Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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He was not exactly happy. Pecuniarily things were in a bad way, and
notwithstanding all his planning, the future continued to look
uncertain. He needed to be the man, the breadwinner, so that Ellen could
come to him for safety and shelter, take her food with an untroubled
mind from his hand, and yield herself to him unresistingly.

He was not their god; that was where the defect lay. This was noticeable
at any rate in Lasse Frederik. There was good stuff in the boy, although
it had a tang of the street. He was an energetic fellow, bright and
pushing, keenly alert with regard to everything in the way of business.
Pelle saw in him the image of himself, and was only proud of him; but
the boy did not look upon him with unconditional reliance in return. He
was quick and willing, but nothing more; his attitude was one of trial,
as if he wanted to see how things would turn out before he recognized
the paternal relationship.

Pelle suffered under this impalpable distrust, which classed him with
the "new fathers" of certain children; and he had a feeling that was at
the same time painful and ridiculous, that he was on trial. In olden
days the matter might have been settled by a good thrashing, but now
things had to be arranged so that they would be lasting; he could no
longer buy cheaply. When helping Lasse Frederik in organizing the milk-
boys, he pocketed his pride and introduced features from the great
conflict in order to show that he was good for something too. He could
see from the boy's expression that he did not believe much of it, and
intended to investigate the matter more closely. It wounded his
sensitive mind and drove him into himself.

One day, however, when he was sitting at his work, Lasse Frederik rushed
in. "Father, tell me what you did to get the men that were locked into
the factory out!" he cried breathlessly.

"You wouldn't believe it if I did," said Pelle reproachfully.

"Yes, I would; for they called you the 'Lightning!'" exclaimed the boy
in tones of admiration. "And they had to put you in prison so as to get
rid of you. The milk-driver told me all about it!"

From that day they were friends. At one stroke Pelle had become the hero
of the boy's existence. He had shaved off his beard, had blackened his
face, and had gone right into the camp of his opponents, and nothing
could have been finer. He positively had to defend himself from being
turned into a regular robber-captain with a wide-awake hat and top-
boots! Lasse Frederik had a lively imagination!

Pelle had needed this victory. He must have his own people safely at his
back first of all, and then have a thorough settlement of the past. But
this was not easy, for little Boy Comfort staggered about everywhere,
warped himself toward him from one piece of furniture to another with
his serious eyes fixed steadily upon him, and crawled the last part of
the way. Whenever he was set down, he instantly steered for Pelle; he
would come crawling in right from the kitchen, and would not stop until
he stood on his feet by Pelle's leg, looking up at him. "See how fond he
is of you already!" said Ellen tenderly, as she put him down in the
middle of the floor to try him. "Take him up!" Pelle obeyed
mechanically; he had no personal feeling for this child; it was indeed
no child, but the accusation of a grown-up person that came crawling
toward him. And there stood Ellen with as tender an expression as if it
were her own baby! Pelle could not understand how it was that she did
not despise him; he was ashamed whenever he thought of his struggle to
reconcile himself to this "little cuckoo." It was a good thing he had
said so little!

His inability to be as naturally kind to the child as she was tormented
him; and when, on Saturday evening, she had bathed Boy Comfort and then
sat with him on her lap, putting on his clean clothes, Pelle was
overwhelmed with self-accusation. He had thoughtlessly trodden little
Marie of the "Ark" underfoot, and she whom he had cast off when she most
needed him, in return passed her beneficent hand over his wrong-doing.
As though she were aware of his gloomy thoughts, she went to him and
placed the warm, naked child in his arms, saying with a gentle smile:
"Isn't he a darling?" Her heart was so large that he was almost afraid;
she really took more interest in this child than in her own.

"I'm his mother, of course!" she said naturally. "You don't suppose he
can do without a real mother, do you?"

Marie's fate lay like a shadow over Pelle's mind. He had to talk to
Ellen about it in order to try to dispel it, but she did not see the
fateful connection; she looked upon it as something that had to be. "You
were so hunted and persecuted," she said quietly, "and you had no one to
look to. So it had to happen like that. Marie told me all about it. It
was no one's fault that she was not strong enough to bear children. The
doctor said there was a defect in her frame; she had an internal
deformity." Alas! Ellen did not know how much a human being should be
able to help, and she herself took much more upon her than she need.

