Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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Pelle suddenly noticed how exhausted she looked. "Haven't you been to
bed all night?" he asked.

She smilingly shook her head. "I had to take care that the street-door
wasn't locked. Whenever any one came home, I ran down and unlocked it
again. You mustn't be angry with the boy for being afraid of you just at
first. He was sorry for it afterward, and ran about the town all the
evening trying to find you."

A clear child's voice was calling from the bedroom more and more
persistently: "Man! Good-morning, man!"

It was Sister, sitting up in Ellen's bed and playing with a feather that
she had pulled out of the corner of the down-quilt. She readily allowed
herself to be kissed, and sat there with pouting mouth and the funniest
little wrinkled nose. "You're man!" she said insinuatingly.

"Yes, that's true enough," answered Pelle, laughing: "but what man?"

"Man!" she repeated, nodding gravely.

Sister shared Ellen's bed now. At the foot of the big bed stood her own
little cot, which had also been Lasse Frederik's, and in it lay----.
Well, Pelle turned to the other side of the room, where Lasse Frederik
lay snoring in a small bed, with one arm beneath his head. He had kicked
off the quilt, and lay on his stomach in a deep sleep, with his limbs
extended carelessly. The little fellow was well built, thought Pelle.

"Now, lazy-bones, you'd better be thinking of getting up!" cried Pelle,
pulling him by the leg.

The boy turned slowly. When he saw his father, he instantly became wide
awake, and raised his arm above his head as though to ward off a blow.

"There's no box on the ears in the air, my boy," said Pelle, laughing.
"The game only begins to-day!"

Lasse Frederik continued to hold his arm in the same position, and lay
gazing indifferently out into the front room, as if he had no idea to
what his father was referring; but his face was scarlet.

"Don't you even say good-morning to your father?" said Ellen, whereupon
he sullenly extended his hand and then turned his face to the wall. He
was vexed at his behavior of the day before, and perhaps expected a
blowing-up. On a nail above his head hung his blouse and cap.

"Is Lasse Frederik a milk-boy?" asked Pelle.

"Yes," said Ellen, "and he's very good at it. The drivers praise him."

"Isn't he going to get up then, and go? I've met several milk-carts."

"No, for we're on strike just now," murmured the boy without turning
round.

Pelle became quite interested. "What fellows you are! So you're on
strike, are you? What's it for--is it wages?"

The boy had to explain, and gradually turned his face round, but did not
look at his father.

Ellen stood in the doorway and listened to them smilingly. She looked
frail. "Lasse Frederik's the leader," she said gently.

"And he's lying here instead of being out on the watch for blacklegs?"
exclaimed Pelle quite irritably. "You're a nice leader!"

"Do you suppose any boy would be so mean as to be a blackleg?" said
Lasse Frederik. "No, indeed! But people fetch their own milk from the
carts."

"Then you must get the drivers to join you."

"No, we don't belong to a real union, so they won't support us."

"Well then, make a union! Get up, boy, and don't lie there snoring when
there's anything of this sort on! Do you imagine that anything in this
world is to be got by sleeping?"

The boy did not move. He did not seem to think there was any reason for
taking his father very seriously; but he met a reproachful look from
Ellen, and he was out of bed and dressed in a trice. While they sat in
the front room, drinking their coffee, Pelle gave him a few hints as to
how he should proceed in the matter. He was greatly interested, and went
thoroughly into the subject; it seemed to him as though it were only
yesterday that he had occupied himself with the people. How many
pleasant memories of the fight crowded into his mind! And now every
child knew that the meanest thing on earth was to become a blackleg! How
he had fought to make even intelligent fellow-workmen understand this!
It was quite comical to think that the strike--which filled the workmen
with horror the first time he had employed it--was now a thing that
children made use of. Time passed with a fleet foot out here in the day;
and if you wanted to keep pace you must look sharp!

When the boy had gone, Ellen came to Pelle and stroked his hair.
"Welcome home!" she said softly, and kissed his furrowed brow.

He pressed her hand. "Thank you for having a home for me," he answered,
looking into her eyes; "for if you hadn't, I think I should have gone to
the dogs."

