Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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

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Pelle still had no doubt that he was chosen to accomplish something for
the masses, but it had become of such secondary importance when he
recollected that he had neglected his share of that which was the duty
of every one. He had mistaken small for great, and believed that when he
accomplished something that no one else could do, he might in return pay
less attention to ordinary every-day duties; but the fates ordained that
the burden of life should be laid just where every one could help. And
now he was coming back like a poor beggar, who had conquered everything
except the actual, and therefore possessed nothing, and had to beg for
mercy. Branded as a criminal, he must now begin at the beginning, and
accomplish that which he had not been able to do in the days of his
power. It would be difficult to build his home under these
circumstances, and who was there to help him? Those three who could have
spoken for him he had left to their own devices as punishment for an
offence which in reality was his own.

He had never before set out in such a poverty-stricken state. He did not
even come like one who had something to forgive: his prison-cell had
left him nothing. He had had time enough there to go carefully over the
whole matter, and everything about Ellen that he had before been too
much occupied to notice or had felt like a silent opposition to his
projects, now stood out clearly, and formed itself, against his will,
into the picture of a woman who never thought of herself, but only of
the care of her little world and how she could sacrifice herself. He
could not afford to give up any of his right here, and marshalled all
his accusations against her, bringing forward laws and morals; but it
all failed completely to shake the image, and only emphasized yet more
the strength of her nature. She had sacrificed _everything_ for him
and the children, her one desire being to see them happy. Each of his
attacks only washed away a fresh layer of obstructing mire, and made the
sacrifice in her action stand out more clearly. It was because she was
so unsensual and chaste that she could act as she had done. Alas! she
had had to pay dearly for _his_ remissness; it was the mother who,
in their extreme want, gave her own body to nourish her offspring.

Pelle would not yield, but fought fiercely against conviction. He had
been robbed of freedom and the right to be a human being like others,
and now solitude was about to take from him all that remained to sustain
him. Even if everything joined together against him, he was not wrong,
he _would_ not be wrong. It was he who had brought the great
conflict to an end at the cost of his own--and he had found Ellen to be
a prostitute! His thoughts clung to this word, and shouted it hoarsely,
unceasingly--prostitute! prostitute! He did not connect it with
anything, but only wanted to drown the clamor of accusations on all
sides which were making him still more naked and miserable.

At first letters now and then came to him, probably from old companions-
in-arms, perhaps too from Ellen: he did not know, for he refused to take
them. He hated Ellen because she was the stronger, hated in impotent
defiance everything and everybody. Neither she nor any one else should
have the satisfaction of being any comfort to him; since he had been
shut up as an unclean person, he had better keep himself quite apart
from them. He would make his punishment still more hard, and purposely
increased his forlornness, kept out of his thoughts everything that was
near and dear to him, and dragged the painful things into the
foreground. Ellen had of course forgotten him for some one else, and had
perhaps turned the children's thoughts from him; they would certainly be
forbidden to mention the word "father." He could distinctly see them all
three sitting happily round the lamp; and when some turn in the
conversation threatened to lead it to the subject of himself, a coldness
and stillness as of death suddenly fell upon them. He mercilessly filled
his existence with icy acknowledgment on all points, and believed he
revenged himself by breathing in the deadly cold.

After a prolonged period of this he was attacked with frenzy, dashed
himself blindly against the walls, and shouted that he wanted to get
out. To quiet him he was put into a strait-waistcoat and removed to a
pitch-dark cell. On the whole he was one of the so-called defiant
prisoners, who meant to kick against the pricks, and he was treated
accordingly.

But one night when he lay groaning after a punishment, and saw the angry
face of God in the darkness, he suddenly became silent. "Are you a human
being?" it said, "and cannot even bear a little suffering?" Pelle was
startled. He had never known that there was anything particularly human
in suffering. But from that night he behaved quietly, with a listening
expression, as if he heard something through the walls. "Now he's become
quiet," said the gaoler, who was looking at him through the peep-hole.
"It won't be long before he's an idiot!"

But Pelle had only come out on the other side; he was staring bravely
into the darkness to see God's face once more, but in a gentler guise.
The first thing he saw was Ellen again, sitting there beautiful,
exculpated, made more desirable by all his accusations. How great and
fateful all petty things became here! What was the good of defending
himself? She was his fate, and he would have to surrender
unconditionally. He still did not comprehend her, but he had a
consciousness of greater laws for life, laws that raised _her_ and
made him small. She and hers passed undefiled through places where he
stuck fast in the surface mire.

She seemed to him to grow in here, and led his thoughts behind the
surface, where they had never been before. Her unfailing mother-love was
like a beating pulse that rose from the invisible and revealed hidden
mystical forces--the perceptible rhythm of a great heart which beat in
concealment behind everything. Her care resembled that of God Himself;
she was nearer to the springs of life than he.

The springs of life! Through her the expression for the first time
acquired a meaning for him. It was on the whole as if she re-created
him, and by occupying himself with her ever enigmatical nature, his
thoughts were turned further and further inward. He suspected the
presence of strong currents which bore the whole thing; and sometimes in
the silence of his cell he seemed to hear his existence flowing, flowing
like a broad stream, and emptying itself out there where his thoughts
had never ventured to roam. What became of the days and the years with
all that they had held? The ever present Ellen, who had never herself
given a thought to the unseen, brought Pelle face to face with infinity.

While all this was going on within him, they sang one Sunday during the
prison service Grundtvig's hymn, "The former days have passed away." The
hymn expressed all that he had himself vaguely thought, and touched him
deeply; the verses came to him in his narrow pen like waves from a
mighty ocean, which rolled ages in to the shore in monotonous power. He
suddenly and strongly realized the passage of generations of human
beings over the earth, and boldly grasped what he had until now only
dimly suspected, namely, his own connection with them all, both those
who were living then and all those who had gone before. How small his
own idea of union had been when measured by this immense community of
souls, and what a responsibility was connected with each one! He
understood now how fatal it was to act recklessly, then break off and
leave everything. In reality you could never leave anything; the very
smallest thing you shirked would be waiting for you as your fate at the
next milestone. And who, indeed, was able to overlook an action? You had
to be lenient continually, and at last it would turn out that you had
been lenient to yourself.

Pelle was taking in wisdom, and his own heart confirmed it. The thought
of Ellen filled his mind more and more; he had lost her, and yet he
could not get beyond her. Did she still love him? This question pursued
him day and night with ever increasing vehemence, until even his life
seemed to depend upon it. He felt, as he gazed questioningly into his
solitude, that he would be worthless if he did not win her back. New
worlds grew up before him; he could dimly discern the great connection
between things, and thought he could see how deep down the roots of life
stretched, drawing nourishment from the very darkness in which he dwelt.
But to this he received no answer.

He never dreamt of writing to her. God had His own way of dealing with
the soul, a way with which one did not interfere. It would have to come
like all the rest, and he lulled himself with the foolish hope that
Ellen would come and visit him, for he was now in the right mood to
receive her. On Sundays he listened eagerly to the heavy clang of the
gate. It meant visitors to the prisoners; and when the gaoler came along
the corridor rattling his keys, Pelle's heart beat suffocatingly. This
repeated itself Sunday after Sunday, and then he gave up hope and
resigned himself to his fate.

After a long time, however, fortune favored him and brought him a
greeting.

Pelle took no personal part in the knocking that every evening after the
lights were out sounded through the immense building as if a thousand
death-ticks were at work. He had enough of his own to think about, and
only knocked those messages on that had to pass through his cell. One
day, however, a new prisoner was placed in the cell next to his, and
woke him. He was a regular frequenter of the establishment, and
immediately set about proclaiming his arrival in all directions. It was
Druk-Valde, "Widow" Rasmussen's idler of a sweetheart, who used to stand
all the winter through in the gateway in Chapel Road, and spit over the
toes of his well-polished shoes.

Yes, Valde knew Pelle's family well; his sweetheart had looked after the
children when Ellen, during the great conflict, began to go out to work.
Ellen had been very successful, and still held her head high. She sewed
uppers and had a couple of apprentices to help her, and she was really
doing pretty well. She did not associate with any one, not even with her
relatives, for she never left her children.

