Pelle the Conqueror, Vol 3 by Martin Anderson Nexo

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"Good evening, Per!" he cried, delighted, and he gave him a thump in the
back.

The seaman stood up, astonished. "What the devil! Good evening! Well,
that I should meet you here, Pelle; that's the most comical thing I've
ever known! You must excuse my puppy-tricks! Really!" He shook Pelle
heartily by the hand.

They loafed about the harbor, chatting of old times. There was so much
to recall from their schooldays. Old Fris with his cane, and the games
on the beach! Per Kofod spoke as though he had taken part in all of
them; he had quite forgotten that he used always to stand still gripping
on to something and bellowing, if the others came bawling round him.
"And Nilen, too, I met him lately in New Orleans. He is second mate on a
big American full-rigged ship, and is earning big money. A smart fellow
he is. But hang it all, he's a tough case! Always with his revolver in
his hand. But that's how it has to be over there--among the niggers.
Still, one fine day they'll slit his belly up, by God they will! Now
then, what's the matter there?"

From some stacks of timber near by came a bellowing as of some one in
torment, and the sound of blows. Pelle wanted, to turn aside, but Per
Kofod seized his arm and dragged him forward.

In among the timber-stacks three "coalies" were engaged in beating a
fourth. He did not cry out, but gave vent to a muffled roar every time
he received a blow. The blood was flowing down his face.

"Come on!" shouted Per Kofod, hitching up his trousers. And then, with a
roar, he hurled himself into their midst, and began to lay about him in
all directions. It was like an explosion with its following hail of
rocks. Howling Peter had learned to use his strength; only a sailor
could lay about him in that fashion. It was impossible to say where his
blows were going to fall; but they all went home. Pelle stood by for a
moment, mouth and eyes open in the fury of the fray; then he, too,
tumbled into the midst of it, and the three dock-laborers were soon
biting the dust.

"Damn it all, why did you interfere!" said Pelle crossly, when it was
over, as he stood pulling his collar straight.

"I don't know," said Howling Peter. "But it does one no harm to bestir
one's self a bit for once!"

After the heat of the battle they had all but forgotten the man
originally attacked; he lay huddled up at the foot of a timber-stack and
made no sound. They got him on his legs again, but had to hold him
upright; he stood as limp as though asleep, and his eyes were staring
stupidly. He was making a heavy snoring sound, and at every breath the
blood made two red bubbles at his nostrils. From time to time he ground
his teeth, and then his eyes turned upward and the whites gleamed
strangely in his coal-blackened face.

The sailor scolded him, and that helped him so far that he was able to
stand on his feet. They drew a red rag from his bulging jacket-pocket,
and wiped the worst of the blood away. "What sort of a fellow are you,
damn it all, that you can't stand a drubbing?" said Per Kofod.

"I didn't call for help," said the man thickly. His lips were swollen to
a snout.

"But you didn't hit back again! Yet you look as if you'd strength
enough. Either a fellow manages to look after himself or he sings out so
that others can come to help him. D'ye see, mate?"

"I didn't want to bring the police into it; and I'd earned a thrashing.
Only they hit so damned hard, and when I fell they used their clogs."

He lived in the Saksogade, and they took each an arm. "If only I don't
get ill now!" he groaned from time to time. "I'm all a jelly inside."
And they had to stop while he vomited.

There was a certain firm for which he and his mates had decided no
longer to unload, as they had cut down the wages offered. There were
only four of them who stuck to their refusal; and what use was it when
others immediately took their place? The four of them could only hang
about and play the gentleman at large; nothing more came of it. But of
course he had given his word--that was why he had not hit back. The
other three had found work elsewhere, so he went back to the firm and
ate humble pie. Why should he hang about idle and killing time when
there was nothing to eat at home? He was damned if he understood these
new ways; all the same, he had betrayed the others, for he had given his
word. But they had struck him so cursedly hard, and had kicked him in
the belly with their clogs.

He continued rambling thus, like a man in delirium, as they led him
along. In the Saksogade they were stopped by a policeman, but Per Kofod
quickly told him a story to the effect that the man had been struck on
the head by a falling crane. He lived right up in the attics. When they
opened the door a woman who lay there in child-bed raised herself up on
the iron bedstead and gazed at them in alarm. She was thin and anemic.
When she perceived the condition of her husband she burst into a
heartrending fit of crying.

