Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 1 by Martin Anderson Nexo

M >> Martin Anderson Nexo >> Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 1

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Pelle had lost consciousness, but the thrashing had the effect of
bringing him to. He suddenly opened his eyes, was on his legs in
a trice, and darted away like a sandpiper.

"Run home!" the boys roared after him. "Run as hard as ever you can,
or you'll be ill! Only tell your father you fell in!" And Pelle ran.
He needed no persuasion. When he reached Stone Farm, his clothes
were frozen quite stiff, and his trousers could stand alone when
he got out of them; but he himself was as warm as a toast.

He would not lie to his father, but told him just what had happened.
Lasse was angry, angrier than the boy had ever seen him before.

Lasse knew how to treat a horse to keep it from catching cold, and
began to rub Pelle's naked body with a wisp of straw, while the boy
lay on the bed, tossing about under the rough handling. His father
took no notice of his groans, but scolded him. "You mad little
devil, to jump straight into the sea in the middle of winter like a
lovesick woman! You ought to have a whipping, that's what you ought
to have--a good sound whipping! But I'll let you off this time if
you'll go to sleep and try to sweat so that we can get that nasty
salt water out of your body. I wonder if it wouldn't be a good thing
to bleed you."

Pelle did not want to be bled; he was very comfortable lying there,
now that he had been sick. But his thoughts were very serious.
"Supposing I'd been drowned!" he said solemnly.

"If you had, I'd have thrashed you to within an inch of your life,"
said Lasse angrily.

Pelle laughed.

"Oh, you may laugh, you word-catcher!" snapped Lasse. "But it's
no joke being father to a little ne'er-do-weel of a cub like you!"
Saying which he went angrily out into the stable. He kept on
listening, however, and coming up to peep in and see whether fever
or any other devilry had come of it.

But Pelle slept quietly with his head under the quilt, and dreamed
that he was no less a person than Henry Bodker.

* * * * *

Pelle did not learn to read much that winter, but he learned twenty
and odd hymns by heart only by using his ears, and he got the name
Blue-bag, as applied to himself, completely banished. He had gained
ground, and strengthened his position by several bold strokes; and
the school began to take account of him as a brave boy. And Henry,
who as a rule took no notice of anybody, took him several times
under his wing.

Now and then he had a bad conscience, especially when his father
in his newly-awakened thirst for knowledge, came to him for the
solution of some problem or other, and he was at a loss for an
answer.

"But it's you who ought to have the learning," Lasse would then say
reproachfully.

As the winter drew to an end, and the examination approached, Pelle
became nervous. Many uncomfortable reports were current of the
severity of the examination among the boys--of putting into lower
classes and complete dismissal from the school.

Pelle had the misfortune not to be heard independently in a single
hymn. He had to give an account of the Fall. The theft of the apple
was easy to get through, but the curse--! "And God said unto the
serpent: Upon thy belly shalt thou go, upon thy belly shalt thou go,
upon thy belly shalt thou go!" He could get no further.

"Does it still do that, then?" asked the clergyman kindly.

"Yes--for it has no limbs."

"And can you explain to me what a limb is?" The priest was known
to be the best examiner on the island; he could begin in a gutter
and end in heaven, people said.

"A limb is--is a hand."

"Yes, that is one. But can't you tell me something that
distinguishes all limbs from other parts of the body? A limb
is--well?--a?--a part of the body that can move by itself, for
instance? Well!"

"The ears!" said Pelle, perhaps because his own were burning.

"O-oh? Can you move your ears, then?"

"Yes." By dint of great perseverance, Pelle had acquired that art in
the course of the previous summer, so as not to be outdone by Rud.

"Then, upon my word, I should like to see it!" exclaimed the
clergyman.

So Pelle worked his ears industriously backward and forward, and the
priest and the school committee and the parents all laughed. Pelle
got "excellent" in religion.

"So it was your ears after all that saved you," said Lasse,
delighted. "Didn't I tell you to use your ears well? Highest marks
in religion only for moving your ears! Why, I should think you might
become a parson if you liked!"

And he went on for a long time. But wasn't he the devil of a laddie
to be able to answer like that!

XII

"Come, cubby, cubby, cubby! Come on, you silly little chicken,
there's nothing to be afraid of!" Pelle was enticing his favorite
calf with a wisp of green corn; but it was not quite sure of him
to-day, for it had had a beating for bad behavior.

