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Pelle the Conqueror, Complete by Martin Anderson Nexo

M >> Martin Anderson Nexo >> Pelle the Conqueror, Complete




All this Lasse expounded after they had gone to bed, but Pelle had
something better to do than to listen to it. He was sound asleep
and dreaming that he was Erik himself, and was thrashing the bailiff
with a big stick.




XIV

In Pelle's time, pickled herring was the Bronholmer's most important
article of food. It was the regular breakfast dish in all classes
of society, and in the lower classes it predominated at the supper-
table too--and sometimes appeared at dinner in a slightly altered
form. "It's a bad place for food," people would say derisively of
such-and-such a farm. "You only get herring there twenty-one times
a week."

When the elder was in flower, well-regulated people brought out
their salt-boxes, according to old custom, and began to look out
to sea; the herring is fattest then. From the sloping land, which
nearly everywhere has a glimpse of the sea, people gazed out in the
early summer mornings for the homeward-coming boats. The weather and
the way the boats lay in the water were omens regarding the winter
food. Then the report would come wandering up over the island, of
large hauls and good bargains. The farmers drove to the town or
the fishing-village with their largest wagons, and the herring-man
worked his way up through the country from cottage to cottage with
his horse, which was such a wretched animal that any one would have
been legally justified in putting a bullet through its head.

In the morning, when Pelle opened the stable doors to the field,
the mist lay in every hollow like a pale gray lake, and on the high
land, where the smoke rose briskly from houses and farms, he saw men
and women coming round the gable-ends, half-dressed, or in shirt or
chemise only, gazing out to sea. He himself ran round the out-houses
and peered out toward the sea which lay as white as silver and took
its colors from the day. The red sails were hanging motionless, and
looked like splashes of blood in the brightness of day; the boats
lay deep in the water, and were slowly making their way homeward
in response to the beat of the oars, dragging themselves along like
cows that are near their time for bearing.

But all this had nothing to do with him and his. Stone Farm, like
the poor of the parish, did not buy its herring until after the
autumn, when it was as dry as sticks and cost almost nothing. At
that time of year, herring was generally plentiful, and was sold
for from twopence to twopence-halfpenny the fourscore as long as
the demand continued. After that it was sold by the cartload as
food for the pigs, or went on to the dungheap.

One Sunday morning late in the autumn, a messenger came running
from the town to Stone Farm to say that now herring was to be had.
The bailiff came down into the servants' room while they were at
breakfast, and gave orders that all the working teams were to be
harnessed. "Then you'll have to come too!" said Karl Johan to the
two quarry drivers, who were married and lived up near the quarry,
but came down for meals.

"No, our horses shan't come out of the stable for that!" said
the drivers. "They and we drive only stone and nothing else." They
sat for a little while and indulged in sarcasms at the expense of
certain people who had not even Sunday at their own disposal, and
one of them, as he stretched himself in a particularly irritating
way, said: "Well, I think I'll go home and have a nap. It's nice
to be one's own master once a week, at any rate." So they went home
to wife and children, and kept Sunday holiday.

For a little while the men went about complaining; that was the
regular thing. In itself they had no objection to make to the
expedition, for it would naturally be something of a festivity.
There were taverns enough in the town, and they would take care to
arrange about that herring so that they did not get home much before
evening. If the worst came to the worst, Erik could damage his cart
in driving, and then they would be obliged to stay in town while it
was being mended.

They stood out in the stable, and turned their purses inside out
--big, solid, leather purses with steel locks that could only be
opened by pressure on a secret mechanism; but they were empty.

"The deuce!" said Mons, peering disappointedly into his purse.
"Not so much as the smell of a one-ore! There must be a leak!" He
examined the seams, held it close up to his eyes, and at last put
his ear to it. "Upon my word, I seem to hear a two-krone talking
to itself. It must be witchcraft!" He sighed and put his purse
into his pocket.

