THE A M E RIC A N-S C A N DIN A VI AN REVIEW 
671 
character analysis in this 
work that deserves special 
mention. Henning Berger 
usually employs a host of 
chaTacters and the indi¬ 
vidual is sometimes swal¬ 
lowed up in the crowd. 
But in this book we find 
excellent character studies 
of two big Jewish finan¬ 
ciers, Martin Lootring and 
Ludwig Heyman. He 
has drawn their Jewish 
characteristics with un¬ 
canny accuracy. Further¬ 
more, there is Martin 
Loot r i n g’s depraved 
daughter, Dyveke, with 
her perverted, insatiable 
sensualism, and beautiful 
Lisken, a devotee of ab¬ 
sinthe, forever seeking 
new and more thrilling ex¬ 
periences as she dances at 
night with negroes and 
mulattoes in public dance- 
halls. Besides this more or less degenerate lot we find other charac¬ 
ters sketched with great sympathy and tenderness. Such are the 
young bank employee who has embezzled to satisfy the insatiable 
longing for luxury of the wife he adored, and the loyal old servant 
whose only interest lies in faithfully serving her master, and who 
through this has discovered the true meaning of life. One of the most 
beautiful and touching passages of the book is when Ake Bagge learns 
of the death of his divorced wife, and the old servant enters with all 
the photographs of the departed one, which she has carefully preserved 
and now puts back in their accustomed places. 
The most difficult of all arts is what Almquist calls the art of 
writing the conclusion.’’ Every faulty line stands mercilessly revealed 
in the final perspective. There is scarcely sufficient motive for the 
mysticism that Berger introduces at this point. There is also a lack 
of unity between the various stages of the novel, and the composition 
is too loosely knit, possibly owing to the fact that Henning Berger is 
more familiar with the form of the short story. As a matter of fact the 
continuity of the novel is preserved by Ake Bagge, the author s altei 
ego, to whom all these things happen, and who passes to and f 1 o 
Henning Berger 
