Pelle the Conqueror, Vol 3 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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Pelle heard the old man's speech only as a monotonous trickle of sound.

Due, Due, the best, the most good-natured man he knew, who championed
Anna's illegitimate child against her own mother, and loved her like his
own, because she was defenceless and needed his love--Due was now to lay
his head on the scaffold! So dearly bought was the fulfilment of his
wish, to obtain a pair of horses and become a coachman! He had obtained
the horses and a carriage on credit, and had himself made up for the
instalments and the interest--the Consul had merely stood security for
him. And for this humble success he was now treading the path of shame!
His steps echoed in Pelle's soul; Pelle did not know how he was going to
bear it. He longed for his former obtuseness.

Lasse continued to chatter. For him it was fate--grievous and heavy, but
it could not be otherwise. And the meeting with Pelle had stirred up so
many memories; he was quite excited. Everything he saw amused him.
However did anybody hit on the idea of packing folks away like this, one
on top of another, like herrings in a barrel? And at home on Bornholm
there were whole stretches of country where no one lived at all! He did
not venture to approach the window, but prudently stood a little way
back in the room, looking out over the roofs. There, too, was a crazy
arrangement! One could count the ears in a cornfield as easily as the
houses over here!

Pelle called Marie, who had discreetly remained in her own room. "This
is my foster-mother," he said, with his arm round her shoulders. "And
that is Father Lasse, whom you are fond of already, so you always say.
Now can you get us some breakfast?" He gave her money.

"She's a good girl, that she is," said Lasse, feeling in his sack. "She
shall have a present. There's a red apple," he said to Marie, when she
returned; "you must eat it, and then you'll be my sweetheart." Marie
smiled gravely and looked at Pelle.

They borrowed the old clothes dealer's handcart and went across to the
apple barges to fetch Lasse's belongings. He had sold most of them in
order not to bring too great a load to the city. But he had retained a
bedstead with bedding, and all sorts of other things. "And then I have
still to give you greetings from Sort and Marie Nielsen," he said.

Pelle blushed. "I owe her a few words, but over here I quite forgot it
somehow! And I have half promised her my portrait. I must see now about
sending it."

"Yes, do," said Father Lasse. "I don't know how close you two stand to
each other, but she was a good woman. And those who stay behind, they're
sad when they're forgotten. Remember that."

At midday Lasse had tidied himself a trifle and began to brush his hat.

"What now?" inquired Pelle. "You don't want to go out all alone?"

"I want to go out and look at the city a bit," replied Lasse, as though
it were quite a matter of course. "I want to find some work, and perhaps
I'll go and have a peep at the king for once. You need only explain in
which direction I must go."

"You had better wait until I can come with you--you'll only lose
yourself."

"Shall I do that?" replied Lasse, offended. "But I found my way here
alone, I seem to remember!"

"I can go with the old man!" said Marie.

"Yes, you come with the old man, then no one can say he has lost his
youth!" cried Lasse jestingly, as he took her hand. "I think we two
shall be good friends."

Toward evening they returned. "There are folks enough here," said Lasse,
panting, "but there doesn't seem to be a superfluity of work. I've been
asking first this one and then that, but no one will have me. Well,
that's all right! If they won't, I can just put a spike on my stick and
set to work collecting the bits of paper in the streets, like the other
old men; I can at least do that still."

"But I can't give my consent to that," replied Pelle forcibly. "My
father shan't become a scavenger!"

"Well--but I must get something to do, or I shall go back home again.
I'm not going to go idling about here while you work."

"But you can surely rest and enjoy a little comfort in your old days,
father. However, we shall soon see."

"I can rest, can I? I had better lie on my back and let myself be fed
like a long-clothes child! Only I don't believe my back would stand it!"

They had placed Lasse's bed with the footboard under the sloping
ceiling; there was just room enough for it. Pelle felt like a little boy
when he went to bed that night; it was so many years since he had slept
in the same room as Father Lasse. But in the night he was oppressed by
evil dreams; Due's dreadful fate pursued him in his sleep. His
energetic, good-humored face went drifting through the endless grayness,
the head bowed low, the hands chained behind him, a heavy iron chain was
about his neck, and his eyes were fixed on the ground as though he were
searching the very abyss. When Pelle awoke it was because Father Lasse
stood bending over his bed, feeling his face, as in the days of his
childhood.

