Pelle the Conqueror, Complete by Martin Anderson Nexo

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"You are crazy!" said Pelle scornfully. "That's a bark--bound for the
coal quay. She comes from England with coals."

"That may well be," replied Hanne indifferently. "I don't mind that.
There's something in me singing, 'There lies the ship, and it has
brought something for me from foreign parts.' And you needn't grudge me
my happiness."

But now her mother came in, and began to mimic her.

"Yes, out there lies the ship that has brought me something--out there
lies the ship that has brought me something! Good God! Haven't you had
enough of listening to your own crazy nonsense? All through your
childhood you've sat there and made up stories and looked out for the
ship! We shall soon have had enough of it! And you let Pelle sit there
and watch you uncovering your youth--aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Pelle's so good, mother--and he's my brother, too. He thinks nothing of
it."

"Thinks nothing of it? Yes, he does; he thinks how soft and white your
bosom is! And he's fit to cry inside of him because he mustn't lay his
head there. I, too, have known what it is to give joy, in my young
days."

Hanne blushed from her bosom upward. She threw a kerchief over her bosom
and ran into the kitchen.

The mother looked after her.

"She's got a skin as tender as that of a king's daughter. Wouldn't one
think she was a cuckoo's child? Her father couldn't stand her. 'You've
betrayed me with some fine gentleman'--he used so often to say that. 'We
poor folks couldn't bring a piece like that into the world!' 'As God
lives, Johnsen,' I used to say, 'you and no other are the girl's
father.' But he used to beat us--he wouldn't believe me. He used to fly
into a rage when he looked at the child, and he hated us both because
she was so fine. So its no wonder that she had gone a bit queer in the
head. You can believe she's cost me tears of blood, Pelle. But you let
her be, Pelle. I could wish you could get her, but it wouldn't be best
for you, and it isn't good for you to have her playing with you. And if
you got her after all, it would be even worse. A woman's whims are poor
capital for setting up house with."

Pelle agreed with her in cold blood; he had allowed himself to he
fooled, and was wasting his youth upon a path that led nowhere. But now
there should be an end of it.

Hanne came back and looked at him, radiant, full of visions. "Will you
take me for a walk, Pelle?" she asked him.

"Yes!" answered Pelle joyfully, and he threw all his good resolutions
overboard.

V

Pelle and his little neighbor used to compete as to which of them should
be up first in the morning. When she was lucky and had to wake him her
face was radiant with pride. It sometimes happened that he would lie in
bed a little longer, so that he should not deprive her of a pleasure,
and when she knocked on the wall he would answer in a voice quite stupid
with drowsiness. But sometimes her childish years demanded the sleep
that was their right, when Pelle would move about as quietly as
possible, and then, at half-past six, it would be his turn to knock on
the wall. On these occasions she would feel ashamed of herself all the
morning. Her brothers were supposed to get their early coffee and go to
work by six o'clock. Peter, who was the elder, worked in a tin-plate
works, while Earl sold the morning papers, and undertook every possible
kind of occasional work as well; this he had to hunt for, and you could
read as much in his whole little person. There was something restless
and nomadic about him, as though his thoughts were always seeking some
outlet.

It was quite a lively neighborhood at this time of day; across the floor
of the well, and out through the tunnel-like entry there was an endless
clattering of footsteps, as the hundreds of the "Ark" tumbled out into
the daylight, half tipsy with sleep, dishevelled, with evidence of hasty
rising in their eyes and their garments, smacking their lips as though
they relished the contrast between the night and day, audibly yawning as
they scuttled away. Up in Pelle's long gangway factory girls, artisans,
and newspaper women came tumbling out, half naked; they were always
late, and stood there scolding until their turn came to wash themselves.
There was only one lavatory at either end of the gangway, and there was
only just time to sluice their eyes and wake themselves up. The doors of
all the rooms stood open; the odors of night were heavy on the air.

