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Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 1 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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




All this had changed a little as years went on; the sharp points of
the superstition had been blunted a little. But the bad atmosphere
that hangs over large estates--over all great accumulations of what
should belong to the many--also hung heavy over Stone Farm. It was
the judgment passed by the people, their only revenge for themselves
and theirs.

Lasse and Pelle were quickly aware of the oppressive atmosphere,
and began to see with the half-frightened eyes of the others, even
before they themselves had heard very much. Lasse especially thought
he could never be quite happy here, because of the heaviness that
always seemed to surround them. And then that weeping that no one
could quite account for!

All through the long, bright day, the sound of weeping came from
the rooms of Stone Farm, like the refrain of some sad folk-song.
Now at last it had stopped. Lasse was busying himself with little
things in the lower yard, and he still seemed to have the sound in
his ears. It was sad, so sad, with this continual sound of a woman
weeping, as if a child were dead, or as if she were left alone with
her shame. And what could there be to weep for, when you had a farm
of several hundred acres, and lived in a high house with twenty
windows!

"Riches are nought but a gift from the Lord,
But poverty, that is in truth a reward.
They who wealth do possess
Never know happiness,
While the poor man's heart is ever contented!"

So sang Karna over in the dairy, and indeed it was true! If only
Lasse knew where he was to get the money for a new smock-frock for
the little lad, he would never envy any one on this earth; though
it would be nice to have money for tobacco and a dram now and then,
if it was not unfair to any one else.

Lasse was tidying up the dung-heap. He had finished his midday work
in the stable, and was taking his time about it; it was only a job
he did between whiles. Now and then he glanced furtively up at
the high windows and put a little more energy into his work; but
weariness had the upper hand. He would have liked to take a little
afternoon nap, but did not dare. All was quiet on the farm. Pelle
had been sent on an errand to the village shop for the kitchen-folk,
and all the men were in the fields covering up the last spring corn.
Stone Farm was late with this.

The agricultural pupil now came out of the stable, which he had
entered from the other side, so as to come upon Lasse unexpectedly.
The bailiff had sent him. "Is that you, you nasty spy!" muttered
Lasse when he saw him. "Some day I'll kill you!" But he took off
his cap with the deepest respect. The tall pupil went up the yard
without looking at him, and began to talk nonsense with the maids
down in the wash-house. He wouldn't do that if the men were at home,
the scarecrow!

Kongstrup came out on to the steps, and stood for a little while
looking at the weather; then he went down to the cow-stable. How big
he was! He quite filled the stable doorway. Lasse put down his fork
and hastened in in case he was wanted.

"Well, how are you getting on, old man?" asked the farmer kindly.
"Can you manage the work?"

"Oh, yes, I get through it," answered Lasse; "but that's about all.
It's a lot of animals for one man."

Kongstrup stood feeling the hind quarters of a cow. "You've got the
boy to help you, Lasse. Where is he, by the by? I don't see him."

"He's gone to the village shop for the women-folk."

"Indeed? Who told him to go?"

"I think it was the mistress herself."

"H'm. Is it long since he went?"

"Yes, some time. He ought soon to be back now."

"Get hold of him when he comes, and send him up to me with the
things, will you?"

Pelle was rather frightened at having to go up to the office, and
besides the mistress had told him to keep the bottle well hidden
under his smock. The room was very high, and on the walls hung
splendid guns; and up upon a shelf stood cigar-boxes, one upon
another, right up to the ceiling, just as if it were a tobacco-shop.
But the strangest thing of all was that there was a fire in the
stove, now, in the middle of May, and with the window open! It must
be that they didn't know how to get rid of all their money. But
wherever were the money-chests?

All this and much more Pelle observed while he stood just inside the
door upon his bare feet, not daring from sheer nervousness to raise
his eyes. Then the farmer turned round in his chair, and drew him
toward him by the collar. "Now let's see what you've got there under
your smock, my little man!" he said kindly.

"It's brandy," said Pelle, drawing forth the bottle. "The mistress
said I wasn't to let any one see it."

"You're a clever boy," said Kongstrup, patting him on the cheek.
"You'll get on in the world one of these days. Now give me the
bottle and I'll take it out to your mistress without letting any
one see." He laughed heartily.