XIV

Lasse would not sit idle, and was busily employed in running about the
city in search of work. When he spoke to Pelle he put a cheerful face on
a bad business; and looked hopeful; but the capital had already
disillusioned him. He could not understand all this hubbub, and felt
that he was too old to enter into it and fathom its meaning--besides,
perhaps it had none! It really looked as though everybody was just
running to and fro and following his own nose, without troubling in the
least about all the rest. And there were no greetings when you passed
folks in the street; the whole thing was more than Lasse could
understand. "I ought to have stayed at home," he would often think.

And as for Pelle--well, Pelle was taken up with his own affairs! That
was only to be expected in a man. He ran about going to meetings and
agitating, and had a great deal to do; his thoughts were continually
occupied, so that there was no time for familiar gossip as in the old
days. He was engaged, moreover, so that what time was not devoted to the
Labor movement was given to his sweetheart. How the boy had grown, and
how he had altered, bodily and in every way! Lasse had a feeling that he
only reached up to Pelle's belt nowadays. He had grown terribly serious,
and was quite the man; he looked as though he was ready to grasp the
reins of something or other; you would never, to look at him, have
thought that he was only a journeyman cobbler. There was an air of
responsibility about him--just a little too much may be!

Marie got into the way of accompanying the old man. They had become good
friends, and there was plenty for them to gossip over. She would take
him to the courtyard of the Berlingske Tidende, where the people in
search of work eddied about the advertisement board, filling up the
gateway and forming a crowd in the street outside.

"We shall never get in there!" said Lasse dejectedly. But Marie worked
herself forward; when people scolded her she scolded them back. Lasse
was quite horrified by the language the child used; but it was a great
help!

Marie read out the different notices, and Lasse made his comments on
every one, and when the bystanders laughed Lasse gazed at them
uncomprehendingly, then laughed with them, and nodded his head merrily.
He entered into everything.

"What do you say? Gentleman's coachman? Yes, I can drive a pair of
horses well enough, but perhaps I'm not fine enough for the gentry--I'm
afraid my nose would drip!"

He looked about him importantly, like a child that is under observation.
"But errand boy--that isn't so bad. We'll make a note of that. There's
no great skill needed to be everybody's dog! House porter! Deuce take
it--there one need only sit downstairs and make angry faces out of a
basement window! We'll look in there and try our luck."

They impressed the addresses on their minds until they knew them by
heart, and then squeezed their way out through the crowd. "Damn funny
old codger!" said the people, looking after him with a smile--Lasse was
quite high-spirited. They went from house to house, but no one had any
use for him. The people only laughed at the broken old figure with the
wide-toed boots.

"They laugh at me," said Lasse, quite cast down; "perhaps because I
still look a bit countrified. But that after all can soon be overcome.

"I believe it's because you are so old and yet want to get work," said
Marie.

"Do you think it can be on that account? Yet I'm only just seventy, and
on both my father's and mother's side we have almost all lived to
ninety. Do you really think that's it? If they'd only let me set to work
they'd soon see there's still strength in old Lasse! Many a younger
fellow would sit on his backside for sheer astonishment. But what are
those people there, who stand there and look so dismal and keep their
hands in their pockets?"

"Those are the unemployed; it's a slack time for work, and they say it
will get still worse."

"And all those who were crowding round the notice-board--were they idle
hands too?"

Marie nodded.

"But then it's worse here than at home--there at least we always have
the stone-cutting when there is nothing else. And I had really believed
that the good time had already begun over here!"

"Pelle says it will soon come,' said Marie consolingly.

"Yes, Pelle--he can well talk. He is young and healthy and has the time
before him."

Lasse was in a bad temper; nothing seemed right to him. In order to give
him pleasure, Marie took him to see the guard changed, which cheered him
a little.

"Those are smart fellows truly," he said. "Hey, hey, how they hold
themselves! And fine clothes too. But that they know well enough
themselves! Yes--I've never been a king's soldier. I went up for it when
I was young and felt I'd like it; I was a smart fellow then, you can
take my word for it! But they wouldn't have me; my figure wouldn't do,
they said; I had worked too hard, from the time I was quite a child.
They'd got it into their heads in those days that a man ought to be made
just so and so. I think it's to please the fine ladies. Otherwise I,
too, might have defended my country."

