Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 1 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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"You'll see he'll free himself; the Evil One'll have no claim upon
him," was the opinion of both Lasse and the laborers' wives when
they discussed Per Olsen's prospects at the Sunday milking. "There
are some people that even the Almighty can't find anything to blame
for."

Pelle listened to this, and tried every day to peep at the scar on
Per Olsen's thumb. It would surely disappear when God removed his
judgment!

During most of the winter Pelle drove the horse for the threshing-
machine. All day he trotted round upon the horse-way outside the
farm, over his wooden shoes in trodden-down snow and manure. It was
the most intolerable occupation that life had yet offered him. He
could not even carve, it was too cold for his fingers; and he felt
lonely. As a herd-boy he was his own master, and a thousand things
called to him; but here he had to go round and round behind a bar,
always round. His one diversion was to keep count of the times he
drove round, but that was a fatiguing employment and made you even
duller than the everlasting going round, and you could not leave
off. Time held nothing of interest, and short as it was the day
seemed endless.

As a rule, Pelle awoke happy, but now every morning when he woke
he was weary of everything; it was to be that everlasting trudging
round behind the bar. After a time doing this for about an hour used
to make him fall into a state of half-sleep. The condition came
of itself, and he longed for it before it came. It was a kind of
vacuity, in which he wished for nothing and took no interest in
anything, but only staggered along mechanically at the back of the
bar. The machine buzzed unceasingly, and helped to maintain the
condition; the dust kept pouring out at the window, and the time
passed imperceptibly. Generally now dinner or evening surprised him,
and sometimes it seemed to him that the horses had only just been
harnessed when some one came out to help him in with them. He had
arrived at the condition of torpor that is the only mercy that life
vouchsafes to condemned prisoners and people who spend their lives
beside a machine. But there was a sleepiness about him even in his
free time; he was not so lively and eager to know about everything;
Father Lasse missed his innumerable questions and little devices.

Now and again he was roused for a moment out of his condition by
the appearance at the window of a black, perspiring face, that swore
at him because he was not driving evenly. He knew then that Long Ole
had taken the place of Per Olsen, whose business it was to feed
the machine. It sometimes happened, too, that the lash of the whip
caught on the axle and wound round it, so that the whole thing had
to be stopped and drawn backward; and that day he did not fall into
a doze again.

In March the larks appeared and brought a little life. Snow still
lay in the hollows, but their singing reminded Pelle warmly of
summer and grazing cattle. And one day he was wakened in his tramp
round and round by seeing a starling on the roof of the house,
whistling and preening its feathers in delight. On that day the
sun shone brightly, and all heaviness was gone from the air; but
the sea was still a pale gray down there.

Pelle began to be a human being again. It was spring, and then, too,
in a couple of days the threshing would be finished. But after all,
the chief thing was that waistcoat-pocket of his; that was enough
to put life into its owner. He ran round in a trot behind the bar;
he had to drive quickly now in order to get done, for every one else
was in the middle of spring ploughing already. When he pressed his
hand against his chest, he could distinctly feel the paper it was
wrapped in. For it was still there, wasn't it? It would not do to
open the paper and look; he must find out by squeezing.

Pelle had become the owner of fifty ores--a perfectly genuine
fifty-ore piece. It was the first time he had ever possessed
anything more than two and one ore pieces, and he had earned it
by his own cleverness.

It was on Sunday, when the men had had a visit from some quarrymen,
and one of them had hit upon the idea of sending for some birch-fat
to have with their dram. Pelle was to run to the village shop for
it, and he was given a half-krone and injunctions to go in the back
way, as it was Sunday. Pelle had not forgotten his experience at
Christmas, and kept watch upon their faces. They were all doing
their best to smooth them out and busy themselves with one thing
and another; and Gustav, who gave him the money, kept turning his
face away and looking at something out in the yard.

When he stated his errand, the shopman's wife broke into a laugh.
"I say, don't you know better than that?" she exclaimed. "Why,
wasn't it you who fetched the handle-turner too? You've all found
that very useful, haven't you?"

Pelle turned crimson. "I thought they were making fun of me, but
I didn't dare say no," he said in a low voice.

"No, one has to play the fool sometimes, whether one is it or not,"
said the woman.

