Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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"I'll tell her," said Pelle, laughing; "but I'm not sure it'll be of any
use."

"This _Mr. Brun_ is beginning to be an intolerable person, let me
tell you; and in your house I should like to get away from him. Just
imagine what it means to be burdened all your life with a gentleman like
that, who doesn't stand in close relationship to anybody at all. Others
are called 'Father,' 'Grandfather'--something or other human; but all
conditions of life dispose of me with a 'Mr. Brun'! 'Thank you, Mr.
Brun!' 'Many thanks, Mr. Brun!'" The old man had worked himself up, and
made the name a caricature.

"These are bad roads out here," he said suddenly, stopping to take
breath. "It's incomprehensible that these fields should be allowed to
lie here just outside the town--that speculation hasn't got hold of
them."

"I suppose it's because of the boggy ground down there," said Pelle.
"They've begun to fill it in, however, at the north end, I see."

Brun peered in that direction with some interest, but gave it up,
shaking his head.

"No, I can't see so far without glasses; that's another of the blessings
bestowed by books. Yes, it is! Old people in the country only make use
of spectacles when they want to look at a book, but I have to resort to
them when I want to find my way about the world: that makes a great
difference. It's the fault of the streets and those stupid books that
I'm shortsighted; you don't get any outlook if you don't live in the
country. The town shuts up all your senses, and the books take you away
from life; so I'm thinking of moving out too."

"Is that wise now just before the winter? It wouldn't do for you to go
in and out in all kinds of weather."

"Then I'll give up the library," answered Brun. "I shan't miss it much;
I've spent enough of my life there. Fancy, Pelle! it occurred to me last
night that I'd helped to catalogue most of the literature of the world,
but haven't even seen a baby dressed! What right have people like me to
have an opinion?"

"I can't understand that," said Pelle. "Books have given me so much
help."

"Yes, because you had the real thing. If I were young, I would go out
and set to work with my hands. I've missed more through never having
worked with my body till I was hot and tired, than you have through not
knowing the great classic writers. I'm discovering my own poverty,
Pelle; and I would willingly exchange everything for a place as
grandfather by a cozy fireside."

The children came running across the field. "Have you got anything for
us to-day?" they cried from a long distance.

"Yes, but not until we get into the warmth. I daren't unbutton my coat
out here because of my cough."

"Well, but you walk so slowly," said Boy Comfort. "Is it because you're
so old?"

"Yes, that's it," answered the old man, laughing. "You must exercise a
little patience."

Patience, however, was a thing of which the children possessed little,
and they seized hold of his coat and pulled him along. He was quite out
of breath when they reached the house.

Ellen looked severely at the children, but said nothing. She helped Brun
off with his coat and neckerchief, and after seeing him comfortably
seated in the sitting-room, went out into the kitchen. Pelle guessed
there was something she wanted to say to him, and followed her.

"Pelle," she said gravely, "the children are much too free with Mr.
Brun. I can't think how you can let them do it."

"Well, but he likes it, Ellen, or of course I should stop them. It's
just what he likes. And do you know what I think he would like still
better? If you would ask him to live with us."

"That I'll never do!" declared Ellen decidedly. "It would look so
extraordinary of me."

"But if he wants a home, and likes us? He's got no friends but us."

No--no, Ellen could not understand that all the same, with the little
they had to offer. And Brun, who could afford to pay for all the
comforts that could be had for money! "If he came, I should have to have
new table-linen at any rate, and good carpets on the floors, and lots of
other things."

"You can have them too," said Pelle. "Of course we'll have everything as
nice as we can, though Brun's quite as easily pleased as we are."

That might be so, but Ellen was the mistress of the house, and there
were things she could not let go. "If Mr. Brun would like to live with
us, he shall be made comfortable," she said; "but it's funny he doesn't
propose it himself, for he can do it much better than we can."

"No, it must come from us--from _you,_ Ellen. He's a little afraid
of you."

"Of me?" exclaimed Ellen, in dismay. "And I who would--why, there's no
one I'd sooner be kind to! Then I'll say it, Pelle, but not just now."
She put up her hands to her face, which was glowing with pleasure and
confusion at the thought that her little home was worth so much.

