William Makepeace Thackeray - "Ballads"

Henrik Ibsen - "Early Plays"

Johann Wolfgang Goethe - "Prometheus"

Robert Barr - "The Strong Arm"

A  /  B  /  C  /  D  /  E  /   F  /  G  /  H  /  I  /  J  /   K  /  L  /  M  /  N  /  O   P  /  R  /  S  /  T  /  U  /  V  /  W  /  X  /  Y  /  Z

Pelle the Conqueror, Complete by Martin Anderson Nexo

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




The steamer was on the point of taking in cargo; the steam derricks
were busy at both hatches, squealing each time they swung round in
another direction. Holm became so light on his legs one might have
thought he was treading on needles; when the derrick swung round
over the quay and the chain came rattling down, he ran right back
to the granary. Pelle wanted to take him on board, but he would not
hear of it. "It looks a bad-tempered monster," he said: "look how
it sneezes and fusses!"

On the quay, by the forward hold, the goods of a poverty-stricken
household lay all mixed together. A man stood there holding a
mahogany looking-glass, the only article of value, in his arms. His
expression was gloomy. By the manner in which he blew his nose--with
his knuckles instead of with his fingers--one could see that he had
something unaccustomed on hand. His eyes were fixed immovably on his
miserable household possessions, and they anxiously followed every
breakable article as it went its airy way into the vessel's maw.
His wife and children were sitting on the quay-wall, eating out of
a basket of provisions. They had been sitting there for hours. The
children were tired and tearful; the mother was trying to console
them, and to induce them to sleep on the stone.

"Shan't we start soon?" they asked continually, in complaining
tones.

"Yes, the ship starts directly, but you must be very good or
I shan't take you with me. And then you'll come to the capital city,
where they eat white bread and always wear leather boots. The King
himself lives there, and they've got everything in the shops there."
She arranged her shawl under their heads.

"But that's Per Anker's son from Blaaholt!" cried Holm, when he had
been standing a while on the quay and had caught sight of the man.
"What, are you leaving the country?"

"Yes, I've decided to do so," said the man, in an undertone, passing
his hand over his face.

"And I thought you were doing so well! Didn't you go to Ostland,
and didn't you take over a hotel there?"

"Yes, they enticed me out there, and now I've lost everything
there."

"You ought to have considered--considering costs nothing but
a little trouble."

"But they showed me false books, which showed a greater surplus
than there really was. Shipowner Monsen was behind the whole affair,
together with the brewer from the mainland, who had taken the hotel
over in payment of outstanding debts."

"But how did big folks like that manage to smell you out?" Holm
scratched his head; he didn't understand the whole affair.

"Oh, they'd heard of the ten thousand, of course, which I'd
inherited from my father. They throw their nets out for sums like
that, and one day they sent an agent to see me. Ten thousand was
just enough for the first instalment, and now they have taken the
hotel over again. Out of compassion, they let me keep this trash
here." He suddenly turned his face away and wept; and then his wife
came swiftly up to him.

Holm drew Pelle away. "They'd rather be rid of us," he said quietly;
and he continued to discuss the man's dismal misfortune, while they
strolled out along the mole. But Pelle was not listening to him. He
had caught sight of a little schooner which was cruising outside,
and was every moment growing more restless.

"I believe that's the Iceland schooner!" he said at last. "So
I must go back."

"Yes, run off," said Holm, "and many thanks for your guidance,
and give my respects to Lasse and Karna."

On the harbor hill Pelle met Master Jeppe, and farther on Drejer,
Klaussen, and Blom. The Iceland boat had kept them waiting for
several months; the news that she was in the roads quickly spread,
and all the shoemakers of the whole town were hurrying down to the
harbor, in order to hear whether good business had been done before
the gangway was run out.

"The Iceland boat is there now!" said the merchants and leather-
dealers, when they saw the shoemakers running by. "We must make
haste and make out our bills, for now the shoemakers will be having
money."

But the skipper had most of the boots and shoes still in his hold;
he returned with the terrifying news that no more boots and shoes
could be disposed of in Iceland. The winter industry had been of
great importance to the shoemakers.

"What does this mean?" asked Jeppe angrily. "You have been long
enough about it! Have you been trying to open another agency over
there? In others years you have managed to sell the whole lot."

"I have done what I could," replied the captain gloomily. "I offered
them to the dealers in big parcels, and then I lay there and carried
on a retail trade from the ship. Then I ran down the whole west
coast; but there is nothing to be done."