"What is birch-fat, then?" asked Pelle.

"Why, my gracious! You must have had it many a time, you little imp!
But it shows how often you have to put up with things you don't know
the name of."

A light dawned upon Pelle. "Does it mean a thrashing with
a birch-rod?"

"Didn't I say you knew it?"

"No, I've only had it with a whip--on my legs."

"Well, well, you needn't mind that; the one may be just as good as
the other. But now sit down and drink a cup of coffee while I wrap
up the article for them." She pushed a cup of coffee with brown
sugar toward him, and began ladling out soft soap on to a piece
of paper. "Here," she said. "You give them that: it's the best
birch-fat. And you can keep the money yourself."

Pelle was not courageous enough for this arrangement.

"Very well, then," she said. "I'll keep the money for you. They
shan't make fools of us both. And then you can get it yourself.
But now you must put on a bold face."

Pelle did put on a bold face, but he was decidedly nervous. The men
swore at the loss of the half-krone, and called him the "greatest
idiot upon God's green earth"; but he had the satisfaction of
knowing that that was because he had not been stupid enough. And
the half-krone was his!

A hundred times a day he felt it without wearing it out. Here at
last was something the possession of which did not rob it of its
lustre. There was no end to the purchases he made with it, now for
Lasse, now for himself. He bought the dearest things, and when he
lingered long enough over one purchase and was satiated with the
possession of it, he set about buying something else. And all the
while he kept the coin. At times he would be suddenly seized with
an insane fear that the money was gone; and then when he felt it,
he was doubly happy.

Pelle had suddenly become a capitalist, and by his own cleverness;
and he made the most of his capital. He had already obtained every
desirable thing that he knew of--he had it all, at any rate, in hand;
and gradually as new things made their appearance in his world, he
secured for himself the right to their purchase. Lasse was the only
person who knew about his wealth, and he had reluctantly to allow
himself to be drawn into the wildest of speculations.

He could hear by the sound that there was something wrong with the
machine. The horses heard it too, and stopped even before some one
cried "Stop!" Then one after another came the shouts: "Stop! Drive
on! Stop! On again! Stop! Pull!" And Pelle pulled the bar back,
drove on and pulled until the whole thing whizzed again. Then he
knew that it was Long Ole feeding the machine while Per Olsen
measured the grain: Ole was a duffer at feeding.

It was going smoothly again, and Pelle was keeping an eye on the
corner by the cow-stable. When Lasse made his appearance there, and
patted his stomach, it meant that it was nearly dinner-time.

Something stopped the bar, the horses had to pull hard, and with
a jerk it cleared the invisible hindrance. There was a cry from the
inside of the threshing-barn, and the sound of many voices shouting
"Stop!" The horses stopped dead, and Pelle had to seize the bar to
prevent it swinging forward against their legs. It was some time
before any one came out and took the horses in, so that Pelle could
go into the barn and see what was the matter.

He found Long Ole walking about and writhing over one of his hands.
His blouse was wrapped about it, but the blood was dripping through
on to the floor of the barn. He was bending forward and stumbling
along, throwing his body from side to side and talking incoherently.
The girls, pale and frightened, were standing gazing at him while
the men were quarreling as to what was the best thing to do to stop
the flow of blood, and one of them came sliding down from the loft
with a handful of cobwebs.

Pelle went and peered into the machine to find out what there was
so voracious about it. Between two of the teeth lay something like
a peg, and when he moved the roller, the greater part of a finger
dropped down on to the barn floor. He picked it up among some chaff,
and took it to the others: it was a thumb! When Long Ole saw it, he
fainted; it could hardly be wondered at, seeing that he was maimed
for life. But Per Olsen had to own that he had left the machine at
a fortunate moment.

There was no more threshing done that day. In the afternoon Pelle
played in the stable, for he had nothing to do. While he played, he
suggested plans for their future to his father: they were engrossed
in it.

"Then we'll go to America, and dig for gold!"

"Ye-es, that wouldn't be a bad thing at all. But it would take a
good many more half-krones to make that journey."

"Then we can set up as stone-masons."

Lasse stood still in the middle of the foddering-passage, and
pondered with bent head. He was exceedingly dissatisfied with their
position; there were two of them toiling to earn a hundred krones,
and they could not make ends meet. There was never any liberty
either; they were simply slaves. By himself he never got any farther
than being discontented and disappointed with everything; he was
too old. The mere search for ways to something new was insuperable
labor, and everything looked so hopeless. But Pelle was restless,
and whenever he was dissatisfied with anything, made plans by the
score, some of the wildest, and some fairly sensible; and the old
man was carried away by them.

"We might go to the town and work too," said Lasse meditatively.
"They earn one bright krone after another in there. But what's to
be done with you? You're too little to use a tool."

This stubborn fact put a stop for the moment to Pelle's plans; but
then his courage rose again. "I can quite well go with you to the
town," he said. "For I shall----" He nodded significantly.

"What?" asked Lasse, with interest.

"Well, perhaps I'll go down to the harbor and be doing nothing, and
a little girl'll fall into the water and I shall save her. But the
little girl will be a gentleman's daughter, and so----" Pelle left
the rest to Lasse's imagination.

"Then you'd have to learn to swim first," said Lasse gravely.
"Or you'd only be drowned."

Screams were heard from the men's bedroom. It was Long Ole. The
doctor had come and was busy with his maimed hand. "Just run across
and find out what'll happen to it!" said Lasse. "Nobody'll pay any
attention to you at such a time, if you make yourself small."

In a little while Pelle came back and reported that three fingers
were quite crushed and hanging in rags, and the doctor had cut
them off.

"Was it these three?" asked Lasse, anxiously, holding up his thumb,
forefinger, and middle finger. Truth to tell, Pelle had seen nothing,
but his imagination ran away with him.

"Yes, it was his swearing-fingers," he said, nodding emphatically.

"Then Per Olsen is set free," said Lasse, heaving a deep sigh. "What
a _good_ thing it has been--quite providential!"

That was Pelle's opinion too.

The farmer himself drove the doctor home, and a little while after
he had gone, Pelle was sent for, to go on an errand for the mistress
to the village-shop.

IX

It was nothing for Pelle; if he were vanquished on one point, he
rose again on two others: he was invincible. And he had the child's
abundant capacity for forgiving; had he not he would have hated all
grown-up people with the exception of Father Lasse. But disappointed
he certainly was.

It was not easy to say who had expected most--the boy, whose
childish imagination had built, unchecked, upon all that he had
heard, or the old man, who had once been here himself.

But Pelle managed to fill his own existence with interest, and was
so taken up on all sides that he only just had time to realize the
disappointment in passing. His world was supersensual like that
of the fakir; in the course of a few minutes a little seed could
shoot up and grow into a huge tree that overshadowed everything
else. Cause never answered to effect in it, and it was governed by
another law of gravitation: events always bore him up.

However hard reality might press upon him, he always emerged from
the tight place the richer in some way or other; and no danger could
ever become overwhelmingly great as long as Father Lasse stood
reassuringly over and behind everything.

But Lasse had failed him at the decisive moment more than once, and
every time he used him as a threat, he was only laughed at. The old
man's omnipotence could not continue to exist side by side with his
increasing decrepitude; in the boy's eyes it crumbled away from day
to day. Unwilling though he was, Pelle had to let go his providence,
and seek the means of protection in himself. It was rather early,
but he looked at circumstances in his own way. Distrust he had
already acquired--and timidity! He daily made clumsy attempts to
get behind what people said, and behind things. There was something
more behind everything! It often led to confusion, but occasionally
the result was conspicuously good.

There were some thrashings that you could run away from, because in
the meantime the anger would pass away, and other thrashings where
it answered best to shed as many tears as possible. Most people
only beat until the tears came, but the bailiff could not endure
a blubberer, so with him the thing was to set your teeth and make
yourself hard. People said you should speak the truth, but most
thrashings could be avoided by making up a white lie, if it was
a good one and you took care of your face. If you told the truth,
they thrashed you at once.

With regard to thrashing, the question had a subjective side as
well as an objective one. He could beat Rud whenever he liked, but
with bigger boys it was better to have right on his side, as, for
instance, when his father was attacked. Then God helped him. This
was a case in which the boy put the omnipotence quite aside, and
felt himself to be the old man's protector.

