Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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One day Brun brought him a book. "This book," he said with a peculiar
smile, "has satisfied many who were seeking for the truth. Let's see
whether it can satisfy you too!" It was Darwin's "Origin of Species."

Pelle read as in a mist. The point lay here--the whole thing powerfully
put into one sentence! His brain was in a ferment, he could not lay the
book down, but went on reading all night, bewitched and horrified at
this merciless view. When Ellen in surprise came down with his morning
coffee, he had finished the book. He made no reply to her gentle
reproaches, but drank the coffee in silence, put on his hat and went out
into the deserted streets to cool his burning brow.

It was very early and the working-men had not yet turned out; at the
morning coffee-rooms the shutters were just being taken down; warmly-
clad tram-men were tramping through the streets in their wooden-soled
boots; slipshod, tired women ran stumbling along to their early jobs,
shivering with cold and weary of life, weary before they had begun their
day. Here and there a belated woman toiled along the street carrying a
clothes-basket, a mother taking her baby to the creche before she went
to her work.

Suddenly the feeling of rebellion came over Pelle, hot, almost
suffocating him. This cruelly cold doctrine of the right of the strong,
which gave him the choice between becoming brutal or going to the dogs--
this was the key to an understanding of life? It pronounced a sentence
of death upon him and his fellows, upon the entire world of the poor.
From this point of view, the existing conditions were the only ones
possible--they were simply ideal; the sweater and the money-lender, whom
he hated, were in the most harmonious agreement with the fundamental
laws of life! And the terrible thing was that from this standpoint the
social fabric was clearly illuminated: he could not deny it. He who best
learned to accommodate himself to the existing state of things,
conquered; no matter how vile the existing state of things might be.

The book threw at once a dazzling light upon society, but where was his
own class in this doctrine--all the poor? They were not taken into
account! Society was thus in reality only those in possession, and here
he had their religion, the moral support for the uncompromising
utilization. It had always been difficult to understand how men could
misuse others; but here it was a sacred duty to give stones for bread.
The greatest oppressor was in reality nearest to life's holy, maternal
heart; for he was appointed to carry on the development.

The poor had no share in this doctrine. When a bad workman was in
difficulties, the others did not press him until he had to go down, not
even when he himself was to blame for his lack of means. The poor did
not let the weak fall, but took him under their wing. They placed
themselves outside the pale of the law and gave themselves no chance;
the race could not be won with a wounded comrade on one's back. But in
this fact there lay the admission that they did not belong to the
existing order of things, but had the right to demand their own time of
happiness. A new age must come, in which all that was needed in order
that they might share in it--kindness of heart, solidarity--was
predominant. Thus even the great union he had helped to effect pointed
in the right direction. It had been the opposite of one against all-it
had built upon the law of reciprocity.

And the poor man was not a miserable wretch, condemned by the
development to be ruined, a visionary, who, as a consequence of an empty
stomach, dreamed of a Utopia. Pelle had passed his childhood in the
country and gone about with the rest of creation in all kinds of
weather. He had seen the small singing-birds throw themselves in whole
clouds at the hawk when it had seized one of their number, and pursue it
until it dropped its prey in confusion. When he caught an ant in a split
straw, the other ants flocked to the straw and gnawed their comrade out:
they could not be frightened away. If he touched them, they squirted
their poison against his hand and went on working. Their courage amused
him, the sprinklings of poison were so tiny that he could not see them;
but if he quickly raised his hand to his nose, he detected a sharp acid
smell. Why did they not leave their comrade in his dilemma, when there
were so many of them and they were so busy? They did not even stop to
have a meal until they had liberated him.

The poor man must stick to the union idea; he had got hold of the right
thing this time! And now all at once Pelle knew which way they ought to
go. If they were outside the existing conditions and their laws, why not
arrange their own world upon the laws that were theirs? Through the
organizations they had been educated in self-government; it was about
time that they took charge of their own existence.

The young revolutionaries kept clear of the power of money by going
without things, but that was not the way. Capital always preached
contentment to the poor; he would go the other way, and conquer
production by a great flanking movement.