On the days when Pelle worked at home little Marie was in high spirits.
She sang and hummed continually, with her curiously small voice, and
every few minutes she would run in and offer Pelle her services. At such
times she would station herself behind him and stand there in silence,
watching the progress of his work, while her breathing was audibly
perceptible, as a faint, whistling sound. There was a curious, still,
brooding look about her little under-grown figure that reminded Pelle of
Morten's unhappy sister; something hard and undeveloped, as in the fruit
of a too-young tree. But the same shadow did not lie upon her; childish
toil had not steeped her as with a bitter sap; only her outer shell was
branded by it. There was about her, on the contrary, a gleam of careful
happiness, as though things had turned out much better than she had
expected. Perhaps this was because she could see the result of her hard
childish labors; no one could scatter that to the winds.

She was a capable little housewife, and her brothers respected her, and
faithfully brought home what they earned. Then she took what she needed,
laid something by toward the rent, in a box which was put away in the
chest of drawers, and gave them something wherewith to amuse themselves.
"They must have something!" she told people; "besides, men always need
money in their pockets. But they deserve it, for they have never yet
spent a farthing in drink. On Saturday nights they always come straight
home with their earnings. But now I must get on with my work; it's
dreadful how the time runs through one's hands."

She talked just like a young married woman, and Pelle inwardly chuckled
over her.

After a while she would peep in again; it was time for Pelle to have a
bite of something; or else she would bring her mending with her and sit
down on the edge of a chair.

She was always in a fidget lest a saucepan should boil over, or
something else go amiss.

At such times they had long, sensible talks. Little Marie did not care
about gossip; but there were plenty of serious things which had to be
talked over; the difficult times, Marie's parents, and then the
wonderful fact that they had met one another once before, a long time
ago; that was an event which provided her with an inexhaustible mine of
discussion, although she herself could not remember the occasion.

But Pelle remembered it all quite well, and over and over again he had
to tell her how one day at home he had gone down to the harbor, in order
to show old Thatcher Holm the steamers; and she always laughed when she
heard how Holm had run away in his alarm every time the steam-crane blew
off steam. And then? Yes, the steamer was just on the point of taking on
board a heap of furniture, old beds, tables, and the like.

"That was all ours!" cried Marie, clapping her hands. "We still had a
few things then. We took them to the pawn-shop when father lay ill after
his fall." And then she would meet his gaze, asking for more.

And in the midst of all the furniture stood a man with a fine old mirror
in his arms. Thatcher Holm knew him, and had a talk with him.

"He was crying, wasn't he?" asked Marie compassionately. "Father was so
unhappy, because things were going so badly with us."

And then she herself would talk about the hotel, down among the cliffs
of the east coast, and of the fine guests who came there in summer.
Three years they had kept the hotel, and Pelle had to name the sum out
of which her father had been cheated. She was proud that they had once
possessed so much. Ten thousand kroner!

Over here her father had found work as a stonemason's laborer, but one
day he trod on a loose beam and fell. For a few months he lay sick, and
all their household goods found their way to the pawn-shop; then he
died, and then they came to the "Ark." Their mother did washing out of
doors, but at last she became queer in the head. She could not bear
unhappiness, and neglected her housework, to run about seeking
consolation from all sorts of religious sects. At last she was quite
demented, and one day she disappeared. It was believed that she had
drowned herself in the canal. "But things are going well with us now,"
Marie always concluded; "now there's nothing to worry about."

"But don't you get tired of having all this to look after?" Pelle would
ask, wondering.

She would look at him in astonishment. "Why should I be tired? There's
not more than one can manage--if one only knows how to manage. And the
children never make things difficult for me; they are pleased with
everything I do."

The three orphans struggled on as well as they could, and were quite
proud of their little household. When things went badly with them, they
went hungry, and took serious counsel together; but they accepted help
from no one. They lived in the continual fear that the police would get
to know of their position, and haul them off to school. Then they would
be forcibly separated and brought up at the expense of the poorrates.
They were shy, and "kept themselves to themselves." In the "Ark"
everybody liked them, and helped them to keep their secret. The other
inmates managed their family affairs as best they could; there was
always a scandal somewhere. It was a sort of satisfaction to have these
three children living so decently in the midst of all this hotch-potch.
People thought a great deal of their little model household, and
protected it as though it had been a sanctuary.