"You, you poor devil!" said Anders. "Have you ever spoken to a
two-krone? No, I'm the man for you!" He hauled out a large purse.
"I've still got the ten-krone that the bailiff cheated me out of
on May Day, but I haven't the heart to use it; I'm going to keep
it until I grow old." He put his hand into the empty purse and
pretended to take something out and show it. The others laughed
and joked, and all were in good spirits with the thought of the
trip to town.

"But Erik's sure to have some money at the bottom of his chest!"
said one. "He works for good wages and has a rich aunt down below."

"No, indeed!" whined Erik. "Why, I have to pay for half a score of
young brats who can't father themselves upon any one else. But Karl
Johan must get it, or what's the good of being head man?"

"That's no use," said Karl Johan doubtfully. "If I ask the bailiff
for an advance now when we're going to town, he'll say 'no' straight
out. I wonder whether the girls haven't wages lying by."

They were just coming up from the cow-stable with their milk-pails.

"I say, girls," Erik called out to them. "Can't one of you lend us
ten krones? She shall have twins for it next Easter; the sow farrows
then anyhow."

"You're a nice one to make promises!" said Bengta, standing still,
and they all set down their milk-pails and talked it over. "I wonder
whether Bodil hasn't?" said Karna. "No," answered Maria, "for she
sent the ten krones she had by her to her mother the other day."

Mons dashed his cap to the floor and gave a leap. "I'll go up to
the Old Gentleman himself," he said.

"Then you'll come head first down the stairs, you may be sure!"

"The deuce I will, with my old mother lying seriously ill in the
town, without a copper to pay for doctor or medicine! I'm as good a
child as Bodil, I hope." He turned and went toward the stone steps,
and the others stood and watched him from the stable-door, until the
bailiff came and they had to busy themselves with the carts. Gustav
walked about in his Sunday clothes with a bundle under his arm, and
looked on.

"Why don't you get to work?" asked the bailiff. "Get your horses
put in."

"You said yourself I might be free to-day," said Gustav, making
a grimace. He was going out with Bodil.

"Ah, so I did! But that'll be one cart less. You must have a holiday
another day instead."

"I can't do that."

"What the dee--And why not, may I ask?"

"Well, because you gave me a holiday to-day."

"Yes; but, confound it, man, when I now tell you you can take
another day instead!"

"No, I can't do that."

"But why not, man? Is there anything pressing you want to do?"

"No, but I have been given a holiday to-day." It looked as if Gustav
were grinning slyly, but it was only that he was turning the quid
in his mouth. The bailiff stamped with anger.

"But I can go altogether if you don't care to see me," said Gustav
gently.

The bailiff did not hear, but turned quickly. Experience had taught
him to be deaf to that kind of offer in the busy season. He looked
up at his window as if he had suddenly thought of something, and
sprang up the stairs. They could manage him when they touched upon
that theme, but his turn came in the winter, and then they had to
keep silence and put up with things, so as to keep a roof over their
heads during the slack time.

Gustav went on strutting about with his bundle, without putting his
hand to anything. The others laughed at him encouragingly.

The bailiff came down again and went up to him. "Then put in the
horses before you go," he said shortly, "and I'll drive yours."

An angry growl passed from man to man. "We're to have the dog with
us!" they said in undertones to one another, and then, so that the
bailiff should hear: "Where's the dog? We're to have the dog with
us."

Matters were not improved by Mons coming down the steps with a
beautifully pious expression, and holding a ten-krone note over his
chest. "It's all one now," said Erik; "for we've got to have the
dog with us!" Mons' face underwent a sudden change, and he began
to swear. They pulled the carts about without getting anything done,
and their eyes gleamed with anger.

The bailiff came out upon the steps with his overcoat on. "Look
sharp about getting the horses in!" he thundered.

The men of Stone Farm were just as strict about their order of
precedence as the real inhabitants of the island, and it was just
as complicated. The head man sat at the top of the table and helped
himself first, he went first in mowing and reaping, and had the
first girl to lay the load when the hay was taken in; he was the
first man up, and went first when they set out for the fields,
and no one might throw down his tools until he had done so. After
him came the second man, the third, and so on, and lastly the day-
laborers. When no great personal preference interfered, the head
man was as a matter of course the sweetheart of the head girl, and
so on downwards; and if one of them left, his successor took over
the relation: it was a question of equilibrium. In this, however,
the order of precedence was often broken, but never in the matter
of the horses. Gustav's horses were the poorest, and no power in
the world would have induced the head man or Erik to drive them,
let alone the farmer himself.