"The boy has had his share in that, you know! He's worked well, or it
might have gone badly with me many a time. You mustn't be angry with
him, Pelle, even if he is a little sullen to you. You must remember how
much he's gone through with the other boys. Sometimes he's come home
quite disheartened."

"Because of me?" asked Pelle in a low voice.

"Yes, for he couldn't bear them to say anything about you. At one time
he was always fighting, but now I think he's taught them to leave him
alone; for he never gave in. But it may have left its marks on him."

She lingered by him; there was something she wanted to say to him, but
she had a difficulty in beginning. "What is it?" he asked, in order to
help her, his heart beating rapidly. He would have liked to get over
this without speech.

She drew him gently into the bedroom and up to the little cot. "You
haven't looked at Boy Comfort," she said.

He bent in embarrassment over the little boy who lay and gazed at him
with large, serious eyes. "You must give me a little time," he said.

"It's little Marie's boy," said Ellen, with a peculiar intonation.

He stood up quickly, and looked in bewilderment at her. It was a little
while before he comprehended.

"Where is Marie?" he asked with difficulty.

"She's dead, Pelle," answered Ellen, and came to his aid by holding out
her hand to him. "She died when the child was born."

A gray shadow passed across Pelle's face.

III

The house in which Pelle and his wife lived--the "Palace," the
inhabitants of the street called it--was an old, tumble-down, three-
storied building with a mansard roof. Up the middle of the facade ran
the remains of some fluted pilasters through the two upper stories,
making a handsome frame to the small windows. The name "Palace" had not
been given to the house entirely without reason; the old woman who kept
the ironmonger's shop in the back building could remember that in her
childhood it had been a general's country-house, and stood quite by
itself. At that time the shore reached to where Isted Street now runs,
and the fruit-gardens went right into Council House Square. Two ancient,
worm-eaten apple-trees, relics of that period, were still standing
squeezed in among the back buildings.

Since then the town had pushed the fruit-gardens a couple of miles
farther back, and in the course of time side streets had been added to
the bright neighborhood of Vesterbro--narrow, poor-men's streets, which
sprang up round the scattered country-houses, and shut out the light;
and poor people, artistes and street girls ousted the owners and turned
the luxuriant summer resort into a motley district where booted poverty
and shoeless intelligence met.

The "Palace" was the last relic of a vanished age. The remains of its
former grandeur were still to be seen in the smoke-blackened stucco and
deep windows of the attics; but the large rooms had been broken up into
sets of one or two rooms for people of small means, half the wide
landing being boarded off for coal-cellars.

From Pelle's little two-roomed flat, a door and a couple of steps led
down into a large room which occupied the entire upper floor of the side
building, and was not unlike the ruins of a former banqueting-hall. The
heavy, smoke-blackened ceiling went right up under the span roof and had
once been decorated; but most of the plaster had now fallen down, and
the beams threatened to follow it.

The huge room had been utilized, in the course of time, both as a
brewery and as a warehouse; but it still bore the stamp of its former
splendor. The children of the property at any rate thought it was grand,
and picked out the last remains of panelling for kindling-wood, and
would sit calling to one another for hours from the high ledges above
the brick pillars, upon which there had once stood busts of famous men.

Now and again a party of Russian or Polish emigrants hired the room and
took possession of it for a few nights. They slept side by side upon the
bare floor, each using his bundle for a pillow; and in the morning they
would knock at the door of Ellen's room, and ask by gestures to be
allowed to come to the water-tap. At first she was afraid of them and
barricaded the door with her wardrobe cupboard; but the thought of Pelle
in prison made her sympathetic and helpful. They were poor, needy
beings, whom misery and misfortune had driven from their homes. They
could not speak the language and knew nothing about the world; but they
seemed, like birds of passage, to find their way by instinct. In their
blind flight it was at the "Palace" that they happened to alight for
rest.

With this exception the great room lay unused. It went up through two
stories, and could have been made into several small flats; but the
owner of the property--an old peasant from Glostrup--was so miserly that
he could not find it in his heart to spend money on it, notwithstanding
the great advantage it would be to him. _Ellen_ had no objection to
this! She dried her customers' washing there, and escaped all the coal-
dust and dirt of the yard.

Chance, which so often takes the place of Providence in the case of poor
people, had landed her and her children here when things had gone wrong
with them in Chapel Road. Ellen had at last, after hard toil, got her
boot-sewing into good working order and had two pupils to help her, when
a long strike came and spoiled it all for her. She struggled against it
as well as she could, but one day they came and carried her bits of
furniture down into the street. It was the old story: Pelle had heard it
several times before. There she stood with the children, mounting guard
over her belongings until it grew dark. It was pouring with rain, and
they did not know what to do. People stopped as they hurried by, asked a
few questions and passed on; one or two advised her to apply to the
committee for housing the homeless. This, however, both Ellen and Lasse
Frederik were too proud to do. They took the little ones down to the
mangling-woman in the cellar, and themselves remained on guard over
their things, in the dull hope that something would happen, a hope of
which experience never quite deprives the poor.

After they had stood there a long time something really did happen. Out
of Norrebro Street came two men dashing along at a tremendous pace with
a four-wheeled cart of the kind employed by the poor of Copenhagen when
they move--preferably by night--from one place to another. One of the
men was at the pole of the cart, while the other pushed behind and, when
the pace was at its height, flung himself upon his stomach on the cart,
putting on the brake with the toes of his boots upon the road so as to
twist the cart into the gutter. Upon the empty cart sat a middle-aged
woman, singing, with her feet dangling over the side; she was big and
wore an enormous hat with large nodding flowers, of the kind designed to
attract the male sex. The party zig-zagged, shouting and singing, from
one side of the street to the other, and each time the lady shrieked.

"_There's_ a removing cart!" said Lasse Frederik, and as he spoke
the vehicle pulled up in the gutter just in front of them.

"What are you doing, Thorvald?" said one of the men; then, staring
straight into Ellen's face, "Have you hurt your eye?"

The woman had jumped down from the cart. "Oh, get out of the way, you
ass!" she said, pushing him aside. "Can't you see they've been turned
out? Is it your husband that's chucked you out?" she asked, bending
sympathetically over Ellen.

"No, the landlord's turned us out!" said Lasse Frederik.

"What a funny little figure! And you've got nowhere to sleep to-night?
Here, Christian, take and load these things on the cart, and then they
can stand under the gateway at home for the night. They'll be quite
spoilt by the rain here."

"Yes," answered Christian, "the chair-legs have actually begun to take
root!" The two men were in a boisterous humor.

"Now you can just come along with me," said the woman, when the things
were piled upon the cart, "and I'll find you a place to sleep in. And
then to-morrow Providence'll perhaps be at home himself!"

"She's a street-woman," whispered Lasse Frederik again and again,
pulling Ellen's dress; but Ellen did not care now, if only she could
avoid having to accept poor relief. She no longer held her head so high.

It was "Queen Theresa" herself they had met, and in a sense this meeting
had made their fortune. She helped Ellen to find her little flat, and
got her washing to do for the girls of the neighborhood. It was not very
much, though the girls of Vesterbro went in for fine clothes as far as
they could; but it afforded her at any rate a livelihood.

* * * * *

Pelle did not like Ellen going on with all this dirty work; he wanted to
be the one to provide for the family. Ellen moreover had had her turn,
and she looked tired and as if she needed to live a more comfortable
life. It was as though she fell away now that he was there and able once
more to assume the responsibility; but she would not hear of giving up
the washing. "It's never worth while to throw away the dirty water until
you've got the clean!" she said.

Every morning he set out furnished with a brand-new trades-union book,
and went from workshop to workshop. Times were bad for his branch of
trade; many of his old fellow-workmen had been forced to take up other
occupations--he met them again as conductors, lamplighters, etc.;
machinery had made them unnecessary, they said. It was the effect of the
great lock-out; it had killed the little independent businesses that had
formerly worked with one or two men, and put wind into the sails of
large industries. The few who could manage it had procured machines and
become manufacturers; the rest were crowded out and sat in out-of-the-
way basements doing repairs. To set to work again, on the old conditions
was what had been farthest from Pelle's thoughts; and he now went about
and offered to become an apprentice again in order to serve his new
master, the machinery, and was ready to be utilized to the utmost. But
the manufacturers had no use for him; they still remembered him too
well. "You've been too long away from the work," said one and another of
them meaningly.