"He's sober," said Pelle, in order to console her; "he has only got a
bit damaged."

They took him into the kitchen and bathed his head over the sink with
cold water. But Per Kofod's assistance was not of much use; every time
the woman's crying reached his ears he stopped helplessly and turned his
head toward the door; and suddenly he gave up and tumbled head-foremost
down the back stairs.

"What was really the matter with you?" asked Pelle crossly, when he,
too, could get away. Per was waiting at the door for him.

"Perhaps you didn't hear her hymn-singing, you blockhead! But, anyhow,
you saw her sitting up in bed and looking like wax? It's beastly, I tell
you; it's infamous! He'd no need to go making her cry like that! I had
the greatest longing to thrash him again, weak as a baby though he was.
The devil--what did he want to break his word for?"

"Because they were starving, Per!" said Pelle earnestly. "That does
happen at times in this accursed city."

Kofod stared at him and whistled. "Oh, Satan! Wife and child, and the
whole lot without food--what? And she in childbed. They were married,
right enough, you can see that. Oh, the devil! What a honeymoon! What
misery!"

He stood there plunging deep into his trouser pockets; he fetched out a
handful of things: chewing-tobacco, bits of flock, broken matches, and
in the midst of all a crumpled ten-kroner note. "So I thought!" he said,
fishing out the note. "I was afraid the girls had quite cleaned me out
last night! Now Pelle, you go up and spin them some sort of a yarn; I
can't do it properly myself; for, look you, if I know that woman she
won't stop crying day and night for another twenty-four hours! That's
the last of my pay. But--oh, well, blast it ... we go to sea to-morrow!"

"She stopped crying when I took her the money," said Pelle, when he came
down again.

"That's good. We sailors are dirty beasts; you know; we do our business
into china and eat our butter out of the tarbucket; all the same, we--I
tell you, I should have left the thing alone and used the money to have
made a jolly night of it to-night...." He was suddenly silent; he chewed
at his quid as though inwardly considering his difficult philosophy.
"Damn it all, to-morrow we put to sea!" he cried suddenly.

They went out to Alleenberg and sat in the gardens. Pelle ordered beer.
"I can very well stand a few pints when I meet a good pal," he said,
"but at other times I save like the devil. I've got to see about getting
my old father over here; he's living on charity at home."

"So your father's still living? I can see him still so plainly--he had a
love-affair with Madam Olsen for some time, but then bo'sun Olsen came
home unexpectedly; they thought he'd remain abroad."

Pelle laughed. Much water had run into the sea since those days. Now he
was no longer ashamed of Father Lasse's foolish prank.

Light was gleaming from the booths in the garden. Young couples wandered
about and had their fortunes told; they ventured themselves on the Wheel
of Happiness, or had their portraits cut out by the silhouette artist.
By the roundabout was a mingled whirl of cries and music and brightly
colored petticoats. Now and again a tremendous outcry arose, curiously
dreadful, over all other sounds, and from the concert-pavilion one heard
the cracked, straining voices of one-time "stars." Wretched little
worldlings came breathlessly hurrying thither, pushing through the
crowd, and disappeared into the pavilion, nodding familiarly to the man
in the ticket-office window.

"It's really quite jolly here," said Per Kofod. "You have a damn good
time of it on land!"

On the wide pathway under the trees apprentices, workmen, soldiers, and
now and again a student, loitered up and down, to and fro, looking
sideways at the servant-girls, who had stationed themselves on either
side of the walk, standing there arm-in-arm, or forming little groups.
Their eyes sent many a message before ever one of them stopped and
ventured to speak. Perhaps the maiden turned away; if so, that was an
end of the matter, and the youngster began the business all over again.
Or perhaps she ran off with him to one of the closed arbors, where they
drank coffee, or else to the roundabouts. Several of the young people
were from Pelle's home; and every time he heard the confident voices of
the Bornholm girls Pelle's heart stirred like a bird about to fly away.

Suddenly his troubles returned to his mind. "I really felt inclined,
this evening, to have done with the whole thing.... Just look at those
two, Per!" Two girls were standing arm-in-arm under a tree, quite close
to their table. They were rocking to and fro together, and now and again
they glanced at the two young men.

