Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 2 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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"That I don't know," said Pelle grumpily; he himself had racked his
brains over this very question. "I get all I can eat, but washing
and clothes I have to see to myself."

Karna could scarcely conceal her amazement; she had supposed that
Pelle had been, so to speak, caught up to Heaven while yet living.
"But how do you manage?" she said anxiously. "You must find that
difficult. Yes, yes, directly we set out feet under our own table
we'll help you all we can."

They parted up on the high-road, and Pelle, tired and defeated, set
out on his way back. It was broad daylight when he got back, and he
crawled into bed without any one noticing anything of his attempted
flight.

III

Little Nikas had washed the blacking from his face and had put on
his best clothes; he wanted to go to the market with a bundle of
washing, which the butcher from Aaker was to take home to his mother,
and Pelle walked behind him, carrying the bundle. Little Nikas
saluted many friendly maidservants in the houses of the neighborhood,
and Pelle found it more amusing to walk beside him than to follow;
two people who are together ought to walk abreast. But every time he
walked beside the journeyman the latter pushed him into the gutter,
and finally Pelle fell over a curbstone; then he gave it up.

Up the street the crazy watchmaker was standing on the edge of his
high steps, swinging a weight; it was attached to the end of a long
cord, and he followed the swinging of the pendulum with his fingers,
as though he were timing the beats. This was very interesting, and
Pelle feared it would escape the journeyman.

"The watchmaker's making an experiment," he said cheerfully.

"Stop your jaw!" said the journeyman sharply. Then it occurred
to Pelle that he was not allowed to speak, so he closed his mouth
tight.

He felt the bundle, in order to picture to himself what the contents
were like. His eyes swept all the windows and the side streets,
and every moment he carried his free hand to his mouth, as though
he were yawning, and introduced a crumb of black bread, which he
had picked up in the kitchen. His braces were broken, so he had
continually to puff out his belly; there were hundreds of things
to look at, and the coal-merchant's dog to be kicked while, in all
good faith, he snuffed at a curbstone.

A funeral procession came toward them, and the journeyman passed
it with his head bared, so Pelle did the same. Eight at the back
of the procession came Tailor Bjerregrav with his crutch; he always
followed every funeral, and always walked light at the back because
his method of progression called for plenty of room. He would stand
still and look on the ground until the last of the other followers
had gone a few steps in advance, then he would set his crutch in
front of him, swing himself forward for a space, and then stand
still again. Then he would swing forward again on his lame legs,
and again stand still and watch the others, and again take a few
paces, looking like a slowly wandering pair of compasses which was
tracing the path followed by the procession.

But the funniest thing was that the tailor had forgotten to button
up the flap of his black mourning-breeches, so that it hung over his
knees like an apron. Pelle was not quite sure that the journeyman
had noticed this.

"Bjerregrav has forgotten--"

"Hold your jaw." Little Nikas made a movement backward, and Pelle
ducked his head and pressed his hand tightly to his mouth.

Over in Staal Street there was a great uproar; an enormously fat
woman was standing there quarrelling with two seamen. She was in
her nightcap and petticoat, and Pelle knew her.

"That's the Sow!" he began. "She's a dreadful woman; up at Stone
Farm----"

_Smack!_ Little Nikas gave him such a box on the ear that he
had to sit down on the woodcarver's steps. "One, two, three, four--
that's it; now come on!" He counted ten steps forward and set off
again. "But God help you if you don't keep your distance!"

Pelle kept his distance religiously, but he instantly discovered
that little Nikas, like old Jeppe, had too large a posterior.
That certainly came of sitting too much--and it twisted one's loins.
He protruded his own buttocks as far as he could, smoothed down a
crease in his jacket over his hips, raised himself elegantly upon
the balls of his feet and marched proudly forward, one hand thrust
into the breast of his coat. If the journeyman scratched himself,
Pelle did the same--and he swayed his body in the same buoyant
manner; his cheeks were burning, but he was highly pleased with
himself.

Directly he was his own master he went the round of the country
butchers, questioning them, in the hope of hearing some news of
Lasse, but no one could tell him anything. He went from cart to cart,
asking his questions. "Lasse Karlson?" said one. "Ah, he was cowherd
up at Stone Farm!" Then he called to another, asking him about Lasse
--the old cowherd at Stone Farm--and he again called to a third, and
they all gathered about the carts, in order to talk the matter over.
There were men here who travelled all over the island [Bornholm] in
order to buy cattle; they knew everything and everybody, but they
could tell him nothing of Lasse. "Then he's not in the island," said
one, very decidedly. "You must get another father, my lad!"

Pelle did not feel inclined for chaff, so he slipped away. Besides,
he must go back and get to work; the young master, who was busily
going from cart to cart, ordering meat, had called to him. They hung
together like the halves of a pea-pod when it was a question of
keeping the apprentices on the curb, although otherwise they were
jealous enough of one another.

Bjerregrav's crutch stood behind the door, and he himself sat
in stiff funereal state by the window; he held a folded white
handkerchief in his folded hands, and was diligently mopping
his eyes.

"Was he perhaps a relation of yours?" said the young master slyly.

"No; but it is so sad for those who are left--a wife and children.
There is always some one to mourn and regret the dead. Man's life
is a strange thing, Andres."

"Ah, and potatoes are bad this year, Bjerregrav!"

Neighbor Jorgen filled up the whole doorway. "Lord, here we have
that blessed Bjerregrav!" he shouted; "and in state, too! What's
on to-day then--going courting, are you?"

"I've been following!" answered Bjerregrav, in a hushed voice.

The big baker made an involuntary movement; he did not like being
unexpectedly reminded of death. "You, Bjerregrav, you ought to be
a hearse-driver; then at least you wouldn't work to no purpose!"

"It isn't to no purpose when they are dead," stammered Bjerregrav.
"I am not so poor that I need much, and there is no one who stands
near to me. No living person loses anything because I follow those
who die. And then I know them all, and I've followed them all in
thought since they were born," he added apologetically.

"If only you got invited to the funeral feast and got something
of all the good things they have to eat," continued the baker,
"I could understand it better."

"The poor widow, who sits there with her four little ones and
doesn't know how she's to feed them--to take food from her--no,
I couldn't do it! She's had to borrow three hundred kroner so that
her man could have a respectable funeral party."

"That ought to be forbidden by law," said Master Andres; "any one
with little children hasn't the right to throw away money on the
dead."

"She is giving her husband the last honors," said Jeppe reprovingly.
"That is the duty of every good wife."

"Of course," rejoined Master Andres. "God knows, something must be
done. It's like the performances on the other side of the earth,
where the widow throws herself on the funeral pyre when the husband
dies, and has to be burned to death."

Baker Jorgen scratched his thighs and grimaced. "You are trying to
get us to swallow one of your stinking lies, Andres. You'd never get
a woman to do that, if I know anything of womankind."

But Bjerregrav knew that the shoemaker was not lying, and fluttered
his thin hands in the air, as though he were trying to keep
something invisible from touching his body. "God be thanked that we
came into the world on this island here," he said, in a low voice.
"Here only ordinary things happen, however wrongheaded they may be."

"What puzzles me is where she got all that money!" said the baker.

"She's borrowed it, of course," said Bjerregrav, in a tone of voice
that made it clear that he wanted to terminate the conversation.

Jeppe retorted contemptuously, "Who's going to lend a poor mate's
widow three hundred kroner? He might as well throw it into the sea
right away."

But Baker Jorgen gave Bjerregrav a great smack on the back. "You've
given her the money, it's you has done it; nobody else would he such
a silly sheep!" he said threateningly.

"You let me be!" stammered Bjerregrav. "I've done nothing to you!
And she has had one happy day in the midst of all her sorrow." His
hands were trembling.

"You're a goat!" said Jeppe shortly.

"What is Bjerregrav really thinking about when he stands like this
looking down into the grave?" asked the young master, in order to
divert the conversation.

"I am thinking: Now you are lying there, where you are better off
than here," said the old tailor simply.

"Yes, because Bjerregrav follows only poor people," said Jeppe,
rather contemptuously.

"I can't help it, but I'm always thinking," continued Master Andres;
"just supposing it were all a take-in! Suppose he follows them and
enjoys the whole thing--and then there's nothing! That's why I never
like to see a funeral."

"Ah, you see, that's the question--supposing there's nothing."
Baker Jorgen turned his thick body. "Here we go about imagining
a whole lot of things; but what if it's all just lies?"

"That's the mind of an unbeliever!" said Jeppe, and stamped
violently on the floor.