Pelle felt very much like a father whose child gives him sorrow and
compels him to use severe measures. And now this misunderstanding
--that the calf would have nothing to do with him, although it was
for its own good that he had beaten it! But there was no help for it,
and as long as Pelle had them to mind, he intended to be obeyed.

At last it let him come close up to it, so that he could stroke it.
It stood still for a little and was sulky, but yielded at last, ate
the green food and snuffed in his face by way of thanks.

"Will you be good, then?" said Pelle, shaking it by its stumps of
horns. "Will you, eh?" It tossed its head mischievously. "Very well,
then you shan't carry my coat to-day."

The strange thing about this calf was that the first day it was let
out, it would not stir, and at last the boy left it behind for Lasse
to take in again. But no sooner was it behind him than it followed
of its own accord, with its forehead close to his back; and always
after that it walked behind him when they went out and came home,
and it carried his overcoat on its back when it looked as if there
would be rain.

Pelle's years were few in number, but to his animals he was a
grown man. Formerly he had only been able to make them respect him
sufficiently to obey him at close quarters; but this year he could
hit a cow at a distance of a hundred paces with a stone, and that
gave him power over the animals at a distance, especially when he
thought of calling out the animal's name as he hit it. In this way
they realized that the pain came from him, and learned to obey the
mere call.

For punishment to be effectual, it must follow immediately upon the
misdeed. There was therefore no longer any such thing as lying in
wait for an animal that had offended, and coming up behind it when
later on it was grazing peacefully. That only caused confusion. To
run an animal until it was tired out, hanging on to its tail and
beating it all round the meadow only to revenge one's self, was also
stupid; it made the whole flock restless and difficult to manage for
the rest of the day. Pelle weighed the end and the means against
one another; he learned to quench his thirst for revenge with good
practical reasons.

Pelle was a boy, and he was not an idle one. All day, from five in
the morning until nine at night, he was busy with something or other,
often most useless things. For hours he practiced walking on his
hands, turning a somersault, and jumping the stream; he was always
in motion. Hour after hour he would run unflaggingly round in a
circle on the grass, like a tethered foal, leaning toward the center
as he ran, so that his hand could pluck the grass, kicking up behind,
and neighing and snorting. He was pouring forth energy from morning
till night with open-handed profusion.

But minding the cattle was _work_, and here he husbanded
his energy. Every step that could be saved here was like capital
acquired; and Pelle took careful notice of everything, and was
always improving his methods. He learned that punishment worked
best when it only hung as a threat; for much beating made an animal
callous. He also learned to see when it was absolutely necessary to
interfere. If this could not be done in the very act, he controlled
himself and endeavored upon the strength of his experience to bring
about exactly the same situation once more, and then to be prepared.
The little fellow, unknown to himself, was always engaged in adding
cubits unto his stature.

He had obtained good results. The driving out and home again no
longer gave him any difficulty; he had succeeded for a whole week
in driving the flock along a narrow field road, with growing corn
on both sides, without their having bitten off so much as a blade.
And there was the still greater task of keeping them under control
on a hot, close day--to hedge them in in full gallop, so that they
stood in the middle of the meadow stamping on the ground with
uplifted tails, in fear of the gad-flies. If he wanted to, he could
make them tear home to the stable in wild flight, with their tails
in the air, on the coldest October day, only by lying down in the
grass and imitating the hum of gad-flies. But that was a tremendous
secret, that even Father Lasse knew nothing about.

The amusing thing about the buzzing was that calves that were out
for the first time, and had never made the acquaintance of a gad-fly,
instantly set off running, with tail erect, when they heard its
angry buzz.

Pelle had a remote ideal, which was to lie upon some elevated place
and direct the whole flock by the sole means of his voice, and never
need to resort to punishment. Father Lasse never beat either, no
matter how wrong things went.

There were some days--well, what did become of them? Before he had
any idea of it, it was time to drive home. Other days were long
enough, but seemed to sing themselves away, in the ring of scythes,
the lowing of cattle, and people's voices far away. Then the day
itself went singing over the ground, and Pelle had to stop every now
and then to listen. Hark! there was music! And he would run up on to
the sandbanks and gaze out over the sea; but it was not there, and
inland there was no merrymaking that he knew of, and there were no
birds of passage flying through the air at this time of year. But
hark! there was music again! far away in the distance, just such
a sound of music as reaches the ear from so far off that one cannot
distinguish the melody, or say what instruments are playing. Could
it be the sun itself?