Lasse and Pelle were walking through life hand in hand, and yet each
was going his own way. Lasse felt it to be so. "We've each got hold
of an end," he sometimes said to himself despondently, when the
difference was all too marked. "He's rising, the laddie!"

This was best seen in the others. In the long run they had to like
the boy, it could not be otherwise. The men would sometimes give him
things, and the girls were thoroughly kind to him. He was in the
fairest period of budding youth; they would often take him on their
knees as he passed, and kiss him.

"Ah, he'll be a lady's man, he will!" Lasse would say. "He's got
that from his father." But they would laugh at that.

There was always laughter when Lasse wanted to join the elders.
Last time--yes, then he was good enough. It was always "Where's
Lasse?" when gin was going round, or tricks were being played, or
demonstrations made. "Call Lasse Karlsson!" He had no need to push
himself forward; it was a matter of course that he was there. The
girls were always on the look-out for him, married man though he
was, and he had fun with them--all quite proper, of course, for
Bengta was not good to quarrel with if she heard anything.

But now! Yes--well, yes--he might fetch the gin for the others and
do their work for them when they had a holiday, without their doing
anything in exchange! "Lasse! Where's Lasse? Can you feed the horses
for me this evening? Can you take my place at the chaff-cutting
to-morrow evening?"

There was a difference between then and now, and Lasse had found
out the reason for himself: he was getting old. The very discovery
brought further proof of its correctness, laid infirmity upon him,
and removed the tension from his mind, and what was left of it from
his body. The hardest blow of all was when he discovered that he was
of no importance to the girls, had no place at all in their thoughts
of men. In Lasse's world there was no word that carried such weight
as the word "man"; and in the end it was the girls who decided
whether you were one or not. Lasse was not one; he was not dangerous!
He was only a few poor relics of a man, a comical remnant of some
by-gone thing; they laughed at him when he tried to pay them
attention.

Their laughter crushed him, and he withdrew into his old-man's world,
and despondently adapted himself to it. The only thing that kept
life in him was his concern for the boy, and he clung despairingly
to his position as his providence. There was little he could do for
him, and therefore he talked all the bigger; and when anything went
against the boy, he uttered still greater threats against the world
than before. He also felt that the boy was in process of making
himself independent, and fought a desperate battle to preserve the
last appearance of power.

But Pelle could not afford to give support to his fancy, nor had he
the understanding to do it. He was growing fast, and had a use for
all that he possessed himself. Now that his father no longer stood
behind to shield him, he was like a small plant that has been moved
out into the open, and is fighting hard to comprehend the nature of
its surroundings, and adapt itself to them. For every root-fibre
that felt its way into the soil, there fell to the ground one of
the tender leaves, and two strong ones pushed forth. One after
another the feelings of the child's defencelessness dropped and
gave place to the harder ones of the individual.

The boy was engaged in building himself up, in accordance with
invisible laws. He assumed an attitude toward his surroundings at
all points, but he did not imitate them. The farm men, for instance,
were not kind to the animals. They often lashed the horses only as
a vent for their ill-humor, and the girls were just the same to the
smaller animals and the dairy-cows. From these considerations, Pelle
taught himself sympathy. He could not bear cruelty to animals, and
thrashed Rud for the first time when the latter had one day robbed
a bird's nest.

Pelle was like a kid that makes a plaything of everything. In
his play he took up, without suspecting it, many of the serious
phenomena of life, and gambolled with them in frolicsome bounds. He
exercised his small mind as he exercised his body, twisted himself
into everything and out of everything, imitated work and fun and
shirking, and learned how to puff himself up into a very devil of
a fellow where his surroundings were yielding, and to make himself
almost invisible with modesty when they were hard. He was training
himself to be that little Jack-of-all-trades, man.

And it became more and more difficult to catch him unprepared. The
first time he had to set about a thing in earnest, he was generally
handy at it; he was as difficult to take unawares as a cat.