Down by the Exchange the roadway was broken up; a crowd of navvies were
at work digging out the foundation for a conduit. Lasse grew quite
excited, and hurried up to them.

"That would be the sort of thing for me," he said, and he stood there
and fell into a dream at the sight of the work. Every time the workers
swung their picks he followed the movement with his old head. He drew
closer and closer. "Hi," he said to one of the workers, who was taking a
breath, "can a man get taken on here?"

The man took a long look at him. "Get taken on here?" he cried, turning
more to his comrades than to Lasse. "Ah, you'd like to, would you? Here
you foreigners come running, from Funen and Middlefart, and want to take
the bread out of the mouths of us natives. Get away with you, you
Jutland carrion!" Laughing, he swung his pick over his head.

Lasse drew slowly hack. "But he was angry!" he said dejectedly to Marie.

In the evening Pelle had to go to all his various meetings, whatever
they might be. He had a great deal to do, and, hard as he worked, the
situation still remained unfavorable. It was by no means so easy a
thing, to break the back of poverty!

"You just look after your own affairs," said Lasse. "I sit here and chat
a little with the children--and then I go to bed. I don't know why, but
my body gets fonder and fonder of bed, although I've never been
considered lazy exactly. It must be the grave that's calling me. But I
can't go about idle any longer--I'm quite stiff in my body from doing
it."

Formerly Lasse never used to speak of the grave; but now he had
seemingly reconciled himself to the idea. "And the city is so big and so
confusing," he told the children. "And the little one has put by soon
runs through one's fingers."

He found it much easier to confide his troubles to them. Pelle had grown
so big and so serious that he absolutely inspired respect. One could
take no real pleasure in worrying him with trivialities.

But with the children he found himself in tune. They had to contend with
little obstacles and difficulties, just as he did, and could grasp all
his troubles. They gave him good, practical advice, and in return he
gave them his senile words of wisdom.

"I don't exactly know why it is so," he said, "but this great city makes
me quite confused and queer in the head. To mention nothing else, no one
here knows me and looks after me when I go by. That takes all the
courage out of my knees. At home there was always one or another who
would turn his head and say to himself, 'Look, there goes old Lasse,
he'll be going down to the harbor to break stone; devil take me, but how
he holds himself! Many a man would nod to me too, and I myself knew
every second man. Here they all go running by as if they were crazy! I
don't understand how you manage to find employment here, Karl?"

"Oh, that's quite easy," replied the boy. "About six in the morning I
get to the vegetable market; there is always something to be delivered
for the small dealers who can't keep a man. When the vegetable market is
over I deliver flowers for the gardeners. That's a very uncertain
business, for I get nothing more than the tips. And besides that I run
wherever I think there's anything going. To the East Bridge and out to
Frederiksburg. And I have a few regular places too, where I go every
afternoon for an hour and deliver goods. There's always something if one
runs about properly."

"And does that provide you with an average good employment every day?"
said Lasse wonderingly. "The arrangement looks to me a little uncertain.
In the morning you can't be sure you will have earned anything when the
night comes."

"Ah, Karl is so quick," said Marie knowingly. "When the times are
ordinarily good he can earn a krone a day regularly."

"And that could really be made a regular calling?" No, Lasse couldn't
understand it.

"Very often it's evening before I have earned anything at all, but one
just has to stir one's stumps; there's always something or other if one
knows where to look for it."

"What do you think--suppose I were to go with you?" said Lasse
thoughtfully.

"You can't do that, because I run the whole time. Really you'd do much
better to hide one of your arms."

"Hide one of my arms?" said Lasse wonderingly.

"Yes--stick one arm under your coat and then go up to people and ask
them for something. That wouldn't be any trouble to you, you look like
an invalid."

"Do I, indeed?" asked Lasse, blinking his eyes. "I never knew that
before. But even if that were so I shouldn't like to beg at people's
doors. I don't think any one will get old Lasse to do that."

"Then go along to the lime works--they are looking for stone-breakers
these days," said the omniscient youngster.

"Now you are talking!" said Lasse; "so they have stone here? Yes, I
brought my stone-cutter's tools with me, and if there's one thing on
earth I long to do it is to be able to bang away at a stone again!"