"Well, well," said Jeppe, "but do the Icelanders mean to go without
boots?"

"There's the factories," replied the captain.

"The factories, the factories!" Jeppe laughed disdainfully, but
with a touch of uncertainty. "You'll tell me next that they can
make shoes by machinery--cut out and peg and sew and fix the treads
and all? No, damn it, that can only be done by human hands directed
by human intelligence. Shoemaking is work for men only. Perhaps I
myself might be replaced by a machine--by a few cog-wheels that go
round and round! Bah! A machine is dead, I know that, and it can't
think or adapt itself to circumstances; you may have to shape the
boot in a particular way for a special foot, on account of tender
toes, or--here I give the sole a certain cut in the instep, so that
it looks smart, or--well, one has to be careful, or one cuts into
the upper!"

"There are machines which make boots, and they make them cheaper
than you, too," said the skipper brusquely.

"I should like to see them! Can you show me a boot that hasn't
been made by human hands?" Jeppe laughed contemptuously. "No;
there's something behind all this, by God! Some one is trying to
play us a trick!" The skipper went his way, offended.

Jeppe stuck to it that there was something uncanny about it--the
idea of a machine making boots was enough to haunt him. He kept
on returning to it.

"They'll be making human beings by machinery too, soon!" he
exclaimed angrily.

"No," said Baker Jorgen; "there, I believe, the old method will
survive!"

One day the skipper came in at the workshop door, banged a pair of
shoes down on the window-bench, and went out again. They had been
bought in England, and belonged to the helmsman of a bark which had
just come into the harbor. The young master looked at them, turned
them over in his hands, and looked at them again. Then he called
Jeppe. They were sewn throughout--shoes for a grown man, yet sewn
throughout! Moreover, the factory stamp was under the sole.

In Jeppe's opinion they were not worth a couple of shillings. But
he could not get over the fact that they were machine-made.

"Then we are superfluous," he said, in a quavering voice. All his
old importance seemed to have fallen from him. "For if they can make
the one kind on a machine, they can make another. The handicraft is
condemned to death, and we shall all be without bread one fine day!
Well, I, thank God, have not many years before me." It was the first
time that Jeppe had admitted that he owed his life to God.

Every time he came into the workshop he began to expatiate on the
same subject. He would stand there turning the hated shoes over
between his hands. Then he would criticize them. "We must take more
pains next winter."

"Father forgets it's all up with us now," said the young master
wearily.

Then the old man would be silent and hobble out. But after a time
he would be back again, fingering the boots and shoes, in order to
discover defects in them. His thoughts were constantly directed upon
this new subject; no song of praise, no eulogy of his handicraft,
passed his lips nowadays. If the young master came to him and asked
his help in some difficult situation, he would refuse it; he felt
no further desire to triumph over youth with his ancient dexterity,
but shuffled about and shrank into himself. "And all that we have
thought so highly of--what's to become of it?" he would ask. "For
machines don't make masterpieces and medal work, so where will real
good work come in?"

The young master did not look so far ahead; he thought principally
of the money that was needed. "Devil take it, Pelle, how are we
going to pay every one, Pelle?" he would ask dejectedly. Little
Nikas had to look out for something else; their means would not
allow them to keep a journeyman. So Nikas decided to marry, and
to set up as a master shoemaker in the north. The shoemaker of
the Baptist community had just died, and he could get plenty of
customers by joining the sect; he was already attending their
services. "But go to work carefully!" said Jeppe. "Or matters
will go awry!"

It was a bad shock to all of them. Klaussen went bankrupt and had to
find work on the new harbor. Blom ran away, deserting his wife and
children, and they had to go home to the house of her parents. In
the workshop matters had been getting worse for a long time. And now
this had happened, throwing a dazzling light upon the whole question.
But the young master refused to believe the worst. "I shall soon be
well again now," he said. "And then you will just see how I'll work
up the business!" He lay in bed more often now, and was susceptible
to every change in the weather. Pelle had to see to everything.

"Run and borrow something!" the master would say. And if Pelle
returned with a refusal, he would look at the boy with his wide,
wondering eyes. "They've got the souls of grocers!" he would cry.
"Then we must peg those soles!"

"That won't answer with ladies' patent-leather shoes!" replied
Pelle very positively.

"Damn and blast it all, it will answer! We'll black the bottom
with cobbler's wax."