He was not afraid now of using the librarian's money. All doubt had been
chased away. He was perfectly clear and saw in broad outlines a world-
wide, peaceful revolution which was to subvert all existing values.
Pelle knew that poverty is not confined to any country. He had once
before brought forward an invincible idea. His system of profit-sharing
must be the starting-point for a world-fight between Labor and Capital!

X

Two days later Pelle and the librarian went to Frederiksberg Street to
look at a business that was to be disposed of. It was a small matter of
half a score of workmen, with an electrical workshop in the basement and
a shop above. The whole could be had by taking over the stock and
machinery at a valuation. The rent was rather high, but with that
exception the conditions were favorable.

"I think we'll arrange that the purchase and working capital shall bear
interest and be sunk like a four per cent. credit-association loan,"
said Brun.

"It's cheap money," answered Pelle. "A good result won't say much about
the circumstances when we haven't got the same conditions as other
businesses."

"Not so very cheap. At that price you can get as many as you want on
good security; and I suppose the workman ought to be regarded as the
best security in an undertaking that's built upon labor," said the old
man, smiling. "There'll be a big fall in discount when you come into
power, Pelle! But the bare capital costs no more now either, when there
are no parasites at it; and it's just parasites that we're going to
fight."

Pelle had no objection to the cheap money; there were still plenty of
difficulties to overcome. If they got on, it would not be long before
private speculation declared war on him.

They agreed that they would have nothing to do with agents and branches;
the business was to rest entirely upon itself and communicate directly
with the consumers. What was made in the workshop should merely cover
the expenses of the shop above, the rest of the surplus being divided
among the workmen.

"According to what rules?" asked Brun, with a searching glance at
Pelle.

"Equal!" he answered without hesitation. "We won't have anything to do
with agreements. We made a great mistake, when we began the Movement, in
giving in to the agreement system instead of doing away with it
altogether. It has increased the inequality. Every one that works has a
right to live."

"Do you think the capable workman will submit to sharing equally with
those that are less capable?" asked Brun doubtfully.

"He must learn to!" said Pelle firmly. "How could he otherwise maintain
that all work is of equal value?"

"Is that your own opinion?"

"Most decidedly. I see no reason, for instance, for making any
difference between a doctor and a sewer-cleaner. It's impossible to say
which of them is of the greater use in matters of health; the point is
that each shall do what he can."

"Capital!" exclaimed Brun. "Capital!" The old philosopher was in the
best of spirits. Pelle had considered him awkward and unpractical, and
was astonished to find that his views on many points were so practical.

"It's because this is something new," said the old man, rubbing his
hands. "I'd done with the old before I came into the world; there was
nothing that stimulated me; I was said to be degenerated. Yes, indeed!
All the same, the old bookworm's going to show his ancestors that
there's vigorous blood flowing in his veins too. We two have found the
place from which the world can be rocked, my dear Pelle; I think we've
found it! And now we'll set to work."

There was enough to do indeed, but they were realities now, and Pelle
had a pleasant feeling of once more having his feet upon the ground.
This was something different from riding alone through space upon his
own thought, always in danger of falling down; here he opened up his
road, so to speak, with his hands.

It had been arranged that the present owner of the business should carry
it on a little longer, while Pelle made himself at home in it all,
learned to understand the machinery, and took lessons in book-keeping.
He was always busy, used his day and at night slept like a log. His
brain was no longer in a perpetual ferment like a caldron, for sleep put
out the fire beneath it.

The essential thing was that they should be a party that could entirely
rely upon one another, and Pelle unhesitatingly discharged those of his
comrades who were not suited for work under new forms, and admitted
others.

The first man he applied to was Peter Dreyer. Ellen advised him not to
do so. "You know he's on bad terms with the police," she said. "You may
have difficulties enough without that." But Pelle needed some one beside
him who was able to look at things from a new point of view, and quite
understood what was essential; egoists were of no good, and this must be
the very thing for a man who had grown restive at the old state of
things.

* * * * *

Pelle had come home from his book-keeping course to have his dinner.
Ellen was out with Boy Comfort, but she had left the meal ready for him.
It was more convenient to eat it in the kitchen, so he sat upon the
kitchen table, reading a book on the keeping of accounts while he ate.

