Various - "Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859"

Upton Sinclair - "King Midas"

Friedrich Schiller - "Die Huldigung der Kuenste"

George Washington Cable - "The Cavalier"

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Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

M >> Martin Anderson Nexo >> Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4




"Now I also understand my forefathers! Formerly they seemed to me only
like thick-skinned boors, who scraped together all the money that two
generations of us have lived upon without doing a pennyworth of good.
They enabled us, however, to live life, I have always thought, and I
considered it the only excuse for their being in the family, coarse and
robust as they were. Now I see that it was they who lived, while we
after them, with all our wealth, have only had a bed in life's inn.

"For all this I thank you. I am glad to have become acquainted through
you with men of the new age, and to be able to give my fortune back. It
was made by all those who work, and gathered together by a few; my
giving it back is merely a natural consequence. Others will come to do
as I am doing, either of their own free will or by compulsion, until
everything belongs to everybody. Then only can the conflict about human
interests begin. Capitalism has created wonderful machines, but what
wonderful men await us in the new age! Happy the man who could have
lived to see it!

"I have left all my money to you and Morten. As yet there is no
institution that I could give it to, so you must administer it in the
name of cooperation. You two are the best guardians of the poor, and I
know you will employ it in the best manner. I place it with confidence
in your hands. The will is at my lawyer's; I arranged it all before I
left home.

"My greetings to all at 'Daybreak'--Ellen, the children, and Morten. If
the baby is christened before I get home, remember that he is to be
called after me. But I am hoping that you will come."

* * * * *

Ellen drew a deep breath when Pelle had finished the letter. "I only
hope he's not worse than he makes out," she said. "I suppose you'll go?"

"Yes, I'll arrange what's necessary at the works to-morrow early, and
take the morning express."

"Then I must see to your things," exclaimed Ellen, and went in.

Pelle and Morten went for a stroll along the edge of the hill, past the
half-finished houses, whose red bricks shone in the sun.

"Everything seems to turn out well for you, Pelle," said Morten
suddenly.

"Yes," said Pelle; "nothing has succeeded in injuring me, so I suppose
what Father Lasse and the others said is right, that I was born with a
caul. The ill-usage I suffered as a child taught me to be good to
others, and in prison I gained liberty; what might have made me a
criminal made a man of me instead. Nothing has succeeded in injuring me!
So I suppose I may say that everything has turned out well."

"Yes, you may, and now I've found a subject, Pelle! I'm not going to
hunt about blindly in the dark; I'm going to write a great work now."

"I congratulate you! What will it be about? Is it to be the work on the
sun?"

"Yes, both about the sun and about him who conquers. It's to be a book
about you, Pelle!"

"About me?" exclaimed Pelle.

"Yes, about the naked Pelle with the caul! It's about time to call out
the naked man into the light and look at him well, now that he's going
to take over the future. You like to read about counts and barons, but
now I'm going to write a story about a prince who finds the treasure and
wins the princess. He's looked for her all over the world and she wasn't
there, and now there's only himself left, and there he finds her, for
he's taken her heart. Won't that be a good story?"

"I think it's a lot of rubbish," said Pelle, laughing. "And you'll have
to lay the lies on thick if you're going to make me into a prince. I
don't think you'll get the workpeople to take it for a real book; it'll
all be so well known and ordinary."

"They'll snatch at it, and weep with delight and pride at finding
themselves in it. Perhaps they'll name their children after it out of
pure gratitude!"

"What are you going to call it then?" asked Pelle.

"I'm going to call it 'PELLE THE CONQUEROR.'"

THE END

John Crace digests High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Review: The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War by Conor FoleyAid worker Foley conducts a fascinating and important analysis of recent wars and disasters around the world, says Steven Poole

Review: Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler by Margarete Buber-Neumann

He might be almost 90 years old in real terms, but Christopher Robin and his bear of very little brain are set to make a literary comeback after the estate of AA Milne agreed to authorise the first-ever official sequel to the much-loved children's books.

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood by author David Benedictus picks up from the poignant ending of Milne's last Pooh book, The House at Pooh Corner, in which Christopher Robin is growing up and heading away to school. "Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred," he tells the bear, and they leave together.

The estates of Milne and EH Shepard, who provided the simple but enduring illustrations for the books, said they had been searching for a sequel that would do justice to the original stories for "a good many years".

Although Disney has franchised the characters in a number of films, there has not previously been an authorised literary sequel to Milne's books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, first published in 1926 and 1928. Milne wrote the books for his son Christopher Robin, naming Pooh after his teddy bear.

The sequel, to be published by Egmont Publishing in Britain and Penguin imprint Dutton Children's Books in the US, is due out on 5 October, illustrated by Mark Burgess. Benedictus, who is familiar with the world of Winnie the Pooh after adapting and producing audio versions of the books starring Judi Dench, Stephen Fry and Jane Horrocks, did not reveal any more details, but promised that the book would both "complement and maintain Milne's idea that whatever happens, a little boy and his bear will always be playing".

Michael Brown, chairman of Pooh Properties, which manages the affairs of the Milne and Shepard estates, said the sequel would capture "the spirit and quality" of the original books.

Benedictus said all Milne's well-loved characters, from Tigger to Eeyore, would be making an appearance in his sequel, which features 10 stories and around 150 illustrations. The stories retain their original 1920s setting.

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Review: The Error World: An Affair with Stamps by Simon Garfield

One might say that Margarete Buber-Neumann had a charmed life, had it not been so horrible. She was fortunate - if that is the word - to be sent to a Soviet labour camp in 1939, during a momentary lull in the mass shooting of prisoners. Handed over to the Nazis in 1940, she was similarly lucky to be released from an SS concentration camp in 1945, just days before the remaining prisoners were forced on evacuation marches ending in death. It is a measure of the dismal times she lived through that such events marked her as fortunate, and it is a testament to her skill as a writer that this thoughtful, humane memoir (published in English in 1949) became an international bestseller. From the very first page we are with her, scurrying through Moscow surrounded by images of Stalin. We accompany her throughout the gruelling years ahead, encountering a host of characters, good and bad, and share in her dogged attempt to make sense of the madness of totalitarianism. This revised text is the definitive edition.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds