Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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Later in the autumn her nature changed. Suddenly, when Pelle or Morten
approached, her eyes would fill with horror and she would open her mouth
to cry out; but when she recognized them, she nestled down in their
arms, crying pitifully. She could no longer go into the garden, but
always kept her bed. She could not bear the noise of the children; it
tortured her and carried her thoughts back to the narrow streets: they
had to keep out of doors all day. Delirious attacks became more
frequent, and her thin, languid voice became once more rough and hoarse.
She lay fighting with boys and roughs and high hats, defended herself
with nicknames and abusive epithets, and snarled at every one, until she
at last gave in and asked for brandy, and lay crying softly to herself.
Old Brun never dared show himself at her bedside; she took him for an
old chamberlain that the street-boys had set onto her, and received him
with coarse demands.

This insight into the child's terrible existence among the timber-stacks
affected them all. It seemed as if the malignity of life would not relax
its hold on this innocent victim, but would persecute her as long as
life remained, and made all their love useless. Morten stayed with her
during the days in which she fought her battle with death; he sat
watching her from a corner, only venturing nearer when she dozed. Ellen
was the only one who had the strength to meet it. She was with Johanna
night and day, and tried to make death easier for her by her unwearying
care; and when the fits came over the child, she held her in her arms
and sought to calm her with a mother's love.

She had never been in a death-chamber before, but did not quail; and the
child died upon her breast.

* * * * *

Johanna's death had completely paralyzed Morten. As long as he possibly
could he had clung to the belief that her life might be saved; if not,
it would be so unreasonably unjust; and when her hopeless condition
became apparent to him, he collapsed. He did nothing, but wandered about
dully, spoke to no one and ate very little. It was as though he had
received a blow on the head from a heavy hand.

After the funeral he and Pelle walked home together while the others
drove. Pelle talked of indifferent matters in order to draw Morten's
thoughts away from the child, but Morten did not listen to him.

"My dear fellow, you can't go on like this," said Pelle suddenly,
putting his arm through Morten's. "You've accompanied the poor child
along the road as far as you could, and the living have some claim on
you too."

Morten raised his head. "What does it matter whether I write a few pages
more or less?" he said wearily.

"Your pen was given you to defend the defenceless with; you mustn't give
up," said Pelle.

Morten laughed bitterly. "And haven't I pleaded the cause of the
children as well as I could, and been innocent enough to believe that
there, at any rate, it was only necessary to open people's eyes in order
to touch their hearts? And what has been gained? The addition, at the
most, of one more volume to the so-called good literature. Men are
practical beings; you can with the greatest ease get them to shed
theater tears; they're quite fond of sitting in the stalls and weeping
with the unfortunate man; but woe to him if they meet him again in the
street! The warmest words that have ever been spoken to me about my
descriptions of children were from an old gentleman whom I afterward
found to be trying to get hold of little children."

"But what are you going to do?" said Pelle, looking at him with concern.

"Yes, what am I going to do--tell me that! You're right in saying I'm
indifferent, but can one go on taking part in a battle that doesn't even
spare the children? Do you remember my little sister Karen, who had to
drown herself? How many thousand children are there not standing behind
her and Johanna! They call this the children's century, and the
children's blood is crying out from the earth! They're happy when they
can steal away. Fancy if Johanna had lived on with her burden! The
shadows of childhood stretch over the whole of life."

"Yes, and so does the sunshine of childhood!" exclaimed Pelle. "That's
why we mustn't fail the poor little ones. We shall need a race with warm
hearts."

"That's just what I've thought," said Morten sadly. "Do you know, Pelle,
I _loved_ that child who came to me from the very lowest depth. She
was everything to me; misery has never come so cruelly near to me
before. It was a beautiful dream of mine--a foolish dream--that she
would live. I was going to coax life and happiness into her again, and
then I would have written a book about all that triumphs. I don't know
whether you understand me--about misery that becomes health and
happiness beneath the sunshine of kindness. She was that; life could
hardly be brought lower! But did you notice how much beauty and delicacy
there was after all buried beneath the sewer-mud in her? I had looked
forward to bringing it out, freed from all want and ugliness, and
showing the world how beautiful we are down here when the mud is scraped
off us. Perhaps it might have induced them to act justly. That's what I
dreamed, but it's a bitter lot to have the unfortunates appointed to be
one's beloved. My only love is irretrievably dead, and now I cannot
write about anything that triumphs. What have I to do with that?"