In the front room sat Lasse Frederik, learning his lessons with fingers
in both ears in order to shut out the world completely. This was not so
easy, however, for Sister had a loose tooth, and his fingers were
itching to get at it. Every other minute he broke off his reading to
offer her something or other for leave to pull it out; but the little
girl always made the same answer: "No, father's going to."

He then gave up setting about it honorably, and tried to take her
unawares; and at last he persuaded her to let him tie a piece of cotton
round the tooth and fasten it to the doorhandle. "There! Now we've only
got to burn through the cotton," he said, lighting a piece of candle,
"or else father'll never be able to get the tooth out. It loosens it
tremendously!" He talked on about all kinds of things to divert her
attention, like a conjuror, and then suddenly brought the candle close
to her nose, so that she quickly drew back. "Look, here's the tooth!" he
cried triumphantly, showing it to Sister, who, however, screamed at the
top of her voice.

Pelle heard it all, but quietly went on eating. They would have to make
it up by themselves. It was not long before Lasse Frederik was applying
a plaster to his exploit; he talked to her and gave her her toys to put
her into good humor again. When Pelle went in, they were both lying on
the floor with their heads under the bed. They had thrown the tooth
right into the wall, and were shouting together:

"Mouse, mouse!
Give me a gold tooth
Instead of a bone tooth!"

"Are you going to do anything now, father?" asked Sister, running up to
him.

Yes, he had several things to do.

"You're always so busy," she said sulkily. "Are you going to keep on all
your life?"

Pelle's conscience smote him. "No, I'm not very busy," he said quickly.
"I can stay with you for a little. What shall we do?"

Little Anna brought her large rag doll, and began to drag chairs into
position.

"No, that's so stupid!" said Lasse Frederik. "Tell us about the time you
minded the cows, father! About the big mad bull!" And Pelle told them
stories of his childhood--about the bull and Father Lasse, the farmer of
Stone Farm and Uncle Kalle with his thirteen children and his happy
disposition. The big farm, the country life, the stone-quarry and the
sea--they all made up a fairy-story for the two children of the
pavement; the boy Pelle's battle with the great oxen for the supremacy,
his wonderful capture of the twenty-five-ore piece--each incident was
more exciting than the one before it. Most exciting of all was the story
of the giant Eric, who became an idiot from a blow. "That was in those
days," said Pelle, nodding; "it wouldn't happen like that now."

"What a lot you have seen!" said Ellen, who had come home while they
were talking, and was sitting knitting. "I can hardly understand how you
managed--a little fellow like that! How I should like to have seen you!"

"Father's big!" exclaimed Sister appreciatively. Lasse

Frederik was a little more reserved. It was so tiresome always to be
outdone, and he would like to have found room for a parenthesis about
his own exploits. "I say, there's a big load of corn in the cabman's
gateway," he said, to show that he too understood country life.

"That's not corn," said Pelle; "it's hay--clover hay. Don't you even
know what corn's like?"

"We call it corn," answered the boy confidently, "and it is corn too,
for it has those tassels at the ends."

"The ears, you mean! But those are on coarse grass too, and, besides,
corn is descended from grass. Haven't you ever really been into the
country?"

"We were once going, and meant to stay a whole week, but it went wrong
with mother's work. I've been right out to the Zoological Gardens,
though."

Pelle suddenly realized how much the children must lose by living their
life in the city. "I wonder if we shouldn't think about moving out of
town," he said that evening when he and Ellen were alone.

"If you think so," Ellen answered. She herself had no desire to move
into the country, indeed she had an instinctive horror of it as a place
to live in. She did not understand it from the point of view of the
children either; there were so many children who got on capitally in
town, and he surely did not want them to become stupid peasants! If he
thought so, however, she supposed it was right; he was generally right.

Then it was certainly time they gave notice; there was not much more
than a month to April removing-day.