XV

Pelle was now a man; he was able to look after his own affairs and a
little more besides; and he was capable of weighing one circumstance
against another. He had thrust aside his horror concerning Due's fate,
and once again saw light in the future. But this horror still lurked
within his mind, corroding everything else, lending everything a gloomy,
sinister hue. Over his brow brooded a dark cloud, as to which he himself
was not quite clear. But Ellen saw it and stroked it away with her soft
fingers, in order to make it disappear. It formed a curious contrast to
his fresh, ruddy face, like a meaningless threat upon a fine spring day.

He began to be conscious of confidence like a sustaining strength. It
was not only in the "Ark" that he was idolized; his comrades looked up
to him; if there was anything important in hand their eyes involuntarily
turned to him. Although he had, thoughtlessly enough, well-nigh wrecked
the organism in order to come to grips with Meyer, he had fully made up
for his action, and the Union was now stronger than ever, and this was
his doing. So he could stretch his limbs and give a little thought to
his own affairs.

He and Ellen felt a warm longing to come together and live in their own
little home. There were many objections that might be opposed to such a
course, and he was not blind to them. Pelle was a valiant worker, but
his earnings were not so large that one could found a family on them; it
was the naked truth that even a good worker could not properly support a
wife and children. He counted on children as a matter of course, and the
day would come also when Father Lasse would no longer be able to earn
his daily bread. But that day lay still in the remote future, and, on
the other hand, it was no more expensive to live with a companion than
alone--if that companion was a good and saving wife. If a man meant to
enjoy some little share of the joy of life, he must close his eyes and
leap over all obstacles, and for once put his trust in the exceptional.

"It'll soon be better, too," said Mason Stolpe. "Things look bad now in
most trades, but you see yourself, how everything is drawing to a great
crisis. Give progress a kick behind and ask her to hurry herself a
little--there's something to be gained by that. A man ought to marry
while he's still young; what's the good of going about and hankering
after one another?"

Madam Stolpe was, as always, of his opinion. "We married and enjoyed the
sweetness of it while our blood was still young. That's why we have
something now that we can depend on," she said simply, looking at Pelle.

So it was determined that the wedding should be held that spring. In
March the youngest son would complete his apprenticeship, so that the
wedding feast and the journeyman's feast could be celebrated
simultaneously.

On the canal, just opposite the prison, a little two-roomed dwelling was
standing vacant, and this they rented. Mason Stolpe wanted to have the
young couple to live out by the North Bridge, "among respectable
people," but Pelle had become attached to this quarter. Moreover, he had
a host of customers there, which would give him a foothold, and there,
too, were the canals. For Pelle, the canals were a window opening on the
outer world; they gave his mind a sense of liberty; he always felt
oppressed among the stone walls by the North Bridge. Ellen let him
choose--it was indifferent to her where they lived. She would gladly
have gone to the end of the world with him, in order to yield herself.

She had saved a little money in her situation, and Pelle also had a
little put by; he was wise in his generation, and cut down all their
necessities. When Ellen was free they rummaged about buying things for
their home. Many things they bought second-hand, for cheapness, but not
for the bedroom; there everything was to be brand-new!

It was a glorious time, in which every hour was full of its own rich
significance; there was no room for brooding or for care. Ellen often
came running in to drag him from his work; he must come with her and
look at something or other--one could get it so cheap--but quickly,
quickly, before it should be gone! On her "off" Sundays she would reduce
the little home to order, and afterward they would walk arm in arm
through the city, and visit the old people.

Pelle had had so much to do with the affairs of others, and had given so
little thought to his own, that it was delightful, for once in a way, to
be able to rest and think of himself. The crowded outer world went
drifting far away from him; he barely glanced at it as he built his
nest; he thought no more about social problems than the birds that nest
in spring.

And one day Pelle carried his possessions to his new home, and for the
last time lay down to sleep in the "Ark." There was no future for any
one here; only the shipwrecked sought an abiding refuge within these
walls. It was time for Pelle to move on. Yet from all this raggedness
and overcrowding rose a voice which one did not hear elsewhere; a
careless twittering, like that of unlucky birds that sit and plume their
feathers when a little sunlight falls on them. He looked back on the
time he had spent here with pensive melancholy.