"God preserve my mind from unbelief!" retorted brother Jorgen,
and he stroked his face gravely. "But a man can't very well help
thinking. And what does a man see round about him? Sickness and
death and halleluiah! We live, and we live, I tell you, Brother
Jeppe--and we live in order to live! But, good heavens! all the
poor things that aren't born yet!"

He sank into thought again, as was usual with him when he thought
of Little Jorgen, who refused to come into the world and assume his
name and likeness, and carry on after him.... There lay his belief;
there was nothing to be done about it. And the others began to speak
in hushed voices, in order not to disturb his memories.

Pelle, who concerned himself with everything in heaven and earth,
had been absorbing every word that was spoken with his protruding
ears, but when the conversation turned upon death he yawned. He
himself had never been seriously ill, and since Mother Bengta died,
death had never encroached upon his world. And that was lucky for
him, as it would have been a case of all or nothing, for he had only
Father Lasse. For Pelle the cruel hands of death hardly existed,
and he could not understand how people could lay themselves down
with their noses in the air; there was so much to observe here
below--the town alone kept one busy.

On the very first evening he had run out to look for the other boys,
just where the crowd was thickest. There was no use in waiting;
Pelle was accustomed to take the bull by the horns, and he longed
to be taken into favor.

"What sort of brat is that?" they said, flocking round him.

"I'm Pelle," he said, standing confidently in the midst of the
group, and looking at them all. "I have been at Stone Farm since
I was eight, and that is the biggest farm in the north country."
He had put his hands in his pockets, and spat coolly in front of
him, for that was nothing to what he had in reserve.

"Oh, so you're a farmer chap, then!" said one, and the others
laughed. Rud was among them.

"Yes," said Pelle; "and I've done a bit of ploughing, and mowing
fodder for the calves."

They winked at one another. "Are you really a farmer chap?"

"Yes, truly," replied Pelle, perplexed; they had spoken the word
in a tone which he now remarked.

They all burst out laughing: "He confesses it himself. And he comes
from the biggest farm in the country. Then he's the biggest farmer
in the country!"

"No, the farmer was called Kongstrup," said Pelle emphatically.
"I was only the herd-boy."

They roared with laughter. "He doesn't see it now! Why, Lord,
that's the biggest farmer's lout!"

Pelle had not yet lost his head, for he had heavier ammunition, and
now he was about to play a trump. "And there at the farm there was
a man called Erik, who was so strong that he could thrash three men,
but the bailiff was stronger still; and he gave Erik such a blow
that he lost his senses."

"Oh, indeed! How did he manage that? Can you hit a farmer chap
so that he loses his senses? Who was it hit you like that?" The
questions rained upon him.

Pelle pushed the boy who had asked the last question, and fixed his
eyes upon his. But the rascal let fly at him again. "Take care of
your best clothes," he said, laughing. "Don't crumple your cuffs!"

Pelle had put on a clean blue shirt, of which the neckband and
wristbands had to serve as collar and cuffs. He knew well enough
that he was clean and neat, and now they were being smart at his
expense on that very account.

"And what sort of a pair of Elbe barges has he got on? Good Lord!
Why, they'd fill half the harbor!" This was in reference to
Kongstrup's shoes. Pelle had debated with himself as to whether he
should wear them on a week-day. "When did you celebrate hiring-day?"
asked a third. This was in reference to his fat red cheeks.

Now he was ready to jump out of his skin, and cast his eyes around
to see if there was nothing with which he could lay about him, for
this would infallibly end in an attack upon the whole party. Pelle
already had them all against him.

But just then a long, thin lad came forward. "Have you a pretty
sister?" he asked.

"I have no sisters at all," answered Pelle shortly.

"That's a shame. Well, can you play hide-and-seek?"

Of course Pelle could!

"Well, then, play!" The thin boy pushed Pelle's cap over his eyes,
and turned him with his face against the plank fence. "Count to a
hundred--and no cheating, I tell you!"

No, Pelle would not cheat--he would neither look nor count short--
so much depended on this beginning. But he solemnly promised
himself to use his legs to some purpose; they should all be caught,
one after another! He finished his counting and took his cap from
his eyes. No one was to be seen. "Say 'peep'!" he cried; but no
one answered. For half an hour Pelle searched among timbers and
warehouses, and at last he slipped away home and to bed. But he
dreamed, that night, that he caught them all, and they elected
him as their leader for all future time.