On Sundays they packed the perambulator and made excursions into the
surrounding country, just as in the old days when Lasse Frederik was the
only child and sat in his carriage like a little crown-prince. Now he
wheeled the carriage in which Boy Comfort sat in state; and when Sister
grew tired she was placed upon the apron with her legs hanging down.
They went in a different direction each time, and came to places that
even Lasse Frederik did not know. Close in to the back of the town lay
nice old orchards, and in the midst of them a low straw-thatched
building, which had evidently once been the dwelling-house on a farm.
They came upon it quite by chance from a side-road, and discovered that
the town was busy building barracks beyond this little idyll too, and
shutting it in. When the sun shone they sat down on a bank and ate their
dinner; Pelle and Lasse Frederik vied with one another in performing
feats of strength on the withered grass; and Ellen hunted for winter
boughs to decorate the house with.

On one of their excursions they crossed a boggy piece of ground on which
grew willow copse; behind it rose cultivated land. They followed the
field roads with no definite aim, and chanced upon an uninhabited,
somewhat dilapidated house, which stood in the middle of the rising
ground with a view over Copenhagen, and surrounded by a large, overgrown
garden. On an old, rotten board stood the words "To let," but nothing
was said as to where application was to be made.

"That's just the sort of house you'd like," said Ellen, for Pelle had
stopped.

"It would be nice to see the inside," he said. "I expect the key's to be
got at the farm up there."

Lasse Frederik ran up to the old farmhouse that lay a little farther in
at the top of the hill, to ask. A little while after he came back
accompanied by the farmer himself, a pale, languid, youngish man, who
wore a stand-up collar and was smoking a cigar.

The house belonged to the hill farm, and had been built for the parents
of the present owner. The old people had had the odd idea of calling it
"Daybreak," and the name was painted in large letters on the east gable.
The house had stood empty since they died some years ago, and looked
strangely lifeless; the window-panes were broken and looked like dead
eyes, and the floors were covered with filth.

"No, I don't like it!" said Ellen.

Pelle showed her, however, that the house was good enough, the doors and
windows fitted well, and the whole needed only to be overhauled. There
were four rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, and some rooms above,
one of these being a large attic facing south. The garden was more than
an acre in extent, and in the yard was an out-house fitted up for fowls
and rabbits, the rent was four hundred krones (L22).

Pelle and Lasse Frederik went all over it again and again, and made the
most wonderful discoveries; but when Pelle heard, the price, he grew
serious. "Then we may as well give it up," he said.

Ellen did not answer, but on the way home she reckoned it out to
herself; she could see how disappointed he was. "It'll be fifteen krones
(17 s.) more a month than we now pay," she suddenly exclaimed. "But
supposing we could get something out of the garden, and kept fowls!
Perhaps, too, we might let the upper floor furnished."

Pelle looked gratefully at her. "I'll undertake to get several hundred
krones' worth out of the garden," he said.

They were tired out when they got home, for after all it was a long way
out. "It's far away from everything," said Ellen. "You'd have to try to
buy a second-hand bicycle." Pelle suddenly understood from the tone of
her voice that she herself would be lonely out there.

"We'd better put it out of our thoughts," he said, "and look for a
three-roomed flat in town. The other is unpractical after all."

When he returned from his work the following evening, Ellen had a
surprise for him. "I've been out and taken the house," she said. "It's
not so far from the tram after all, and we get it for three hundred
krones (L16 10s.) the first year. The man promised to put it all into
good order by removing-day. Aren't you glad?"

"Yes, if only you'll be happy there," said Pelle, putting his arms round
her.

The children were delighted. They were to live out there in the bright
world into which they had peeped, as a rule, only on very festive
occasions--to wander about there every day, and always eat the food they
brought with them in the open air.

A week later they moved out. Pelle did not think they could afford to
hire men to do the removing. He borrowed a four-wheeled hand-cart--the
same that had carried Ellen's furniture from Chapel Road--and in the
course of Saturday evening and Sunday morning he and Lasse Frederik took
out the things. "Queen Theresa" gave Ellen a helping hand with the
packing. The last load was done very quickly, as they had to be out of
the town before church-time. They half ran with it, Boy Comfort having
been placed in a tub on the top of the load. Behind came Ellen with
little Anna, and last of all fat "Queen Theresa" with some pot plants
that had to be taken with special care. It was quite a procession.