The song of light and life streamed through him, as though he were
a fountain; and he would go about in a dreamy half-consciousness of
melody and happiness.

When the rain poured down, he hung his coat over a briar and lay
sheltered beneath it, carving or drawing with a lead button on
paper--horses, and bulls lying down, but more often ships, ships
that sailed across the sea upon their own soft melody, far away to
foreign lands, to Negroland and China, for rare things. And when he
was quite in the mood, he would bring out a broken knife and a piece
of shale from a secret hiding-place, and set to work. There was a
picture scratched on the stone, and he was now busy carving it in
relief. He had worked at it on and off all through the summer, and
now it was beginning to stand out. It was a bark in full sail,
sailing over rippling water to Spain--yes, it was going to Spain,
for grapes and oranges, and all the other delightful things that
Pelle had never tasted yet.

On rainy days it was a difficult matter to keep count of the time,
and required the utmost exertion. On other days it was easy enough,
and Pelle could tell it best by the feeling. At certain times of the
day there were signs at home on the farm that told him the time, and
the cattle gave him other hours by their habits. At nine the first
one lay down to chew the morning cud, and then all gradually lay
down one by one; and there was always a moment at about ten when
they all lay chewing. At eleven the last of them were upon their
legs again. It was the same in the afternoon between three and five.

Midday was easy to determine when the sun was shining. Pelle could
always feel it when it turned in its path. And there were a hundred
other things in nature that gave him a connection with the times
of day, such as the habits of the birds, and something about the
fir-trees, and much besides that he could not lay his finger upon
and say it was there, because it was only a feeling. The time to
drive home was given by the cattle themselves. When it drew near,
they grazed slowly around until their heads pointed in the direction
of the farm; and there was a visible tension in their bodies, a
homeward yearning.

* * * * *

Rud had not shown himself all the week, and no sooner had he
come today than Pelle had to give him a blowing-up for some
deceitfulness. Then he ran home, and Pelle lay down at the edge of
the fir-plantation, on his face with the soles of his feet in the
air, and sang. All round him there were marks of his knife on the
tree-stems. On the earliest ships you saw the keel, the deck was
perpendicular to the body. Those had been carved the first summer.
There was also a collection of tiny fields here on the edge of the
stream, properly ploughed, harrowed, and sown, each field about two
feet square.

Pelle was resting now after the exertion with Rud, by making the
air rock with his jubilant bawling. Up at the farm a man came out
and went along the high-road with a bundle under his arm. It was
Erik, who had to appear in court in answer to a summons for fighting.
Then the farmer drove out at a good pace toward the town, so he was
evidently off on the spree. Why couldn't the man have driven with
him, as they were both going the same way? How quickly he drove,
although she never followed him now. She consoled herself at home
instead! Could it be true that he had spent five hundred krones in
drinking and amusement in one evening?

"The war is raging, the red blood streams,
Among the mountains ring shouts and screams!
The Turk advances with cruel rage,
And sparing neither youth nor age.
They go--"

"Ho!" Pelle sprang to his feet and gazed up over the clover field.
The dairy cows up there for the last quarter of an hour had been
looking up at the farm every other moment, and now Aspasia lowed,
so his father must soon be coming out to move them. There he came,
waddling round the corner of the farm. It was not far to the lowest
of the cows, so when his father was there, Pelle could seize the
opportunity just to run across and say good-day to him.

He brought his animals nearer together and drove them slowly over
to the other fence and up the fields. Lasse had moved the upper
half, and was now crossing over diagonally to the bull, which stood
a little apart from the others. The bull was growling and kicking
up the earth; its tongue hung out at one side of its mouth, and it
tossed its head quickly; it was angry. Then it advanced with short
steps and all kinds of antics; and how it stamped! Pelle felt a
desire to kick it on the nose as he had often done before; it had
no business to threaten Lasse, even if it meant nothing by it.