Druk-Valde had to go to the wall every evening; the most insignificant
detail was of the greatest importance. Pelle could see Ellen as if she
were standing in the darkness before him, pale, always clad in black,
always serious. She had broken with her parents; she had sacrificed
everything for his sake! She even talked about him so that the children
should not have forgotten him by the time he came back. "The little
beggars think you're travelling," said Valde.

So everything was all right! It was like sunshine in his heart to know
that she was waiting faithfully for him although he had cast her off.
All the ice must melt and disappear; he was a rich man in spite of
everything.

Did she bear his name? he asked eagerly. It would be like her--intrepid
as she was--defiantly to write "Pelle" in large letters on the door-
plate.

Yes, of course! There was no such thing as hiding there! Lasse Frederik
and his sister were big now, and little Boy Comfort was a huge fellow
for his age--a regular little fatty. To see him sitting in his
perambulator, when they wheeled him out on Sundays, was a sight for
gods!

Pelle stood in the darkness as though stunned. Boy Comfort, a little
fellow sitting in a perambulator! And it was not an adopted child
either; Druk-Valde so evidently took it to be his. Ellen! Ellen!

He went no more to the wall. Druk-Valde knocked in vain, and his six
months came to an end without Pelle noticing it. This time he made no
disturbance, but shrank under a feeling of being accursed. Providence
must be hostile to him, since the same blow had been aimed at him twice.
In the daytime he sought relief in hard work and reading; at night he
lay on his dirty, mouldy-smelling mattress and wept. He no longer tried
to overthrow his conception of Ellen, for he knew it was hopeless: she
still tragically overshadowed everything. She was his fate and still
filled his thoughts, but not brightly; there was indeed nothing bright
or great about it now, only imperative necessity.

And then his work! For a man there was always work to fall back upon,
when happiness failed him. Pelle set to work in earnest, and the man who
was at the head of the prison shoemaking department liked to have him,
for he did much more than was required of him. In his leisure hours he
read diligently, and entered with zest into the prison school-work,
taking up especially history and languages. The prison chaplain and the
teachers took an interest in him, and procured books for him which were
generally unobtainable by the prisoners.

When he was thoroughly tired out he allowed his mind to seek rest in
thoughts of his home. His weariness cast a conciliatory light over
everything, and he would lie upon his pallet and in imagination spend
happy hours with his children, including that young cuckoo who always
looked at him with such a strangely mocking expression. To Ellen alone
he did not get near. She had never been so beautiful as now in her
unapproachableness, but she received all his assurances in mysterious
silence, only gazing at him with her unfathomable eyes. He had forsaken
her and the home; he knew that; but had he not also made reparation? It
was _her_ child he held on his knee, and he meant to build the home
up again. He had had enough of an outlaw's life, and needed a heart upon
which to rest his weary head.

All this was dreaming, but now he was on his way down to begin from the
beginning. He did not feel very courageous; the uncertainty held so many
possibilities. Were the children and Ellen well, and was she still
waiting for him? And his comrades? How would his fate shape itself?

* * * * *

Pelle was so little accustomed to being in the fresh air that it
affected him powerfully, and, much against his will, he fell asleep as
he leaned back upon the bank. The longing to reach the end of his
journey made him dream that he was still walking on and making his entry
into the city; but he did not recognize it, everything was so changed.
People were walking about in their best clothes, either going to the
wood or to hear lectures. "Who is doing the work, then?" he asked of a
man whom he met.

"Work!" exclaimed the man in surprise. "Why, the machines, of course! We
each have three hours at them in the day, but it'll soon be changed to
two, for the machines are getting more and more clever. It's splendid to
live and to know that there are no slaves but those inanimate machines;
and for that we have to thank a man called Pelle."

"Why, that's me!" exclaimed Pelle, laughing with pleasure.

"You! What absurdity! Why, you're a young man, and all this happened
many years ago."

"It is me, all the same! Don't you see that my hair is gray and my
forehead lined? I got like that in fighting for you. Don't you recognize
me?" But people only laughed at him, and he had to go on.