"Nothing there for me--that's only for you land-lubbers," said Per
Kofod. "For look you now, they're like so many little lambs whose ears
you've got to tickle. And then it all comes back to you in the nights
when you take the dog-watch alone; you've told her lies, or you promised
to come back again when she undid her bodice.... And in the end there
she is, planted, and goin' to have a kid! It don't do. A sailor ought to
keep to the naughty girls."

"But married women can be frisky sometimes," said Pelle.

"That so, really? Once I wouldn't have believed that any one could have
kicked a good woman; but after all they strangle little children.... And
they come and eat out of your hand if you give 'em a kind word--that's
the mischief of it.... D'you remember Howling Peter?"

"Yes, as you ask me, I remember him very well."

"Well, his father was a sailor, too, and that's just what he did.... And
she was just such a girl, one who couldn't say no, and believed
everything a man told her. He was going to come back again--of course.
'When you hear the trap-door of the loft rattle, that'll be me,' he told
her. But the trap-door rattled several times, and he didn't come. Then
she hanged herself from the trap-door with a rope. Howling Peter came on
to the parish. And you know how they all scorned him. Even the wenches
thought they had the right to spit at him. He could do nothing but
bellow. His mother had cried such a lot before he was born, d'ye see?
Yes, and then he hanged himself too--twice he tried to do it. He'd
inherited that! After that he had a worse time than ever; everybody
thought it honorable to ill-use him and ask after the marks on his
throat. No, not you; you were the only one who didn't raise a hand to
him. That's why I've so often thought about you. 'What has become of
him?' I used to ask myself. 'God only knows where he's got to!'" And he
gazed at Pelle with a pair of eyes full of trust.

"No, that was due to Father Lasse," said Pelle, and his tone was quite
childlike. "He always said I must be good to you because you were in
God's keeping."

"In God's keeping, did he say?" repeated Per Kofod thoughtfully. "That
was a curious thing to say. That's a feeling I've never had. There was
nothing in the whole world at that time that could have helped me to
stand up for myself. I can scarcely understand how it is that I'm
sitting here talking to you--I mean, that they didn't torment the life
out of my body."

"Yes, you've altered very much. How does it really come about that
you're such a smart fellow now?"

"Why, such as I am now, that's really my real nature. It has just waked
up, that's what I think. But I don't understand really what was the
matter with me then. I knew well enough I could knock you down if I had
only wanted to. But I didn't dare strike out, just out of sheer
wretchedness. I saw so much that you others couldn't see. Damn it all, I
can't make head nor tail of it! It must have been my mother's dreadful
misery that was still in my bones. A horror used to come over me--quite
causeless--so that I had to bellow aloud; and then the farmers used to
beat me. And every time I tried to get out of it all by hanging myself,
they beat me worse than ever. The parish council decided I was to be
beaten. Well, that's why I don't do it, Pelle--a sailor ought to keep to
women that get paid for it, if they have anything to do with him--that
is, if he can't get married. There, you have my opinion."

"You've had a very bad time," said Pelle, and he took his hand. "But
it's a tremendous change that's come over you!"

"Change! You may well say so! One moment Howling Peter--and the next,
the strongest man on board! There you have the whole story! For look
here now, at sea, of course, it was just the same; even the ship's boy
felt obliged to give me a kick on the shins in passing. Everybody who
got a blow on a rowing passed it on to me. And when I went to sea in an
American bark, there was a nigger on board, and all of them used to
hound him down; he crawled before them, but you may take your oath he
hated them out of the whites of his devil's eyes. But me, who treated
him with humanity, he played all manner of tricks on--it was nothing to
him that I was white. Yet even with him I didn't dare to fetch him one--
there was always like a flabby lump in my midriff. But once the thing
went too far--or else the still-born something inside me was exhausted.
I just aimed at him a bit with one arm, so that he fell down. That
really was a rummy business. It was, let's say, like a fairy tale where
the toad suddenly turns into a man. I set to then and there and thrashed
him till he was half dead. And while I was about it, and in the vein, it
seemed best to get the whole thing over, so I went right ahead and
thrashed the whole crew from beginning to end. It was a tremendous
moment, there was such a heap of rage inside me that had got to come
out!"

Pelle laughed. "A lucky thing that I knew you a little while ago, or you
would have made mincemeat of me, after all!"