But when the black was trodden off, Jungfer Lund and the others
called, and were wroth. They were not accustomed to walk in pegged
shoes. "It's a misunderstanding!" said the young master, the
perspiration standing in clear beads on his forehead. Or he would
hide and leave it to Pelle. When it was over, he would reach up to
the shelf, panting with exhaustion. "Can't you do anything for me,
Pelle?" he whispered.

One day Pelle plucked up courage and said it certainly wasn't
healthy to take so much spirit; the master needed so much now.

"Healthy?" said the master; "no, good God, it isn't healthy! But the
beasts demand it! In the beginning I couldn't get the stuff down,
especially beer; but now I've accustomed myself to it. If I didn't
feed them, they'd soon rush all over me and eat me up."

"Do they swallow it, then?"

"I should think they do! As much as ever you like to give them. Or
have you ever seen me tipsy? I can't get drunk; the tubercles take
it all. And for them it's sheer poison. On the day when I am able
to get drunk again I shall thank God, for then the beasts will be
dead and the spirit will be able to attack me again. Then it'll only
be a question of stopping it, otherwise it'll play the deuce with my
mind!"

Since the journeyman had left, the meals had become more meager than
ever. The masters had not had enough money in the spring to buy a
pig. So there was no one to consume the scraps. Now they had to eat
them all themselves. Master Andres was never at the table; he took
scarcely any nourishment nowadays; a piece of bread-and-butter now
and again, that was all. Breakfast, at half-past seven, they ate
alone. It consisted of salt herrings, bread and hog's lard, and
soup. The soup was made out of all sorts of odds and ends of bread
and porridge, with an addition of thin beer. It was fermented and
unpalatable. What was left over from breakfast was put into a great
crock which stood in one corner of the kitchen, on the floor, and
this was warmed up again the next morning, with the addition of a
little fresh beer. So it went on all the year round. The contents
were renewed only when some one kicked the crock so that it broke.
The boys confined themselves to the herrings and the lard; the soup
they did not use except to fish about in it. They made a jest of it,
throwing all sorts of objects into it, and finding them again after
half a year.

Jeppe was still lying in the alcove, asleep; his nightcap was
hoved awry over one eye. Even in his sleep he still had a comical
expression of self-importance. The room was thick with vapor; the
old man had his own way of getting air, breathing it in with a long
snort and letting it run rumbling through him. If it got too bad,
the boys would make a noise; then he would wake and scold them.

They were longing for food by dinner-time; the moment Jeppe called
his "Dinner!" at the door they threw everything down, ranged
themselves according to age, and tumbled in behind him. They held
one another tightly by the coat-tails, and made stupid grimaces.
Jeppe was enthroned at the head of the table, a little cap on his
head, trying to preserve seemly table-manners. No one might begin
before him or continue after he had finished. They snatched at
their spoons, laid them down again with a terrified glance at the
old man, and nearly exploded with suppressed laughter. "Yes, I'm
very hungry to-day, but there's no need for you to remark it!" he
would say warningly, once they were in full swing. Pelle would wink
at the others, and they would go on eating, emptying one dish after
another. "There's no respect nowadays!" roared Jeppe, striking on
the table. But when he did this discipline suddenly entered into
them, and they all struck the table after him in turn. Sometimes,
when matters got too bad, Master Andres had to find some reason
for coming into the room.

The long working-hours, the bad food, and the foul air of the
workshop left their mark on Pelle. His attachment to Master Andres
was limitless; he could sit there till midnight and work without
payment if a promise had been made to finish some particular job.
But otherwise he was imperceptibly slipping into the general
slackness, sharing the others' opinion of the day as something
utterly abominable, which one must somehow endeavor to get through.
To work at half pressure was a physical necessity; his rare
movements wearied him, and he felt less inclined to work than to
brood. The semi-darkness of the sunless workshop bleached his skin
and filled him with unhealthy imaginations.

He did little work now on his own account; but he had learned to
manage with very little. Whenever he contrived to get hold of a
ten-ore piece, he bought a savings-stamp, so that in this way he
was able to collect a few shillings, until they had grown to quite
a little sum. Now and again, too, he got a little help from Lasse,
but Lasse found it more and more difficult to spare anything.
Moreover, he had learned to compose his mind by his work.




XIX

The crazy Anker was knocking on the workshop door. "Bjerregrav is
dead!" he said solemnly. "Now there is only one who can mourn over
poverty!" Then he went away and announced the news to Baker Jorgen.
They heard him going from house to house, all along the street.