"I think it's Victor Hugo who says that the heart is the only bird that
carries its cage," said Pelle, "but your heart refuses to take it when
there is most use for it."

"Oh, no!" said Morten with a little more energy. "I shan't desert you;
but this has been a hard blow for me. If only I had a little more of
your clear faith! Well, I must be glad that I have you yourself," he
added, holding out his hand to Pelle with a bright smile.

The librarian came across the fields to meet them. "It's taken you two
Dioseuri a long time," he said, looking at them attentively. "Ellen's
waiting with the dinner."

The three men walked together up the bare stubblefield toward the house.
"The best of the summer's over now," said Brun, looking about with a
sigh. "The wheel has turned on one more cog!"

"Death isn't the worst thing that can happen to one," answered Morten,
who was still in a morbid mood.

"That's the sort of thing one says while one's young and prosperous--and
doesn't mean seriously. To-morrow life will have taken you and your
sorrow into its service again. But I have never been young until now
that I've learned to know you two, so I count every fleeting hour like a
miser--and envy you who can walk so quickly," he added with a smile.

They walked up more slowly, and as they followed the hedge up toward the
house they heard a faint whimpering in the garden. In a hole in an empty
bed, which the two children had dug with their spades, sat Boy Comfort,
and Sister was busy covering him with earth; it was already up to his
neck. He was making no resistance, but only whimpered a little when the
mould began to get near his mouth.

Pelle gave the alarm and leaped the hedge, and Ellen at the same moment
came running out. "You might have suffocated little brother!" she said
with consternation, taking the boy in her arms.

"I was only planting him," said Anna, offended at having her work
destroyed. "He wanted to be, and of course he'd come up again in the
spring!" The two children wanted a little brother, and had agreed that
Boy Comfort should sacrifice himself.

"You mustn't do such things," said Ellen quietly. "You'll get a little
brother in the spring anyhow." And she looked at Pelle with a loving
glance.

XV

Work went on steadily in the cooperative works. It made no great stir;
in the Movement they had almost forgotten that it existed at all. It was
a long and difficult road that Pelle had set out on, but he did not for
a moment doubt that it led to the end he had in view, and he set about
it seriously. Never had his respiration been so slow.

At present he was gaining experience. He and Peter Dreyer had trained a
staff of good workmen, who knew what was at stake, and did not allow
themselves to be upset even if a foreign element entered. The business
increased steadily and required new men; but Pelle had no difficulty
with the new forces; the undertaking was so strong that it swallowed
them and remodelled them.

The manufacturers at any rate remembered his existence, and tried to
injure him at every opportunity. This pleased him, for it established
the fact that he was a danger to them. Through their connections they
closed credit, and when this did not lead to anything, because he had
Brun's fortune to back him up, they boycotted him with regard to
materials by forcing the leather-merchants not to sell to him. He then
had to import his materials from abroad. It gave him a little extra
trouble, and now it was necessary to have everything in order, so that
they should not come to a standstill for want of anything.

One day an article was lacking in a new consignment, and the whole thing
was about to come to a standstill. He managed to obtain it by stratagem,
but he was angry. "I should like to hit those leather-merchants back,"
he said to Brun. "If we happen to be in want of anything, we're obliged
to get it by cunning. Don't you think we might take the shop next door,
and set up a leather business? It would be a blow to the others, and
then we should always have what we want to use. We shouldn't get rich on
it, so I think the small masters in out-of-the-way corners would be glad
to have us."

Brun had no objection to making a little more war to the knife. There
was too little happening for his taste!

The new business opened in October. Pelle would have had Peter Dreyer to
be at the head of it, but he refused. "I'm sure I'm not suited for
buying and selling," he said gloomily, so Pelle took one of the young
workmen from the workshop into the business, and kept an eye upon it
himself.