* * * * *

It was summer again. The heat stood still and played over the
ground, sparkling, with indolent voluptuousness and soft movements
like the fish in the stream. Far inland it quivered above the rocks
that bounded the view, in a restless flicker of bluish white; below
lay the fields beneath the broiling sun, with the pollen from the
rye drifting over them like smoke. Up above the clover-field stood
the cows of Stone Farm in long rows, their heads hanging heavily
down, and their tails swinging regularly. Lasse was moving between
their ranks, looking for the mallet, and now and then gazing
anxiously down towards the meadow by the dunes, and beginning to
count the young cattle and the bullocks. Most of them were lying
down, but a few of them were standing with their heads close
together, and munching with closed eyes. The boys were nowhere
to be seen.

Lasse stood wondering whether he should give Pelle a warning call;
there would he no end of a row if the bailiff were to come now.
But then the sound of voices came from among the young firs on the
dunes, a naked boy appeared, and then another. Their bodies were
like golden flashes in the air as they ran over the grass-wrack and
across the meadow, each with his cap held closed in his hand.

They sat down upon the edge of the stream with their feet
in the water, and carefully uncovered their captives; they were
dragon-flies. As the insects one by one crawled out at the narrow
opening, the boys decapitated them and laid them in a row on the
grass. They had caught nine, and nine times thirty-five--well, it
would be more than three krones. The stupendous amount made Pelle
skeptical.

"Now isn't that only a lie?" he said, and licked his shoulder where
he had been bitten by a mosquito. It was said that the chemist gave
thirty-five ores apiece for dragon-flies.

"A lie?" exclaimed Rud. "Yes, perhaps it is," he went on meekly.
"It must be a lie, for anything like that always is. You might
give me yours too!"

But Pelle would not do that.

"Then give me your half-krone, and I'll go to the town and sell
them for you. They cost thirty-five ores, for Karl says so, and his
mother washes the floor in the chemist's shop."

Pelle got up, not to fetch the half-krone--he would not part with
that for all the world--but to assure himself that it still lay in
his waistcoat pocket.

When he had gone a little way, Rud hastily lifted a piece of turf
at the edge of the stream, pushed something in under it, and jumped
into the water; and when Pelle came back with slow, ominous steps,
he climbed up the other side and set off at a run.

Pelle ran too, in short, quick leaps. He knew he was the quicker,
and the knowledge made him frolicsome. He flapped at his naked body
as he ran, as if he had no joints, swayed from side to side like
a balloon, pranced and stamped on the ground, and then darted
on again. Then the young firs closed round them again, only the
movement of their tops showing where the boys ran, farther and
farther, until all was still.

In the meadow the cattle were munching with closed eyes and
attentive ears. The heat played over the ground, flickering,
gasping, like a fish in water. There was a heavy, stupefying
humming in the air; the sound came from everywhere and nowhere.

Down across the cornfields came a big, stout woman. She wore a
skirt, a chemise, and a handkerchief on her head, and she shaded
her eyes with her hand and looked about. She crossed the meadow
obliquely, found Pelle's dinner-basket, took out its contents and
put them in under her chemise upon her bare, perspiring bosom,
and then turned in the direction of the sea.

There was a sudden break in the edge of the fir-plantation, and
out came Rud with Pelle hanging upon his back. Rud's inordinately
large head hung forward and his knees gave way; his forehead,
which receded above the eyes and projected just below the line
of the hair, was a mass of bruises and scars, which became very
visible now with his exertions. Both the boys had marks all over
their bodies from the poison of the pine-needles. Pelle dropped on
to the grass, and lay there on his face, while Rud went slowly to
fetch the half-krone, and handed it reluctantly to its owner. He
stooped like one vanquished, but in his eye the thought of a new
battle lay awaiting its opportunity.

Pelle gazed lovingly at the coin. He had had it now ever since April,
from the time when he was sent to buy birch-fat. He had purchased
with it everything that was desirable, and he had lost it twice: he
loved that piece of money. It made his fingers itch, his whole body;
it was always urging him on to spend it, now in one way and now in
another. Roll, roll! That was what it was longing to do; and it was
because it was round, Father Lasse said. But to become rich--that
meant stopping the money as it rolled. Oh, Pelle meant to be rich!
And then he was always itching to spend it--spend it in such a way
that he got everything for it, or something he could have all his
life.

They sat upon the bank of the stream and wrangled in a small way.
Rud did his best to inspire awe, and bragged to create an impression.
He bent his fingers backward and moved his ears; he could move them
forward in a listening position like a horse. All this irritated
Pelle intensely.

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