Father Lasse took no notice of it, either. He stood hammering away
at the big tether-peg, to loosen it. "Good-day!" shouted Pelle.
Lasse turned his head and nodded, then bent down and hammered the
peg into the ground. The bull was just behind him, stamping quickly,
with open mouth and tongue hanging out; it looked as if it were
vomiting, and the sound it made answered exactly to that. Pelle
laughed as he slackened his pace. He was close by.

But suddenly Father Lasse turned a somersault, fell, and was in the
air again, and then fell a little way off. Again the bull was about
to toss him, but Pelle was at its head. He was not wearing wooden
shoes, but he kicked it with his bare feet until he was giddy. The
bull knew him and tried to go round him, but Pelle sprang at its
head, shouting and kicking and almost beside himself, seized it by
the horns. But it put him gently on one side and went forward toward
Lasse, blowing along the ground so that the grass waved.

It took hold of him by the blouse and shook him a little, and then
tried to get both his horns under him to send him up into the air;
but Pelle was on his feet again, and as quick as lightning had drawn
his knife and plunged it in between the bull's hind legs. The bull
uttered a short roar, turned Lasse over on one side, and dashed
off over the fields at a gallop, tossing its head as it ran, and
bellowing. Down by the stream it began to tear up the bank, filling
the air with earth and grass.

Lasse lay groaning with his eyes closed, and Pelle stood pulling
in vain at his arm to help him up, crying: "Father, little Father
Lasse!" At last Lasse sat up.

"Who's that singing?" he asked. "Oh, it's you, is it, laddie? And
you're crying! Has any one done anything to you? Ah, yes, of course,
it was the bull! It was just going to play fandango with me. But
what did you do to it, that the devil took it so quickly? You saved
your father's life, little though you are. Oh, hang it! I think I'm
going to be sick! Ah me!" he went on, when the sickness was past,
as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "If only I could
have had a dram. Oh, yes, he knew me, the fellow, or I shouldn't
have got off so easily. He only wanted to play with me a little,
you know. He was a wee bit spiteful because I drove him away from
a cow this morning; I'd noticed that. But who'd have thought he'd
have turned on me? He wouldn't have done so, either, if I hadn't
been so silly as to wear somebody else's clothes. This is Mons's
blouse; I borrowed it of him while I washed my own. And Mr. Bull
didn't like the strange smell about me. Well, we'll see what Mons'll
say to this here slit. I'm afraid he won't be best pleased."

Lasse talked on for a good while until he tried to rise, and
stood up with Pelle's assistance. As he stood leaning on the boy's
shoulder, he swayed backward and forward. "I should almost have said
I was drunk, if it hadn't been for the pains!" he said, laughing
feebly. "Well, well, I suppose I must thank God for you, laddie.
You always gladden my heart, and now you've saved my life, too."

Lasse then stumbled homeward, and Pelle moved the rest of the cows
on the road down to join his own. He was both proud and affected,
but most proud. He had saved Father Lasse's life, and from the big,
angry bull that no one else on the farm dared have anything to do
with. The next time Henry Bodker came out to see him, he should hear
all about it.

He was a little vexed with himself for having drawn his knife. Every
one here looked down upon that, and said it was Swedish. He wouldn't
have needed to do it either if there'd been time, or if only he had
had on his wooden shoes to kick the bull in the eyes with. He had
very often gone at it with the toes of his wooden shoes, when it had
to be driven into its stall again after a covering; and it always
took good care not to do anything to him. Perhaps he would put his
finger in its eye and make it blind, or take it by the horns and
twist its head round, like the man in the story, until its neck was
wrung.

Pelle grew and swelled up until he overshadowed everything. There
was no limit to his strength while he ran about bringing his animals
together again. He passed like a storm over everything, tossed
strong Erik and the bailiff about, and lifted--yes, lifted the
whole of Stone Farm merely by putting his hand under the beam.
It was quite a fit of berserker rage!

In the very middle of it all, it occurred to him how awkward it
would be if the bailiff got to know that the bull was loose. It
might mean a thrashing both for him and Lasse. He must go and look
for it; and for safety's sake he took his long whip with him and
put on his wooden shoes.