Well, that was only tit for tat; but he felt bitterly how even his past
rose up against him. He had fought and sacrificed everything to improve
the conditions in his branch; and the machines were the discouraging
answer that the development gave to him and his fellows.

He was not alone in his vain search in this bright springtime. A number
of other branches had had the same fate as his own. Every new day that
dawned brought him into a stream of men who seemed to be condemned to
wear out the pavement in their hopeless search for work--people who had
been pushed out by the machines and could not get in again. "There must
be something wrong with them," Pelle thought while he stood and listened
to always the same story of how they had suddenly been dropped, and saw
the rest of the train steaming away. It must have been their own fault
that they were not coupled on to a new one; perhaps they were lazy or
drunkards. But after a time he saw good, tried men standing in the row,
and offering their powers morning after morning without result; and he
began to realize with a chill fear that times were changing.

He would certainly have managed to make both ends meet if there had been
anything to be got. The prices were all right; their only defect was
that they were not eatable. Altogether it seemed as if a change for the
worse had overtaken the artisan; and to make it still more serious the
large businesses stood in the way of his establishing himself and
becoming independent. There was not even a back door left open now!
Pelle might just as well put that out of his head first as last; to
become a master now required capital and credit. The best thing that the
future held was an endless and aimless tramp to and from the factory.

At one stroke he was planted in the middle of the old question again;
all the circumstances passed before him, and it was useless to close his
eyes. He was willing enough to mind his own affairs and did not seek for
anything; but the one thing was a consequence of the other, and whether
he wished it or not, it united in a general view of the conditions.

The union had stood the test outwardly. The workmen were well organized
and had vindicated their right to negotiate; their corporations could no
longer be disregarded. Wages were also to some extent higher, and the
feeling for the home had grown in the workmen themselves, many of them
having removed from their basements into new two- or three-roomed flats,
and bought good furniture. They demanded more from life, but everything
had become dearer, and they still lived from hand to mouth. He could see
that the social development had not kept pace with the mechanical; the
machines wedged themselves quietly but inexorably in between the workmen
and the work, and threw more and more men out of employment. The hours
of labor were not greatly shortened. Society did not seem to care to
protect the workers, but it interested itself more in disabled workmen
than before, and provision for the poor was well organized. Pelle could
not discover _any_ law that had a regulating effect, but found a
whole number of laws that plastered up the existing conditions. A great
deal of help was given, always just on the borders of starvation; and
more and more men had to apply for it. It did not rob them of their
rights as citizens, but made them a kind of politically _kept_
proletariat.

It was thus that the world of adventure which Pelle had helped to
conquer appeared now when he returned and looked at it with new eyes.
The world had not been created anew, and the Movement did not seem to
have produced anything strong and humanly supporting. It seemed as if
the workmen would quietly allow themselves to be left out of the game,
if only they received money for doing nothing! What had become of their
former pride? They must have acquired the morals of citizens, since they
willingly agreed to accept a pension for rights surrendered. They were
not deficient in power; they could make the whole world wither and die
without shedding a drop of blood, only by holding together. It was a
sense of responsibility that they lacked; they had lost the fundamental
idea of the Movement.

Pelle looked at the question from all sides while he trudged up and down
in his vain search. The prospect obtruded itself upon him, and there
were forces at work, both within and without, trying to push him into
the Movement and into the front rank among the leaders, but he repelled
the idea: he was going to work for his home now.

He managed to obtain some repairs for the neighbors, and also helped
Ellen to hang up clothes and turn the mangle. One must pocket one's
pride and be glad _she_ had something. She was glad of his help,
but did not want any one to see him doing this woman's work.

"It's not work for a man," she said, looking at him with eyes which said
how pleased she was to have his company.