The town did not meet him with open arms, into which he could fall,
with his childlike confidence, and be carried up the ladder. Here,
apparently, one did not talk about the heroic deeds which elsewhere
gave a man foothold; here such things merely aroused scornful
laughter. He tried it again and again, always with something new,
but the answer was always the same--"Farmer!" His whole little
person was overflowing with good-will, and he became deplorably
dejected.

Pelle soon perceived that his whole store of ammunition was
crumbling between his hands, and any respect he had won at home,
on the farm or in the village, by his courage and good nature,
went for nothing here. Here other qualities counted; there was a
different jargon, the clothes were different, and people went about
things in a different way. Everything he had valued was turned to
ridicule, even down to his pretty cap with its ear-flaps and its
ribbon adorned with representations of harvest implements. He had
come to town so calmly confident in himself--to make the painful
discovery that he was a laughable object! Every time he tried to
make one of a party, he was pushed to one side; he had no right
to speak to others; he must take the hindmost rank!

Nothing remained to him but to sound the retreat all along the line
until he had reached the lowest place of all. And hard as this was
for a smart youngster who was burning to set his mark on everything,
Pelle did it, and confidently prepared to scramble up again. However
sore his defeat, he always retained an obstinate feeling of his own
worth, which no one could take away from him. He was persuaded that
the trouble lay not with himself but with all sorts of things about
him, and he set himself restlessly to find out the new values and
to conduct a war of elimination against himself. After every defeat
he took himself unweariedly to task, and the next evening he would
go forth once more, enriched by so many experiences, and would
suffer defeat at a new point. He wanted to conquer--but what must
he not sacrifice first? He knew of nothing more splendid than to
march resoundingly through the streets, his legs thrust into Lasse's
old boots--this was the essence of manliness. But he was man enough
to abstain from so doing--for here such conduct would be regarded
as boorish. It was harder for him to suppress his past; it was so
inseparable from Father Lasse that he was obsessed by a sense of
unfaithfulness. But there was no alternative; if he wanted to get
on he must adapt himself in everything, in prejudices and opinions
alike. But he promised himself to flout the lot of them so soon as
he felt sufficiently high-spirited.

What distressed him most was the fact that his handicraft was so
little regarded. However accomplished he might become, the cobbler
was, and remained, a poor creature with a pitchy snout and a big
behind! Personal performance counted for nothing; it was obvious
that he must as soon as possible escape into some other walk of
life.

But at least he was in the town, and as one of its inhabitants--
there was no getting over that. And the town seemed still as great
and as splendid, although it had lost the look of enchantment it
once had, when Lasse and he had passed through it on their way to
the country. Most of the people wore their Sunday clothes, and many
sat still and earned lots of money, but no one knew how. All roads
came hither, and the town swallowed everything: pigs and corn and
men--everything sooner or later found its harbor here! The Sow lived
here with Rud, who was now apprenticed to a painter, and the twins
were here! And one day Pelle saw a tall boy leaning against a door
and bellowing at the top of his voice, his arms over his face, while
a couple of smaller boys were thrashing him; it was Howling Peter,
who was cook's boy on a vessel. Everything flowed into the town!

But Father Lasse--he was not here!

IV

There was something about the town that made it hard to go to bed
and hard to get up. In the town there was no sunrise shining over
the earth and waking everybody. The open face of morning could not
be seen indoors. And the dying day poured no evening weariness into
one's limbs, driving them to repose; life seemed here to flow in
the reverse direction, for here people grew lively at night!

About half-past six in the morning the master, who slept downstairs,
would strike the ceiling with his stick. Pelle, whose business it
was to reply, would mechanically sit up and strike the side of the
bedstead with his clenched fist. Then, still sleeping, he would fall
back again. After a while the process was repeated. But then the
master grew impatient. "Devil take it! aren't you going to get up
to-day?" he would bellow. "Is this to end in my bringing you your
coffee in bed?" Drunken with sleep, Pelle would tumble out of bed.
"Get up, get up!" he would cry, shaking the others. Jens got nimbly
on his feet; he always awoke with a cry of terror, guarding his
head; but Emil and Peter, who were in the hobbledehoy stage,
were terribly difficult to wake.

Pelle would hasten downstairs, and begin to set everything in order,
filling the soaking-tub and laying a sand-heap by the window-bench
for the master to spit into. He bothered no further about the others;
he was in a morning temper himself. On the days when he had to
settle right away into the cobbler's hunch, without first running
a few early errands or doing a few odd tasks, it took hours to thaw
him.