They were in a tremendous bustle all day. The cleaning had been very
badly done and Ellen and "Queen Theresa" had to do it all over again.
Well, it was only what they might have expected! When you moved you
always had to clean two flats, the one you left and the one you went
into. There had not been much done in the way of repairs either, but
that too was what one was accustomed to. Landlords were the same all the
world over. There was little use in making a fuss; they were there, and
the agreement was signed. Pelle would have to see to it by degrees.

By evening the house was so far in order that it could be slept in. "Now
we'll stop for to-day," said Ellen. "We mustn't forget that it's
Sunday." They carried chairs out into the garden and had their supper
there, Pelle having laid an old door upon a barrel for a table. Every
time "Queen Theresa" leaned forward with her elbows on the table, the
whole thing threatened to upset, and then she screamed. She was a
pastor's daughter, and her surroundings now made her melancholy. "I
haven't sat like this and had supper out of doors since I ran away from
home as a fifteen-year-old girl," she said, wiping her eyes.

"Poor soul!" said Ellen, when they had gone with her along the road to
the tram. "She's certainly gone through a good deal. She's got no one to
care about her except us."

"Is she really a pastor's daughter?" asked Pelle. "Women of that kind
always pretend to be somebody of a better class who has been
unfortunate."

"Oh, yes, it's true enough. She ran away from home because she couldn't
stand it. She wasn't allowed to laugh, but had to be always praying and
thinking about God. Her parents have cursed her."

They went for a little walk behind the farm to see the evening sky.
Ellen was very talkative, and already had a thousand plans in her head.
She was going to plant a great many fruit-bushes and make a kitchen-
garden; and they would keep a number of fowls and rabbits. Next summer
she would have early vegetables that could be sold in town.

Pelle was only half attending as he walked beside her and gazed at the
glowing evening sky, which, with its long fiery lines, resembled a
distant prairie-fire. There was quiet happiness within him and around
him. He was in a solemn mood, and felt as though, after an absence of
many years, he had once more entered the land of his childhood. There
was a familiar feeling in the soft pressure of the earth beneath his
feet; it was like a caress that made him strong and gave him new life.
Here, with his feet on the soil, he felt himself invincible.

"You're so silent!" said Ellen, taking his arm so as to walk beside him
upon the dike.

"I feel as if you had just become my bride," he said, taking her into
his arms.

XI

Brun came in every morning before he went to the library to see how the
work was progressing; he was greatly interested in it, and began to look
younger. He was always urging Pelle on, and suggesting plans for
extensions. "If money's wanted, just let me know," he said. He longed to
see the effect of this new system, and was always asking Pelle whether
he noticed anything. When he heard that the boot and shoe manufacturers
had held a meeting to decide what should be their attitude to the
undertaking, he laughed and wanted to turn on more steam, quite
indifferent to what it might cost. The old philosopher had become as
impatient as a child; an interest had come into his old-man's existence,
and he was afraid of not getting the whole of it. "It's all very well
for you to take your time," he said, "but remember that I'm old and
sickly into the bargain."

He treated Pelle as a son, and generally said "thou" to him.

Pelle held back. So much depended upon the success of this venture, and
he watched it anxiously; it was as though he had been chosen to question
the future. Within the Movement his undertaking was followed with
attention; the working-men's papers wrote about it, but awaited results.
There were opinions for and against.

He wanted to give a good answer, and decided on his measures with much
care; he immediately dismissed such workmen as were not suited to the
plan. It made bad blood, but there was no help for that. He was busy
everywhere, and where he could not go himself, Lasse Frederik went, for
the boy had given up his other occupations and helped in the shop and
ran errands. Ellen wanted to help too. "We can keep a servant, and then
I'll learn book-keeping and keep the accounts and mind the shop."

Pelle would not agree to this, however. He was not going to have her
working for their maintenance any more. A woman's place was with her
children!

"Nowadays the women take part in all kinds of work," Ellen urged.

It did not matter; he had his own opinion on the subject. It was enough
that the men should do the producing. Would she have them stand on the
pavement and watch the women doing the work? It was very possible it did
not sound liberal-minded, but he did not care. Women were like beautiful
flowers, whatever people said about their being man's equal. They wore
their happiness off when they had to work for their living; he had seen
enough to know that.

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