"I'll go to Ellen!" he thought, disheartened. "She'll speak up for me!"
And while the thought was in his mind, he found himself in her parlor.

"Sit down!" she said kindly. "My husband'll be here directly."

"Why, I'm your husband!" he exclaimed, hardly able to keep back his
tears; but she looked at him coldly and without recognition, and moved
toward the door.

"I'm Pelle!" he said, holding out his hand beseechingly. "Don't you know
me?"

Ellen opened her lips to cry out, and at that moment the husband
appeared threateningly in the doorway. From behind him Lasse Frederik
and Sister peeped out in alarm, and Pelle saw with a certain amount of
satisfaction that there were only the two. The terrible thing, however,
was that the man was himself, the true Pelle with the good, fair
moustache, the lock of hair on his forehead and the go-ahead expression.
When he discovered this, it all collapsed and he sank down in despair.

Pelle awoke with a start, bathed in perspiration, and saw with
thankfulness the fields and the bright atmosphere: he was at any rate
still alive! He rose and walked on with heavy steps while the spring
breeze cooled his brow.

His road led him to Norrebro. The sun was setting behind him; it must be
about the time for leaving off work, and yet no hooter sounded from the
numerous factories, no stream of begrimed human beings poured out of the
side streets. In the little tea-gardens in the Frederikssund Road sat
workmen's families with perambulator and provision-basket; they were
dressed in their best and were enjoying the spring day. Was there after
all something in his dream? If so, it would be splendid to come back! He
asked people what was going on, and was told that it was the elections.
"We're going to take the city to-day!" they said, laughing triumphantly.

From the square he turned into the churchyard, and went down the somber
avenue of poplars to Chapel Road. Opposite the end of the avenue he saw
the two little windows in the second floor; and in his passionate
longing he seemed to see Ellen standing there and beckoning. He ran now,
and took the stairs three or four at a time.

Just as he was about to pull the bell-cord, he heard strange voices
within, and paused as though paralyzed. The door looked cold and as if
it had nothing to do with him; and there was no door-plate. He went
slowly down the stairs and asked in the greengrocer's cellar below
whether a woman who sewed uppers did not live on the second floor to the
left. She had been forsaken by her husband and had two children--
_three_, he corrected himself humbly; What had become of them?

The deputy-landlord was a new man and could give him no information; so
he went up into the house again, and asked from door to door but without
any result. Poor people do not generally live long in one place.

Pelle wandered about the streets at haphazard. He could think of no way
of getting Ellen's address, and gave it up disheartened; in his forlorn
condition he had the impression that people avoided him, and it
discouraged him. His soul was sick with longing for a kind word and a
caress, and there was no one to give them. No eyes brightened at seeing
him out again, and he hunted in vain in house after house for some one
who would sympathize with him. A sudden feeling of hatred arose in him,
an evil desire to hit out at everything and go recklessly on.

Twilight was coming on. Below the churchyard wall some newspaper-boys
were playing "touch last" on their bicycles. They managed their machines
like circus-riders, and resembled little gauchos, throwing them back and
running upon the back wheel only, and bounding over obstacles. They had
strapped their bags on their backs, and their blue cap-bands flapped
about their ears like pennons.

Pelle seated himself upon a bench, and absently followed their reckless
play, while his thoughts went back to his own careless boyhood. A boy of
ten or twelve took the lead in breakneck tricks, shouting and
commanding; he was the chief of the band, and maintained the leadership
with a high hand. His face, with its snub nose, beamed with lively
impudence, and his cap rested upon two exceptionally prominent ears.

The boys began to make of the stranger a target for their exuberant
spirits. In dashing past him they pretended to lose control of their
machine, so that it almost went over his foot; and at last the leader
suddenly snatched off his cap. Pelle quietly picked it up, but when the
boy came circling back with measured strokes as though pondering some
fresh piece of mischief he sprang up and seized him by the collar.

"Now you shall have a thrashing, you scamp!" he said, lifting him off
his bicycle. "But it'll be just as well if you get it from your parents.
What's your father's name?"

"He hasn't got a father!" cried the other boys, flocking round them
threateningly. "Let him go!"