"Not me, mate, that was only a little joke. A fellow is in such high
spirits when he comes ashore again. But out at sea it's--thrash the
others, or they'll thrash you! Well, that's all right, but one ought to
be good to the women. That's what I've told the old man on board; he's a
fellow-countryman, but a swine in his dealings with women. There isn't a
single port where he hasn't a love-affair. In the South, and on the
American coast. It's madman's work often, and I have to go along with
him and look out that he doesn't get a knife between his ribs. 'Per,' he
says, 'this evening we'll go on the bust together.' 'All right, cap'n,'
I say. 'But it's a pity about all the women.' 'Shut your mouth, Per,' he
says; 'they're most of them married safe enough.' He's one of us from
home, too--from a little cottage up on the heath."

"What's his name, then?" said Pelle, interested.

"Albert Karlsen."

"Why, then he's Uncle Kalle's eldest, and in a way my cousin--Kalle,
that is to say, isn't really his father. His wife had him before she was
married--he's the son of the owner of Stone Farm."

"So he's a Kongstrup, then!" cried Per Kofod, and he laughed loudly.
"Well, that's as it should be!"

Pelle paid, and they got up to go. The two girls were still standing by
the tree. Per Kofod went up to one of them as though she had been a bird
that might escape him. Suddenly he seized her round the waist; she
withdrew herself slowly from his grip and laughed in his big fair face.
He embraced her once again, and now she stood still; it was still in her
mind to escape, for she laughingly half-turned away. He looked deep into
her eyes, then released her and followed Pelle.

"What's the use, Pelle--why, I can hear her complaining already! A
fellow ought to be well warned," he said, with a despairing accent.
"But, damn it all, why should a man have so much compassion when he
himself has been so cruelly treated? And the others; they've no
compassion. Did you see how gentle her eyes were? If I'd money I'd marry
her right away."

"Perhaps she wouldn't have you," replied Pelle. "It doesn't do to take
the girls for granted."

In the avenue a few men were going to and fro and calling; they were
looking for their young women, who had given them the slip. One of them
came up to Per and Pelle--he was wearing a student's cap. "Have the
gentlemen seen anything of our ladies?" he asked. "We've been sitting
with them and treating them all the evening, and then they said they'd
just got to go to a certain place, and they've gone off."

They went down to the harbor. "Can't you come on board with me and say
how d'ye-do to the old man?" said Per. "But of course, he's ashore to-
night. I saw him go over the side about the time we knocked off--rigged
out for chasing the girls."

"I don't know him at all," said Pelle; "he was at sea already when I was
still a youngster. Anyhow, I've got to go home to bed now--I get to work
early in the mornings."

They stood on the quay, taking leave of one another. Per Kofod promised
to look Pelle up next time he was in port. While they were talking the
door of the after-cabin rattled. Howling Peter drew Pelle behind a stack
of coal. A powerful, bearded man came out, leading a young girl by the
hand. She went slowly, and appeared to resist. He set her ceremoniously
ashore, turned back to the cabin, and locked the door behind him. The
girl stood still for a moment. A low 'plaint escaped her lips. She
stretched her arms pleadingly toward the cabin. Then she turned and went
mournfully along the quay.

"That was the old man," whispered Per Kofod. "That's how he treats them
all--and yet they don't want to give him up."

Pelle could not utter a word; he stood there cowering, oppressed as by
some terrible burden. Suddenly he pulled himself together, pressed his
comrade's hand, and set off quickly between the coal-stacks.

After a time he turned aside and followed the young girl at a little
distance. Like a sleep-walker, she staggered along the quay and went
over the long bridge. He feared she would throw herself in the water, so
strangely did she behave.

On the bridge she stood gazing across at the ship, with a frozen look on
her face. Pelle stood still; turned to ice by the thought that she might
see him. He could not have borne to speak to her just then--much less
look into her eyes.

But then she moved on. Her bearing was broken; from behind she looked
like one of those elderly, shipwrecked females from the "Ark," who
shuffled along by the house-walls in trodden-down men's shoes, and
always boasted a dubious past. "Good God!" thought Pelle, "is her dream
over already? Good God!"

He followed her at a short distance down the narrow street, and as soon
as he knew that she must have reached her dwelling he entered the
tunnel.