It at once put a little more life into things; there was always plenty
of material. They now produced much more than they were able to sell in
the shop, and Pelle's leather shop made the small masters independent of
private capital. Many of them sold a little factory foot-wear in
addition to doing repairs, and these now took their goods from him. Out
in the provinces his boots and shoes had already gained a footing in
many places; it had come about naturally, in the ordinary sequence of
things. The manufacturers followed them up there too, wherever they
could; but the consequence was that the workmen patronized them and
forced them in again to the shops of which they themselves were the
customers. A battle began to rage over Pelle's boots and shoes.

He knew, however, that it was only the beginning. It would soon come to
a great conflict, and were his foundations sufficiently strong for that?
The manufacturers were establishing a shop opposite his, where the goods
were to be sold cheap in order to ruin his sales, and one day they put
the prices very much down on everything, so as to extinguish him
altogether.

"Let them!" said Brun. "People will be able to get shoes cheap!" Pelle
was troubled, however, at this fresh attack. Even if they held out, it
might well exhaust their economic strength.

The misfortune was that they were too isolated; they were as yet like
men washed up onto an open shore; they had nothing to fall back upon.
The employers had long since discovered that they were just as
international as the workmen, and had adopted Pelle's old organization
idea. It was not always easy, either, to get materials from abroad; he
noticed the connection. Until he had got the tanners to start a
cooperative business, he ran the risk of having his feet knocked away
from under him at any moment. And in the first place he must have the
great army of workmen on his side; that was whither everything pointed.

One day he found himself once more after many years on the lecturer's
platform, giving his first lecture on cooperation. It was very strange
to stand once more before his own people and feel their faces turned
toward him. At present they looked upon him as one who had come from
abroad with new ideas, or perhaps only a new invention; but he meant to
win them! Their very slowness promised well when once it was overcome.
He knew them again; they were difficult to get started, but once started
could hardly be stopped again. If his idea got proper hold of these men
with their huge organizations and firm discipline, it would be
insuperable. He entered with heart and soul into the agitation, and gave
a lecture every week in a political or trade association.

"Pelle, how busy you are!" said Ellen, when he came home. Her condition
filled him with happiness; it was like a seal upon their new union. She
had withdrawn a little more into herself, and over her face and figure
there was thrown a touch of dreamy gentleness. She met him at the gate
now a little helpless and remote--a young mother, to be touched with
careful hands. He saw her thriving from day to day, and had a happy
feeling that things were growing for him on all sides.

They did not see much of Morten. He was passing through a crisis, and
preferred to be by himself. He was always complaining that he could not
get on with his work. Everything he began, no matter how small, stuck
fast.

"That's because you don't believe in it any longer," said Pelle. "He who
doubts in his work cuts through the branch upon which he is himself
sitting."

Morten listened to him with an expression of weariness. "It's much more
than that," he said, "for it's the men themselves I doubt, Pelle. I feel
cold and haven't been able to find out why; but now I know. It's because
men have no heart. Everything growing is dependent upon warmth, but the
whole of our culture is built upon coldness, and that's why it's so cold
here."

"The poor people have a heart though," said Pelle. "It's that and not
common sense that keeps them up. If they hadn't they'd have gone to ruin
long ago--simply become animals. Why haven't they, with all their
misery? Why does the very sewer give birth to bright beings?"

"Yes, the poor people warm one another, but they're blue with cold all
the same! And shouldn't one rather wish that they had no heart to be
burdened with in a community that's frozen to the very bottom? I envy
those who can look at misery from a historical point of view and comfort
themselves with the future. I think myself that the good will some day
conquer, but it's nevertheless fearfully unreasonable that millions
shall first go joyless to the grave in the battle to overcome a folly.
I'm an irreconcilable, that's what it is! My mind has arranged itself
for other conditions, and therefore I suffer under those that exist.
Even so ordinary a thing as to receive money causes me suffering. It's
mine, but I can't help following it back in my thoughts. What want has
been caused by its passing into my hands? How much distress and weeping
may be associated with it? And when I pay it out again I'm always
troubled to think that those who've helped me get too little--my
washerwoman and the others. They can scarcely live, and the fault is
mine among others! Then my thoughts set about finding out the others'
wants and I get no peace; every time I put a bit of bread into my mouth,
or see the stores in the shops, I can't help thinking of those who are
starving. I suffer terribly through not being able to alter conditions
of which the folly is so apparent. It's of no use for me to put it down
to morbidness, for it's not that; it's a forestalling in myself. We must
all go that way some day, if the oppressed do not rise before then and
turn the point upward. You see I'm condemned to live in all the others'
miseries, and my own life has not been exactly rich in sunshine. Think
of my childhood, how joyless it was! I haven't your fund to draw from,
Pelle, remember that!"

