Mysteries (44 page)

“He did?”

“Yes.”

They had turned onto Parsonage Road. The forest stood dark and still around them, the only sounds to be heard were their footfalls on the frozen road.

After a long silence Dagny said again, “This is where he always used to walk.”

“Who?” Martha replied. “It’s slippery, won’t you take my arm?”

“Sure; but I’d rather you take mine.”

And they walked on in silence, arm in arm, holding tightly on to each other.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

PAGE

3 Napoleon III (1808-73), French emperor 1852-70.

8 “May your steel be as sharp as your final no”: in the first edition of
Mysteries,
this quotation is attributed to Victor Hugo (see textual note 8, chapter 4). Guy Rosa, who submitted the alleged quotation to the Hugo Seminar of the University of Paris VII, which he chairs, reports that the closest approximation is in a speech by Thisbe to Rodolfo in
Angelo, Tyrant of Padua,
Day Three, Part Three, Scene 3. To Thisbe’s question whether he ever loved her, Rodolfo answers, “Never!” to which she replies: “Ah, that word kills me, you wretch! Your dagger has only to finish me off.”
Theatre complet,
II (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 67.

19 The person here referred to is Pastor Hans Jacob Grøgaard (1764-1836), a member of the Eidsvoll Constitutional Assembly (1814) who sided with the so-called Union Party, those who favored union with Sweden.

23 Arne Garborg (1851-1924) was a distinguished Norwegian novelist and poet who wrote chiefly in New Norwegian.
Bondestudentar
(1883; Peasant Students) was his first novel. The play
Uforsonlige
(1888; Irreconcilables), an excoriating attack on the cowardice of politicians, showed Garborg’s disenchantment with the Left.

23 Ivan Turgenev (1818-83), Russian novelist and short-story writer whose “superfluous man” in such novels as
Rudin
(1855),
A Nest of Gentlefolk
(1859), and
On the Eve
(1860) anticipates some of Hamsun’s heroes-or antiheroes-of the 1890s.

28 William Gladstone (1809-98), British statesman, leader of the Liberal Party from 1868 to 1894. A great reformer, Gladstone was premier four times, the beginning of the last one (1892-94) coinciding with the year in which
Mysteries
was completed and published.

28 “The little boy walked ...” is the first line of a poem in the peasant tale
Arne
(1858) by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910).

29 Gjevik is a town in Oppland County, situated on the shores of Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake, sixty miles north of Oslo. The Vardal Woods extend ca. ten miles west of Glovik. Hamsun knew the area well, having done roadwork there in 1880-81.

29 For Jairus’s daughter, raised from the dead by Jesus, see Mark 5:22ff. The heroine of Bjornson’s controversial play
En Handske (1883; A Gauntlet,
1886), Svava Riis-here called Svava Bjørnson—challenges the double standard of sexual morality. A charismatic political leader, formidable orator, and social reformer as well as poet, playwright, and novelist, Bjornson was greatly admired by Hamsun despite his didactic strain. By changing the character’s name to Svava Bjornson, Nagel seems to equate her moral idealism with that of her creator. The biographer Per Amdam uses the name Svava Bjørnson Riis for this character, ostensibly for the same reason.
See Bjørnstjerne Bjornson
(Oslo, 1979), p. 167.

32 Kabelvag is a fishing station situated on the south side of Austvigoy, the largest of the Lofoten Islands, Nordland County, in North Norway.

34 Victor Hugo (1802-85), poet, novelist, and dramatist, and a giant in the intellectual life of his country, was viewed by many as the greatest French poet. Guy Rosa reports that the name Baron Lesdain meant nothing to any member of the Hugo Seminar and that the anecdote appears quite unbelievable. Hugo, he feels convinced, would never have allotted second place to Musset among living French writers. Alfred de Musset (1810-57) was not only a romantic poet renowned for his love lyrics, but also a novelist and playwright. -Nagel’s report on Hugo’s action during the Franco-German War is misleading. Hugo’s appeal of September 9, 1870, was not addressed to “the inhabitants of the earth” but “To the Germans” (“Aux Allemands”). In it, he challenges the German troops to “storm Paris, a city full of trembling families, where there are women, sisters, mothers, and where at this hour I, who speak to you, have my two grandchildren, one of which is still nursing.”
(Actes et paroles:
1870-1871-1872 [Paris, 1872], pp. 8-9.)

