Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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She did not like standing and looking on while the two men were so busy,
so she attacked the garden, and sowed herbs and planted cabbage in the
beds that lay like thick down quilts upon the earth; and when it
happened that things came up, she was happy. She had bought a gardening
book, and puzzled her head about the various kinds and their treatment.
Pelle came to her assistance after working hours, and everything that he
handled flourished. This made Ellen a little angry. She did exactly what
he did, but it was just as if the plants made a difference between them.
"I've got the countryman's hand," he said, laughing.

All Sunday they were busy. The whole family was in the garden, Lasse
Frederik digging, Pelle pruning the espalier round the garden door, and
Ellen tying it up. The children were trying to help everybody and were
mostly a hindrance. One or other of them was always doing something
wrong, treading on the beds or pulling up the plants. How
extraordinarily stupid they were! Regular town children! They could not
even understand when they were told! Pelle could not comprehend it, and
sometimes nearly lost patience.

One day when little Anna came to him unsuspectingly to show him a
flowering branch of an apple-tree which she had broken off, he was angry
and took her roughly by the arm; but when he saw the frightened
expression in her face, he remembered the man with the strange eyes, who
had taught him in his childhood to manage the cattle without using
anything but his hands, and he was ashamed of himself. He took the
little ones by the hand, went round the garden with them and told them
about the trees and bushes, which were alive just like themselves, and
only wanted to do all they could for the two children. The branches were
their arms and legs, so they could imagine how dreadful it was to pull
them off. Sister turned pale and said nothing, but Boy Comfort, who at
last had decided, to open his mouth and had become quite a chatterbox,
jabbered away and stuck out his little stomach like a drummer. He was a
sturdy little fellow, and Ellen's eyes followed him proudly as he went
round the garden.

The knowledge that everything was alive had a remarkable effect upon the
two children. They always went about hand in hand, and kept carefully to
the paths. All round them the earth was breaking and curious things
coming up out of it. The beans had a bucket turned over them to protect
them, and the lettuces put up folded hands as if they were praying for
fine weather. Every morning when the children made their round of the
garden, new things had come up. "'Oook, 'ook!" exclaimed Boy Comfort,
pointing to the beds. They stood at a safe distance and talked to one
another about the new wonders, bending over with their hands upon their
backs as if afraid that the new thing would snatch at their fingers.
Sometimes Boy Comfort's chubby hand would come out involuntarily and
want to take hold of things; but he withdrew it in alarm as if he had
burnt himself, saying "Ow!" and then the two children would run as fast
as they could up to the house.

For them the garden was a wonder-world full of delights--and full of
terrors. They soon became familiar with the plants in their own way, and
entered into a kind of mystic companionship with them, met them in a
friendly way and exchanged opinions--like beings from different worlds,
meeting on the threshold. There was always something mysterious about
their new friends, which kept them at a distance; they did not give much
information about themselves. When they were asked: "Who called you?"
they answered quickly: "Mother Ellen!" But if they were asked what it
looked like down in the earth, they made no answer whatever. The garden
continued to be an inexhaustible world to the children, no matter how
much they trotted about in it. Every day they went on new journeys of
discovery in under elder and thorn bushes; there were even places which
they had not yet got at, and others into which they did not venture at
all. They went near to them many times in the course of the day, and
peeped over the gooseberry bushes into the horrible darkness that sat in
there like an evil being and had no name. Out in the brilliant sunshine
on the path they stood and challenged it, Sister spitting until her chin
and pinafore were wet, and Boy Comfort laboriously picking up stones and
throwing them in. He was so fat that he could not bend down, but had to
squat on his heels whenever he wanted to pick up anything. And then
suddenly they would rush away to the house in a panic of fear.

It was not necessary to be a child to follow the life in the garden. A
wonderful power of growing filled everything, and in the night it
crackled and rustled out in the moonlight, branches stretched themselves
in fresh growths, the sap broke through the old bark in the form of
flowers and new "eyes." It was as though Pelle and Ellen's happy zeal
had been infectious; the half-stifled fruit-trees that had not borne for
many years revived and answered the gay voices by blossoming
luxuriantly. It was a race between human beings and plants as to who
should accomplish the most, and between the plants themselves as to
which could make the best show. "The spring is lavishing its flowers and
green things upon us," said Pelle. He had never seen a nest that was so
beautiful as his; he had at last made a home.