No, there had not been much sunshine on Morten's path, and now he
cowered and shivered with cold.

One evening, however, he rushed into the sitting-room, waving a sheet of
paper. "I've received a legacy," he cried. "Tomorrow morning I shall
start for the South."

"But you'll have to arrange your affairs first," said Pelle.

"Arrange?" Morten laughed. "Oh, no! You're always ready to start on a
journey. All my life I've been ready for a tour round the world at an
hour's notice!" He walked to and fro, rubbing his hands. "Ah, now I
shall drink the sunshine--let myself be baked through and through! I
think it'll be good for my chest to hop over a winter."

"How far are you going?" asked Ellen, with shining eyes.

"To Southern Italy and Spain. I want to go to a place where the cold
doesn't pull off the coats of thousands while it helps you on with your
furs. And then I want to see people who haven't had a share in the
blessings of mechanical culture, but upon whom the sun has shone to make
up for it--sunshine-beings like little Johanna and her mother and
grandmother, but who've been allowed to live. Oh, how nice it'll be to
see for once poor people who aren't cold!"

"Just let him get off as quickly as possible," said Ellen, when Morten
had gone up to pack; "for if he once gets the poor into his mind, it'll
all come to nothing. I expect I shall put a few of your socks and a
little underclothing into his trunk; he's got no change. If only he'll
see that his things go to the wash, and that they don't ruin them with
chlorine!"

"Don't you think you'd better look after him a little while he's
packing?" asked Pelle. "Or else I'm afraid he'll not take what he'll
really want. Morten would sometimes forget his own head."

Ellen went upstairs with the things she had looked out. It was fortunate
that she did so, for Morten had packed his trunk quite full of books,
and laid the necessary things aside. When she took everything out and
began all over again, he fidgeted about and was quite unhappy; it had
been arranged so nicely, the fiction all together in one place, the
proletariat writings in another; he could have put his hand in and taken
out anything he wanted. But Ellen had no mercy. Everything had to be
emptied onto the floor, and he had to bring every stitch of clothing he
possessed and lay them on chairs, whence she selected the necessary
garments. At each one that was placed in the trunk, Morten protested
meekly: it really could not be worth while to take socks with him, nor
yet several changes of linen; you simply bought them as you required
them. Indeed? Could it not? But it was worth while lugging about a big
trunk full of useless books like any colporteur, was it?

Ellen was on her knees before the trunk, and was getting on with her
task. Pelle came up and stood leaning against the door-jamb, looking at
them. "That's right! Just give him a coating of paint that will last
till he gets home again!" he said, laughing. "He may need it badly."

Morten sat upon a chair looking crestfallen. "Thank goodness, I'm not
married!" he said. "I really begin to be sorry for you, Pelle." It was
evident that he was enjoying being looked after.

"Yes, now you can see what a domestic affliction I have to bear," Pelle
answered gravely.

Ellen let them talk. The trunk was now cram full, and she had the
satisfaction of knowing that he would not be going about like a tramp.
There were only his toilet articles left now; even those he had
forgotten. She drew a huge volume out of the pocket for these articles
inside the lid of the trunk to make room for his washing things; but at
that Morten sprang forward. "I _must_ have that with me, whatever
else is left out," he said with determination. It was Victor Hugo's "Les
Miserables," Morten's Bible.

Ellen opened it at the title-page to see if it really was so necessary
to travel about with such a monster; it was as big as a loaf.

"There's no room for it," she declared, and quietly laid it on one side,
"that's to say if you want things to wash yourself with; and you're sure
to meet plenty of unhappy people wherever you go, for there's always
enough of them everywhere."

"Then perhaps Madam will not permit me to take my writing things with
me?" questioned Morten, in a tone of supplication.

"Oh, yes!" answered Ellen, laughing, "and you may use them too, to do
something beautiful--that's to say if it's us poor people you're writing
for. There's sorrow and misery enough!"

"When the sun's shone properly upon me, I'll come home and write you a
book about it," said Morten seriously.

The following day was Sunday. Morten was up early and went out to the
churchyard. He was gone a long time, and they waited breakfast for him.
"He's coming now!" cried Lasse Frederik, who had been up to the hill
farm for milk. "I saw him down in the field."

"Then we can put the eggs on," said Ellen to Sister, who helped her a
little in the kitchen.

Morten was in a solemn mood. "The roses on Johanna's grave have been
picked again," he said. "I can't imagine how any one can have the heart
to rob the dead; they are really the poorest of us all."

"I'm glad to hear you say that!" exclaimed Pelle. "A month ago you
thought the dead were the only ones who were well off."

"You're a rock!" said Morten, smiling and putting his hands on the
other's shoulders. "If everything else were to change, we should always
know where you were to be found."

"Come to table!" cried Ellen, "but at once, or the surprise will be
cold." She stood waiting with a covered dish in her hand.

"Why, I believe you've got new-laid eggs there!" exclaimed Pelle, in
astonishment.

"Yes, the hens have begun to lay again the last few days. It must be in
Morten's honor."

"No, it's in honor of the fine weather, and because they're allowed to
run about anywhere now," said Lasse Frederik.

Morten laughed. "Lasse Frederik's an incorrigible realist," he said.
"Life needs no adornment for him."

Ellen looked well after Morten. "Now you must make a good breakfast,"
she said. "You can't be sure you'll get proper food out there in foreign
countries." She was thinking with horror of the messes her lodgers in
the "Palace" had put together.

The carriage was at the door, the trunk was put up beside the driver,
and Morten and Pelle got into the carriage, not before it was time
either. They started at a good pace, Lasse Frederik and Sister each
standing on a step all the way down to the main road. Up at the gable
window Ellen stood and waved, holding Boy Comfort by the hand.

"It must be strange to go away from everything," said Pelle.

"Yes, it might be strange for you," answered Morten, taking a last look
at Pelle's home. "But I'm not going away from anything; on the contrary,
I'm going to meet things."

"It'll be strange at any rate not having you walking about overhead any
more, especially for Ellen and the children. But I suppose we shall hear
from you?"

"Oh, yes! and you'll let me hear how your business gets on, won't you?"

The train started. Pelle felt his heart contract as he stood and gazed
after it, feeling as though it were taking part of him with it. It had
always been a dream of his to go out and see a little of the world; ever
since "Garibaldi" had appeared in the little workshop at home in the
provincial town he had looked forward to it. Now Morten was going, but
he himself would never get away; he must be content with the "journey
abroad" he had had. For a moment Pelle stood looking along the lines
where the train had disappeared, with his thoughts far away in
melancholy dreams; then he woke up and discovered that without intending
it he had been feeling his home a clog upon his feet. And there were
Ellen and the children at home watching for his coming, while he stood
here and dreamed himself away from them! They would do nothing until he
came, for Sunday was his day, the only day they really had him. He
hurried out and jumped onto a tram.

As he leaped over the ditch into the field at the tramway terminus, he
caught sight of Brun a little farther along the path. The old librarian
was toiling up the hill, his asthma making him pause every now and then.
"He's on his way to us!" said Pelle to himself, touched at the thought;
it had not struck him before how toilsome this walk over ploughed fields
and along bad roads must be for the old man; and yet he did it several
times in the week to come out and see them.

"Well, here I am again!" said Brun. "I only hope you're not getting
tired of me."

"There's no danger of that!" answered Pelle, taking his arm to help him
up the hill. "The children are quite silly about you!"

"Yes, the children--I'm safe enough with them, and with you too, Pelle;
but your wife makes me a little uncertain."

"Ellen's rather reserved, but it's only her manner; she's very fond of
you," said Pelle warmly. "Any one who takes the children on his knee
wins Ellen's heart."

"Do you really think so? I've always despised woman because she lacks
personality--until I got to know your wife. She's an exceptional wife
you've got, Pelle; hers is a strong nature, so strong that she makes me
uncertain. Couldn't you get her to leave off calling me Mr. Brun?"

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