To Pelle they attached themselves blindly. They had picked him up out of
the streets, and they certainly regarded him to some extent as a
foundling who was still under their protection. When Marie had given the
boys their morning coffee, she carried some in to Pelle--it was no use
protesting. And in the mornings, when she was busy indoors by herself,
she would go round to him with broom and bucket. Her precocious,
intelligent face was beaming with circumspection and the desire to help.
She did not ask permission, but set to work where need was. If Pelle was
away at Beck's workshop, he always found his room clean and tidy in the
evening.

If he had work at home, she would bring coffee for the two of them
during the morning. He did not dare to drive her away, for she would
take that to heart, and would go about offended all the rest of the day;
so he would run below to fetch a roll of white bread. Marie always found
some pretext for putting aside her share for the boys; it gave her no
real pleasure to enjoy anything by herself.

Pelle felt that he was making headway; and he was conscious of his own
youth. He was continually in the rosiest of humors, and even Hanne could
not throw any real shadow over his existence. In his relations with her
there was something of a beautiful unreality; they left no permanent
scar upon his heart.

He felt quite simply ashamed in the presence of this much tried child,
whenever something cropped up to put him out of temper. He felt it was
his duty to brighten her poverty-stricken life with his high spirits. He
chatted merrily to her, chaffed her, teased her, to charm her from her
unnatural solemnity. And she would smile, in her quiet, motherly
fashion, as one smiles at a much-loved child who seeks to drive away our
cares--and would then offer to do something for him.

"Shall I wash out your blouse or do up your shirt?" she would ask. Her
gratitude always found its expression in some kind of work.

"No, thanks, Marie; Hanne and her mother look after that."

"But that's not work for the Princess--I can do it much better."

"The Princess?" said Pelle, raising his head. "Is that what they call
her?"

"Only us children--we don't mean it unkindly. But we always played at
there being a princess when she was with us--and she was always the
princess. But do you know what? Some one will come and take her away--
some one very distinguished. She has been promised from the cradle to a
fine gentleman."

"What nonsense!" said Pelle crossly.

"But that's really true! When it rained we used to sit under the
gallery--in the corner by the dustbin--and she used to tell us--and it's
really true! And, besides, don't you think she's fascinating? She's
really just like a princess--like that!" Marie made a gesture in the air
with her fingers outspread. "And she knows everything that is going to
happen. She used to run down to us, in the courtyard, in her long dress,
and her mother used to stand up above and call her; then she'd sit on
the grating as if it was a throne and she was the queen and we were her
ladies. She used to braid our hair, and then dress it beautifully with
colored ribbons, and when I came up here again mother used to tear it
all down and make my hair rough again. It was a sin against God to deck
one's self out like that, she said. And when mother disappeared I hadn't
time to play down there any more."

"Poor little girl!" said Pelle, stroking her hair.

"Why do you say that?" she asked him, looking at him in astonishment.

He enjoyed her absolute confidence, and was told things that the boys
were not allowed to know. She began to dress more carefully, and her
fine fair hair was always brushed smoothly back from her forehead. She
was delighted when they both had some errand in the city. Then she put
on her best and went through the streets at his side, her whole face
smiling. "Now perhaps people will think we are a couple of lovers--but
what does it matter? Let them think it!" Pelle laughed; with her
thirteen years she was no bigger than a child of nine, so backward in
growth was she.

She often found it difficult to make both ends meet; she would say
little or nothing about it, but a kind of fear would betray itself in
her expression. Then Pelle would speak cheerfully of the good times that
would soon be coming for all poor people. It cost him a great deal of
exertion to put this in words so as to make it sound as it ought to
sound. His thoughts were still so new--even to himself. But the children
thought nothing of his unwieldy speech; to them it was easier to believe
in the new age than it was to him.

VI

Pelle was going through a peculiar change at this time. He had seen
enough need and poverty in his life; and the capital was simply a
battlefield on which army upon army had rushed forward and had miserably
been defeated. Round about him lay the fallen. The town was built over
them as over a cemetery; one had to tread upon them in order to win
forward and harden one's heart. Such was life in these days; one shut
one's eyes--like the sheep when they see their comrades about to be
slaughtered--and waited until one's own turn came. There was nothing
else to do.

But now he was awake and suffering; it hurt him with a stabbing pain
whenever he saw others suffer; and he railed against misfortune,
unreasonable though it might be.