It was pleasant here. Virginia creeper and purple clematis covered the
whole front of the house and hung down before the garden door, where
Ellen liked to sit with her work, keeping an eye on the little ones
playing on the grass, where she liked best to sit with Pelle on Sundays,
when the Copenhagen families came wandering past on their little country
excursions. They often stopped outside the hedge and exclaimed: "Oh,
what a lovely home!"

* * * * *

The work in Pelle's workshop began, as in all other places, at six in
the morning; but it stopped at four, so that those who cared about it
could easily make something of the day. Pelle had reduced the working
hours to nine, and dared not venture any further for the present.

Some of the hands liked this arrangement, and employed the afternoon in
going out with their wives and children; but others would rather have
had an hour longer in bed in the morning. One day the latter came and
declared that now they were in the majority and would have it changed.

"I can't agree to that," answered Pelle. "Being early up is the
workman's privilege, and I'm not going to give it up."

"But we've taken the votes on it," they said. "This is a democratic
institution, isn't it?"

"I've taken no oath to the vote," Pelle answered quietly, "and in the
meantime I should advise those who are dissatisfied with the conditions
here to try somewhere else."

There was always something like this going on, but he did not take it
for more than it was worth. They had acquired consciousness of their
power, but most of them had not yet discovered its aim. They used it
blindly, in childish pleasure at seeing it unfold, like boys in
unfurling their banner, tyrannized a little by way of a change, and took
their revenge for the subjection of old times by systematically
demanding the opposite to what they had. They reeled a little; the
miracle of the voting-paper had gone to their heads. It was an
intelligible transition; the feeling of responsibility would get hold of
them in time.

Another day two of the most skilful workmen came and asked to have
piece-work introduced again. "We won't stand toiling to make money for
our comrades," they said.

"Are they idle?" asked Pelle.

"No, but we work quicker."

"Then they're more thorough on the whole. The one generally balances the
other."

"That's all very well, but it doesn't benefit us."

"It benefits the consumers, and under the new conditions that's the same
thing. We must maintain the principle that all who do their duty are
equally good; it's in our own interests."

They were satisfied for the time. They were two clever fellows, and it
was only that they had not got hold of the new feature in the
arrangement.

In this way there was considerable trouble. The workmen were short-
sighted, and saw only from their hands to their own mouths. Impatience
had also something to do with it. They had shorter hours and higher
wages, but had not as much to do as in other places. It was new of
course, and had to answer to their dreams; but there would be no
fortunes to be made out of it as Pelle was working it. He was a little
more precise than was necessary when you were pressed on all sides by
vulgar competition.

There were, for instance, still a number of people who kept to the good
old handsewn boots and shoes, and willingly paid half as much again for
them. A good many small shoemakers availed themselves of this by
advertising handsewn foot-wear, and then passed the measures on to a
factory. It was a good business for both factory and shoemaker, but
Pelle would have nothing to do with such transactions. He put his trade-
mark on the sole of everything that went out of his workshop.

Pelle took all this with dignified calmness. What right had he to demand
perspicuity of these people? It was _his_ business to educate them
to it. If only they were willing, he was satisfied. Some day he supposed
he would take them so far that they would be able to take over the
business jointly, or make it self-supporting; but until then they would
have to fall in with his plans.

Part of a great, far-off dream was nevertheless being realized in his
undertaking, modest though it was at present; and if it were successful,
the way to a new age for the petty tradesmen was open. And what was of
still more importance, his own home was growing through this work. He
had found the point where the happiness of the many lay in the
lengthening of his own; he had got the right way now! Sometimes in the
evening after a troublesome day he felt a little tired of the
difficulties; but when he bicycled down toward the town in the early
morning, while the mists of night drifted across the fields and the lark
sang above his head, he was always in good spirits. Then he could follow
the consequences of his labor, and see the good principles victorious
and the work growing. Kindred enterprises sprang up in other parts of
the town, in other towns, still farther out. In the far distance he
could see that all production was in the hands of the working-men
themselves.