There was, nevertheless, something soothing in these sober facts,
although they told him nothing about the real thing. It is impossible to
bear for long the burden of the irreparable, and Pelle was glad that
Ellen dwelt so constantly and naturally on Marie's fate; it brought it
within the range of ordinary things for him too. Marie had come to her
when she could no longer hide her condition, and Ellen had taken her in
and kept her until she went to the lying-in hospital. Marie knew quite
well that she was going to die--she could feel it, as it were--and would
sit and talk about it while she helped Ellen with her boot-sewing. She
arranged everything as sensibly as an experienced mother.

"How old-fashioned she was, and yet so child-like!" Ellen would exclaim
with emotion.

Pelle could not help thinking of his life in the "Ark" when little Marie
kept house for him and her two brothers--a careful housekeeper of eleven
years! She was deformed and yet had abundant possibilities within her;
she resembled poverty itself. Infected by his young strength, she had
shot up and unfolded into a fair maiden, at whom the young dandies
turned to look when she went along the street to make her purchases. He
had been anxious about her, alone and unprotected as she was; and yet it
was he himself who had become the plunderer of the poor, defenceless
girl. Why had he not carried his cross alone, instead of accepting the
love of a being who gave herself to him in gratitude for his gift to her
of the joy of life? Why had he been obliged, in a difficult moment, to
take his gift back? Boy Comfort she had called her boy in her innocent
goodness of heart, in order that Pelle should be really fond of him; but
it was a dearly-bought Comfort that cost the life of another! For Pelle
the child was almost an accusation.

There was much to settle up and some things that could not be arranged!
Pelle sometimes found it burdensome enough to be responsible for
himself.

About this time Morten was often in his thoughts. "Morten has
disappointed me at any rate," he thought; "he could not bear my
prosperity!" This was a point on which Pelle had right upon his side!
Morten must come to him if they were to have anything more to do with
one another. Pelle bore no malice, but it was reasonable and just that
the one who was on the top should first hold out his hand.

In this way he thought he had obtained rest from that question in any
case, but it returned. He had taken the responsibility upon himself now,
and was going to begin by sacrificing his only friend on a question of
etiquette! He would have to go to him and hold out a hand of
reconciliation!

This at last seemed to be a noble thought!

But Pelle was not allowed to feel satisfied with himself in this either.
He was a prey to the same tormenting unrest that he had suffered in his
cell, when he stole away from his work and sat reading secretly--he felt
as if there were always an eye at the peephole, which saw everything
that he did. He would have to go into the question once more.

That unselfish Morten envious? It was true he had not celebrated Pelle's
victory with a flourish of trumpets, but had preferred to be his
conscience! That was really at the bottom of it. He had intoxicated
himself in the noise, and wanted to find something with which to drown
Morten's quiet warning voice, and the accusation was not far to seek--
_envy!_ It was he himself, in fact, who had been the one to
disappoint.

One day he hunted him up. Morten's dwelling was not difficult to find
out; he had acquired a name as an author, and was often mentioned in the
papers in connection with the lower classes. He lived on the South
Boulevard, up in an attic as usual, with a view over Kalvebod Strand and
Amager.

"Why, is that you?" he said, taking Pelle's hands in his and gazing into
his stern, furrowed face until the tears filled his eyes. "I say, how
you have changed!" he whispered half tearfully, and led him into his
room.

"I suppose I have," Pelle answered gloomily. "I've had good reason to,
anyhow. And how have you been? Are you married?"

"No, I'm as solitary as ever. The one I want still doesn't care about
me, and the others _I_ don't want. I thought you'd thrown me over
too, but you've come after all."

"I had too much prosperity, and that makes you self-important."

"Oh, well, it does. But in prison--why did you send my letters back? It
was almost too hard."

Pelle looked up in astonishment. "It would never have occurred to the
prisoner that he could hurt anybody, so you do me an injustice there,"
he said. "It was myself I wanted to punish!"

"You've been ill then, Pelle!"

"Yes, ill! You should only know what one gets like when they stifle your
right to be a human being and shut you in between four bare walls. At
one time I hated blindly the whole world; my brain reeled with trying to
find out a really crushing revenge, and when I couldn't hit others I
helped to carry out the punishment upon myself. There was always a
satisfaction in feeling that the more I suffered, the greater devils did
it make the others appear. And I really did get a hit at them; they
hated with all their hearts having to give me a transfer."