The bailiff knew it, and saw how the men were enjoying themselves
when Gustav's nags were put in. He concealed his irritation, but
when they exultantly placed Gustav's cart hindmost in the row, it
was too much for him, and he ordered it to be driven in front of
the others.

"My horses aren't accustomed to go behind the tail-pullers!" said
Karl Johan, throwing down his reins. It was the nickname for the
last in the row. The others stood trying not to smile, and the
bailiff was almost boiling over.

"If you're so bent upon being first, be it by all means," he said
quietly. "I can very well drive behind you."

"No, my horses come after the head man's, not after the
tail-puller's," said Erik.

This was really a term of abuse in the way in which they used it,
one after the other, with covert glances. If he was going to put
up with this from the whole row, his position on the farm would be
untenable.

"Yes, and mine go behind Erik's," began Anders now, "not after--
after Gustav's," he corrected himself quickly, for the bailiff had
fixed his eyes upon him, and taken a step forward to knock him down.

The bailiff stood silent for a moment as if listening, the muscles
of his arms quivering. Then he sprang into the cart.

"You're all out of your senses to-day," he said. "But now I'm going
to drive first, and the man who dares to say a word against it shall
have one between the eyes that will send him five days into next
week!" So saying he swung out of the row, and Erik's horses, which
wanted to turn, received a cut from his whip that made them rear.
Erik stormed at them.

The men went about crestfallen, and gave the bailiff time to get
well ahead. "Well, I suppose we'd better see about starting now,"
said Karl Johan at length, as he got into his wagon. The bailiff
was already some way ahead; Gustav's nags were doing their very best
to-day, and seemed to like being in front. But Karl Johan's horses
were displeased, and hurried on; they did not approve of the new
arrangement.

At the village shop they made a halt, and consoled themselves
a little. When they started again, Karl Johan's horses were
refractory, and had to be quieted.

The report of the catch had spread through the country, and carts
from other farms caught them up or crossed them on their way to the
fishing-villages. Those who lived nearer the town were already on
their way home with swaying loads. "Shall we Meet in the town for
a drink?" cried one man to Karl Johan as he passed. "I'm coming in
for another load."

"No, we're driving for the master to-day!" answered Karl Johan,
pointing to the bailiff in front.

"Yes, I see him. He's driving a fine pair to-day! I thought it was
King Lazarus!"

An acquaintance of Karl Johan's came toward them with a swaying
load of herring. He was the only man on one of the small farms.
"So you've been to the town too for winter food," said Karl Johan,
reining in his horse.

"Yes, for the pigs!" answered the other. "It was laid in for the
rest of us at the end of the summer. This isn't food for men!" And
he took up a herring between his fingers, and pretended to break it
in two.

"No, I suppose not for such fine gentlemen," answered Karl Johan
snappishly. "Of course, you're in such a high station that you eat
at the same table as your master and mistress, I've heard."

"Yes, that's the regular custom at our place," answered the other.
"We know nothing about masters and dogs." And he drove on. The words
rankled with Karl Johan, he could not help drawing comparisons.

They had caught up the bailiff, and now the horses became unruly.
They kept trying to pass and took every unlooked-for opportunity of
pushing on, so that Karl Johan nearly drove his team into the back
of the bailiff's cart. At last he grew tired of holding them in,
and gave them the rein, when they pushed out over the border of the
ditch and on in front of Gustav's team, danced about a little on the
high-road, and then became quiet. Now it was Erik's horses that were
mad.

At the farm all the laborers' wives had been called in for the
afternoon, the young cattle were in the enclosure, and Pelle ran
from cottage to cottage with the message. He was to help the women
together with Lasse, and was delighted with this break in the daily
routine; it was a whole holiday for him.