Pelle went back to the sitting-room. Brun was sitting on the sofa with
Boy Comfort on his knee. "He's a regular little urchin!" he said. "But
he's not at all like his mother. He's got your features all through."

"Ellen isn't his mother," said Pelle, in a low voice.

"Oh, isn't she! It's funny that he should have those three wrinkles in
his forehead like you; they're like the wave-lines in the countenance of
Denmark. You both look as if you were always angry."

"So we were at that time," said Pelle.

"Talking of anger"--Brun went on--"I applied to the police authorities
yesterday, and got them to promise to give up their persecution of Peter
Dreyer, on condition that he ceases his agitation among the soldiers."

"We shall never get him to agree to that; it would be the same thing as
requiring him to swear away his rights as a man. He has taught himself,
by a great effort, to use parliamentary expressions, and nobody'll ever
get him to do more. In the matter of the Cause itself he'll never yield,
and there I agree with him. If you mayn't even fight the existing
conditions with spiritual weapons, there'll be an end of everything."

"Yes, that's true," said Brun, "only I'm sorry for him. The police keep
him in a perpetual state of inflammation. He can't have any pleasure in
life."

XVI

Pelle was always hoping that Peter Dreyer would acquire a calmer view of
life. It was his intention to start a cooperative business in the course
of the spring at Aarhus too, and Peter was appointed to start it. But
his spirit seemed incurable; every time he calmed down a little,
conditions roused him to antagonism again. This time it was the increase
of unemployment that touched him.

The senseless persecution, moreover, kept him in a state of perpetual
irritation. Even when he was left alone, as now, he had the feeling that
they were wondering how they could get him to blunder--apparently closed
their eyes in order to come down upon him with all the more force. He
never knew whether he was bought or sold.

The business was now so large that they had to move the actual factory
into the back building, and take the whole of the basement for the
repairing workshop. Peter Dreyer managed this workshop, and there was no
fault to find with his management; he was energetic and vigilant. He was
not capable, however, of managing work on a large scale, for his mind
was in constant oscillation. In spite of his abilities he was burning to
no purpose.

"He might drop his agitation and take up something more useful," said
Brun, one evening when he and Pelle sat discussing the matter.
"Nothing's accomplished by violence anyhow! And he's only running his
head against a brick wall himself!"

"You didn't think so some time ago," said Pelle. It was Brun's pamphlets
on the rights of the individual that had first roused Peter Dreyer's
attention.

"No, I know that. I once thought that the whole thing must be smashed to
pieces in order that a new world might arise out of chaos. I didn't know
you, and I didn't think my own class too good to be tossed aside; they
were only hindering the development. But you've converted me. I was a
little too quick to condemn your slowness; you have more connectedness
in you than I. Our little business in there has proved to me that the
common people are wise to admit their heritage from and debt to the
upper class. I'm sorry to see Peter running off the track; he's one of
your more talented men. Couldn't we get him out here? He could have one
of my rooms. I think he needs a few more comforts."

"You'd better propose it to him yourself," said Pelle.

The next day Brun went into town with Pelle and proposed it, but Peter
Dreyer declined with thanks. "I've no right to your comforts as long as
there are twenty thousand men that have neither food nor firing," he
said, dismissing the subject. "But you're an anarchist, of course," he
added scornfully, "and a millionaire, from what I hear; so the
unemployed have nothing to fear!" He had been disappointed on becoming
personally acquainted with the old philosopher, and never disguised his
ill-will.

"I think you know that I _have_ already placed my fortune at the
disposal of the poor," said Brun, in an offended tone, "and my manner of
doing so will, I hope, some day justify itself. If I were to divide what
I possess to-day among the unemployed, it would have evaporated like dew
by to-morrow, so tremendous, unfortunately, is the want now."

Peter Dreyer shrugged his shoulders. The more reason was there, he
thought, to help.

"Would you have us sacrifice our great plan of making all want
unnecessary, for one meal of food to the needy?" asked Pelle.

Yes, Peter saw only the want of to-day; it was such a terrible reality
to him that the future must take care of itself.

A change had taken place in him, and he seemed quite to have given up
the development.

"He sees too much," said Pelle to Brun, "and now his heart has dominated
his reason. We'd better leave him alone; we shan't in any case get him
to admit anything, and we only irritate him. It's impossible to live
with all that he always has before his eyes, and yet keep your head
clear; you must either shut your eyes and harden yourself, or let
yourself be broken to pieces."

Peter Dreyer's heart was the obstruction. He often had to stop in the
middle of his work and gasp for breath. "I'm suffocated!" he would say.

There were many like him. The ever-increasing unemployment began to
spread panic in men's minds. It was no longer only the young, hot-headed
men who lost patience. Out of the great compact mass of organization, in
which it had hitherto been impossible to distinguish the individual
beings, simple-minded men suddenly emerged and made themselves
ridiculous by bearing the truth of the age upon their lips. Poor people,
who understood nothing of the laws of life, nevertheless awakened,
disappointed, out of the drowsiness into which the rhythm had lulled
them, and stirred impatiently. Nothing happened except that one picked
trade after another left them to become middle-class.

The Movement had hitherto been the fixed point of departure; from it
came everything that was of any importance, and the light fell from it
over the day. But now suddenly a germ was developed in the simplest of
them, and they put a note of interrogation after the party-cry. To
everything the answer was: When the Movement is victorious, things will
be otherwise. But how could they be otherwise when no change had taken
place even now when they had the power? A little improvement, perhaps,
but no change. It had become the regular refrain, whenever a woman gave
birth to a child in secret, or a man stole, or beat his wife:--It is a
consequence of the system! Up and vote, comrades! But now it was
beginning to sound idiotic in their ears. They were voting, confound it,
with all their might, but all the same everything was becoming dearer!
Goodness knows they were law-abiding enough. They were positively
perspiring with parliamentarianism, and would soon be doing nothing but
getting mandates. And what then? Did any one doubt that the poor man was
in the majority--an overwhelming majority? What was all this nonsense
then that the majority were to gain? No, those who had the power would
take good care to keep it; so they might win whatever stupid mandates
they liked!

Men had too much respect for the existing conditions, and so they were
always being fooled by them. It was all very well with all this
lawfulness, but you didn't only go gradually from the one to the other!
How else was it that nothing of the new happened? The fact was that
every single step toward the new was instantly swallowed up by the
existing condition of things, and turned to fat on its ribs. Capital
grew fat, confound it, no matter what you did with it; it was like a
cat, which always falls upon its feet. Each time the workmen obtained by
force a small rise in their wages, the employers multiplied it by two
and put it onto the goods; that was why they were beginning to be so
accommodating with regard to certain wage-demands. Those who were rather
well off, capital enticed over to its side, leaving the others behind as
a shabby proletariat. It might be that the Movement had done a good
piece of work, but you wanted confounded good eyes to see it.

Thus voices were raised. At first it was only whiners about whom nobody
needed to trouble-frequenters of public-houses, who sat and grumbled in
their cups; but gradually it became talk that passed from mouth to
mouth; the specter of unemployment haunted every home and made men think
over matters once more on their own account; no one could know when his
turn would come to sweep the pavement.

Pelle had no difficulty in catching the tone of all this; it was his own
settlement with the advance on coming out of prison that was now about
to become every one's. But now he was another man! He was no longer sure
that the Movement had been so useless. It had not done anything that
marked a boundary, but it had kept the apparatus going and strengthened
it. It had carried the masses over a dead period, even if only by
letting them go in a circle. And now the idea was ready to take them
again. Perhaps it was a good thing that there had not been too great
progress, or they would probably never have wakened again. They might
very well starve a little longer, until they could establish themselves
in their own world; fat slaves soon lost sight of liberty.

Behind the discontented fussing Pelle could hear the new. It expressed
itself in remarkable ways. A party of workmen--more than two hundred--
who were employed on a large excavation work, were thrown out of work by
the bankruptcy of the contractor. A new contractor took over the work,
but the men made it a condition for beginning work again that he should
pay them the wages that were due to them, and also for the time they
were unemployed. "We have no share in the cake," they said, "so you must
take the risk too!" They made the one employer responsible for the
other! And capriciously refused good work at a time when thousands were
unemployed! Public opinion almost lost its head, and even their own
press held aloof from them; but they obstinately kept to their
determination, and joined the crowd of unemployed until their
unreasonable demand was submitted to.

Pelle heard a new tone here. For the first time the lower class made
capital responsible for its sins, without any petty distinction between
Tom, Dick, and Harry. There was beginning to be perspective in the
feeling of solidarity.

The great weariness occasioned by wandering in a spiritual desert came
once more to the surface. He had experienced the same thing once before,
when the Movement was raised; but oddly enough the breaking out came
that time from the bottom of everything. It began with blind attacks on
parliamentarianism, the suffrage, and the paroles; there was in it an
unconscious rebellion against restraint and treatment in the mass. By an
incomprehensible process of renewal, the mass began to resolve itself
into individuals, who, in the midst of the bad times, set about an
inquiry after the ego and the laws for its satisfaction. They came from
the very bottom, and demanded that their shabby, ragged person should be
respected.

Where did they come from? It was a complete mystery! Did it not sound
foolish that the poor man, after a century's life in rags and
discomfort, which ended in his entire effacement in collectivism, should
now make his appearance with the strongest claim of all, and demand his
soul back?

Pelle recognized the impatience of the young men in this commotion. It
was not for nothing that Peter Dreyer was the moving spirit at the
meetings of the unemployed. Peter wanted him to come and speak, and he
went with him two or three times, as he wanted to find out the relation
of these people to his idea; but he remained in the background and could
not be persuaded to mount the platform. He had nothing to do with these
confused crowds, who turned all his ideas upside down. In any case he
could not give them food to-day, and he had grown out of the use of
strong language.

"Go up and say something nice to them! Don't you see how starved they
are?" said Peter Dreyer, one evening. "They still have confidence in you
from old days. But don't preach cooperation; you don't feed hungry men
with music of the future."

"Do you give them food then?" asked Pelle.

"No, I can't do that, but I give them a vent for their grievances, and
get them to rise and protest. It's something at any rate, that they no
longer keep silence and submit."

"And if to-morrow they get something to eat, the whole turmoil's
forgotten; but they're no further on than they were. Isn't it a matter
of indifference whether they suffer want today, as compared with the
question whether they will do so eternally?"

"If you can put the responsibility upon those poor creatures, you must
be a hard-hearted brute!" said Peter angrily.

Well, it was necessary now to harden one's heart, for nothing would be
accomplished with sympathy only! The man with eyes that watered would
not do for a driver through the darkness.

It was a dull time, and men were glad when they could keep their
situations. There was no question of new undertakings before the spring.
But Pelle worked hard to gain adherents to his idea. He had started a
discussion in the labor party press, and gave lectures. He chose the
quiet trade unions, disdained all agitation eloquence, and put forward
his idea with the clearness of an expert, building it up from his own
experience until, without any fuss, by the mere power of the facts, it
embraced the world. It was the slow ones he wanted to get hold of, those
who had been the firm nucleus of the Movement through all these years,
and steadfastly continued to walk in the old foot-prints, although they
led nowhere. It was the picked troops from the great conflict that must
first of all be called upon! He knew that if he got them to go into fire
for his idea with their unyielding discipline, much would be gained.

It was high time for a new idea to come and take them on; they had grown
weary of this perpetual goose-step; the Movement was running away from
them. But now he had come with an idea of which they would never grow
weary, and which would carry them right through. No one would be able to
say that he could not understand it, for it was the simple idea of the
home carried out so as to include everything. Ellen had taught it to
him, and if they did not know it themselves, they must go home to their
wives and learn it. _They_ did not brood over the question as to
which of the family paid least or ate most, but gave to each one
according to his needs, and took the will for the deed. The world would
be like a good, loving home, where no one oppressed the other--nothing
more complicated than that.

Pelle was at work early and late. Scarcely a day passed on which he did
not give a lecture or write about his cooperation idea. He was
frequently summoned into the provinces to speak. People wanted to see
and hear the remarkable manufacturer who earned no more than his work-
people.