There came a day when he sat working at home. At the other end of the
gangway a factory girl with her child had moved in a short while before.
Every morning she locked the door and went to work--and she did not
return until the evening. When Pelle came home he could hear the sound
of crying within the room.

He sat at his work, wrestling with his confused ideas. And all the time
a curious stifled sound was in his ears--a grievous sound, as though
something were incessantly complaining. Perhaps it was only the dirge of
poverty itself, some strophe of which was always vibrating upon the air.

Little Marie came hurrying in. "Oh, Pelle, it's crying again!" she said,
and she wrung her hands anxiously upon her hollow chest. "It has cried
all day, ever since she came here--it is horrible!"

"We'll go and see what's wrong," said Pelle, and he threw down his
hammer.

The door was locked; they tried to look through the keyhole, but could
see nothing. The child within stopped its crying for a moment, as though
it heard them, but it began again at once; the sound was low and
monotonous, as though the child was prepared to hold out indefinitely.
They looked at one another; it was unendurable.

"The keys on this gangway do for all the doors," said Marie, under her
breath. With one leap Pelle had rushed indoors, obtained his key, and
opened the door.

Close by the door sat a little four-year-old boy; he stared up at them,
holding a rusty tin vessel in his hand. He was tied fast to the stove;
near him, on an old wooden stool, was a tin plate containing a few half-
nibbled crusts of bread. The child was dressed in filthy rags and
presented a shocking appearance. He sat in his own filth; his little
hands were covered with it. His tearful, swollen face was smeared all
over with it. He held up his hands to them beseechingly.

Pelle burst into tears at the horrible sight and wanted to pick the
child up. "Let me do that!" cried Marie, horrified. "You'll make
yourself filthy!"

"What then?" said Pelle stupidly. He helped to untie the child; his
hands were trembling.

To some extent they got the child to rights and gave him food. Then they
let him loose in the long gangway. For a time he stood stupidly gaping
by the doorpost; then he discovered that he was not tied up, and began
to rush up and down. He still held in his hand the old tea-strainer
which he had been grasping when they rescued him; he had held on to it
convulsively all the time. Marie had to dip his hand in the water in
order to clean the strainer.

From time to time he stood in front of Pelle's open door, and peeped
inside. Pelle nodded to him, when he went storming up and down again--he
was like a wild thing. But suddenly he came right in, laid the tea-
strainer in Pelle's lap and looked at him. "Am I to have that?" asked
Pelle. "Look, Marie, he is giving me the only thing he's got!"

"Oh, poor little thing!" cried Marie pityingly. "He wants to thank you!"

In the evening the factory girl came rushing in; she was in a rage, and
began to abuse them for breaking into her room. Pelle wondered at
himself, that he was able to answer her so quietly instead of railing
back at her. But he understood very well that she was ashamed of her
poverty and did not want any one else to see it. "It is unkind to the
child," was all he said. "And yet you are fond of it!"

Then she began to cry. "I have to tie him up, or he climbs out over the
window-sill and runs into the street--he got to the corner once before.
And I've no clothes, to take him to the creche!"

"Then leave the door open on the gangway! We will look after him, Marie
and I."

After this the child tumbled about the gangway and ran to and fro. Marie
looked after him, and was like a mother to him. Pelle bought some old
clothes, and they altered them to fit him. The child looked very droll
in them; he was a little goblin who took everything in good part. In his
loneliness he had not learned to speak, but now speech came quickly to
him.

In Pelle this incident awakened something quite novel. Poverty he had
known before, but now he saw the injustice that lay beneath it, and
cried to heaven. His hands would suddenly clench with anger as he sat so
quietly in his room. Here was something one must hasten forward, without
intermission, day and night, as long as one drew breath--Morten was
right about that! This child's father was a factory hand, and the girl
dared not summon him before the magistrates in order to make him pay for
its support for fear of being dismissed from her place. The whole
business seemed so hopeless--society seemed so unassailable--yet he felt
that he must strike a blow. His own hands alone signified so little; but
if they could only strike the blow all together--then perhaps it would
have some effect.

In the evenings he and Morten went to meetings where the situation was
passionately discussed. Those who attended these meetings were mostly
young people like himself. They met in some inn by the North Bridge. But
Pelle longed to see some result, and applied himself eagerly to the
organization of his own craft.