35 Kungsbacka and Goteborg are within a few miles of each other on the Swedish west coast. The former is a small town, the latter a major city.

36 The “great poet” here referred to is Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), whose “Et vers” (A Verse), a four-line epigrammatic poem starting, “Life is a war with trolls”
(Digte,
1871), Nagel recalls.

37 Thomas Kingo (1634-1703), bishop of Odense, Denmark, was a baroque poet and hymn writer. The hymnal he edited in 1699 contained a broad selection of his hymns. Magnus Brostrup Landstad (1802-80) was a Norwegian pastor, hymn writer, and collector of folklore. His new collection of hymns was authorized for use in religious services in 1869.

37 Høivåg (or Høvåg), a parish in Lillesand township, East Agder County, was previously a township. Lillesand, a small coastal town located ca. 15 miles northeast of Kristiansand, is believed to be the setting of
Mysteries.
Hamsun knew the town well from spending some summer and fall months there in 1890.

37 Caiaphas, the high priest, was in charge of the trial of Jesus (Mt. 26:57-68). Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator of Judea, “delivered Jesus ... to be crucified” (Mark 15:15).

37 The expression “universal spirits on horseback” no doubt derives from Georg F. W. Hegel (1770-1831), who used it to describe the world-historical individuals, specifically Napoleon. In a letter to F. I. Niethammer of October 13, 1806, the day before Napoleon’s victory at Jena, Hegel writes, “I saw the Emperor—this world soul—riding through the city to a review of his troops.” According to Walter Kaufmann, the statement has often been misquoted to imply “Hegel ... said that he had met the
Weltgeist zu Pferde”—literally,
“the world spirit on horseback” (
Hegel: A Reinterpretation
[Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978], pp. 318-19). In this translation the word
verdensdnd (Weltgeist, Weltseele)
has been translated as “universal spirit.”

38 The inclusion of the emperor of Brazil in the “worthless majority” may be due to the fact that the last emperor, Pedro II (b. 1825), had been deposed in 1889 and died in 1891, at the time when Hamsun was writing
Mysteries.

38 The view of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) expressed by Nagel is strongly influenced by the Russian writer’s development after 1876, when he underwent a spiritual crisis. Turning religious thinker and moral teacher, Tolstoy preached Christian love, nonviolence, and renunciation of wealth. He devoted much time to pedagogy, writing textbooks intended for the peasants in an attempt to combat illiteracy. His works from the mid-1880s are permeated with moral didacticism.

38 Hamsun shows an awareness, both in
Hunger
and
Mysteries,
of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), epochal German philosopher who revolutionized the conception of time and space, viewed by him as “perceptual forms” rather than as objective realities.

39 Nagel is referring to the dramatic poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) published in two parts, in 1808 and after Goethe’s death, respectively.
Faust
is considered to be one of the greatest literary works of all time.

39 Ola Upnorth (Ola Nordistuen) denotes the typical or average Norwegian, also called “Ola Nordmann.”

39 Hallingdal, one of Norway’s long East Country valleys, is known for its crafts, with rich traditions in woodworking, knitting, and weaving.

39 Trondelag, the area around the Trondheim Fjord, comprising the counties of South and North Trondelag, was in ancient times briefly the center of the Norwegian kingdom. Its inhabitants, the Trønders, are thought of as a staunch, no-nonsense, down-to-earth lot.

46 Finnmark is Norway’s northernmost county.

47 Helsingfors is the Swedish name of Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

47 The county of Buskerud extends northwest from the Oslo Fjord to the watershed. Smalenene was the former name (until 1919) of Østfold County, southeast of Oslo.

52 The people of Setesdal, a rather isolated valley in East Agder County, are popularly known for their adherence to tradition and the preservation of regional arts and crafts.

52 Vetle Vetlesen is a made-up name. It is intended to connote an ultraconservative cultural policy.

52 Johann Arendt (1555-1621), a German Lutheran pastor, was widely known for his edifying religious writings. His books were translated into many languages and had a decisive influence on pietism.

64 After the Turks granted Serbia autonomy under a hereditary prince in 1829, it was torn by a feud between two rival clans for over fifty years. It gained full independence in 1878 and was proclaimed a kingdom in 1882. Six years prior to Hamsun’s writing of
Mysteries,
in 1885, it engaged in an unsuccessful war with Bulgaria.