"Wasn't there any one there who could speak a comforting word--the
chaplain, the teachers?"

Pelle smiled a bitter smile. "Oh, yes, the lash! The jailer couldn't
keep me under discipline; I was what they call a difficult prisoner. It
wasn't that I didn't want to, but I had quite lost my balance. You might
just as well expect a man to walk steadily when everything is whirling
round him. They saw, I suppose, that I couldn't come right by myself, so
one day they tied me to a post, pulled my shirt up over my head and gave
me a thrashing. It sounds strange, but that did it; the manner of
procedure was so brutal that everything in me was struck dumb. When such
a thing as _that_ could happen, there was nothing more to protest
against. They put a wet sheet round me and I was lifted onto my pallet,
so that was all right. For a week I had to lie on my face and couldn't
move for the pain; the slightest movement made me growl like an animal.
The strokes had gone right through me and could be counted on my chest;
and there I lay like a lump of lead, struck down to the earth in open-
mouthed astonishment. 'This is what they do to human beings!' I groaned
inwardly; 'this is what they do to human beings!' I could no longer
comprehend anything."

Pelle's face had become ashen gray; all the blood had left it, and the
bones stood out sharply as in a dead face. He gulped two or three times
to obtain control over his voice.

"I wonder if you understand what it means to get a thrashing!" he said
hoarsely. "Fire's nothing; I'd rather be burnt alive than have it again.
The fellow doesn't beat; he's not the least angry; nobody's angry with
you; they're all so seriously grieved on your account. He places the
strokes carefully down over your back as if he were weighing out food,
almost as if he were fondling you. But your lungs gasp at each stroke
and your heart beats wildly; it's as if a thousand pincers were tearing
all your fibers and nerves apart at once. My very entrails contracted in
terror, and seemed ready to escape through my throat every time the lash
fell. My lungs still burn when I think of it, and my heart will suddenly
contract as if it would send the blood out through my throat. Do you
know what the devilish part of corporal punishment is? It's not the
bodily pain that they inflict upon the culprit; it's his inner man they
thrash--his soul. While I lay there brooding over my mutilated spirit,
left to lick my wounds like a wounded animal, I realized that I had been
in an encounter with the evil conscience of Society, the victim of their
hatred of those who suffer."

"Do you remember what gave occasion to the punishment?" Morten asked, as
he wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"It was some little thing or other--I think I called out. The solitude
and the terrible silence got upon my nerves, and I suppose I shouted to
make a little life in the horrible emptiness. I don't remember very
clearly, but I think that was my crime."

"You'd have been the better anyhow for a kind word from a friend."
Morten was still thinking of his despised letters.

"Yes, but the atmosphere of a cell is not suited for friendly relations
with the outside world. You get to hate all who are at liberty--those
who mean well by you too--and you chop off even the little bit of branch
you're sitting on. Perhaps I should never have got into touch with life
again if it hadn't been for the mice in my cell. I used to put crumbs of
bread down the grating for them, and when I lay there half dead and
brooding, they ran squeaking over my hand. It was a caress anyhow, even
if it wasn't from fellow-men."

Morten lived in a small two-roomed flat in the attics. While they sat
talking, a sound came now and then from the other room, and each time a
nervous look came into Morten's face, and he glanced in annoyance at the
closed door. Gradually he became quite restless and his attention was
fixed on these sounds. Pelle wondered at it, but asked no questions.

Suddenly there came the sound of a chair being overturned. Morten rose
quickly and went in, shutting the door carefully behind him. Pelle heard
low voices--Morten's admonishing, and a thin, refractory, girlish voice.
"He's got a girl hidden in there," thought Pelle. "I'd better be off."

He rose and looked out of the large attic window. How everything had
changed since he first came to the capital and looked out over it from
Morten's old lodging! In those days he had had dreams of conquering it,
and had carried out his plan too; and now he could begin from the
beginning! An entirely new city lay spread out beneath him. Where he had
once run about among wharves and coal-bunkers, there now stood a row of
palatial buildings with a fine boulevard. And everything outside was
new; a large working-men's district had sprung up where there had once
been timber-yards or water. Below him engines were drawing rows of
trucks filled with ballast across the site for the new goods-station
yard; and on the opposite side of the harbor a new residential and
business quarter had grown up on the Iceland Quay. And behind it all lay
the water and the green land of Amager. Morten had had the sense to
select a high branch for himself like the nightingales.