Pelle handed him the bottle--_there_ stood money in piles on
the writing-table, thick round two-krone pieces one upon another!
Then why didn't Father Lasse get the money in advance that he had
begged for?

The mistress now came in, and the farmer at once went and shut the
window. Pelle wanted to go, but she stopped him. "You've got some
things for me, haven't you?" she said.

"I've received the _things,_" said Kongstrup. "You shall have
them--when the boy's gone."

But she remained at the door. She would keep the boy there to be
a witness that her husband withheld from her things that were to
be used in the kitchen; every one should know it.

Kongstrup walked up and down and said nothing. Pelle expected he
would strike her, for she called him bad names--much worse than
Mother Bengta when Lasse came home merry from Tommelilla. But he
only laughed. "Now that'll do," he said, leading her away from the
door, and letting the boy out.

Lasse did not like it. He had thought the farmer was interfering to
prevent them all from making use of the boy, when he so much needed
his help with the cattle; and now it had taken this unfortunate
turn!

"And so it was brandy!" he repeated. "Then I can understand it.
But I wonder how she dares set upon him like that when it's with
_her_ the fault lies. He must be a good sort of fellow."

"He's fond of drink himself," said Pelle, who had heard a little
about the farmer's doings.

"Yes, but a woman! That's quite another thing. Remember they're
fine folk. Well, well, it doesn't become us to find fault with our
betters; we have enough to do in looking after ourselves. But I
only hope she won't send you on any more of her errands, or we may
fall between two stools."

Lasse went to his work. He sighed and shook his head while he
dragged the fodder out. He was not at all happy.




III

There was something exhilarating in the wealth of sunshine that
filled all space without the accompaniment of corresponding heat.
The spring moisture was gone from the air, and the warm haze of
summer had not yet come. There was only light--light over the green
fields and the sea beyond, light that drew the landscape in clear
lines against the blue atmosphere, and breathed a gentle, pleasant
warmth.

It was a day in the beginning of June--the first real summer day;
and it was Sunday.

Stone Farm lay bathed in sunshine. The clear golden light penetrated
everywhere; and where it could not reach, dark colors trembled like
a hot, secret breath out into the light. Open windows and doors
looked like veiled eyes in the midst of the light, and where the
roof lay in shadow, it had the appearance of velvet.

It was quiet up in the big house to-day; it was a day of rest
from wrangling too.

The large yard was divided into two by a fence, the lower part
consisting in the main of a large, steaming midden, crossed by
planks in various directions, and at the top a few inverted
wheelbarrows. A couple of pigs lay half buried in the manure,
asleep, and a busy flock of hens were eagerly scattering the pile
of horse-dung from the last morning clearance. A large cock stood
in the middle of the flock, directing the work like a bailiff.

In the upper yard a flock of white pigeons were pecking corn off
the clean stone paving. Outside the open coach-house door, a groom
was examining the dog-cart, while inside stood another groom,
polishing the best harness.

The man at the dog-cart was in shirt-sleeves and newly-polished
top-boots; he had a youthful, elastic frame, which assumed graceful
attitudes as he worked. He wore his cap on the back of his head,
and whistled softly while he cleaned the wheels outside and in,
and sent stolen glances down to the wash-house, where, below the
window, one of the maids was going through her Sunday ablutions,
with shoulders and arms bare, and her chemise pushed down below
her bosom.

The big dairymaid, Karna, went past him to the pump with two large
buckets. As she returned, she splashed some water on to one of his
boots, and he looked up with an oath. She took this as an invitation
to stop, and put down her pails with a cautious glance up at the
windows of the big house.

"You've not had all the sleep you ought to have had, Gustav," she
said teasingly, and laughed.

"Then it isn't your fault, at any rate," he answered roughly. "Can
you patch my everyday trousers for me to-day?"

"No, thank you! I don't mend for another to get all the pleasant
words!"

"Then you can leave it alone! There are plenty who'll mend for me
without you!" And he bent again to his work.

"I'll see if I can get time," said the big woman meekly. "But I've
got all the work in the place to do by myself this afternoon; the
others are all going out."

"Yes, I see Bodil's washing herself," said Gustav, sending a squirt
of tobacco-juice out of his mouth in the direction of the wash-house
window. "I suppose she's going to meeting, as she's doing it so,
thoroughly."

