Mysteries - Knut Hamsun [167]
8 294/269. Deleted in CW: “he gets to be so common. But by becoming common he becomes classical, turning into the well-known classic type of a common imitator, and since anything classical—absolutely everything—is so damned boring, common classic virtue also becomes boring, ergo, Tolstoy becomes boring. Well, that’s quite another matter. So, he remains important—that is, important as a boring, common old man.” The phrase “Yes, that’s the trouble” was added in CW.
9 294/269. Deleted in CW: “and lunatics. I’ll just say, if only we had many such common, boring benefactors in the world. People with hearts like Tolstoy aren’t usually accused of being dried up, that I’ve never heard before. As far as I can see, it is precisely because their hearts are warm and young that they can make such personal sacrifices, as you yourself mentioned.”
10 295/270. Up to this point of the paragraph, the P text reads:
“Come, come!” Nagel said, laughing. “But let’s drink first, skoal! ... You should be able to produce better objections, come up with a stronger defense. I’m not very polite, am I? No, you’re quite right, I’m not. Well, you are free to reciprocate, of course.”
11 300-01/272. The teacher’s interruption was added in CW. The P text reads from “Bravo” to this point: “Well, we agreed, didn’t we, that we could express our opinions rather drastically—the more so as you yourself have set the tone?”
“Certainly we did! And you’re right in saying I’ve jabbered too much. But what was it I wanted to say? So, Tolstoy’s worldwide fame is supposed to be proof of his great mind! Why? Tolstoy’s fame is nothing but popularity, and to win popularity requires some measure of stupidity, moral and spiritual stupidity; one simply has to ... I see you’re getting impatient, Doctor, as you have every right to bell”;
12 304/274. In P, the rest of the paragraph reads: “If I understand you correctly, you’re not altogether contemptuous of the Salvation Army? It’s not just nonsense, is it?”
13 304/274. In P, the rest of the paragraph reads: really meant to defend that nonsense.
14 305/274. Instead of the rest of this sentence, P contains the following passage: “from you. I don’t know you, of course, but as far as I can tell, in several respects you are a more extreme radical than any of us, whereas here you’re completely off.”
15 305-06/274. So far this paragraph is new; the following long passage from P was deleted in CW:
“What if we suppose, Doctor, that to hold an opinion directly contrary to our loudmouthed liberalism is also radical, when all is said and done? Well, we’ll skip that! But I don’t agree with what you said about the criticism either. A critic takes a metaphysical problem on his fork and ‘cuts it up.’ By the way, have you ever visited a horse fair, witnessed a horse swap? No? Well, anyway, we were supposed to talk about criticism, those sharp, pointed, extremely talented stabs by the fork at the metaphysical realm. What do you think? I find it rather cheap, it’s vulgar hair-splitting, peasant logic. On page 34 Pastor Hjelm says such and such, but, on the other hand, on page 108 Pastor Hjelm says so and so; this shows Pastor Hjelm’s way with logic! It seems to me this is exceedingly short on tolerance, anything but highbrow. For we understood what the man meant in both instances, but we have to catch him in a formal contradiction, to entrap him with his own words. But despite this Chinese nitpicking,