He used to look round to see whether on the preceding evening he
had made a chalk-mark in any conspicuous place; for then there must
be something that he had to remember. Memory was not his strong
point, hence this ingenious device. Then it was only a matter of not
forgetting what the mark stood for; if he forgot, he was no better
off than before.

When the workshop was tidy, he would hurry downstairs and run out
for Madame, to fetch morning rolls "for themselves." He himself was
given a wheaten biscuit with his coffee, which he drank out in the
kitchen, while the old woman went grumbling to and fro. She was dry
as a mummy and moved about bent double, and when she was not using
her hands she carried one forearm pressed against her midriff. She
was discontented with everything, and was always talking of the
grave. "My two eldest are overseas, in America and Australia;
I shall never see them again. And here at home two menfolk go
strutting about doing nothing and expecting to be waited on. Andres,
poor fellow, isn't strong, and Jeppe's no use any longer; he can't
even keep himself warm in bed nowadays. But they know how to ask for
things, that they do, and they let me go running all over the place
without any help; I have to do everything myself. I shall truly
thank God when at last I lie in my grave. What are you standing
there for with your mouth and your eyes wide open? Get away with
you!" Thereupon Pelle would finish his coffee--it was sweetened
with brown sugar--out of doors, by the workshop window.

In the mornings, before the master appeared, there was no great
eagerness to work; they were all sleepy still, looking forward to
a long, dreary day. The journeyman did not encourage them to work;
he had a difficulty in finding enough for himself. So they sat there
wool-gathering, striking a few blows with the hammer now and then
for appearance's sake, and one or another would fall asleep again
over the table. They all started when three blows were struck on
the wall as a signal for Pelle.

"What are you doing? It seems to me you are very idle in there!"
the master would say, staring suspiciously at Pelle. But Pelle had
remarked what work each was supposed to have in hand, and would run
over it all. "What day's this--Thursday? Damnation take it! Tell
that Jens he's to put aside Manna's uppers and begin on the pilot's
boots this moment--they were promised for last Monday." The master
would struggle miserably to get his breath: "Ah, I've had a bad
night, Pelle, a horrible night; I was so hot, with such a ringing
in my ears. New blood is so devilishly unruly; it's all the time
boiling in my head like soda-water. But it's a good thing I'm making
it, God knows; I used to be so soon done up. Do you believe in Hell?
Heaven, now, that's sheer nonsense; what happiness can we expect
elsewhere if we can't be properly happy here? But do you believe in
Hell? I dreamed I'd spat up the last bit of my lungs and that I went
to Hell. 'What the devil d'you want here, Andres?' they asked me;
'your heart is still whole!' And they wouldn't have me. But what
does that signify? I can't breathe with my heart, so I'm dying.
And what becomes of me then? Will you tell me that?

"There's something that bids a man enter again into his mother's
womb; now if only a man could do that, and come into the world again
with two sound legs, you'd see me disappear oversea double-quick,
whoop! I wouldn't stay messing about here any longer.... Well, have
you seen your navel yet to-day? Yes, you ragamuffin, you laugh; but
I'm in earnest. It would pay you well if you always began the day
by contemplating your navel."

The master was half serious, half jesting. "Well, now, you can fetch
me my port wine; it's on the shelf, behind the box with the laces in
it. I'm deadly cold."

Pelle came back and announced that the bottle was empty. The master
looked at him mildly.

"Then run along and get me another. I've no money--you must say--
well, think it out for yourself; you've got a head." The master
looked at him with an expression which went to Pelle's heart, so
that he often felt like bursting into tears. Hitherto Pelle's life
had been spent on the straight highway; he did not understand this
combination of wit and misery, roguishness and deadly affliction.
But he felt something of the presence of the good God, and trembled
inwardly; he would have died for the young master.

When the weather was wet it was difficult for the sick man to get
about; the cold pulled him down. If he came into the workshop,
freshly washed and with his hair still wet, he would go over to the
cold stove, and stand there, stamping his feet. His cheeks had quite
fallen in. "I've so little blood for the moment," he said at such
times, "but the new blood is on the way; it sings in my ears every
night." Then he would be silent a while. "There, by my soul, we've
got a piece of lung again," he said, and showed Pelle, who stood at
the stove brushing shoes, a gelatinous lump. "But they grow again
afterward!"

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