Karna looked cunning. "She asked to be free because she wanted to
go to church. She go to church! I should just like to see her! No,
she's going down to the tailor's in the village, and there I suppose
she'll meet Malmberg, a townsman of hers. I wonder she isn't above
having anything to do with a married man."

"She can go on the spree with any one she likes, for all I care,"
answered Gustav, kicking the last wheel into place with his foot,
while Karna stood looking at him kindly. But the next moment she
spied a face behind the curtains up in one of the windows, and
hurried off with her pails. Gustav spat contemptuously between his
teeth after her. She was really too old for his seventeen years;
she must be at least forty; and casting another long look at Bodil,
he went across to the coachhouse with oil-can and keys.

The high white house that closed the yard at its upper end, had
not been built right among the other buildings, but stood proudly
aloof, unconnected with them except by two strips of wooden paling.
It had gables on both sides, and a high basement, in which were
the servants' hall, the maids' bedrooms, the wash-house, the
mangling-room, and the large storerooms. On the gable looking on
to the yard was a clock that did not go. Pelle called the building
the Palace, and was not a little proud of being allowed to enter
the basement. The other people on the farm did not give it such
a nice name.

He was the only one whose awe of the House had nothing sinister
about it; others regarded it in the light of a hostile fortress.
Every one who crossed the paved upper yard, glanced involuntarily
up at the high veiled windows, behind which an eye might secretly
be kept upon all that went on below. It was, a little like passing
a row of cannons' mouths--it made one a little unsteady on one's
feet; and no one crossed the clean pavement unless he was obliged.
On the other hand they went freely about the other half of the yard,
which was just as much overlooked by the House.

Down there two of the lads were playing. One of them had seized
the other's cap and run off with it, and a wild chase ensued, in
at one barn-door and out at another all round the yard, to the
accompaniment of mischievous laughter and breathless exclamations.
The yard-dog barked with delight and tumbled madly about on its
chain in its desire to join in the game. Up by the fence the robber
was overtaken and thrown to the ground; but he managed to toss the
cap up into the air, and it descended right in front of the high
stone steps of the House.

"Oh, you mean beast!" exclaimed the owner of the cap, in a voice
of despairing reproach, belaboring the other with the toes of his
boots. "Oh, you wretched bailiff's sneak!" He suddenly stopped and
measured the distance with an appraising eye. "Will you stand me
half a pint if I dare go up and fetch the cap?" he asked in a
whisper. The other nodded and sat up quickly to see what would come
of it. "Swear? You won't try and back out of it?" he said, lifting
his hand adjuringly. His companion solemnly drew his finger across
his throat, as if cutting it, and the oath was taken. The one who
had lost the cap, hitched up his trousers and pulled himself
together, his whole figure stiffening with determination; then he
put his hands upon the fence, vaulted it, and walked with bent head
and firm step across the yard, looking like one who had staked his
all upon one card. When he had secured the cap, and turned his back
upon the House, he sent a horrible grimace down the yard.

Bodil now came up from the basement in her best Sunday clothes, with
a black silk handkerchief on her head and a hymn-book in her hand.
How pretty she was! And brave! She went along the whole length of
the House and out! But then she could get a kiss from the farmer
any day she liked.

Outside the farm proper lay a number of large and small outbuildings
--the calves' stable, the pigsties, the tool-shed, the cart-shed
and a smithy that was no longer used. They were all like so many
mysteries, with trap-doors that led down to pitch-dark, underground
beet and potato cellars, from which, of course, you could get by
secret passages to the strangest places underground, and other
trap-doors that led up to dark lofts, where the most wonderful
treasures were preserved in the form of old lumber.

But Pelle unfortunately had little time to go into all this. Every
day he had to help his father to look after the cattle, and with so
large a herd, the work was almost beyond their power. If he had a
moment's breathing-space, some one was sure to be after him. He had
to fetch water for the laundry girls, to grease the pupil's boots
and run to the village shop for spirits or chewing-tobacco for the
men. There was plenty to play with, but no one could bear to see him
playing; they were always whistling for him as if he were a dog.

He tried to make up for it by turning his work into a game, and in
many instances this was possible. Watering the cattle, for instance,
was more fun than any real game, when his father stood out in the
yard and pumped, and the boy only had to guide the water from manger
to manger. When thus occupied, he always felt something like a great
engineer. But on the other hand, much of the other work was too hard
to be amusing.