The boy opened his lips to give vent to a torrent of bad language, but
stopped suddenly and gazed in terror at Pelle, struggling like a mad
thing to get away. Pelle let him go in surprise, and saw him mount his
bicycle and disappear howling. His companions dashed after him like a
flight of swallows. "Wait a little, Lasse Frederik!" they cried. Pelle
stood a little while gazing after them, and then with bent head walked
slowly into Norrebro Street.

It was strange to be walking again in this street, which had played so
great a part in his life. The traffic was heavier here than in other
places, and the stone paving made it more so. A peculiar adamantine
self-dependence was characteristic of this district where every step was
weighted with the weight of labor.

The shops were the same, and he also recognized several of the
shopkeepers. He tried to feel at home in the crowd, and looked into
people's faces, wondering whether any one would recognize him. He both
wished and feared it, but they hurried past, only now and then one of
them would wonder a little at his strange appearance. He himself knew
most of them as well as if it had been yesterday he had had to do with
those thousands, for the intermediate years had not thrust new faces in
between him and the old ones. Now and again he met one of his men
walking on the pavement with his wife on his arm, while others were
standing on the electric tramcars as drivers and conductors. Weaklings
and steady fellows--they were his army. He could name them by name and
was acquainted with their family circumstances. Well, a good deal of
water had run under the bridge since then!

He went into a little inn for travelling artisans, and engaged a room.

"It's easy to see that you've been away from this country for a day or
two," said the landlord. "Have you been far?"

Oh, yes, Pelle had seen something of the world. And here at home there
had been a good many changes. How did the Movement get on?

"Capitally! Yes, awfully well! Our party has made tremendous progress;
to-day we shall take the town!"

"That'll make a difference in things, I suppose?"

"Oh, well, I wouldn't say that for certain. Unemployment increases every
year, and it's all the same who represents the town and sits in
parliament. But we've got on very well as far as prices go."

"Tell me--there was a man in the Movement a few years ago called Pelle;
what's become of him?"

The landlord scratched his parting. "Pelle! Pelle! Yes, of course. What
in the world was there about him? Didn't he make false coins, or rob a
till? If I remember right, he ended by going to prison. Well, well,
there are bad characters in every movement."

A couple of workmen, who were sitting at a table eating fried liver,
joined in the conversation. "He came a good deal to the front five or
six years ago," said one of them with his mouth full. "But there wasn't
much in him; he had too much imagination."

"He had the gift of the gab, anyhow," said the other. "I still
distinctly remember him at the great lock-out. He could make you think
you were no end of a fine fellow, he could! Well, that's all past and
gone! Your health, comrade!"

Pelle rose quietly and went out. He was forgotten; nobody remembered
anything about him, in spite of all that he had fought for and suffered.
Much must have passed over their heads since then, and him they had
simply forgotten.

He did not know what to do with himself, more homeless here in this
street, which should have been his own, than in any other place. It was
black with people, but he was not carried with the stream; he resembled
something that has been washed up to one side and left lying.

They were all in their best clothes. The workmen came in crowds on their
way either from or to the polling-booths, and some were collected and
accompanied thither by eager comrades. One man would shout to another
across the road through his hollowed hand: "Hi, Petersen! I suppose
you've voted?" Everywhere there was excitement and good humor: the city
was to be taken!

Pelle went with the stream over Queen Louise's Bridge and farther into
the city. Here the feeling was different, opinions were divided, people
exchanged sharp words. Outside the newspaper-offices stood dense crowds
impeding the wheel-traffic as they waited patiently for the results that
were shown in the windows. Every time a contested district came in, a
wave of movement passed through the crowd, followed by a mighty roar if
a victory was recorded. All was comparatively quiet; people stood
outside the offices of the papers that bore the color of their party.
Only the quarrelsome men gathered about their opponents and had their
hats bashed in. Within the offices the members of the staff were passing
busily backward and forward, hanging up the results and correcting them.

All the _cafes_ and restaurants were full of customers. The
telephone rang incessantly, and messengers kept coming with lists from
the telegram bureaus; men fought over the results in front of the great
blackboard and chances were discussed at the tables and much political
nonsense was talked.

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