On the night before his wedding he lay restlessly tossing to and fro.
Something seemed to follow him in his sleep. At last he woke, and was
sensible of a stifled moaning, that came and went with long intervals in
between, as though the "Ark" itself were moaning in an evil dream.
Suddenly he stood up, lit the lamp, and began to polish his wedding-
boots, which were still on the lasts, so that they might retain their
handsome shape. Lasse was still asleep, and the long gangway outside lay
still in slumber.

The sound returned, louder and more long-drawn, and something about it
reminded him of Stone Farm, and awaked the horror of his childish days.
He sat and sweated at his work. Suddenly he heard some one outside--some
one who groped along the gangway and fumbled at his door. He sprang
forward and opened it. Suspense ran through his body like an icy
shudder. Outside stood Hanne's mother, shivering in the morning cold.

"Pelle," she whispered anxiously, "it's so near now--would you run and
fetch Madam Blom from Market Street? I can't leave Hanne. And I ought to
be wishing you happiness, too."

The errand was not precisely convenient, nevertheless, he ran oft. And
then he sat listening, working still, but as quietly as possible, in
order not to wake Father Lasse. But then it was time for the children to
get up; for the last time he knocked on the wall and heard Marie's
sleepy "Ye--es!" At the same moment the silence of night was broken; the
inmates tumbled out and ran barefooted to the lavatories, slamming their
doors. "The Princess is lamenting," they told one another. "She's
lamenting because she's lost what she'll never get again." Then the
moaning rose to a loud shriek, and suddenly it was silent over there.

Poor Hanne! Now she had another to care for--and who was its father?
Hard times were in store for her.

Lasse was not going to work to-day, although the wedding-feast was not
to be held until the afternoon. He was in a solemn mood, from the
earliest morning, and admonished Pelle not to lay things cross-wise, and
the like. Pelle laughed every time.

"Yes, you laugh," said Lasse, "but this is an important day--perhaps the
most important in your life. You ought to take care lest the first
trifling thing you do should ruin everything."

He pottered about, treating everything as an omen. He was delighted with
the sun--it rose out of a sack and grew brighter and brighter in the
course of the day. It was never lucky for the sun to begin too blazing.

Marie went to and fro, considering Pelle with an expression of
suppressed anxiety, like a mother who is sending her child into the
world, and strives hard to seem cheerful, thought Pelle. Yes, yes, she
had been like a mother to him in many senses, although she was only a
child; she had taken him into her nest as a little forsaken bird, and
with amazement had seen him grow. He had secretly helped her when he
could. But what was that in comparison with the singing that had made
his work easy, when he saw how the three waifs accepted things as they
were, building their whole existence on nothing? Who would help them now
over the difficult places without letting them see the helping hand? He
must keep watchful eye on them.

Marie's cheeks were a hectic red, and her eyes were shining when he held
her roughened hands in his and thanked her for being such a good
neighbor. Her narrow chest was working, and a reflection of hidden
beauty rested upon her. Pelle had taught her blood to find the way to
her colorless face; whenever she was brought into intimate contact with
him or his affairs, her cheeks glowed, and every time a little of the
color was left behind. It was as though his vitality forced the sap to
flow upward in her, in sympathy, and now she stood before him, trying to
burst her stunted shell, and unfold her gracious capacities before him,
and as yet was unable to do so. Suddenly she fell upon his breast.
"Pelle, Pelle," she said, hiding her face against him. And then she ran
into her own room.

Lasse and Pelle carried the last things over to the new home, and put
everything tidy; then they dressed themselves in their best and set out
for the Stoples' home. Pelle was wearing a top-hat for the first time in
his life, and looked quite magnificent in it. "You are like a big city
chap," said Lasse, who could not look at him often enough. "But what do
you think they'll say of old Lasse? They are half-way fine folks
themselves, and I don't know how to conduct myself. Wouldn't it perhaps
be better if I were to turn back?"

"Don't talk like that, father!" said Pelle.

Lasse was monstrously pleased at the idea of attending the wedding-
feast, but he had all sorts of misgivings. These last years had made him
shy of strangers, and he liked to creep into corners. His holiday
clothes, moreover, were worn out, and his every-day things were patched
and mended; his long coat he had hired expressly for the occasion, while
the white collar and cuffs belonged to Peter. He did not feel at all at
home in his clothes, and looked like an embarrassed schoolboy waiting
for confirmation.

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