Peter Dreyer supported him like a good comrade, and took a good deal of
the worry off his shoulders. He unselfishly put all his strength into
it, but he did not share Pelle's belief in the enormous results that
would come from it. "But, dear me, this is capitalistic too!" he said--
"socialist capitalism! Just look up to the pavement! there goes a man
with no soles to his shoes, and his feet are wet, but all the same he
doesn't come down here and get new shoes, for we want money for them
just like all the others, and those who need our work most simply have
none. That thing"--he went on, giving a kick to one of the machines--
"turns ten men into the street! There you have the whole thing!"

Pelle defended his machines, but Peter would not give in. "The whole
thing should have been altered first," he said angrily. "As it is, they
are inventions of the devil! The machines have come a day or two too
early, and point their mouths at us, like captured cannons!"

"The machines make shoes for ten times as many people as we could make
for with our hands," said Pelle, "and that can hardly be called a
misfortune. It's only the distribution that's all wrong."

Peter Dreyer shrugged his shoulders; he would not discuss the question
of distribution any more. If they meant to do anything to alter it he
was willing to help. There had been enough nonsense talked about it.
Those who had money could buy up all that they made, while the
barefooted would be no better off than before. It was a deadlock. Did he
think it would revolutionize the world if every man received the entire
proceeds of his work? That only meant justice in the existing
conditions, so long as diamonds continued to be more valuable than
bread. "I don't see that those who happen to have work should have a
better right to live than those who can't get any," he said wrathfully.
"Or perhaps you don't know the curse of unemployment! Look at them
wandering about in thousands, summer and winter, a whole army of
shadows! The community provides for them so that they can just hang
together. Good heavens, that isn't helping the poor, with all respect to
the honorable workman! Let him keep his vote, since it amuses him! It's an
innocent pleasure. Just think if he demanded proper food instead of it!"

Yes, Pelle was well enough acquainted with the great hunger reserve; he
had very nearly been transferred into it himself. But here he
nevertheless caught a glimpse of the bottom. There was a peaceable
strength in what he was doing that might carry them on a long way. Peter
Dreyer acknowledged it himself by working so faithfully with him. It was
only that he would not admit it.

At first they had to stand a good deal, but by degrees Pelle learned to
turn things off. Peter, who was generally so good and amenable, spoke in
an angry, vexed tone when the conversation touched upon social
conditions; it was as though he was at the end of his patience. Though
he earned a very good amount, he was badly dressed and looked as if he
did not get sufficient food; his breakfast, which he ate together with
the others in the workshop, generally consisted of bread and margarine,
and he quenched his thirst at the water-tap. At first the others made
fun of his prison fare, but he soon taught them to mind their own
business: it was not safe to offend him. Part of his earnings he used
for agitation, and his comrades said that he lived with a humpbacked
woman and her mother. He himself admitted no one into his confidence,
but grew more and more reticent. Pelle knew that he lived in one of the
Vesterbro back streets, but did not know his address. When he stood
silent at his work, his expression was always gloomy, sometimes terribly
sad. He seemed to be always in pain.

The police were always after him. Pelle had once or twice received a
hint not to employ him, but firmly refused to submit to any interference
in his affairs. It was then arbitrarily decided that Peter Dreyer should
report himself to the authorities every week.

"I won't do it!" he said. "It's quite illegal. I've only been punished
for political offences, and I've been so careful that they shouldn't be
able to get at me for any formal mistake, and here they're having this
triumph! I won't!" He spoke quietly and without excitement, but his
hands shook.

Pelle tried an appeal to his unselfishness. "Do it for my sake then," he
said. "If you don't they'll shut you up, and you know I can't do without
you."

"Would you go and report yourself then if you were told to?" Peter
asked.

"Yes. No one need be ashamed of submitting to superior brute force."

So he went. But it cost him an enormous effort, and on that day in the
week it was better to leave him alone.

XII

Marie's fate lay no longer like a heavy burden upon Pelle; time had
taken the bitterness out of it. He could recall without self-reproach
his life with her and her two brothers in the "Ark," and often wondered
what had become of the latter. No one could give him any information
about them.