He had got together a good number of books again, and on his writing-
table stood photographs of well-known men with autograph inscriptions.
To all appearances he seemed to make his way in the world of books.
Pelle took down some of Morten's own works, and turned over their leaves
with interest. He seemed to hear Morten's earnest voice behind the
printed words. He would begin to read him now!

Morten came in. "You're not going, are you?" he asked, drawing his hand
across his forehead. "Do stay a little while and we'll have a good talk.
You can't think how I've missed you!" He looked tired.

"I'm looking forward tremendously to reading your books," said Pelle
enthusiastically. "What a lot you've written! You haven't given that
up."

"Perhaps solitude's taught you too to like books," said Morten, looking
at him. "If so, you've made some good friends in there, Pelle. All that
there isn't worth much; it's only preliminary work. It's a new world
ours, you must remember."

"I don't think _The Working Man_ cares much about you."

"No, not much," answered Morten slowly.

"They say you only write in the upper-class papers."

"If I didn't I should starve. _They_ don't grudge me my food, at
any rate! Our own press still has no use for skirmishers, but only for
men who march to order!"

"And it's very difficult for you to subordinate yourself to any one,"
said Pelle, smiling.

"I have a responsibility to those above me," answered Morten proudly.
"If I give the blind man eyes to see into the future, I can't let myself
be led by him. Now and then _The Working Man_ gets hold of one of
my contributions to the upper-class press: that's all the connection I
have with my own side. My food I have to get from the other side of the
boundary, and lay my eggs there: they're pretty hard conditions. You
can't think how often I've worried over not being able to speak to my
own people except in roundabout ways. Well, it doesn't matter! I can
afford to wait. There's no way of avoiding the son of my father, and in
the meantime I'm doing work among the upper classes. I bring the misery
into the life of the happily-situated, and disturb their quiet
enjoyment. The upper classes must be prepared for the revolution too."

"Can they stand your representations?" asked Pelle, in surprise.

"Yes, the upper classes are just as tolerant as the common people were
before they rose: it's an outcome of culture. Sometimes they're almost
too tolerant; you can't quite vouch for their words. When there's
something they don't like, they always get out of it by looking at it
from an artistic point of view."

"How do you mean?"

"As a display, as if you were acting for their entertainment. 'It's
splendidly done,' they say, when you've laid bare a little of the
boundless misery. 'It's quite Russian. Of course it's not real at all,
at any rate not here at home.' But you always make a mark on some one or
other, and little by little the food after all becomes bitter to their
taste, I think. Perhaps some day I shall be lucky enough to write in
such a way about the poor that no one can leave them out. But you
yourself--what's your attitude toward matters? Are you disappointed?"

"Yes, to some extent. In prison, in my great need, I left the fulfilment
of the time of prosperity to you others. All the same, a great change
has taken place."

"And you're pleased with it?"

"Everything has become dearer," said Pelle slowly, "and unemployment
seems on the way to become permanent."

Morten nodded. "That's the answer capital gives," he said. "It
multiplies every rise in wages by two, and puts it back on the workmen
again. The poor man can't stand very many victories of that kind."

"Almost the worst thing about it is the development of snobbery. It
seems to me that our good working classes are being split up into two--
the higher professions, which will be taken up into the upper classes;
and the proletariat, which will be left behind. The whole thing has been
planned on too small a scale for it to get very far."

"You've been out and seen something of the world, Pelle," said Morten
significantly. "You must teach others now."

"I don't understand myself," answered Pelle evasively, "and I've been in
prison. But what about you?"

"I'm no good as a rallier; you've seen that yourself. They don't care
about me. I'm too far in advance of the great body of them, and have no
actual connection--you know I'm really terribly lonely! Perhaps, though,
I'm destined to reach the heights before you others, and if I do I'll
try to light a beacon up there for you."

Morten sat silent for a little while, and then suddenly lifted his head.