At dinner-time the men came home with their heavy loads of herring,
which were turned out upon the stone paving round the pump in
the upper yard. There had been no opportunity for them to enjoy
themselves in the town, and they were in a bad temper. Only Mons,
the ape, went about grinning all over his face. He had been up to
his sick mother with the money for the doctor and medicine, and came
back at the last minute with a bundle under his arm in the best of
spirits. "That was a medicine!" he said over and over again,
smacking his lips, "a mighty strong medicine."

He had had a hard time with the bailiff before he got leave to go on
his errand. The bailiff was a suspicious man, but it was difficult
to hold out against Mons' trembling voice when he urged that it
would be too hard on a poor man to deny him the right to help his
sick mother. "Besides, she lives close by here, and perhaps I shall
never see her again in this life," said Mons mournfully. "And then
there's the money that the master advanced me for it. Shall I go and
throw it away on drink, while she's lying there without enough to
buy bread with?"

"Well, how was your mother?" asked the bailiff, when Mons came
hurrying up at the last moment.

"Oh, she can't last much longer!" said Mons, with a quiver in his
voice. But he was beaming all over his face.

The others threw him angry glances while they unloaded the herring.
They would have liked to thrash him for his infernal good luck. But
they recovered when they got into their room and he undid the bundle.
"That's to you all from my sick mother!" he said, and drew forth a
keg of spirits. "And I was to give you her best respects, and thank
you for being so good to her little son."

"Where did you go?" asked Erik.

"I sat in the tavern on the harbor hill all the time, so as to
keep an eye on you; I couldn't resist looking at you, you looked
so delightfully thirsty. I wonder you didn't lie down flat and
drink out of the sea, every man Jack of you!"

In the afternoon the cottagers' wives and the farm-girls sat round
the great heaps of herring by the pump, and cleaned the fish. Lasse
and Pelle pumped water to rinse them in, and cleaned out the big
salt-barrels that the men rolled up from the cellar; and two of
the elder women were entrusted with the task of mixing. The bailiff
walked up and down by the front steps and smoked his pipe.

As a general rule, the herring-pickling came under the category of
pleasant work, but to-day there was dissatisfaction all along the
line. The women chattered freely as they worked, but their talk was
not quite innocuous--it was all carefully aimed; the men had made
them malicious. When they laughed, there was the sound of a hidden
meaning in their laughter. The men had to be called out and given
orders about every single thing that had to be done; they went about
it sullenly, and then at once withdrew to their rooms. But when
there they were all the gayer, and sang and enjoyed themselves.

"They're doing themselves proud in there," said Lasse, with a sigh
to Pelle. "They've got a whole keg of spirits that Mons had hidden
in his herring. They say it's so extra uncommon good." Lasse had not
tasted it himself.

The two kept out of the wrangling; they felt themselves too weak.
The girls had not had the courage to refuse the extra Sunday work,
but they were not afraid to pass little remarks, and tittered at
nothing, to make the bailiff think it was at him. They kept on
asking in a loud voice what the time was, or stopped working to
listen to the ever-increasing gaiety in the men's rooms. Now and
then a man was thrown out from there into the yard, and shuffled
in again, shamefaced and grinning.

One by one the men came sauntering out. They had their caps on the
back of their heads now, and their gaze was fixed. They took up
a position in the lower yard, and hung over the fence, looking at
the girls, every now and then bursting into a laugh and stopping
suddenly, with a frightened glance at the bailiff.

The bailiff was walking up and down by the steps. He had laid
aside his pipe and become calmer; and when the men came out, he
was cracking a whip and exercising himself in self-restraint.

"If I liked I could bend him until both ends met!" he heard Erik
say aloud in the middle of a conversation. The bailiff earnestly
wished that Erik would make the attempt. His muscles were burning
under this unsatisfied desire to let himself go; but his brain was
reveling in visions of fights, he was grappling with the whole flock
and going through all the details of the battle. He had gone through
these battles so often, especially of late; he had thought out all
the difficult situations, and there was not a place in all Stone
Farm in which the things that would serve as weapons were not known
to him.