64 Kristiania was the official name of Oslo until 1924. The ritzy Grand Hotel, located not far from the Royal Palace, is known for its rather exclusive café, with a long history as a gathering place for artists and other intellectuals.

66 Belgrade is the capital of Serbia.

67 The editor of the ultraconservative
Morgenbladet
(The Morning Paper) at the time, Christian Friele (1821-99), was both feared and hated for his sharp, sometimes malicious pen.

67 The Czar alluded to here is Alexander III (1845-94), whose reign was notorious for its reactionary policies.—Jean Constans (1833-1913) was a French politician who, as Minister of the Interior (1889-92), firmly combatted the opponents of the Third Republic led by Georges Boulanger (1837-91). In 1889, hoping to realize his dream of becoming France’s dictator, Boulanger had planned to march on the Elysée Palace with his Revenge Party supporters, but abandoned the idea and fled to Belgium. Having been accused of treason and condemned to life imprisonment, he committed suicide on the tomb of his mistress in 1891, a few months after the period referred to in Hamsun’s novel.—Charles Parnell (1846-91), the Irish nationalist leader, championed Home Rule for his country with considerable success. However, being named a corespondent in a divorce suit caused him to lose his influence, and he died a broken man.—The Balkan Question is linked to the centuries-long endeavor by the European powers to curtail the territory of the Ottoman Empire west of the Bosporus. The problem was particularly virulent in the latter half of the nineteenth century and continued to be so in the twentieth.—
Statistische Monatschrift
was published in Vienna.

68 Otto von Bismarck (1815-98), creator of the modern German state and chancellor of Germany 1871-90, ruled as a virtual dictator. After nearly two decades of conducting a successful foreign as well as domestic policy, he was dismissed by the Emperor, William II (1859-1941), a longtime enemy, soon after the latter’s accession to the throne.

68 The leading workers’ association in Norway was founded by Eilert Sundt (1817-75) in 1864. From 1879 on, when the Liberal Party took over political leadership from the Conservatives, it became an important forum of radical political propaganda. The Norwegian Labor Party was formed in 1887.

69 James Carey (1845-83) was a member of the Invincibles, an Irish terrorist association condemned by Parnell and the orthodox Fenians. After participating in the Phoenix Park murders on May 6, 1882, Carey informed on his associates and turned state’s evidence. Four of the principals involved were executed in 1883. Carey was shot dead on board ship to Cape Town.

74 The German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) developed a philosophy of aristocratic individualism, epitomized by such concepts as the will to power, the eternal return, and the superman.

77 Joseph Lanner (1801-43) was co-creator, with the Strauss family, of the Viennese waltz and one of the chief generators of the early-nineteenth-century waltz fever. Lanner conducted a small orchestra for which he wrote waltzes and other dances, and Johann Strauss the Elder (1804-49) was his violin player.

80
the law against quacks:
Since April 1871, when a new law was passed, persons without a medical degree were permitted, with certain restrictions, to engage in the business of healing in Norway.

91 Built in the first century B.C., the Tower of the Winds, a.k.a. the
Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes,
stands not far from the site of the Roman agora, just outside the market enclosure. The tower served the triple purpose of sundial, water clock, and weather vane.

98 The Gudbrandsdal Valley in Oppland County extends ca. 130 miles northwest from Lillehammer at the northern end of Lake Mjøsa. The regional culture is marked by a certain “yeoman aristocracy.” The area has preserved many examples of old farm and stave church architecture and has produced a rich store of legends and fairy tales, such as the Peer Gynt story.

99 Nikolai F. S. Grundtvig (1783-1872), Danish poet, churchman, and educator. He founded the folk high school, a form of adult education designed to foster patriotism and religious convictions in young people. This particular line must have impressed Hamsun; it is repeated in his last work,
På gjengrodde stier
(1949).
See On Overgrown Paths,
trans. by Sverre Lyngstad (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999), p. 202.

128 Henri de Rochefort, Marquis de Rochefort-Luçay (1831-1913), a prolific French nineteenth-century journalist noted for his political adventurism. Over a few decades during the century’s second half he managed to enact a wide gamut of roles, of which the following is a sampling: as an extremely vocal critic of the Second Empire, with periods of exile and imprisonment; an elected deputy (1870), a position from which he resigned after a few days; a supporter of the Paris Commune, imprisoned and subsequently deported to New Caledonia ; and a passionate follower of General Boulanger. See note to p. 67.