At this moment the boy was wandering about among the outbuildings,
where there was no one to hunt him about. The door to the cow-stable
stood open, and he could hear the continual munching of the cows,
now and then interrupted by a snuff of contentment or the regular
rattle of a chain up and down when a cow rubbed its neck upon the
post. There was a sense of security in the sound of his father's
wooden shoes up and down the foddering-passage.

Out of the open half-doors of the smaller outbuildings there came
a steamy warmth that smelt pleasantly of calves and pigs. The pigs
were hard at work. All through the long sty there was munching and
smacking. One old sow supped up the liquid through the corners of
her mouth, another snuffed and bubbled with her snout along the
bottom of the trough to find the rotten potatoes under the liquid.
Here and there two pigs were fighting over the trough, and emitting
piercing squeals. The calves put their slobbering noses out at the
doors, gazing into the sunny air and lowing feelingly. One little
fellow, after snuffing up air from the cow-stable in a peculiarly
thorough way, turned up his lip in a foolish grin: it was a bull-
calf. He laid his chin upon the half-door, and tried to jump over,
but Pelle drove him down again. Then he kicked up his hind legs,
looked at Pelle out of the corner of his eye, and stood with arched
back, lifting his fore and hindquarters alternately with the action
of a rocking-horse. He was light-headed with the sun.

Down on the pond, ducks and geese stood upon their heads in the
water, flourishing their red legs in the air. And all at once the
whole flock would have an attack of giddy delight in the sunshine,
and splash screaming from bank to bank, the last part of the way
sliding along the top of the water with a comical wagging of the
tail.

Pelle had promised himself much from this couple of hours that were
to be entirely his own, as his father had given him a holiday until
the time came for the midday work. But now he stood in bewilderment,
overwhelmed by the wealth of possibilities. Would it be the best fun
to sail upon the pond on two tail-boards laid one across the other?
There was a manure-cart lying there now to be washed. Or should he
go in and have a game with the tiny calves? Or shoot with the old
bellows in the smithy? If he filled the nozzle with wet earth, and
blew hard, quite a nice shot could come out of it.

Pelle started and tried to make himself invisible. The farmer
himself had come round the corner, and was now standing shading
his eyes with his hand and looking down over the sloping land and
the sea. When he caught sight of Pelle, he nodded without changing
his expression, and said: "Good day, my boy! How are you getting
on?" He gazed on, and probably hardly knew that he had said it and
patted the boy on the shoulder with the end of his stick; the farmer
often went about half asleep.

But Pelle felt it as a caress of a divine nature, and immediately
ran across to the stable to tell his father what had happened to
him. He had an elevating sensation in his shoulder as if he had been
knighted; and he still felt the stick there. An intoxicating warmth
flowed from the place through his little body, sent the adventure
mounting to his head and made him swell with pride. His imagination
rose and soared into the air with some vague, dizzy idea about the
farmer adopting him as his son.

He soon came down again, for in the stable he ran straight into the
arms of the Sunday scrubbing. The Sunday wash was the only great
objection he had to make to life; everything else came and was
forgotten again, but it was always coming again. He detested it,
especially that part of it which had to do with the interior of his
ears. But there was no kind mother to help; Lasse stood ready with
a bucket of cold water, and some soft soap on a piece of broken pot,
and the boy had to divest himself of his clothes. And as if the
scrubbing were not enough, he afterwards had to put on a clean
shirt--though, fortunately, only every other Sunday. The whole thing
was nice enough to look back upon afterwards--like something gone
through with, and not to happen again for a little while.

Pelle stood at the stable door into the yard with a consequential
air, with bristling hair and clean shirt-sleeves, his hands buried
in his trouser pockets. Over his forehead his hair waved in what is
called a "cow's lick," said to betoken good fortune; and his face,
all screwed up as it turned towards the bright light, looked the
oddest piece of topsy-turvydom, with not a single feature in its
proper place. Pelle bent the calves of his legs out backwards, and
stood gently rocking himself to and fro as he saw Gustav doing, up
on the front-door steps, where he stood holding the reins, waiting
for his master and mistress.

