Shaving Book

The Shaving Book is a small booklet containing six barber's tickets, a remnant of the protagonist's former life that he carries through his starvation in Christiania. It represents a last, fragile link to the appearance of a respectable man, a resource he counts and re-counts as a measure of his dwindling worth.

Identity and Material Significance

The Shaving Book is a booklet of tickets issued by barbers at cheaper rates, as few men in Norway shave themselves. The protagonist discovers it in his pocket while sitting in the park, and he counts six tickets inside. The discovery immediately lifts his spirits: he exclaims involuntarily, "The Lord be praised," and smooths the leaves out carefully before putting the book safely back into his pocket. This small property, worth nearly a shilling, gives him a momentary sense of security and a better frame of mind. The book is a tangible object that, unlike his other possessions, has not yet been pawned or consumed.

Attempted Exchange and Failed Transaction

As hunger intensifies, the protagonist considers converting the Shaving Book into food. He thinks of approaching a young acquaintance, a bank clerk, and offering the tickets in exchange for sixpence. He searches nervously for the precious treasure, springing to his feet in a sweat of fear when he cannot find it quickly, and discovers it at last in the bottom of his breast-pocket together with other papers. He counts the six tickets over many times, backwards and forwards, and decides he has not much use for them—it might pass for a whim that he no longer cares to get shaved. He feels saved to the extent of sixpence, a white sixpence of Kongsberg silver. To make the offer more appealing, he unties his large overlapping bow tie, brushes it carefully, and folds it up in a piece of clean white writing-paper together with the tickets. He then goes to the Opland Café to wait for the young man. When he finally meets him, he blurts out, "Sixpence, old friend! here is the worth of it," and thrusts the little packet into his hand. The young man, however, turns his purse inside out and declares he has no money, having been cleared out the night before. The protagonist, touched by the man's apparent sincerity, tells him to keep the packet anyway, saying it contains "only a few trifles... a bagatelle; about all I own in the world." The transaction fails, and the Shaving Book is given away without any return.

Narrative Role and Thematic Significance

The Shaving Book functions as a material marker of the protagonist's gradual descent. It is one of the last objects he possesses that still connects him to the routines of civilized life—the act of being shaved, of maintaining a decent appearance. Its presence in his pocket provides a fleeting sense of wealth and hope, but its attempted exchange for food ends in failure, underscoring the impossibility of converting the remnants of his former respectability into sustenance. The book's journey from a source of comfort to a gift given in desperation mirrors the protagonist's own trajectory from a man who still has something to offer to one who has nothing left but the objects of his own degradation. The Shaving Book, like the waistcoat, the blanket, and the pencil, is a thing that carries the weight of his lost honor and his persistent, futile attempts to survive.