it shows that his understanding of social questions is at least no better than that of his dear father, Stockmann. But his absurd "ultimate

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596 goal" does not prevent him from having a definite practical programme. In politics he is a reactionary, in economics a protectionist and, moreover, a protectionist with a conscious reactionary aim. He hopes that protectionism will help him to " destroy" the proletarian and protect the peasant who, according to him, must live. He wants to base himself on the clash of interests between the peasantry, on the one hand, and the proletariat, on the other. But in so far as the peasantry is aware of the extent to which its interests clash with those of the proletariat and in so far as it is guided by this awareness in its socio-political activity it strives, to use the well-known expression from the famous Manifesto, to roll back the wheel of history.^^187^^ And anyone who exploits this striving for the return of the "great terrorist”, is not even a simple reactionary, but a malicious reactionary squared. It is as such a malicious reactionary, a reactionary squared, that the stubborn preacher of "free thoughts”, Ivar Kareno, appears before us. One cannot help seeing how far removed he is from his father. Yet nor can one help seeing that he has inherited the most important family features from him.