The main thread of the story bears a certain similarity to that of Mysterier, Vicioria, and Pan, being a love affair of mazy windings, a tangled skein of loves-me-loves-me-not.  But it is pure comedy throughout.  Rolandsen, the telegraph operator in love with Elsie Mack, is no poet; he has not even any pretensions to education or social standing.  He is a cheerful, riotous “blade,” who sports with the girls of the village, gets drunk at times, and serenades the parson’s wife at night with his guitar. Svoermere is the slightest of little stories in itself, but full of delightful vagaries and the most winning humour.

The story of Benoni, with its continuation Rosa, is in like vein; a tenderly humorous portrayal of love below stairs, the principal characters being chosen from the class who appear as supers in Pan; subjects or retainers of the all-powerful Trader Mack.  It is as if the sub-plots in one of Shakespeare’s plays had been taken out for separate presentment, and the clown promoted to be hero in a play of his own.  The cast is increased, the milieu lightly drawn in Pan is now shown more comprehensively and in detail, making us gradually acquainted with a whole little community, a village world, knowing little of any world beyond, and forming a microcosm in itself.

Hamsun has returned, as it were, to the scene of his passionate youth, but in altered guise.  He plays no part himself now, but is an onlooker, a stander-by, chronicling, as from a cloistered aloofness, yet with kindly wisdom always, the little things that matter in the lives of those around him.  Wisdom and kindliness, sympathy and humour and understanding, these are the dominant notes of the new phase. Svoermere ends happily—­for it is a story of other people’s lives.  So also with Benoni and Rosa at the last.  And so surely has the author established his foothold on the new ground that he can even bring in Edvarda, the “Iselin” figure from Pan, once more, thus linking up his brave and lusty comedies of middle age with the romantic tragedies of his youth, making a comprehensive pageant-play of large-hearted humanity.

Meantime, the effect upon himself is seen—­and avowed.  Between Svoermere and Benoni comes the frankly first-personal narrative of a vagabond who describes himself, upon interrogation, as “Knut Pedersen”—­which is two-thirds of Knut Pedersen Hamsund—­and hailing from Nordland—­which embraces Lofoten.

It does not need any showing of paper, however, to establish the identity of Knut Pedersen, vagabond, with the author of Pan.  The opening words of the book ("Under Hoeststjaernen”) are enough.  “Indian summer, mild and warm ... it is many years now since I knew such peace.  Twenty or thirty years maybe—­or maybe it was in another life.  But I have felt it some time, surely, since I go about now humming a little tune; go about rejoicing, loving every straw and every stone, and feeling as if they cared for me in return....”