"What's the time?" asked one of the girls aloud for at least the
twentieth time.

"A little longer than your chemise," answered Erik promptly.

The girls laughed. "Oh, nonsense! Tell us what it really is!"
exclaimed another.

"A quarter to the miller's girl," answered Anders.

"Oh, what fools you are! Can't you answer properly? You, Karl
Johan!"

"It's short!" said Karl Johan gravely.

"No, seriously now, I'll tell you what it is," exclaimed Mons
innocently, drawing a great "turnip" out of his pocket. "It's--" he
looked carefully at the watch, and moved his lips as if calculating.
"The deuce!" he exclaimed, bringing down his hand in amazement on
the fence. "Why, it's exactly the same time as it was this time
yesterday."

The jest was an old one, but the women screamed with laughter; for
Mons was the jester.

"Never mind about the time," said the bailiff, coming up. "But try
and get through your work."

"No, time's for tailors and shoemakers, not for honest people!"
said Anders in an undertone.

The bailiff turned upon him as quick as a cat, and Anders' arm
darted up above his head bent as if to ward off a blow. The bailiff
merely expectorated with a scornful smile, and began his pacing up
and down afresh, and Anders stood there, red to the roots of his
hair, and not knowing what to do with his eyes. He scratched the
back of his head once or twice, but that could not explain away that
strange movement of his arm. The others were laughing at him, so he
hitched up his trousers and sauntered down toward the men's rooms,
while the women screamed with laughter, and the men laid their heads
upon the fence and shook with merriment.

So the day passed, with endless ill-natured jesting and spitefulness.
In the evening the men wandered out to indulge in horse-play on the
high-road and annoy the passersby. Lasse and Pelle were tired, and
went early to bed.

"Thank God we've got through this day!" said Lasse, when he had
got into bed. "It's been a regular bad day. It's a miracle that no
blood's been shed; there was a time when the bailiff looked as if
he might do anything. But Erik must know far he can venture."

Next morning everything seemed to be forgotten. The men attended to
the horses as usual, and at six o'clock went out into the field for
a third mowing of clover. They looked blear-eyed, heavy and dull.
The keg lay outside the stable-door empty; and as they went past
they kicked it.

Pelle helped with the herring to-day too, but he no longer found
it amusing. He was longing already to be out in the open with his
cattle; and here he had to be at everybody's beck and call. As often
as he dared, he made some pretext for going outside the farm, for
that helped to make the time pass.

Later in the morning, while the men were mowing the thin clover,
Erik flung down his scythe so that it rebounded with a ringing
sound from the swaths. The others stopped their work.

"What's the matter with you, Erik?" asked Karl Johan. "Have you got
a bee in your bonnet?"

Erik stood with his knife in his hand, feeling its edge, and neither
heard nor saw. Then he turned up his face and frowned at the sky;
his eyes seemed to have sunk into his head and become blind, and
his lips stood out thick. He muttered a few inarticulate sounds,
and started up toward the farm.

The others stood still and followed him with staring eyes; then one
after another they threw down their scythes and moved away, only
Karl Johan remaining where he was.

Pelle had just come out to the enclosure to see that none of the
young cattle had broken their way out. "When he saw the men coming
up toward the farm in a straggling file like a herd of cattle on
the move, he suspected something was wrong and ran in.

"The men are coming up as fast as they can, father!" he whispered.

"They're surely not going to do it?" said Lasse, beginning to
tremble.

The bailiff was carrying things from his room down to the pony-
carriage; he was going to drive to the town. He had his arms full
when Erik appeared at the big, open gate below, with distorted face
and a large, broad-bladed knife in his hand. "Where the devil is
he?" he said aloud, and circled round once with bent head, like an
angry bull, and then walked up through the fence straight toward the
bailiff. The latter started when he saw him and, through the gate,
the others coming up full speed behind him. He measured the distance
to the steps, but changed his mind, and advanced toward Erik,
keeping behind the wagon and watching every movement that Erik made,
while he tried to find a weapon. Erik followed him round the wagon,
grinding his teeth and turning his eyes obliquely up at his
opponent.