They liked being together, enjoyed it in their own quiet way without
many words. Much had happened, but neither Pelle nor Ellen were in a
hurry. Neither of them had a facility in speaking, but they found their
way to an understanding through the pauses, and drew nearer to one
another in the silences. Each knew what the other had suffered without
requiring to have it told: time had been at work on them both.

There was no storm in their new companionship. The days passed quietly,
made sad by the years that had gone by. In Ellen's mind was neither
jubilation nor reproach. She was cautious with regard to him--almost as
shy as the first time they met; behind all her goodness and care lay the
same touch of maidenly reserve as at that time. She received his
caresses silently, she herself giving chiefly by being something for
him. He noticed how every little homely action she did for him grew out
of her like a motherly caress and took him into her heart. He was
grateful for it, but it was not that of which he stood most in need.

When they sat together in the twilight and the children played upon the
floor, she was generally silent, stealing glances at him now and then;
but as soon as he noticed these, the depth of her expression vanished.
Was she again searching for his inner being as she had done in their
earliest time together? It was as though she were calling to something
within him, but would not reveal herself. It was thus that mother might
sit and gaze searchingly into her child's future. Did she not love him
then? She had given him all that she possessed, borne him children, and
had faithfully waited for him when all the rest of the world had cast
him off; and yet he was not sure that she had ever loved him.

Pelle had never met with love in the form of something unmanageable; the
Movement had absorbed the surplus of his youth. But now he had been born
anew together with the spring, and felt it suddenly as an inward power.
He and Ellen would begin now, for now she was everything! Life had
taught him seriousness, and it was well. He was horrified at the
thoughtless way in which he had taken Ellen and made her a mother
without first making her a bride. Her woman's heart must be immeasurably
large since she had not gone to pieces in consequence, but still stood
as unmoved as ever, waiting for him to win her. She had got through it
by being a mother.

Would he ever win her? Was she really waiting still, or was she
contented with things as they were?

His love for her was so strong that everything about her was
transfigured, and he was happy in the knowledge that she was his fate.
Merely a ribbon or a worn check cotton apron--any little thing that
belonged to her--acquired a wonderfully warm hue, and filled his mind
with sweetness. A glance or a touch made him dizzy with happiness, and
his heart went out to her in waves of ardent longing. It awoke no
response; she smiled gently and pressed his hand. She was fond of him
and refused him nothing, but he nevertheless felt that she kept her
innermost self hidden from him. When he tried to see in, he found it
closed by a barrier of kindness.

IV

Pelle was like a man returning home after years of exile, and trying to
bring himself into personal relations with everything; the act of
oblivion was in force only up to the threshold; the real thing he had to
see to himself. The land he had tilled was in other hands, he no longer
had any right to it; but it was he who had planted, and he must know how
it had been tended and how it had thriven.

The great advance had taken on a political character. The Movement had
in the meantime let the demand of the poorest of the people for bread
drop, and thrown them over as one would throw over ballast in order to
rise more quickly. The institutions themselves would be won, and then
they would of course come back to the starting-point and begin again
quite differently. It might be rather convenient to turn out those who
most hindered the advance, but would it lead to victory? It was upon
them indeed that everything turned! Pelle had thoroughly learned the
lesson, that he who thinks he will outwit others is outwitted himself.
He had no faith in those who would climb the fence where it was lowest.

The new tactics dated from the victorious result of the great conflict.
He had himself led the crowds in triumph through the capital, and if he
had not been taken he would probably now be sitting in parliament as one
of the labor members and symbolizing his promotion to citizenship. But
now he was out of it all, and had to choose his attitude toward the
existing state of things; he had belonged to the world of outcasts and
had stood face to face with the irreconcilable. He was not sure that the
poor man was to be raised by an extension of the existing social ethics.
He himself was still an outlaw, and would probably never be anything
else. It was hard to stoop to enter the doorway through which you had
once been thrown out, and it was hard to get in. He did not intend to
take any steps toward gaining admission to the company of respectable
men; he was strong enough to stand alone now.

Perhaps Ellen expected something in that way as reparation for all the
wrong she had suffered. She must have patience! Pelle had promised
himself that he would make her and the children happy, and he persuaded
himself that this would be best attained by following his own impulses.

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