One day, during the midday rest, he went on his bicycle out to Morten
with a message from Ellen. In Morten's sitting-room, a hunched-up figure
was sitting with its back to the window, staring down at the floor. His
clothes hung loosely upon him, and his thin hair was colorless. He
slowly raised a wasted face as he looked toward the door. Pelle had
already recognized him from his maimed right hand, which had only the
thumb and one joint of the forefinger. He no longer hid it away, but let
it lie upon his thin knee.

"Why, good-day, Peter!" exclaimed Pelle in surprise, holding out his
hand to take the other's left hand. Peter drew the hand out of his
pocket and held it out. It was a dead, maimed lump with some small
protuberances like rudiments of knuckles, that Pelle found in his hand.
Peter looked into his face without moving a muscle of his own, and there
was only a little gleam in his eyes when Pelle started.

"What in the world are you starting for?" he said dryly. "I should think
any one might have known that a fellow couldn't mind a shearing-machine
with one hand. I knew it just as well as everybody else in the factory,
and expected it every day; and at last I had to shut my eyes. Confound
it, I often thought, won't there soon be an end to it? And then one day
there it was!"

Pelle shivered. "Didn't you get any accident insurance?" he asked in
order to say something.

"Of course I did! The whole council gathered on account of my humble
self, and I was awarded three thousand krones (L170) as entirely
invalided. Well, the master possessed nothing and had never insured me,
so it never got beyond the paper. But anyhow it's a great advance upon
the last time, isn't it? Our party has accomplished something!" He
looked mockingly at Pelle. "You ought to give a cheer for paper
reforms!"

Peter was a messenger and a kind of secretary in a revolutionary
association for young men. He had taught himself to read and sat with
other young men studying anarchistic literature. The others took care of
him like brothers; but it was a marvel that he had not gone to the dogs.
He was nothing but skin and bone, and resembled a fanatic that is almost
consumed by his own fire. His intelligence had never been much to boast
of, but there were not many difficulties in the problem that life had
set him. He hated with a logic that was quite convincing. The strong
community had passed a sham law, which was not even liable for the
obligations that it admitted that it had with regard to him. He had done
with it now and belonged to the destructionists.

He had come up to Morten to ask him to give a reading at the Club. "It's
not because we appreciate authors--you mustn't imagine that," he said
with a gloomy look. "They live upon us and enjoy a meaningless respect
for it. It's only manual labor that deserves to be honored; everything
else sponges on us. I'm only telling you so that you shan't come
imagining something different."

"Thank you," said Morten, smiling. "It's always nice to know what you're
valued at. And still you think you can make use of me?"

"Yes, you're one of the comparatively better ones among those who work
to maintain the capitalists; but we're agreed at the Club that you're
not a real proletariat writer, you're far too much elaborated. There
have never been proletariat writers; and it's of no consequence either,
for entertainment shouldn't be made out of misery. It's very likely
you'll hear all about that up there."

"That's all right. I'll be sure to come," answered Morten.

"And if you'll write us a cantata for our anniversary festival--it's
the day of the great Russian massacre--I'll see that it's accepted. But
it mustn't be the usual hallelujah!"

"I'm glad I met you," he said to Pelle with his unchanging expression of
gloom. "Have you seen anything of Karl?"

"No, where is he?" asked Pelle eagerly.

"He's a swell now. He's got a business in Adel Street; but he won't
enjoy it long."

"Why not? Is there anything wrong with his affairs?"

"Nothing more than that some day we'll pull the whole thing down upon
all your heads. There'll soon be quite a number of us. I say, you might
speak one evening in our association, and tell us something about your
prison life. I think it would interest them. We don't generally have
outsiders, for we speak for ourselves; but I don't think there'd be any
difficulty in getting you introduced."

Pelle promised.

"He's a devil-may-care fellow, isn't he?" exclaimed Morten when he had
shut the door on Peter, "but he's no fool. Did you notice that he never
asked for anything? They never do. When they're hungry they go up to the
first person they meet and say: 'Let me have something to eat!' It's all
the same to them what's put into their mouths so long as it's
satisfying, and they never thank gratefully. Nothing affects them.
They're men who put the thief above the beggar. I don't dislike it
really; there's a new tone in it. Perhaps our well-behaved ruminant's
busy doing away with one stomach and making up the spare material into
teeth and claws."

"If only they'd come forward and do work!" said Pelle. "Strong words
don't accomplish much."