The bull had made a terrible mess down on the bank of the stream,
and had ploughed up a good piece of the meadow. It had left bloody
traces along the bed of the stream and across the fields. Pelle
followed these out toward the headland, where he found the bull.
The huge animal had gone right in under the bushes, and was standing
licking its wound. When it heard Pelle's voice, it came out. "Turn
round!" he cried, flicking its nose with the whip. It put its head
to the ground, bellowed, and moved heavily backward. Pelle continued
flicking it on the nose while he advanced step by step, shouting
determinedly: "Turn round! Will you turn round!" At last it turned
and set off at a run, Pelle seizing the tether-peg and running
after. He kept it going with the whip, so that it should have no
time for evil thoughts.

When this was accomplished, he was ready to drop with fatigue, and
lay crouched up at the edge of the fir-plantation, thinking sadly of
Father Lasse, who must be going about up there ill and with nobody
to give him a helping hand with his work. At last the situation
became unbearable: he had to go home!

_Zzzz! Zzzz!_ Lying flat on the ground, Pelle crept over the
grass, imitating the maddening buzz of the gad-fly. He forced the
sound out between his teeth, rising and falling, as if it were
flying hither and thither over the grass. The cattle stopped grazing
and stood perfectly still with attentive ears. Then they began to
grow nervous, kicking up their legs under their bodies, turning
their heads to one side in little curves, and starting; and then
up went their tails. He made the sound more persistently angry, and
the whole flock, infecting one another, turned and began to stamp
round in wild panic. Two calves broke out of the tumult, and made a
bee-line for the farm, and the whole flock followed, over stock and
stone. All Pelle had to do now was to run after them, making plenty
of fuss, and craftily keep the buzzing going, so that the mood
should last till they reached home.

The bailiff himself came running to open the gate into the
enclosure, and helped to get the animals in. Pelle expected a box
on the ears, and stood still; but the bailiff only looked at him
with a peculiar smile, and said: "They're beginning to get the upper
hand of you, I think. Well, well," he went on, "it's all right as
long as you can manage the bull!" He was making fun of him, and
Pelle blushed up to the roots of his hair.

Father Lasse had crept into bed. "What a good thing you came!" he
said. "I was just lying here and wondering how I was going to get
the cows moved. I can scarcely move at all, much less get up."

It was a week before Lasse was on his feet again, and during that
time the field-cattle remained in the enclosure, and Pelle stayed
at home and did his father's work. He had his meals with the others,
and slept his midday sleep in the barn as they did.

One day, in the middle of the day, the Sow came into the yard, drunk.
She took her stand in the upper yard, where she was forbidden to go,
and stood there calling for Kongstrup. The farmer was at home, but
did not show himself, and not a soul was to be seen behind the high
windows. "Kongstrup, Kongstrup! Come here for a little!" she called,
with her eyes on the pavement, for she could not lift her head. The
bailiff was not at home, and the men remained in hiding in the barn,
hoping to see some fun. "I say, Kongstrup, come out a moment! I want
to speak to you!" said the Sow indistinctly--and then went up the
steps and tried to open the door. She hammered upon it a few times,
and stood talking with her face close to the door; and when nobody
came, she reeled down the steps and went away talking to herself and
not looking round.

A little while after the sound of weeping began up there, and just
as the men were going out to the fields, the farmer came rushing out
and gave orders that the horse should be harnessed to the chaise.
While it was being done, he walked about nervously, and then set off
at full speed. As he turned the corner of the house, a window opened
and a voice called to him imploringly: "Kongstrup, Kongstrup!" But
he drove quickly on, the window closed, and the weeping began
afresh.

In the afternoon Pelle was busying himself about the lower yard when
Karna came to him and told him to go up to mistress. Pelle went up
hesitatingly. He was not sure of her and all the men were out in the
fields.

Fru Kongstrup lay upon the sofa in her husband's study, which she
always occupied, day or night, when her husband was out. She had
a wet towel over her forehead, and her whole face was red with
weeping.

"Come here!" she said, in a low voice. "You aren't afraid of me,
are you?"

Pelle had to go up to her and sit on the chair beside her. He did
not know what to do with his eyes; and his nose began to run with
the excitement, and he had no pocket-handkerchief.

"Are you afraid of me?" she asked again, and a bitter smile crossed
her lips.

He had to look at her to show that he was not afraid, and to tell
the truth, she was not like a witch at all, but only like a human
being who cried and was unhappy.

"Come here!" she said, and she wiped his nose with her own fine
handkerchief, and stroked his hair. "You haven't even a mother,
poor little thing!" And she smoothed down his clumsily mended
blouse.

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