VII

In the depths of Pelle's soul lay a confident feeling that he was
destined for something particular; it was his old dream of fortune,
which would not be wholly satisfied by the good conditions for all men
which he wanted to help to bring about. His fate was no longer in his
eyes a grievous and crushing predestination to poverty, which could only
be lifted from him by a miracle; he was lord of his own future, and
already he was restlessly building it up!

But in addition to this there was something else that belonged only to
him and to life, something that no one else in the world could
undertake. What it was he had not yet figured to himself; but it was
something that raised him above all others, secretly, so that only he
was conscious of it. It was the same obscure feeling of being a pioneer
that had always urged him forward; and when it did take the form of a
definite question he answered it with the confident nod of his
childhood. Yes, he would see it through all right! As though that which
was to befall him was so great and so wonderful that it could not be put
into words, nor even thought of. He saw the straight path in front of
him, and he sauntered on, strong and courageous. There were no other
enemies than those a prudent man might perceive; those lurking forces of
evil which in his childhood had hovered threateningly above his head
were the shadows of the poor man's wretchedness. There was nothing else
evil, and that was sinister enough. He knew now that the shadows were
long. Morten was right. Although he himself when a child had sported in
the light, yet his mind was saddened by the misery of all those who were
dead or fighting in distant parts of the earth; and it was on this fact
that the feeling of solidarity must be based. The miraculous simply had
no existence, and that was a good thing for those who had to fight with
the weapon of their own physical strength. No invisible deity sat
overhead making his own plans for them or obstructing others. What one
willed, that could one accomplish, if only he had strength enough to
carry it through. Strength--it was on that and that alone that
everything depended. And there was strength in plenty. But the strength
of all must be united, must act as the strength of one. People always
wondered why Pelle, who was so industrious and respectable, should live
in the "Ark" instead of in the northern quarter, in the midst of the
Movement. He wondered at himself when he ever thought about it at all;
but he could not as yet tear himself away from the "Ark." Here, at the
bottom of the ladder, he had found peace in his time of need. He was too
loyal to turn his back on those among whom he had been happy.

He knew they would feel it as a betrayal; the adoration with which the
inmates of the "Ark" regarded the three orphan children was also
bestowed upon him; he was the foundling, the fourth member of the
"Family," and now they were proud of him too!

It was not the way of the inmates of the "Ark" to make plans for the
future. Sufficient to the day was the evil thereof; to-morrow's cares
were left for the morrow. The future did not exist for them. They were
like careless birds, who had once suffered shipwreck and had forgotten
it. Many of them made their living where they could; but however down in
the world they were, let the slightest ray of sunlight flicker down to
them, and all was forgotten. Of the labor movement and other new things
they gossiped as frivolously as so many chattering starlings, who had
snapped up the news on the wind.

But Pelle went so confidently out into the world, and set his shoulders
against it, and then came back home to them. He had no fear; he could
look Life straight in the face, he grappled boldly with the future,
before which they shudderingly closed their eyes. And thereby his name
came to be spoken with a particular accent; Pelle was a prince; what a
pity it was that he wouldn't, it seemed, have the princess!

He was tall and well-grown, and to them he seemed even taller. They went
to him in their misery, and loaded it all on his strong young shoulders,
so that he could bear it for them. And Pelle accepted it all with an
increasing sense that perhaps it was not quite aimlessly that he
lingered here--so near the foundations of society!

At this time Widow Frandsen and her son Ferdinand came upon the scene.
Misfortune must house itself somewhere!

Ferdinand was a sturdy young fellow of eighteen years, with a powerfully
modelled head, which looked as though it had originally been intended to
absorb all the knowledge there is in all the world. But he used it only
for dispensing blows; he had no other use for it whatever.

Yet he was by no means stupid; one might even call him a gifted young
man. But his gifts were of a peculiar quality, and had gradually become
even more peculiar.

As a little child he had been forced to fight a besotted father, in
order to protect his mother, who had no other protector. This unequal
battle _had_ to be fought; and it necessarily blunted his capacity
for feeling pain, and particularly his sense of danger. He knew what was
in store for him, but he rushed blindly into the fray the moment his
mother was attacked; just as a dog will attack a great beast of prey, so
he hung upon the big man's fists, and would not be shaken off. He hated
his father, and he longed in his heart to be a policeman when he was
grown up. With his blind and obtuse courage he was particularly adapted
to such a calling; but he actually became a homeless vagabond.

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