"How's it going with your peaceable revolution?" asked Morten with a
twinkle in his eye. "Do you see any progress in the work?"

"Oh, yes, it's slow but sure. Rome wasn't built in a day. I didn't think
though that you were interested in it."

"I think you're on the right tack, Pelle," answered Morten seriously.
"But let the young ones light the fire underneath, and it'll go all the
quicker. That new eventualities crop up in this country is no
disadvantage; the governing body may very well be made aware that
there's gunpowder under their seats. It'll immensely strengthen their
sense of responsibility! Would you like to see Johanna? She's been
wanting very much to see you. She's ill again unfortunately."

"Ellen sent me out to propose that she should come to stay with us in
the country. She thinks the child must be a great trouble to you and
cannot be properly looked after here either."

"It's very kind of your wife to think of it, but hasn't she enough to do
already?"

"Oh, Ellen can manage a great deal," said Pelle heartily. "You would be
giving her a pleasure."

"Then I'll say 'Thank you' for the offer," exclaimed Morten. "It'll be a
great relief to me, if only she can stand the moving. It isn't that she
gives me any trouble now, for we get on capitally together. Johanna is
good and manageable, really a splendid character in spite of her
spoiling. You won't have any difficulty with her. And I think it'll be
good for her to be away from me here, and be somewhere where there's a
woman to see to her--and children. She doesn't get much attention here."

They went in to her and found her asleep, her pale face covered with
large drops of moisture. "It's exhaustion," whispered Morten. "She's not
got much strength yet." Their presence made her sleep disturbed, and she
tossed from side to side and then, suddenly opening her eyes, gazed
about her with an expression of wild terror. In a moment she recognized
them and smiled; and raising herself a little she held out both her
hands to Pelle with a charming expression of childish coquetry.

"Tell me about the house out there and Boy Comfort," she said, making
room for him on the edge of the bed. "It's so tiresome here, and Mr.
Morten's so serious." And she threw a glance of defiance at him.

"Is he?" said Pelle. "That must be because he writes books."

"No, but I must keep up a little dignity," said Morten, assuming a
funny, schoolmasterish expression. "This young lady's beginning to be
saucy!"

Johanna lay and laughed to herself, her eyes travelling from one to the
other of them. "He ought to have a pair of spectacles, and then he'd be
like a real one," she said. She spoke hardly above a whisper, it was all
she had strength for; but her voice was mischievous.

"You must come to us if he's so bad," said Pelle, "and then you can play
with the children and lie in the sunshine out in the garden. You don't
know how lovely it is there now? Yes, I'm really in earnest," he
continued, as she still smiled. "Ellen asked me to come and say so."

She suddenly became grave and looked from the one to the other; then
looking down, and with her face turned away, she asked: "Will Morten be
there too?"

"No, Johanna, I must stay here, of course; but I'll come out to see
you."

"Every day?" Her face was turned to the wall, and she scratched the
paper with her nails.

"I shall come and see my little sweetheart just as often as I can," said
Morten, stroking her hair.

The red blood suffused her neck in a sudden wave, and was imperceptibly
absorbed in the paleness of her skin, like a dying ember. Hanne's blood
came and went in the same way for the merest trifle. Johanna had
inherited her mother's bashfulness and unspeakable charm, and also her
capricious temper.

She lay with her back turned toward them and made no reply to their
persuasions. It was not easy to say whether she even heard them, until
suddenly she turned to Morten with an expression of hatred on her face.
"You don't need to trouble," she said, with glowing eyes; "you can
easily get rid of me!"

Morten only looked at her sorrowfully, but Pelle was angry. "You ought
to be ashamed of yourself for taking it like that," he said. "Is that
all the thanks Morten gets for what he's done? I must say you're a
grateful child!"

Johanna took the scolding without moving a muscle of her face, but when
he ceased she quietly took his hand and laid it over her delicate, thin
face, which it quite covered. There she lay peeping out at him and
Morten between the large fingers, with a strangely resigned expression
that was meant to be roguish. "I know it was horrid of me," she said
dully, moving Pelle's middle finger backward and forward in front of her
eyes so that she squinted; "but I'll do what you tell me. Elle-Pelle,
Morten-Porten-I can talk the P-language!" And she laughed an embarrassed
laugh.

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