Bjerregrav dead! Only yesterday evening he was sitting yonder, on
the chair by the window-bench, and his crutch was standing in the
corner by the door; and he had offered them all his hand in his
odd, ingenuous way--that unpleasantly flabby hand, at whose touch
they all felt a certain aversion, so importunate was it, and almost
skinless in its warmth, so that one felt as if one had involuntarily
touched some one on a naked part. Pelle was always reminded of
Father Lasse; he too had never learned to put on armor, but had
always remained the same loyal, simple soul, unaffected by his
hard experience.

The big baker had fallen foul of him as usual. Contact with this
childlike, thin-skinned creature, who let his very heart burn itself
out in a clasp of his hand, always made him brutal. "Now, Bjerregrav,
have you tried it--you know what--since we last saw you?"

Bjerregrav turned crimson. "I am content with the experience which
the dear God has chosen for me," he answered, with blinking eyes.

"Would you believe it, he is over seventy and doesn't know yet how
a woman is made!"

"Because, after all I find it suits me best to live alone, and then
there's my club foot."

"So he goes about asking questions about everything, things
such as every child knows about," said Jeppe, in a superior tone.
"Bjerregrav has never rubbed off his childish innocence."

Yet as he was going home, and Pelle was helping him over the gutter,
he was still in his mood of everlasting wonder.

"What star is that?" he said; "it has quite a different light to
the others. It looks so red to me--if only we don't have a severe
winter, with the soil frozen and dear fuel for all the poor people."
Bjerregrav sighed.

"You mustn't look at the moon so much. Skipper Andersen came by his
accident simply because he slept on deck and the moon shone right in
his face; now he has gone crazy!"

Yesterday evening just the same as always--and now dead! And no one
had known or guessed, so that they might have been a little kinder
to him just at the last! He died in his bed, with his mind full of
their last disdainful words, and now they could never go to him and
say: "Don't take any notice of it, Bjerregrav; we didn't mean to be
unkind." Perhaps their behavior had embittered his last hours. At
all events, there stood Jeppe and Brother Jorgen, and they could not
look one another in the face; an immovable burden weighed upon them.

And it meant a void--as when the clock in a room stops ticking.
The faithful sound of his crutch no longer approached the workshop
about six o'clock. The young master grew restless about that time;
he could not get used to the idea of Bjerregrav's absence.

"Death is a hateful thing," he would say, when the truth came over
him; "it is horribly repugnant. Why must one go away from here
without leaving the least part of one behind? Now I listen for
Bjerregrav's crutch, and there's a void in my ears, and after a time
there won't be even that. Then he will be forgotten, and perhaps
more besides, who will have followed him, and so it goes on forever.
Is there anything reasonable about it all, Pelle? They talk about
Heaven, but what should I care about sitting on a damp cloud and
singing 'Hallelujah'? I'd much rather go about down here and get
myself a drink--especially if I had a sound leg!"

The apprentices accompanied him to the grave. Jeppe wished them to
do so, as a sort of atonement. Jeppe himself and Baker Jorgen, in
tall hats, walked just behind the coffin. Otherwise only a few poor
women and children followed, who had joined the procession out of
curiosity. Coachman Due drove the hearse. He had now bought a pair
of horses, and this was his first good job.

Otherwise life flowed onward, sluggish and monotonous. Winter had
come again, with its commercial stagnation, and the Iceland trade
was ruined. The shoemakers did no more work by artificial light;
there was so little to do that it would not repay the cost of the
petroleum; so the hanging lamp was put on one side and the old tin
lamp was brought out again. That was good enough to sit round and
to gossip by. The neighbors would come into the twilight of the
workshop; if Master Andres was not there, they would slip out again,
or they would sit idly there until Jeppe said it was bed-time. Pelle
had begun to occupy himself with carving once more; he got as close
to the lamp as possible, listening to the conversation while he
worked upon a button which was to be carved like a twenty-five-ore
piece. Morten was to have it for a tie-pin.

The conversation turned upon the weather, and how fortunate it was
that the frost had not yet come to stop the great harbor works. Then
it touched upon the "Great Power," and from him it glanced at the
crazy Anker, and poverty, and discontent. The Social Democrats "over
yonder" had for a long time been occupying the public mind. All
the summer through disquieting rumors had crossed the water; it was
quite plain that they were increasing their power and their numbers
--but what were they actually aiming at? In any case, it was nothing
good. "They must be the very poorest who are revolting," said
Wooden-leg Larsen. "So their numbers must be very great!" It was
as though one heard the roaring of something or other out on the
horizon, but did not know what was going on there. The echo of the
upheaval of the lower classes was quite distorted by the time it
reached the island; people understood just so much, that the lowest
classes wanted to turn God's appointed order upside down and to get
to the top themselves, and involuntarily their glance fell covertly
on the poor in the town. But these were going about in their
customary half-slumber, working when there was work to be had and
contenting themselves with that. "That would be the last straw,"
said Jeppe, "here, where we have such a well-organized poor-relief!"