The mistress now appeared, with the farmer, and a maid ran down in
front to the carriage with a little stepladder, and helped her in.
The farmer stood at the top of the steps until she was seated: she
had difficulty in walking. But what a pair of eyes she had! Pelle
hastily looked away when she turned her face down towards the yard.
It was whispered among the men that she could bring misfortune upon
any one by looking at him if she liked. Now Gustav unchained the
dog, which bounded about, barking, in front of the horses as they
drove out of the courtyard.

Anyhow the sun did not shine like this on a week-day. It was quite
dazzling when the white pigeons flew in one flock over the yard,
turning as regularly as if they were a large white sheet flapping
in the sunshine; the reflection from their wings flashed over the
dung-heap and made the pigs lift their heads with an inquiring
grunt. Above, in their rooms the men sat playing "Sixty-six," or
tipping wooden shoes, and Gustav began to play "Old Noah" on his
concertina.

Pelle picked his way across the upper part of the yard to the big
dog-kennel, which could be turned on a pivot according to the
direction of the wind. He seated himself upon the angle of the roof,
and made a merry-go-round of it by pushing off with his foot every
time he passed the fence. Suddenly it occurred to him that he
himself was everybody's dog, and had better hide himself; so he
dropped down, crept into the kennel, and curled himself up on the
straw with his head between his fore-paws. There he lay for a little
while, staring at the fence and panting with his tongue hanging out
of his mouth. Then an idea came into his head so suddenly as to make
him forget all caution; and the next moment he was sliding full tilt
down the railing of the front-door steps.

He had done this seventeen times and was deeply engrossed in the
thought of reaching fifty, when he heard a sharp whistle from the
big coach-house door. The farm pupil stood there beckoning him.
Pelle, crestfallen, obeyed the call, bitterly regretting his
thoughtlessness. He was most likely wanted now to grease boots
again, perhaps for them all.

The pupil drew him inside the door, which he shut. It was dark,
and the boy, coming in out of the bright daylight, could distinguish
nothing; what he made out little by little assumed shapeless
outlines to his frightened imagination. Voices laughed and growled
confusedly in his ears, and hands that seemed to him enormous pulled
him about. Terror seized him, and with it came crazy, disconnected
recollections of stories of robbery and murder, and he began to
scream with fright. A big hand covered the whole of his face, and
in the silence that followed his stifled scream, he heard a voice
out in the yard, calling to the maids to come and see something
funny.

He was too paralyzed with terror to know what was being done with
him, and only wondered faintly what there was funny out there in
the sunshine. Would he ever see the sun again, he wondered?

As if in answer to his thought, the door was at that moment thrown
open. The light poured in and he recognized the faces about him,
and found himself standing half naked in the full daylight, his
trousers down about his heels and his shirt tucked up under his
waistcoat. The pupil stood at one side with a carriage-whip, with
which he flicked at the boy's naked body, crying in a tone of
command: "Run!" Pelle, wild with terror and confusion, dashed into
the yard, but there stood the maids, and at sight of him they
screamed with laughter, and he turned to fly back into the
coach-house. But he was met by the whip, and forced to return into
the daylight, leaping like a kangaroo and calling forth renewed
shouts of laughter. Then he stood still, crying helplessly, under
a shower of coarse remarks, especially from the maids. He no longer
noticed the whip, but only crouched down, trying to hide himself,
until at last he sank in a heap upon the stone paving, sobbing
convulsively.

Karna, large of limb, came rushing up from the basement and forced
her way through the crowd, crimson with rage and scolding as she
went. On her freckled neck and arms were brown marks left by the
cows' tails at the last milking, looking like a sort of clumsy
tattooing. She flung her slipper in the pupil's face, and going up
to Pelle, wrapped him in her coarse apron and carried him down to
the basement.

When Lasse heard what had happened to the boy, he took a hammer and
went round to kill the farm pupil; and the look in the old man's
eyes was such that no one desired to get in his way. The pupil had
thought his wisest course was to disappear; and when Lasse found no
vent for his wrath, he fell into a fit of trembling and weeping, and
became so really ill that the men had to administer a good mouthful
of spirits to revive him. This took instant effect, and Lasse was
himself again and able to nod consolingly to the frightened, sobbing
Pelle.

"Never mind, laddie!" he said comfortingly. "Never mind! No one has
ever yet got off without being punished, and Lasse'll break that
long limb of Satan's head and make his brains spurt out of his nose;
you take my word for it!"

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.

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

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

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