The bailiff went round and round the wagon and made half movements;
he could not decide what to do. But then the others came up and
blocked his way. His face turned white with fear, and he tore a
whiffletree from the wagon, which with a push he sent rolling into
the thick of them, so that they fell back in confusion. This made
an open space between him and Erik, and Erik sprang quickly over
the pole, with his knife ready to strike; but as he sprang, the
whiffletree descended upon his head. The knife-thrust fell upon the
bailiff's shoulder, but it was feeble, and the knife just grazed
his side as Erik sank to the ground. The others stood staring in
bewilderment.

"Carry him down to the mangling-cellar!" cried the bailiff in a
commanding tone, and the men dropped their knives and obeyed.

The battle had stirred Pelle's blood into a tumult, and he was
standing by the pump, jumping up and down. Lasse had to take a firm
hold of him, for it looked as if he would throw himself into the
fight. Then when the great strong Erik sank to the ground insensible
from a blow on the head, he began to jump as if he had St. Vitus's
Dance. He jumped into the air with drooping head, and let himself
fall heavily, all the time uttering short, shrill bursts of laughter.
Lasse spoke to him angrily, thinking it was unnecessarily foolish
behavior on his part; and then he picked him up and held him firmly
in his hands, while the little fellow trembled all over his body in
his efforts to free himself and go on with his jumping.

John Crace digests High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
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Review: Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler by Margarete Buber-Neumann

He might be almost 90 years old in real terms, but Christopher Robin and his bear of very little brain are set to make a literary comeback after the estate of AA Milne agreed to authorise the first-ever official sequel to the much-loved children's books.

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood by author David Benedictus picks up from the poignant ending of Milne's last Pooh book, The House at Pooh Corner, in which Christopher Robin is growing up and heading away to school. "Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred," he tells the bear, and they leave together.

The estates of Milne and EH Shepard, who provided the simple but enduring illustrations for the books, said they had been searching for a sequel that would do justice to the original stories for "a good many years".

Although Disney has franchised the characters in a number of films, there has not previously been an authorised literary sequel to Milne's books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, first published in 1926 and 1928. Milne wrote the books for his son Christopher Robin, naming Pooh after his teddy bear.

The sequel, to be published by Egmont Publishing in Britain and Penguin imprint Dutton Children's Books in the US, is due out on 5 October, illustrated by Mark Burgess. Benedictus, who is familiar with the world of Winnie the Pooh after adapting and producing audio versions of the books starring Judi Dench, Stephen Fry and Jane Horrocks, did not reveal any more details, but promised that the book would both "complement and maintain Milne's idea that whatever happens, a little boy and his bear will always be playing".

Michael Brown, chairman of Pooh Properties, which manages the affairs of the Milne and Shepard estates, said the sequel would capture "the spirit and quality" of the original books.

Benedictus said all Milne's well-loved characters, from Tigger to Eeyore, would be making an appearance in his sequel, which features 10 stories and around 150 illustrations. The stories retain their original 1920s setting.

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Review: The Error World: An Affair with Stamps by Simon Garfield

One might say that Margarete Buber-Neumann had a charmed life, had it not been so horrible. She was fortunate - if that is the word - to be sent to a Soviet labour camp in 1939, during a momentary lull in the mass shooting of prisoners. Handed over to the Nazis in 1940, she was similarly lucky to be released from an SS concentration camp in 1945, just days before the remaining prisoners were forced on evacuation marches ending in death. It is a measure of the dismal times she lived through that such events marked her as fortunate, and it is a testament to her skill as a writer that this thoughtful, humane memoir (published in English in 1949) became an international bestseller. From the very first page we are with her, scurrying through Moscow surrounded by images of Stalin. We accompany her throughout the gruelling years ahead, encountering a host of characters, good and bad, and share in her dogged attempt to make sense of the madness of totalitarianism. This revised text is the definitive edition.

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