He inspired the weary president with his own zeal, and they prepared
together a list of all the members of their trade--as the basis of a
more vigorous agitation. When the "comrades" were invited to a meeting
through the press, they turned lazy and failed to appear. More effectual
means were needed; and Pelle started a house-to-house agitation. This
helped immediately; they were in a dilemma when one got them face to
face, and the Union was considerably increased, in spite of the
persecution of the big masters.

Morten began to treat him with respect; and wanted him to read about the
movement. But Pelle had no time for that. Together with Peter and Karl,
who were extremely zealous, he took in _The Working Man_, and that
was enough for him. "I know more about poverty than they write there,"
he said.

There was no lack of fuel to keep this fire burning. He had participated
in the march of poverty, from the country to the town and thence to the
capital, and there they stood and could go no farther for all their
longing, but perished on a desert shore. The many lives of the "Ark" lay
always before his eyes as a great common possession, where no one need
conceal himself, and where the need of the one was another's grief.

His nature was at this time undergoing a great change. There was an end
of his old careless acceptance of things. He laughed less and performed
apparently trivial actions with an earnestness which had its comical
side. And he began to display an appearance of self-respect which seemed
ill-justified by his position and his poverty.

One evening, when work was over, as he came homeward from Beck's
workshop, he heard the children singing Hanne's song down in the
courtyard. He stood still in the tunnel-like entry; Hanne herself stood
in the midst of a circle, and the children were dancing round her and
singing:

"I looked from the lofty mountain
Down over vale and lea,
And I saw a ship come sailing,
Sailing, sailing,
I saw a ship come sailing,
And on it were lordlings three."

On Hanne's countenance lay a blind, fixed smile; her eyes were tightly
closed. She turned slowly about as the children sang, and she sang
softly with them:

"The youngest of all the lordlings
Who on the ship did stand..."

But suddenly she saw Pelle and broke out of the circle. She went up the
stairs with him. The children, disappointed, stood calling after her.

"Aren't you coming to us this evening?" she asked. "It is so long since
we have seen you."

"I've no time. I've got an appointment," replied Pelle briefly.

"But you must come! I beg you to, Pelle." She looked at him pleadingly,
her eyes burning.

Pelle's heart began to thump as he met her gaze. "What do you want with
me?" he asked sharply.

Hanne stood still, gazing irresolutely into the distance.

"You must help me, Pelle," she said, in a toneless voice, without
meeting his eye.

"Yesterday I met.... Yesterday evening, as I was coming out of the
factory ... he stood down below here ... he knows where I live. I went
across to the other side and behaved as though I did not see him; but he
came up to me and said I was to go to the New Market this evening!"

"And what did you say to that?" answered Pelle sulkily.

"I didn't say anything--I ran as hard as I could!"

"Is that all you want me for?" cried Pelle harshly. "You can keep away
from him, if you don't want him!"

A cold shudder ran through her. "But if he comes here to look for
me?... And you are so.... I don't care for anybody in the world but you
and mother!" She spoke passionately.

"Well, well, I'll come over to you," answered Pelle cheerfully.

He dressed himself quickly and went across. The old woman was delighted
to see him. Hanne was quite frolicsome; she rallied him continually, and
it was not long before he had abandoned his firm attitude and allowed
himself to be drawn into the most delightful romancing. They sat out on
the gallery under the green foliage, Hanne's face glowing to rival the
climbing pelargonium; she kept on swinging her foot, and continually
touched Pelle's leg with the tip of her shoe.

She was nervously full of life, and kept on asking the time. When her
mother went into the kitchen to make coffee, she took Pelle's hand and
smilingly stroked it.

"Come with me," she said. "I should so like to see if he is really so
silly as to think I'd come. We can stand in a corner somewhere and look
out."

Pelle did not answer.

"Mother," said Hanne, when Madam Johnsen returned with the coffee, "I'm
going out to buy some stuff for my bodice. Pelle's coming with me."

The excuse was easy to see through. But the old woman betrayed no
emotion. She had already seen that Hanne was well disposed toward Pelle
to-day; something was going on in the girl's mind, and if Pelle only
wanted to, he could now bridle her properly. She had no objection to
make if both the young people kicked over the traces a little. Perhaps
then they would find peace together.