"But you _must_, Pelle!" he said. "You say you're not the right
man, but there's simply no one but you. Have you forgotten that you
fired the Movement, that you were its simple faith? They one and all
believed in you blindly like children, and were capable of nothing when
you gave up. Why, it's not you, but the others--the whole Movement--
who've been imprisoned! How glad I am that you've come back full of the
strength gained there! You were smaller than you are now, Pelle, and
even then something happened; now you may be successful even in great
things."

Pelle sat and listened in the deepening twilight, wondering with a
pleased embarrassment. It was Morten who was nominating him--the severe,
incorruptible Morten, who had always before been after him like his evil
conscience.

"No, I'm going to be careful now," he said, "and it's your own fault,
Morten. You've gone and pricked my soul, and I'm awake now; I shan't go
at anything blindly again. I have a feeling that what we two are joining
in is the greatest thing the world has ever seen. It reaches further
into the future than I can see, and so I'm working on myself. I study
the books now--I got into the way of that in prison--and I must try to
get a view out over the world. Something strange too has happened to me:
I understand now what you meant when you said that man was holy! I'm no
longer satisfied with being a small part of the whole, but think I must
try to become a whole world by myself. It sounds foolish, but I feel as
if I were in one of the scales and the rest of the world in the other;
and until I can send the other scale up, I can't think of putting myself
at the head of the multitude."

Evening had closed in before they were aware of it. The electric light
from the railway-station yard threw its gleam upon the ceiling of the
attic room and was reflected thence onto the two men who sat leaning
forward in the half-darkness, talking quietly. Neither of them noticed
that the door to the other room had opened, and a tall, thin girl stood
on the threshold gazing at them with dilated pupils. She was in her
chemise only, and it had slipped from one thin shoulder; and her feet
were bare. The chemise reached only to her knees, leaving exposed a pair
of sadly emaciated legs. A wheezing sound accompanied her breathing.

Pelle had raised his head to say something, but was silent at sight of
the lean, white figure, which stood looking at him with great eyes that
seemed to draw the darkness into them. The meeting with Morten had put
him into an expectant frame of mind. He still had the call sounding in
his ears, and gazed in amazement at the ghostly apparition. The delicate
lines, spoiled by want, the expression of childlike terror of the dark--
all this twofold picture of wanness stamped with the stamp of death, and
of an unfulfilled promise of beauty--was it not the ghost of poverty, of
wrong and oppression, a tortured apparition sent to admonish him? Was
his brain failing? Were the horrible visions of the darkness of his cell
returning? "Morten!" he whispered, touching his arm.

Morten sprang up. "Why, Johanna! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" he
exclaimed reproachfully. He tried to make the girl go back into the
other room, and to close the door; but she pushed past him out into the
room.

"I _will_ see him!" she cried excitedly. "If you don't let me, I
shall run away! He's hidden my clothes," she said to Pelle, gazing at
him with her sunken eyes. "But I can easily run away in my chemise. I
don't care!" Her voice was rough and coarse from the damp air of the
back yards.

"Now go back to bed, Johanna!" said Morten more gently.

"Remember what the doctor said. You'll catch cold and it'll all be
wasted."

"What do I care!" she answered, breaking into a coarse laugh. "You
needn't waste anything on me; I've had no children by you." She was
trembling with cold, but remained obstinately standing, and answered
Morten's remonstrances with a torrent of abusive epithets. At last he
gave it up and sat down wearily. The two men sat and looked at her in
silence.

The child was evidently uncomfortable at the cessation of resistance,
and became confused beneath their silent gaze. She tossed her head and
looked defiantly from the one to the other, her eyes glowing with an
unnatural brightness. Suddenly she sank upon the floor and began to cry.

"_This_ won't do," said Pelle gravely.

"I can't manage her," answered Morten hopelessly, "but you are strong
enough."

Pelle stooped and took her up in his arms. She kicked and bit him.
"She's got a fit," he said to Morten. "We must take her out to the
pump." She instantly became quiet and let him carry her to bed. The
fever was raging in her, and he noticed how her body was racked with
every breath she drew; it sounded like a leaky pump.

When Morten, with a few kind words, covered her up, she began to weep
convulsively, but turned her face to the wall and stuffed the quilt into
her mouth in order to hide it. She gradually became quieter and at last
fell asleep; and the two men stole out of the room and closed the door
after them.

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