In these journeys he came to know the country, and saw that much of his
idea had been anticipated out there. The peasant, who stiffened with
horror at the word "socialist," put the ideas of the Movement into
practice on a large scale. He had arranged matters on the cooperative
system, and had knitted the country into supply associations.

"We must join on there when we get our business into better order," said
Pelle to Brun.

"Yes, if the farmers will work with us," said Brun doubtfully. "They're
conservative, you know."

This was now almost revolutionary. As far as Pelle could see, there
would soon be no place as big as his thumb-nail for capital to feed upon
out there. The farmers went about things so quickly! Pelle came of
peasant stock himself, and did not doubt that he would be able to get in
touch with the country when the time came.

The development was preparing on several sides; they would not break
with that if they wanted to attain anything.

It was like a fixed law relating to growth in existence, an inviolable
divine idea running through it all. It was now leading him and his
fellows into the fire, and when they advanced, no one must stay behind.
No class of the community had yet advanced with so bright and great a
call; they were going to put an end forever to the infamy of human
genius sitting and weighing the spheres in space, but forgetting to
weigh the bread justly.

He was not tired of the awakening discontent with the old condition of
things; it opened up the overgrown minds, and created possibility for
the new. At present he had no great number of adherents; various new
currents were fighting over the minds, which, in their faltering search,
were drawn now to one side, now to the other. But he had a buoyant
feeling of serving a world-idea, and did not lose courage.

Unemployment and the awakening ego-feeling brought many to join Peter
Dreyer. They rebelled against the conditions, and now saw no alternative
but to break with everything. They sprang naked out of nothing, and
demanded that their personality should be respected, but were unable as
yet to bear its burdens; and their hopeless view of their misery
threatened to stifle them. Then they made obstruction, their own broken-
down condition making them want to break down the whole. They were
Pelle's most troublesome opponents.

Up to the present they had unfortunately been right, but now he could
not comprehend their desperate impatience. He had given them an idea
now, with which they could conquer the world just by preserving their
coherence, and if they did not accept this, there must be something
wrong with them. Taking this view of the matter, he looked upon their
disintegrating agitation with composure; the healthy mind would be
victorious!

Peter Dreyer was at present agitating for a mass-meeting of the
unemployed. He wanted the twenty thousand men, with wives and children,
to take up their position on the Council House Square or Amalienborg
Palace Square, and refuse to move away until the community took charge
of them.

"Then the authorities can choose between listening to their demands, and
driving up horses and cannon," he said. Perhaps that would open up the
question.

"Take care then that the police don't arrest you," said Pelle, in a
warning voice; "or your people will be left without a head, and you will
have enticed them into a ridiculous situation which can only end in
defeat."

"Let them take care, the curs!" answered Peter threateningly. "I shall
strike at the first hand that attempts to seize me!"

"And what then? What do you gain by striking the policemen? They are
only the tool, and there are plenty of them!".

Peter laughed bitterly. "No," he said, "it's not the policemen, nor the
assistant, nor the chief of police! It's no one! That's so convenient,
no one can help it! They've always stolen a march upon us in that way;
the evil always dives and disappears when you want to catch it. 'It
wasn't me!' Now the workman's demanding his right, the employer finds it
to his advantage to disappear, and the impersonal joint stock company
appears. Oh, this confounded sneaking out of a thing! Where is one to
apply? There's no one to take the blame! But something _shall_ be
done now! If I hit the hand, I hit what stands behind it too; you must
hit what you can see. I've got a revolver to use against the police; to
carry arms against one's own people shall not be made a harmless means
of livelihood unchallenged."

XVII

One Saturday evening Pelle came home by train from a provincial town
where he had been helping to start a cooperative undertaking.

It was late, but many shops were still open and sent their brilliant
light out into the drizzling rain, through which the black stream of the
streets flowed as fast as ever. It was the time when the working women
came from the center of the city--pale typists, cashiers with the
excitement of the cheap novel still in their eyes, seamstresses from the
large businesses. Some hurried along looking straight before them
without taking any notice of the solitary street-wanderers; they had
something waiting for them--a little child perhaps. Others had nothing
to hurry for, and looked weariedly about them as they walked, until
perhaps they suddenly brightened up at sight of a young man in the
throng.

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