Baker Jorgen was the most eager--every day he came with news of
some kind to discuss. Now they had threatened the life of the King
himself! And now the troops were called out.

"The troops!" The young master made a disdainful gesture. "That'll
help a lot! If they merely throw a handful of dynamite among the
soldiers there won't be a trouser-button left whole! No, they'll
conquer the capital now!" His cheeks glowed: he saw the event
already in his mind's eye. "Yes, and then? Then they'll plunder
the royal Mint!"

"Yes--no. Then they'll come over here--the whole party!"

"Come over here? No, by God! We'd call out all the militia and shoot
them down from the shore. I've put my gun in order already!"

One day Marker came running in. "The pastrycook's got a new
journeyman from over yonder--and he's a Social Democrat!" he cried
breathlessly. "He came yesterday evening by the steamer." Baker
Jorgen had also heard the news.

"Yes, now they're on you!" said Jeppe, as one announcing disaster.
"You've all been trifling with the new spirit of the times. This
would have been something for Bjerregrav to see--him with his
compassion for the poor!"

"Let the tailor rest in peace in his grave," said Wooden-leg Larsen,
in a conciliatory tone. "You mustn't blame him for the angry masses
that exist to-day. He wanted nothing but people's good--and perhaps
these people want to do good, too!"

"Good!" Jeppe was loud with scorn. "They want to overturn law and
order, and sell the fatherland to the Germans! They say the sum is
settled already, and all!"

"They say they'll be let into the capital during the night, when
our own people are asleep," said Marker.

"Yes," said Master Andres solemnly. "They've let out that the key's
hidden under the mat--the devils!" Here Baker Jorgen burst into a
shout of laughter; his laughter filled the whole workshop when he
once began.

They guessed what sort of a fellow the new journeyman might be. No
one had seen him yet. "He certainly has red hair and a red beard,"
said Baker Jorgen. "That's the good God's way of marking those who
have signed themselves to the Evil One."

"God knows what the pastrycook wants with him," said Jeppe. "People
of that sort can't do anything--they only ask. I've heard the whole
lot of them are free-thinkers."

"What a lark!" The young master shook himself contentedly. "He won't
grow old here in the town!"

"Old?" The baker drew up his heavy body. "To-morrow I shall go to
the pastrycook and demand that he be sent away. I am commander of
the militia, and I know all the townsfolk think as I do."

Drejer thought it might be well to pray from the pulpit--as in
time of plague, and in the bad year when the field-mice infested
the country.

Next morning Jorgen Kofod looked in on his way to the pastrycook's.
He was wearing his old militia coat, and at his belt hung the
leather wallet in which flints for the old flint-locks had been
carried many years before. He filled his uniform well; but he came
back without success. The pastrycook praised his new journeyman
beyond all measure, and wouldn't hear a word of sending him away.
He was quite besotted. "But we shall buy there no more--we must all
stick to that--and no respectable family can deal with the traitor
in future."

"Did you see the journeyman, Uncle Jorgen?" asked Master Andres
eagerly.

"Yes, I saw him--that is, from a distance! He had a pair of terrible,
piercing eyes; but he shan't bewitch me with his serpent's glance!"

In the evening Pelle and the others were strolling about the market
in order to catch a glimpse of the new journeyman--there were a
number of people there, and they were all strolling to and fro with
the same object in view. But he evidently kept the house.

And then one day, toward evening, the master came tumbling into the
workshop. "Hurry up, damn it all!" he cried, quite out of breath;
"he's passing now!" They threw down their work and stumbled along
the passage into the best room, which at ordinary times they were
not allowed to enter. He was a tall, powerful man, with full cheeks
and a big, dashing moustache, quite as big as the master's. His
nostrils were distended, and he held his chest well forward. His
jacket and wasitcoat were open, as though he wanted more air. Behind
him slunk a few street urchins, in the hope of seeing something;
they had quite lost their accustomed insolence, and followed him
in silence.

John Crace digests High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Review: The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War by Conor FoleyAid worker Foley conducts a fascinating and important analysis of recent wars and disasters around the world, says Steven Poole

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.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds