Pelle the Conqueror — Complete (part 4 of 5)

Pelle the Conqueror — Complete (part 4 of 5)

Only now, when he had left the “Ark,” did he realize that there was something to which he was bidding farewell. It was the cordial community with all his kind, their radiant faith in him, and his own belief in his mission there; he had known a peculiar joy in the half-embittered recklessness, the community of feeling, and the struggle. Was he not, so to speak, the Prince of poverty, to whom they all looked up, and of whom they all expected that he would lead them into a strange world? And could he justify himself for leaving them all in the lurch because of his own good fortune? Perhaps he was really appointed to lead the movement—perhaps he was the only one who could do so!

This belief had always been faintly glimmering in the back of his mind, had stood behind his endurance in the conflict, and behind all the gladness with which he bore privation. Was he in his arrogance to repudiate the place that had formed him? No, he was not so blatant as all that! There was plenty beside himself capable of seeing the movement through—and Fortune had tapped him on the shoulder. “March forward, Pelle!” an inward voice exhorted him. “What have you to consider? You have no right to thrust success away from you? Do you want to ruin yourself without profiting others? You have been a good comrade, but here your ways divide. God Himself has given you talent; even as a child you used to practise it; no one will gain by your remaining poor. Choose your own path!”

Yes, Pelle had chosen readily enough! He knew very well that he must accept this good fortune, whatever the world might say to it. Only it hurt him to leave the others behind! He was bound to poverty by such intimate ties; he felt the solidarity of the poor so keenly that it hurt him to tear himself away. Common cares had made him a man, and the struggle had given him a peculiar and effective strength. But now he would attend no more meetings! It would be droll indeed if he were to have nothing more to do with the Cause, but were to belong to the other side—he, Pelle, who had been a flaming torch! No, he would never leave them in the lurch, that he knew; even if he were to climb ever so high— and he entertained no doubts as to that—he would always feel for his old comrades and show them the way to obtain good relations between worker and employer.

Ellen saw how serious he was—perhaps she guessed that he was feeling remorseful. She would help him to get over that.

“Can’t we have your father here to-morrow?” she said. “He can lie on the long chair in the living-room until we move into our new home. It isn’t right to let him stay where he is, and in your new situation you couldn’t do it.”

XXVII

The unrest increased in the workshops round about; no one who had anything to do with the organization felt really secure. It was evidently the intention of the employers to drive the workers to extremes, and thereby to force them to break the peace. “They want to destroy the trades unions, so that they can scrape the butter off our bread again,” said the workers. “They think it’ll be easier now that the winter has made us thankful for a dry crust! But that’s an infernal lie!”

The masses grew more and more embittered; everywhere they were ready for a fight, and asked nothing better than to plunge into it. The women wept and shuddered; most of them understood only that the sufferings of the winter were going to begin all over again. They took desperate steps to prevent this; they threw their shawls over their heads and rushed off to the offices, to the manufacturers, and pleaded with them to avert the disaster. The central Committee counselled a peaceful demeanor and caution. Everything depended upon their having the right on their side in the opinion of the public.

It was easy for Pelle to follow all that was happening, although he now stood outside the whole movement. He went to work in his good clothes and elastic-sided boots, and did not need to arrive before seven, while the others had to be there at six—which at once altered his point of view.

He would soon be trusted with rule and compasses; for the present he was kept busy copying a few worn-out working-drawings, or “filling in.” He felt in a curiously exalted frame of mind—as though he had been slightly intoxicated; this was the first time in his life that he had been employed on work that was of a clean nature and allowed him to wear good clothes. It was particularly curious to survey life from where he stood; a new perspective lay open before him. The old life had nothing in prospect but a miserable old age; but this led upward. Here he could achieve what he willed—even the highest place! What if he finally crept up to the very topmost point, and established an eight-hour day and a decent day’s wage? Then he would show them that one could perfectly well climb up from below without forgetting his origin and becoming a bloodsucker! They should still drink to the health of Pelle, their good comrade, although he would have left their ranks.

At home there was much to be done; as soon as he crossed the threshold he was the prisoner of Ellen’s hundred and one schemes. He must have a new suit of clothes—a gray suit for the office, and more linen; and at least twice a week he must go to the barber; he could no longer sit down and scrape himself with an old razor with an edge like a saw. Pelle was made to feel that it was not so easy after all to become an “upper- classer,” as he called it.

And all this cost money. There was the same searching, the same racking of one’s brains to find the necessary shillings as during the dearth of the winter famine; but this time it was quite amusing; there was a cheerful purpose in it all, and it would only last until he had properly settled down. Lasse looked very respectable; he was wearing Pelle’s second-best suit, which Ellen had cleaned for him, and a black watered silk cravat, with a white waterproof collar, and well-polished slippers on his feet. These last were his old watertight boots—those in which Pelle had left Stone Farm. They were still in existence, but had been cut down to form house-slippers. The legs of them now formed part of a pair of clogs.

Lasse was happiest with the children, and he looked quite an aged grandfather now, with his wrinkled face and his kind glance, which was now a little weak-sighted. When Young Lasse hid himself in the opposite corner of the room Father Lasse could not see him, and the young rascal took advantage of the fact; he could never understand those eyes, which could not see farther than across the table, and was always asking questions about them.

“It’s because I have seen too much misery in my life,” the old man would always reply.

Otherwise he was quite overflowing with happiness, and his old worn-out body manifested its gratitude, for he began to put on flesh again; and his cheeks had soon grown quite full. He had a peculiar knack for looking after the children; Pelle and Ellen could feel quite easy as they went about their multitudinous affairs. There were a hundred things that had to be seen to before they could move into the new home. They thought of raising a loan of a few hundred kroner. “Father will go security for us,” said Ellen.

“Yes, then I should have the means of taking proper drawing-lessons,” said Pelle; “I particularly need to get thoroughly grounded.”

On Saturday the term of the old tariff expired. The temper of the workers was badly strained, but each completed his work, and contained himself and waited. At noon the foreman went round asking each man for his answer. They refused all information, as agreed, but in the afternoon three men formed a deputation and entered the office, asking if they could speak with the manager. As he entered Munck, the engine- driver, stepped forward as spokesman, and began: “We have come in the name of our comrades.” He could get no further; the manager let fly at him, pointing to the stairs, and crying, “I don’t argue with my work- people!”

So they went down again. The men stared up at them—this was quick work! The burly Munck moved his lips, as though he were speaking, but no one could hear a word on account of the frightful din of the machinery. With a firm stride he went through the shop, picked up a hammer, and struck three blows on the great steel gong. They sounded like the stroke of doom, booming through the whole factory. At the same moment the man’s naked, blackened arms were lifted to strike the belts from the live pulleys. The machinery ceased running, and the roar of it died away; it was as still as though Death had passed through the workshop. The dense network of belts that crossed the shop in all directions quivered and hung slack; the silence yawned horribly in the great room.

The foremen ran from bench to bench, shouting and hardly knowing what to do. Word was sent to the office, while the workers went to their buckets and washed themselves, silent and melancholy as a funeral procession. Their faces were uncommunicative. Did they perhaps foresee that those three blows were the signal for a terrible conflict? Or were they merely following their first angry impulse? They knew enough, at all events; it was stamped upon their faces that this was fate—the inevitable. They had summoned the winter because they were driven to it, and the winter would return once more to ravage his victims.

They reappeared, washed and clean, each with his bundle under his arm, and stood in silence waiting their turn to be paid. The foreman ran to and fro apportioning the wages with nervous hands, comparing time-sheets and reckoning the sum due to each. The manager came down the stairs of his office, proud and unapproachable, and walked through the shop; the workers made way for him. He looked sharply around him, as though he would imprint the likeness of every individual worker on his mind, laid his hand on the shoulder of one of the foremen, and said in a loud voice, so that all heard him, “Make haste, now, Jacobsen, so that we can be rid of these fellows quickly!” The workers slowly turned their serious faces toward him, and here and there a fist was clenched. They left the factory one by one, as soon as they were paid.

Outside they gathered in little groups, and relieved their feelings by giving vent to significant exclamations. “Did you see the old man? He was savage, he was; he’ll hold out quite a while before we get back again!”

Pelle was in a curious frame of mind; he knew that now the fight had begun; first blood had been drawn, and one blow would follow on another. Young Lasse, who heard his step on the stairs, ran into his arms as he reached home; but Pelle did not notice him.

“You are so solemn!” said Ellen, “has anything happened?” He told her quietly.

“Good God!” she cried, shuddering. “Now the unemployment will begin all over again! Thank God it doesn’t affect us!” Pelle did not reply. He sat down in silence to his supper; sat hanging his head as though ashamed of himself.

XXVIII

A most agitating time followed. For a number of years the conflict had, so to speak, been preparing itself, and the workers had made ready for it, had longed for it, had sought to precipitate it, in order to determine once for all whether they were destined always to be slaves and to stand still, or whether there was a future for them. Now the conflict had come—and had taken them all by surprise; they would willingly have concluded peace just now.

But there was no prospect of a peaceful solution of any kind. The employers found the occasion favorable for setting their house in order; the matter was to be fought out now! This was as good as telling the men to go. Every morning there was news of a fresh lot of workers turned into the streets, or leaving of their own accord.

One trade involved another. The iron-masters made common cause with the “Denmark” factory, and declared a lock-out of the machine-smiths; then the moulders and pattern-makers walked out, and other branches of the industry joined the strike; they all stood by one another.

Pelle could survey them all from his point of vantage. Old memories of battle rose to his mind; his blood grew warm, and he caught himself, up in the drawing-office, making plans of campaign for this trade or that. His was the quick-fighting blood that assumes the offensive, and he noted their blunders; they were not acting with sufficient energy. They were still exhausted, and found it hard to reconcile themselves to another period of unemployment. They made no counter-attack that could do any damage. The employers, who were acting energetically under the leadership of the iron industry, enjoyed from the beginning a considerable ascendancy. The “Denmark” factory was kept running, but the trade was on its last legs.

It was kept alive by the help of a few strike-breakers, and every one of the officials of the company who had the requisite knowledge was set to work downstairs; even the manager of the machine department had donned a blouse and was working a lathe. It was a matter of sapping the courage of the strikers, while proving to them that it was possible to do without them.

In the drawing-office and the counting-house all was confusion; the strike-breakers had all to be obtained from abroad; while others ran away and had to be replaced. Under these circumstances Pelle had to look after himself and assimilate what he could. This did not suit him; it was a long way to the top, and one couldn’t learn quickly enough.

One day he received the summons to come downstairs and lend a hand in the centrifugal separator department. The workers had made common cause with the machine-smiths. This summons aroused him from delightful dreams of the future. He was swiftly awakened. “I am no strike-breaker!” he replied, offended.

Then the engineer himself came up. “Do you realize that you are refusing to perform your duty?” he said.

“I can’t take work away from my comrades,” replied Pelle, in a low voice.

“They may think that very nice of you. But now those men down there are no longer your comrades. You are a salaried employee, and as such you must serve the firm wherever you are asked to do so.”

“But I can’t do that! I can’t strike the bread out of other folks’ hands.”

“Then your whole future is at stake. Think a moment, man! I am sorry for you, for you might have done something here; but I can’t save you from the results of your own obstinacy. We require absolute obedience here.”

The engineer stood waiting for his answer, but Pelle had nothing to say.

“Now, I’ll go so far as to give you till to-morrow to think over it— although that’s against the rules of the factory. Now think it over well, and don’t hang on to this stupid sentimentality of yours. The first thing is to stand by those you belong to, through thick and thin. Well, till to-morrow.”

Pelle went. He did not want to go home before the usual time, only to be met with a string of unseasonable questions. They would come soon enough in any case. So he strolled through the mercantile quarter and gazed at the shipping. Well, now his dream of success was shattered—and it had been a short one. He could see Ellen’s look of disappointment, and an utter mental depression came over him. He was chiefly sorry for her; as for him, there was nothing to be said—it was fate! It never occurred to him for a moment to choose between his comrades and the future; he had quite forgotten that the engineer had given him time for reflection.

At the usual time he strolled homeward. Ellen welcomed him cheerfully and light-heartedly; she was living in a continual thrill of delight; and it was quite touching to see what trouble she was taking to fit herself for a different stratum of society. Her movements were delightful to watch, and her mouth had assumed an expression which was intended to betoken refinement. It suited her delightfully, and Pelle was always seized by a desire to kiss her lips and so disarrange the expression; but to-day he sat down to his supper in silence. Ellen was accustomed to put aside his share of the midday dinner, and to warm it up for him when he came home in the evening; at midday he ate bread-and- butter in the office.

“When we have once got properly settled we’ll all have dinner at six o’clock; that is much more comfortable.”

“That’s what the fine folks do, I’ve been told,” said Lasse. “That will be pleasant, to give it a try.”

Lasse was sitting with Young Lasse on his knee, telling him funny stories. Little Lasse laughed, and every time he laughed his sister screeched with delight in her cradle, as though she understood it all. “What is it to be now, then—the story of the old wife? Then you must listen carefully, or your ears won’t grow! Well, then, the old wife.”

“Wife!” said Young Lasse, with the very accent of the old man.

“Yes, the old wife!” repeated Lasse, and then all three laughed.

“‘What shall I do first?’ said the old wife, when she went to work; ‘eat or sleep? I think I’ll eat first. What shall I do first?’ asked the old wife, when she had eaten; ‘shall I sleep first or work? I think I’ll sleep first.’ And then she slept, until it was evening, and then she went home and went to bed.”

Ellen went up to Pelle and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve been to see my former mistress, and she is going to help me to turn my wedding-dress into a visiting-dress,” she said. “Then we shall only need to buy a frock-coat for you.”

Pelle looked up slowly. A quiver passed over his features. Poor thing! She was thinking about visiting-dresses! “You can save yourself the trouble,” he said, in a low voice. “I’ve finished with the office. They asked me to turn strike-breaker, so I left.”

“Ach, ach!” said Lasse, and he was near letting the child fall, his withered hands were trembling so. Ellen gazed at Pelle as though turned to stone. She grew paler and paler, but not a sound came from her lips. She looked as though she would fall dead at his feet.

XXIX

Pelle was once more among his own people; he did not regret that fortune had withdrawn her promise; at heart he was glad. After all, this was where he belonged. He had played a great part in the great revolt—was he to be excluded from the battle?

The leaders welcomed him. No one could draw the people as he could, when it came to that; the sight of him inspired them with a cheerful faith, and gave them endurance, and a fearless pugnacity. And he was so skilled, too, in making plans!

The first thing every morning he made his way to the lock-out office, whence the whole campaign was directed; here all the many threads ran together. The situation for the moment was considered, men who had precise knowledge of the enemy’s weak points were called together, in order to give information, and a comprehensive plan of campaign was devised. At secret meetings, to which trustworthy members of the various trades were invited, all sorts of material for offence was collected— for the attack upon the employers, and for carrying on the newspaper agitation. It was a question of striking at the blood-suckers, and those who were loose in the saddle! There were trades which the employers kept going for local reasons—these must be hunted out and brought to a standstill, even at the cost of increasing unemployment. They were making energetic preparations for war, and it was not the time to be squeamish about their weapons. Pelle was in his element. This was something better than ruining a single shoemaker, even if he was the biggest in the city! He was rich in ideas, and never wavered in carrying them into execution. Warfare was warfare!

This was the attacking side; but, permeated as he was by a sense of community, he saw clearly that the real battle was for maintenance. The utmost foresight and widely comprehensive instructions were required if the masses were to last out the campaign; in the long run it would be a question of endurance! Foreign strike-breakers had to be kept at a distance by prompt communications to the party newspapers of the different countries, and by the setting of pickets in the railway stations and on the steamers. For the first time the workers took the telegraph into their own service. The number of the foreign strikebreakers must by every possible means be kept down, and in the first place supplies must be assured, so that the unemployed masses could keep famine at bay.

In a vision, Pelle had beheld the natural solidarity of the workers extended over the whole earth, and now this vision was of service to him. The leaders issued a powerful manifesto to the workers of Denmark; pointing to the abyss from which they had climbed and to the pinnacles of light toward which they were striving upward; and warning them, in impressive phrases, to stand firm and to hold together. A statement as to the origin of the lock-out and the intention which lay behind it was printed and distributed throughout the country, with appeal for assistance and support, in the name of freedom! And by means of appeals to the labor parties of foreign countries they reminded the people of the vast solidarity of labor. It was a huge machine to set in motion; federation had increased from one small trade union until it comprehended the whole kingdom, and now they were striving to comprehend the laboring populations of the whole world, in order to win them over as confederates in the campaign. And men who had risen from the masses and were still sharing the same conditions, were managing all this! They had kept step with the rapid growth of the movement, and they were still growing.

The feeling that they were well prepared inspired them with courage and the prospect of a favorable result. From the country offers of employment for the locked-out workers daily reached the central office. Money was sent too—and assistance in the form of provisions; and many families outside the capital offered to take in the children of unemployed parents. Remittances of money came from abroad, and the liberal circles of the capital sympathized with the workers; and in the workers’ quarter of the city shopkeepers and publicans began to collect for the Federation.

The workers displayed an extraordinary readiness to undergo sacrifices. Books of coupons were circulated everywhere in the workshops, and thousands of workers gave each week a fourth part of their modest wages. The locked-out workers left their work with magnificent courage; the sense of community made them heroic. Destitute though they were as a result of the hard winter, they agreed, during the first two weeks, to do without assistance. Many of them spared the treasury altogether, helping themselves as well as they could, seeking a little private employment, or going out into the country to work on the land. The young unmarried men went abroad.

The employers did what they could to cope with all these shifts. They forbade the merchants and contractors to supply those who worked at home on their own account with materials for their work; and secret agents were despatched all over the country to the small employers and the farmers, in order to prejudice them against the locked-out workers; and the frontier of the country was covered with placards.

Their intention was obvious enough—an iron ring was to be drawn round the workers, and once imprisoned therein they could do nothing but keep starvation at bay until they had had enough, and surrendered. This knowledge increased their resistance. They were lean with wandering through the wilderness, but they were just in the mood for a fight. Many of them had not until now understood the entire bearings of the campaign; the new ideas had been stirring within them, but in a fragmentary and isolated condition—as an expression of a dumb feeling that the promised land was at hand at last. Often it was just one single word that had fixed itself in their minds, and had to serve to express the whole position. Any one might approach them with plausible arguments and strike it from under them, and shatter the theory to which they had clung; but faith itself remained, and the far-reaching concord; deep in their hearts was the dim, immovable knowledge that they were chosen to enter into the time of promise.

And now everything was gradually becoming plain to them. The battle shed light both backward and forward. It illumined their existence in all its harshness. Life was the same as it had always been, but now it was revealed so plainly that all could see it. All the many whips and scorns of life had been bound together in one vast scourge—the scourge of famine—which was to drive them back into the midst of poverty! Want was to be set upon them in its compactest form! This was the last, most extreme weapon; it confirmed them in the certainty that they were now on the right track, and near the goal. The night was always darkest before the break of day!

There were all sorts of things that they could understand now. People used to go about saying that the Germans were the hereditary enemy, and that the Fatherland was taking the lead of all other countries. But now the employers were sending to Germany for troops of hirelings, and were employing them to drive their own countrymen into a state of poverty. All that talk about patriotic feeling had been only fine words! There were only two nations—the oppressors and the oppressed!

That was how things appeared on closer inspection! One could never be very sure of what those above one told one—and yet all teaching came from them! A brave lot the clergy were—they knew very well which master they had to serve! No, the people ought to have had their own schools, where the children would learn the new ideas instead of religion and patriotism! Then there would long ago have been an end of the curse of poverty! So they profited by the campaign and their compulsory idleness in order to think things over, and to endeavor to solve all manner of problems.

The specter of hunger presently began to go from house to house, but the result was not what was expected; it awakened only hatred and defiance. It was precisely in this direction that they were invincible! In the course of time they had learned to suffer—they had learned nothing more thoroughly; and this came to their help now. They had an inexhaustible fund to draw upon, from which they could derive their strength to resist; they were not to be defeated. Weren’t they nearly ready to surrender? Very well—another thousand workers on the streets! But the distress, to all appearance, became no greater than before; they had learned to endure their privations in decency—that was their share in the increasing culture. One saw no obtrusive signs of want; they compromised with it in secret, and appeared full of courage. This weakened the faith of their opponents in the infallible nature of their means.

They even adopted hunger as their own weapon, boycotting the employers and their dependents, striking the enemy a blow they were familiar with! Many a great employer’s door was marked with a cross, and all behind it were doomed to ruin.

It was as though the courage of the people increased in proportion as famine threatened them more closely. No one could tell how long this would last; but they would make hay as long as the sun shone! Their clothes were still tidy, and in the early spring there were many excursions; the people went forth singing, with banners at their head, and singing they came home.

This was the first time they had ever enjoyed their freedom, although there was work enough to be done—it was their first holiday! As they held the whip hand through their purchasing capacity, they boycotted all the business concerns of their own quarter which did not array themselves on the side of the workers. Their hatred was aroused; it was “for us or against us”; all must declare themselves by taking sides. The small shopkeepers concealed their convictions—if they had any—and rivalled one another in friendliness toward the workers. On their counters lay books of coupons for those who would contribute to the funds, and some of them gave a percentage of their own takings. There was plenty of time to keep a strict eye on such; the people’s hatred was aroused at last, and it grew more and more bitter.

The leaders held back and counselled prudence. But there was something intoxicating in this battle for bare life—and for happiness! Something that went to the head and tempted them to hazard all on the cast of the dice. The leaders had given great attention to the problem of restricting the number of idle hands—it was difficult for them to procure sufficient funds. But those workers who still had work to do forsook it, in order to join themselves, in blind solidarity, to their locked-out comrades. They thought it was required of them!

One day the masons made an unexpected demand that an hour should be struck off the day’s work. They received a refusal. But that evening they knocked off at six instead of seven. The men were unreasonable: to demand shorter hours in the slack season following on a hard winter!

This move took the leaders by surprise. They feared that it might diminish the general sympathy for the workers. It surprised them particularly that the prudent and experienced Stolpe had not opposed this demand. As president of the organization for many years, he had great influence over the men; he must try to persuade them to go to work again. Pelle opened negotiations with him.

“That is not my business,” Stolpe replied. “I did not propose the cessation of work, but at the general meeting the majority was in favor of it—and with that there’s no more to be said. I don’t oppose my comrades.”

“But that’s perverse of you,” said Pelle. “You are the responsible person, and your trade has the most favorable conditions of labor—and you ought to remember the conflict in which we are engaged.”

“Yes, the conflict! Of course we thought of it. And you are right, I have a good and comfortable home, because my craft is in a good position; and we masons have obtained good conditions, and we earn good money. But are we to enjoy ourselves and look on while the others are fighting for dry bread? No, we are with them when it comes to a fight!”

“But the support you were giving—it was ten thousand kroner a week, and now we shall have to do without it! Your action may have incalculable consequences for us. You must put an end to this, father-in-law! You must see that the majority doesn’t have its way.”

“That would be diplomatic, wouldn’t it? But you seem anxious to side with our opponents! We hold the suffrage in honor, and it is the suffrage that is to reform society. If once one begins to meddle with the voting-papers!—”

“But that isn’t necessary in the least! The people aren’t really clear as to what they are doing—you can’t expect any quickness of perception from them! You could demand a fresh vote—if I could first have a talk with them about the campaign!”

“So you think we couldn’t see what we were doing!” replied Stolpe, much offended. “But we can accept the consequences—we can do that! And you want to get up on the platform and talk them silly, and then they are to vote the other way round! No, no nonsense here! They voted according to their convictions—and with that the matter’s settled, whether it’s right or wrong! It won’t be altered!”

Pelle had to give in; the old man was not to be moved from his point of view. The masons increased the unemployed by a few thousand men.

The employers profited by this aggression, which represented them to the public in a favorable aspect, in order to strike a decisive blow. The universal lock-out was declared.

XXX

At home matters were going badly with Pelle. They had not yet recovered from the winter when he was drawn into the conflict; and the preparations for his new position had plunged them into debt. Pelle received the same relief as the other locked-out workers—ten to twelve kroner a week—and out of this Ellen had to provide them with food and firing. She thought he ought, as leader, to receive more than the others, but Pelle did not wish to enjoy other conditions than those allotted to the rest.

When he came home, thoroughly exhausted after his strenuous day, he was met by Ellen’s questioning eyes. She said nothing, but her eyes obstinately repeated the same question day after day. It was as though they asked him: “Well, have you found employment?” This irritated him, for she knew perfectly well that he was not looking for work, that there was none to look for. She knew what the situation was as well as he did, but she persistently behaved as though she knew nothing of all that he and his comrades were endeavoring to achieve, and when he turned the conversation on to that subject she preserved a stubborn silence; she did not wish to hear anything about it.

When the heat of battle rose to Pelle’s head, there was no one with whom he would rather have shared his opinions and his plans of campaign. In other directions she had urged him on, and he had felt this as a confirmation and augmentation of his own being; but now she was silent. She had him and her home and the children, and all else besides was nothing to her. She had shared the privations of the winter with him and had done so cheerfully; they were undeserved. But now he could get work whenever he wished. She had resumed her dumb opposition, and this had an oppressive effect upon him; it took something from the joy of battle.

When he reached home and related what had been said and done during the day, he addressed himself to Lasse. She moved about the home immersed in her own cares, as though she were dumb; and she would suddenly interrupt his conversation with the statement that this or that was lacking. So he weaned himself from his communicative habits, and carried on all his work away from home. If there was writing to be done, or if he had negotiations to accomplish, he selected some tavern where he would be free of her constraining presence. He avoided telling her of his post of confidence, and although she could not help hearing about it when away from home she behaved as if she knew nothing. For her he was still merely Pelle the working-man, who shirked supporting his wife and children. This obstinate attitude pained him; and the bitterness of his home life made him throw himself with greater energy into the struggle. He became a hard and dangerous opponent.

Lasse used to gaze at them unhappily. He would willingly have intervened, but he did not know how to set about it; and he felt himself superfluous. Every day he donned his old clothes and went out in order to offer his services as casual laborer, but there were plenty of idle hands younger than his. And he was afraid of obtaining employment that might take the bread out of other folks’ mouths. He could not understand the campaign, and he found it difficult to understand what was forbidden ground; but for Pelle he felt an unconditional respect. If the lad said this or the other, then it was right; even if one had to go hungry for it—the lad was appointed to some special end.

One day he silently left the house; Pelle scarcely noticed it, so absorbed was he. “He must have gone back to the old clothes woman at the ‘Ark,’” he thought; “it’s by no means amusing here.”

Pelle had charge of the external part of the campaign; he knew nothing of bookkeeping or administration, but simply threw himself into the fight. Even as a child of eight he had been faced with the problem of mastering life by his own means, and he had accomplished it, and this he profited by now. He enjoyed the confidence of the masses; his speech sounded natural to them, so that they believed in him even when they did not understand him. If there was any one who did not wish to follow where Pelle led, he had to go just the same; there was no time just now for lengthy argument; where civil words didn’t answer he took more energetic means.

The campaign consisted in the first place of the federation of the masses, and Pelle was continually away from home; wherever anything was afoot, there he put in an appearance. He had inaugurated a huge parade, every morning all the locked-out workers reported themselves at various stations in the city, and there the roll was called, every worker being entered according to his Union. By means of this vast daily roll-call of nearly forty thousand men it was possible to discover which of them had deserted in order to act as strike-breakers. A few were always absent, and those who had a good excuse had to establish it in order to draw their strike-pay. Pelle was now here, now there, and always unexpected, acting on impulse as he did. “Lightning Pelle,” they called him, on account of the suddenness of his movements. His actions were not based upon long deliberations; nevertheless, he had a radical comprehension of the entire movement; one thing grew out of another, naturally, until the whole was more than any conscious intelligence could comprehend. And Pelle grew with it, and by virtue of his impulsiveness was a summary of it all.

There was plenty to be done; at the roll-call all those who failed to attend had to be entered, and those who knew anything about them must give information. This man had gone abroad; that one had gone into the country, to look for work; so far, so good. If any fell away and acted as strike-breaker, instructions were immediately given for his punishment. In this way Pelle kept the ranks closed. There were many weak elements among them—degenerate, ignorant fellows who didn’t understand the importance of the movement, but a strong controlling hand and unfailing justice made it a serious matter for them to break away.

At the outset he had organized with Stolpe’s assistance a large body of the best workers as pickets or watchmen. These were zealous, fanatical members of the various trades, who had taken part in the organization of their own professional organization, and knew every individual member thereof. They stationed themselves early in the morning in the neighborhood of the various places of employment, marking those who went to work there and doing their best to prevent them. They were in constant conflict with the police, who put every possible obstacle in their way.

Morten he met repeatedly. Privation had called him out of his retirement. He did not believe that the campaign would lead to better conditions, and on that account he took no part in it. But want he knew as did no other; his insight in that direction was mysteriously keen. The distribution of relief in the form of provisions could not have been entrusted to better hands. He superintended the whole business of distribution, but what he liked best was to stand, knife in hand, cutting up pork for the families of locked-out workers. The portions were strictly weighed; none the less, the women always thronged about him. There was a blessing in that faint smile of his—they felt sure his portions were the biggest!

Morten and Pelle were in disagreement on almost every point. Even now, when everything depended on a strict cohesion, Morten could never be trusted to behave with severity. “Remember, they aren’t of age yet,” he would say continually. And it could not be gainsaid that there were many to whom the conflict was unintelligible—they understood nothing of it, although otherwise they were thoughtful and intelligent enough. These were mostly people who had come in from the provinces at a somewhat advanced age; indeed some had been small employers there. For them trades unionism was a sort of lynch law, and they profited by the strike in all simplicity in order to obtain well-paid employment. When they were reviled as strikebreakers or “gentlemen,” they laughed like little children who are threatened with a revolver. Slow-witted as they were, in this respect, they took the consequences to heart, although they could not see the reason for them. These must be compelled to obey.

The iron industry was doing its utmost to keep going, as a trade which must fulfill its contracted engagements, under penalty of seeing the business fall into foreign hands. This industry had if possible to be disabled. The pickets were at work, and The Working Man published the names and addresses of the strike-breakers. When these left the factory they encountered a crowd of people who treated them with scorn and contempt; they had to be escorted by the police. But the resentment aroused by their treachery followed them home even to the barracks they lived in. The wives and children of the locked-out workers resumed the battle and carried on hostilities against the families of the strike- breakers, so that they had to move. One saw them of a night, with all their possessions on a handcart, trudging away to seek a new home under cover of the darkness. But the day revealed them, and again they were fugitives, until the police took them in hand and found lodging for them.

One day a large factory by the North Bridge resumed operations with the help of foreign labor and strike-breakers. Pelle set to work to prepare a warm reception for the workers when they went homeward, but in the course of the day a policeman who was friendly to the workers tipped him the wink that two hundred police would be concealed in a neighboring school, ready for the workers’ departure.

In the afternoon people began to collect—unemployed workers, poor women, and children. They came early, for it well might be that the workers would be released an hour before their time, in order to avoid a clash, and they were missing nothing by waiting there. Finally several thousand people stood before the gates of the factory, and the police were moving to and fro through the crowd, which stood many men deep, but they had to give up the effort to drive them asunder. The street urchins began to make an uproar, and to egg the watchers on. They felt the need of warming themselves a little, so they gradually began to bait the police.

“Hullo, there!” suddenly shouted a mighty voice. “In the school over there are two hundred police, waiting for us to make a disturbance, so that they can come and use their truncheons on us. Hadn’t we better leave them where they are? I think it’s quite as well they should go back to school for a time!”

“Hurrah!” they cried. “Hurrah! Long live ‘Lightning’!” A movement went through the crowd. “That’s Pelle!” The whisper passed from mouth to mouth, and the women stood on tiptoe to see him.

Pelle and Stolpe were standing against a wall, surrounded by a few dozen pickets. The police went up to them and reprimanded them. They had orders to hinder the picketing, but they had no desire to meddle with Pelle. They lived in the workers’ quarter, were at home there, and a word from him would make the city impossible for them.

The usual time for stopping work came round, but the workers were not released from the factory. The crowd used its wits to keep itself warm; punning remarks concerning strike-breakers and capitalists buzzed through the air. But suddenly an alarm ran through the crowd. The street urchins, who are always the first to know everything, were whistling between their fingers and running down the side streets. Then the crowd began to move, and the police followed at a quick march, keeping to the middle of the street. The factory had discharged the workers by a back door. They were moving down Guldberg Street by now, disheartened and with never a glance behind them, while a whole escort of police accompanied them. They were soon overtaken and brought home to the accompaniment of a sinister concert, which now and again was interrupted by cries of, “Three cheers for the gentlemen!”

The pickets walked in a long file, close to the procession, zealously occupied in noting each individual worker, while Pelle moved in the midst of the crowd, endeavoring to prevent over-hasty action. There was need to be careful. Several men were still in prison because during the winter they had come to blows with the strike-breakers, and the police had received stringent orders from the authorities. The press of the propertied classes was daily calling for stricter measures, demanding that every meeting in the streets, and especially before the gates of a factory, should be broken up by the police.

Now and then a strike-breaker parted from the squad and ran into the door of his dwelling, followed by a long whistle.

Among the workers was a solitary, elderly man, still powerful, whom Pelle recognized. He kept at the extreme edge of the police, walking heavily, with bowed head, along the pavement close to the houses. His hair was quite gray, and his gait was almost crippled. This was Mason Hansen, Stolpe’s old comrade and fellow-unionist, whom Pelle had interviewed in the winter, in the hope of persuading him to refrain from strikebreaking.

“It’s going badly with him,” thought Pelle, involuntarily keeping his eyes on him. The results of strike-breaking had dealt hardly with him.

By St. Hans Street he turned the corner, winking at the policeman who was about to follow him, and went down the street alone, looking neither to right nor left, embarrassed, and with hanging head. Every time a child cried aloud, he started. Then he stood as though riveted to the ground, for in front of his door a heap of poverty-stricken household goods lay in the gutter. A crowd of gaping children stood round the heap, and in the midst of the group stood a youngish woman, with four children, who were keeping tearful watch over the heap of trash. The man pressed through the crowd and exchanged a few words with the woman, then clenched his fists and shook them threateningly at the tenement house.

Pelle went up to him. “Things aren’t going well with you, comrade,” he said, laying his hand on the other’s shoulder. “And you are much too good for what you are doing. You had better come with me and re-enter the organization.”

The man slowly turned his head. “Oh, it’s you!” he said, shaking Pelle’s hand away with a jerk. “And you seem as cool and impudent as ever. Poverty hasn’t dealt hardly with you! It’s not at all a bad business, growing fat on the pence of the workers, eh?”

Pelle grew crimson with anger, but he controlled himself. “Your insults don’t hurt me,” he said. “I have gone hungry for the Cause while you have been playing the turncoat. But that will be forgotten if you’ll come with me.”

The man laughed bitterly, pointing at the tenement-house. “You’d better go and give them a medal. Three months now they’ve tormented me and made hell hot for my wife and children, in order to drive us away. And as that didn’t answer, they went to the landlord and forced him to give me notice. But Hansen is obstinate—he wouldn’t be shown the door. So now they’ve got the bailiffs to turn me out, see?” He gave a hollow laugh. “But these few sticks, why, we can soon carry them up again, damn it all! Shall we begin, mother?”

“I’ll willingly speak to the landlord. Remember, you are an old unionist.”

“An old—yes, I was in it from the very beginning.” The man drew himself proudly erect. “But for all that I don’t let my wife and children starve. So you want to go begging favors for me, eh? You be gone—at once, will you? Be off, to the devil, or I’ll beat you to a jelly with this!” He seized a table-leg; his eyes were quite blood-shot. His young wife went up to him and took his hand. “Hansen!” she said quietly. He let his weapon fall. Pelle felt the woman’s pleading eyes upon him, and went.

XXXI

When Pelle, tired to death, made his way homeward in the evening, he had lost the feeling of invincibility and his thoughts turned to Ellen.

In the daytime he felt neither hesitation nor certainty. When he set to work it was always with thousands behind him. He felt the great body of workers at his back, whether he was fighting in the open or waiting with close-buttoned coat to deal with the leaders of the opposing camp. But when he went home to Ellen he had only himself to rely on for support. And he could not get near her. Strongly as he was drawn by the life away from home, she still held the secret of his life in her hands. She was strong and would not be swept aside. He was forced to ponder over her nature and to search for a solution.

Pelle had to deal with countless numbers of families, and what he saw was not always edifying. Home was a conception which was only now forcing its way downward from the middle classes. Even in periods of normal employment the workers earned little enough when it came to providing a decent family life, and the women knew nothing of making a comfortable home. The man might be tidy and well-dressed when one met him out of doors, but if you went to his home it was always the same thing; a dark, grimy den and a worn-out wife, who moved about scolding amidst a swarm of children. Wages were enough for one only to live in comfort. The man represented the household out of doors. He must take sandwiches to his work, and he must have something decent too when he got home. The others managed with a little bread and coffee; it was of no use to talk of regular family meals. And the man must have clothes; he was the visible portion of the household, and he supported it. It was of no use to look for anything further in the way of ideas from these women; they saw nothing but unemployment and the want at home, and when the husband showed himself they drove him out of the house with their scolding ways. “You go out and meddle with everything you can think of that doesn’t concern us—politics and big talk—instead of doing your work properly and leaving the fools to squabble among themselves!” The result was that they did their work for the organization in the taverns. Many of them held positions of confidence, and Pelle went to the taverns to confer with them. They were dejected, when they arrived, and had before all else to be thawed out.

There Pelle came to them, with his brilliant hopes. When they lamented in their dejection, he promised great things of the future. “Our wives will soon see that we are in the right. The day will soon come when we shall be able to go home with a proper week’s wages, that will be enough for the whole family.”

“And suppose it doesn’t come off?” they would say.

“It will come off—if only we hold out!” he cried, smiting the table.

Yes, he might well see the bright side of things. He had a wife who came from a long-established home, who kept things clean and tidy for him, and knew how to make much do the work of little; the daughter of an old unionist who had grown up in the midst of the movement—a wife who saw her husband’s doings with understanding eyes; yes, he might well smile! As to the last, Pelle was silent.

In this particular she had accepted neither inheritance nor teaching; she was as she was, and she would never be different, whatever might pass over her head. Pelle was sacrificing wife and children to a fixed idea, in order not to leave a few indifferent comrades in the lurch! That, and the strike, and the severe condemnation of those who would not keep step, was, and remained, for her, so much tavern nonsense. It was something the workers had got into their heads as a result of talking when they were not precisely sober.

That was what it was, and it filled her heart with pain and mortification that she and hers should be set aside for people who were nothing to them. And this pain made her beautiful, and justified her in her own eyes.

She did not complain in words, and she was always careful to set before Pelle whatever the house could provide. He always found everything in order, and he understood what efforts it must cost her—considering the smallness of the means which she had at her disposal. There was no weak point in her defences; and this made the position still more oppressive; he could not evoke an explosion, a ventilation of her grievances; it was impossible to quarrel with her and make friends again.

Often he wished that Ellen would become neglectful, like so many others. But she was always attentive; the more the circumstances enabled her to condemn him, the more correctly did she behave.

If only he could have explained her lack of comprehension by supposing that her mind was barren and self-seeking! But in his eyes she had always been quite simple and single-minded, and yet her nature was to him a continual enigma! It was true she was not excessively benevolent or sympathetic where others were concerned; but on the other hand she asked nothing for herself—her thoughts were all for him and the children. He must admit that she had, without a thought, sacrificed everything to him—her home, her whole world—and that she had a right to ask something in return.

And she was still unchangeably the same. She was indifferent where she herself was concerned, if only Pelle and the children had something she was contented; she herself needed so little, yet she seemed to take enough when he watched her eating. Pelle often wondered that she retained her healthy appearance, although the food she ate was so inferior. Perhaps she helped herself in secret—but he drove the thought away, and was ashamed. She was always completely indifferent as to what she ate; she did not notice what it was, but served him and the children with the best of it—especially himself—yet she seemed to thrive. Yes, even now she gave the best to him. It was as though she was fulfilling some deep-rooted law of her nature, which was independent of their relations to one another. In this nothing could alter her habits. She might have been compared to a great beautiful bitch that lies attentively marking the appetite of her young, although none can tell, from her deliberate quiet, that her own bowels are twisted with hunger. If they left anything, she noticed it. “I have eaten,” she would say, so quietly that she succeeded as a rule in deceiving them. Yes, it made him feel desperate to think about it; the more he thought of it the more unendurable it was. She was sacrificing herself for him, yet she must condemn all his doings! She knew how to defy starvation far better than he—and she did not understand why they must go hungry!

But from all these painful deliberations she emerged always more prominently capable, incomprehensible, and beautiful in all her strangeness! And he would hurry home, full of burning longing and devotion, continually hoping that this time she would come to him glowing with love, to hide her eyes, full of confusion, on his shoulder. The disappointment only flung him yet more violently into the struggle; the longing of his heart for a tender, careless hand made his own hard.

He was always exerting himself to find some means of making money. At first, of course, there was no way, and he became so completely absorbed in the conflict that finally the question no longer occupied his mind. It lurked in his consciousness, like a voluptuous wish that merely tinged his daily existence; it was as though something within his mind had taken possession of his talent for design, and was always designing beautiful paper money and displaying it to his imagination.

One day when he reached home he found Widow Rasmussen tending the children and working on a pair of canvas shoes. Drunken Valde had left her again—had flown out into the spring! Ellen had gone out to work. A sudden pain shot through him. Her way of doing this, without saying a word to him, was like a blow in the face, and at first he was angry. But disloyalty was foreign to his nature. He had to admit that she was within her rights; and with that his anger evaporated, leaving him bewildered; something within him seemed tottering; surely this was a topsy-turvy world! “I might as well stay at home and look after the children,” he thought bitterly.

“I’ll stay with the children now, Madam Rasmussen!” he said. The woman put her work together.

“Yes, they’ve got a lot to go through,” she said, standing in the doorway. “I don’t myself understand what it’s all about, but one must always do something! That’s my motto. For things can’t be worse than they are. ‘Widow’! Pooh! They won’t let us behave ourselves! A man can scarcely look after himself, let alone a family, in this accursed world —and one needn’t call one’s self Madam to get children! Here have I been knocking about all my life, ruining my health and happiness, and have I earned as much from all my blackguards as would pay for the rags I’ve worn? No; I’ve had to beg them nicely of the fine folks for whom I do washing! Yes, they are ready to skin one alive—Madam Rasmussen has proved that. So I say, one must always try something! To-day the boy comes home and says, ‘Mother, they’ve put up the price of firewood again—an öre the two dozen!’ ‘What does that matter to us, boy? Can we buy two dozen at once?’ I say. ‘Yes, mother, but then the one dozen will cost an öre more.’ And eggs, they cost one krone twenty a score where the rich folks buy them—but here! ‘No, my dear madam, if you take two eggs you must pay fifteen öre!’ That makes eight öre for an egg, for if one takes the smallest quantity the profits aren’t in proportion. It’s hard to be poor. If it’s never going to be better, may the devil take him that’s made it all! That was a fine swear!”

Pelle sat playing with Young Lasse. Madam Rasmussen’s words had aroused something in him. That was the eternal complaint, the old, old cry! Whenever he heard it, the world of the poor man became even more plainly visible for what it was—and he ought to know it! It was a frightful abyss that he looked down into; it was bottomless; and it seemed forever to reveal fresh depths. And he was right—he was right.

He sat carelessly drawing something for the child on a scrap of paper, thinking of things quite different; but involuntarily the drawing took shape from within his hand. “That’s money, that’s money!” cried Young Lasse, clapping his hands. Pelle waked up and examined his drawing; sure enough, there was a rough sketch of a ten-kroner note! It flattered his father’s heart that the child had recognized it; and he was seized by the desire to see how like it was. But where in all the world was he to get a “blue”? Pelle, who at this time superintended the collection and distributing of millions, did not possess ten kroner! The pipe! The pipe! That was what the boy got his idea from! His old Christmas present, queerly enough, had a ten-kroner note on the bowl—and that gave him an idea! He got it out and compared it; it was a long time since he had smoked the pipe—he couldn’t afford it. He began eagerly to fill in the drawing while Young Lasse stood by, amusing himself by watching the rapid movements of the pencil. “Father is clever—Father draw!” he said, and wanted to wake his sister so that she could take part in the game.

No, the result was not good! The design would have to be cut in wood and printed in color for the appearance really to be similar. But then Ellen came home, and he hid it away.

“Won’t you give up going out to work?” he said. “I’ll provide what is absolutely necessary.”

“Why?” she retorted resolutely. “I’m not too good to do anything!” There was no tone in her voice from which he could elicit anything; so he got ready to go to the meeting.

Now, when Ellen went out to work, he ran home as often as he had time in order to look after the children. He had obtained a piece of hard wood and a ten-kroner note. With great care he transferred the design onto the wood, and began to engrave it while he sat there chattering to the children. This task occupied unused faculties; it engrossed him as an artistic exercise, which lingered at the back of his mind and automatically continued to carry itself out, even when he was away from home. This work filled his mind with a peculiar beauty so long as he was engaged on it. A warm, blissful world was evoked by the sight of this ten-kroner note, which shone ever more plainly out of the darkness and swept all privations aside. When Pelle sat at this work his mind soared above all oppression as though intoxicated; unhappy things no longer existed for him. He became an optimist and mentally made Ellen all sorts of costly presents.

It was all fundamentally so simple—it was only a misunderstanding— nothing more! He must speak to her, and she would see at once what a happy life they were going to live—if only they held out. Silence had filled her with resentment. Fortune! Fortune! It was nearer than ever now, greater and more splendid than on that other occasion when it had knocked at their door! Why, he did not know—that did not seem very clear!

But when he heard her step on the stairs his dream was shattered. He was awake. He concealed his work, ashamed to think that she should come home from work and find him at play.

At times he was oppressed by a feeling of the unattainable in his relations with Ellen. Even to himself he could not explain the contradiction between the constant longing for more ample and stable conditions, for triumph and victory, and his impotency at home, where his fortunes were declining. He wearied himself in trying to puzzle it out, and he was seized by a desire that he might become indifferent to the whole matter. He felt no inclination to drink, but none the less something was working convulsively within him; a certain indifference as to his own welfare, causing him to run risks, not caring whether he might not commit some stupidity that would do him harm. And at such times a voice cried loudly within him, especially when he was confronted by the bitter utterances of want. “That is my old complaint,” he thought, and he became observant. In his childhood it had been a sort of seizure; now it had become a voice.

XXXII

Early one morning Pelle wandered into the city. He had risen before Ellen, in order to avoid the painfulness of sitting down to breakfast with her. Ellen tried all sorts of ruses in order to give him a proper breakfast, and it was not difficult to persuade his stomach; but afterward he felt ashamed that he should have been cared for at the cost of others; and cunning though he was too, he could not get the better of her save by slipping away while she was still asleep.

His fasting condition endowed the city, and the whole of life, with a curiously unsubstantial aspect. Before him lay a long day full of terrific labors, and behind him was the fresh triumph of the day before.

As matters now stood, the employers in the iron industry had conceived the cunning idea of founding a blackleg Union for smiths and mechanics, and of giving it a name closely resembling that of the genuine Union. Then they sent circulars to the men, stating that work would be resumed on the following day. Many of the men were not accustomed to read, and regarded the circular as an order from their own Union, while others were enticed by the high wages offered by the new society. There was great confusion among the workers of these trades. As soon as the trick was exposed every respectable man drew back; but there was a great deal of disappointment, and they felt horribly ashamed before their comrades.

Pelle was furious at this trick, which affected him more especially, as the leader in open battle; he had suffered a defeat, and he meditated revenge. In spite of all the efforts of the pickets, it was not possible to procure a full list of the strikebreakers; his chagrin on this account burned in his heart, like a shameful sense of impotency; hitherto he had been noted for getting to the bottom of anything he undertook! He resolved then and there to meet ruse with ruse. He set a trap for his opponents, so that they themselves should deliver the strikebreakers into his hands. One morning he published his list in The Working Man with the proud remark, “Look, the enemy has no more!” Did the employers really fall into the trap, or was the fate of the strike-breakers really indifferent to them? Next morning their organ protested, and gave the number of the black-legs and their names into the bargain!

This was a smack! A good one this; it brought a light to the thin, impassive faces. There was an answer to the trick of the other day! This Pelle was a deuce of a fellow! Three cheers for “Lightning Pelle!” Hip, hip, hurrah!

Pelle was the deuce of a fellow as he strode along ruddy and full of pugnacity, with the echoes from the side-streets and the tenement-houses mingled with his own vigorous footsteps. Streets and houses were white with the night’s hoar frost, and overhead the air was full of a peculiar glow that came from the city—a light flowing from hidden sources. He had left all his cares at home; on every hand working-folk were greeting him, and his greeting in return was like an inspiriting song. He did not know them, but they knew him! The feeling that his work—however deep the scars it might leave—was arousing gratitude, had an uplifting effect upon him.

The city was in its morning mood. The lock-out lay like a paralyzing hand upon everything; business was slack, and the middle classes were complaining, but there was no prospect of peace; both sides were irreconcilable. The workers had lost nothing through the rash cessation of the masons. Sympathy for the lower classes had become a political principle; and contributions were still pouring in from the country. Considerable sums came from abroad. The campaign was now costing the workers half a million kroner a week; and the help from outside was like a drop in the ocean. But it had the effect of a moral support, and it stimulated the self-taxation to which all were subject. The hundred thousand households of the poor parted with their last possessions in order to continue the struggle; they meant to force a decision that should affect their whole future. The employers tried to hinder the great National Federation by calling the attention of the authorities to an ancient statute concerning mendicancy; but that merely aroused merriment. A little laughter over such expedients was permissible.

The workers had become accustomed to starvation. They went no more into the forest, but strolled thoughtfully through the streets like people who have too much time on their hands, so that the city’s face wore a peculiar stamp of meditative poverty. Their loitering steps aroused no echo, and in the houses the quietness gave one food for reflection. The noisy, ever-hungry children were scattered over the face of the country —they at least had plenty to eat. But the place was empty for the lack of them!

Pelle met several squads of workers; they were on the way to the various roll-calls. They raised their heads as he passed; his footsteps echoed loudly enough for all! It was the hope and the will of forty thousand men that passed there—Pelle was the expression of them all. They stared at his indomitable figure, and drew themselves up. “A devil of a chap!” they told one another joyfully; “he looks as if he could trample ’em all underfoot! Look at him—he scarcely makes way for that great loaded wagon! Long live Pelle, boys!”

The tavern-keepers stood on their cellar stairs gaping up at the morning sky—this was a time of famine for them! In the tavern windows hung cards with the inscription: “Contributions received here for the locked- out workers!”

On the Queen Luise Bridge Pelle encountered a pale, fat little man in a shabby coat. He had flabby features and a great red nose. “Good morning, General!” cried Pelle gaily; the man made a condescending movement with his hand. This was The Working Man’s man of straw; a sometime capitalist, who for a small weekly wage was, as far as the public was concerned, the responsible editor of the paper. He served various terms of imprisonment for the paper, and for a further payment of five kroner a week he also worked out in prison the fines inflicted on the paper. When he was not in jail he kept himself alive by drinking. He suffered from megalomania, and considered that he led the whole labor movement; for which reason he could not bear Pelle.

In the great court-yard of The Working Man building the dockers were assembled to answer the roll. The president of their Union met Pelle in the doorway; he was the very man whom Pelle and Howling Peter had rescued down by the harbor—now he was working for the new ideas!

“Well, how goes it?” asked Pelle, shaking his hand.

“Splendid! A thousand men all but seven!”

“But where’s the joyful Jacob? Is he ill?”

“He’s in jail,” replied the other gloomily. “He couldn’t bear to see his old folks starving—so he broke into a grocery, he and his brother—and now they’re both in prison.”

For a moment the lines on Pelle’s forehead were terribly deep and gloomy; he stood gazing blindly into space; the radiant expression left his countenance, which was filled with a pitying gravity. The docker stared at him—was he going to sleep on his feet? But then he pulled himself together.

“Well, comrades, are you finding the days too long?” he cried gaily.

“Ach, as for that! It’s the first time one’s had the time to get to know one’s own wife and children properly!” they replied. “But for all that it would be fine to get busy again!”

It was obvious that idleness was at last beginning to depress them; there was a peculiar pondering expression on their impassive features, and their eyes turned to him with a persistent questioning. They asked that this undertaking of his should be settled one way or the other. They were not weakening; they always voted for the continuance of the campaign, for that which they sought depended thereon; but they gazed into his face for a look that might promise success.

He had to answer many singular questions; privation engendered in the most fantastic ideas, which revealed the fact that their quiet, controlled bearing was the product of the observation and the energy of the many.

“Shall we deprive the rich of all their wealth and power?” asked one man, after long pondering and gazing at Pelle. The struggle seemed to have dealt hardly with him; but it had lit a spark in his eyes.

“Yes, we are going now to take our rights as men, and we shall demand that the worker shall be respected,” Pelle replied. “Then there’ll be no more talk of poor man and gentleman!”

“But suppose they try to get on top of us again? We must make short work of them, so that they can’t clamber on our backs and ride us again.”

“Do you want to drive them all onto the Common and shoot them? That’s not necessary,” said his neighbor. “When this is settled no one will dare to take the food out of our mouths again.”

“Won’t there be any more poverty then?” asked the first speaker, turning to Pelle.

“No, once we get our affairs properly in going order; then there will be comfort in every home. Don’t you read your paper?”

Yes, he read it, but there was no harm in hearing the great news confirmed by Pelle himself. And Pelle could confirm it, because he never harbored a doubt. It had been difficult to get the masses to grasp the new conception of things—as difficult as to move the earth! Something big must happen in return!

A few of the men had brought out sandwiches and began to eat them as they debated. “Good digestion!” said Pelle, nodding farewell to them. His mouth was watering, and he remembered that he had had nothing to eat or drink. But he had no time to think about it; he must go to Stolpe to arrange about the posting of the pickets.

Over the way stood Marie in a white cap, with a basket over her arm; she nodded to him, with rosy cheeks. Transplantation had made her grow; every time he saw her she was more erect and prettier.

At his parents’-in-law the strictest economy prevailed. All sorts of things—household possessions—had disappeared from that once so comfortable home; but there was no lack of good spirits. Stolpe was pottering about waiting for his breakfast; he had been at work early that morning.

“What’s the girl doing?” he asked. “We never see her now.”

“She has such a lot to do,” said Pelle apologetically. “And now she’s going out to work as well.”

“Well, well, with things as they are she’s not too fine to lend a hand. But we don’t really know what’s amiss with her—she’s a rebellious nature! Thank God she’s not a man—she would have brought dissolution into the ranks!”

Breakfast consisted of a portion of coffee and bread-and-butter and porridge. Madam Stolpe could not find her fine new silver coffee- service, which her children had given her on her silver-wedding day. “I must have put it away,” she said.

“Well, well, that’ll soon be found again, mother!” said Stolpe. “Now we shall soon have better times; many fine things will make their appearance again then, we shall see!”

“Have you been to the machine-works this morning, father-in-law?” asked Pelle.

“Yes, I’ve been there. But there is nothing more for the pickets to do. The employers have quartered all the men in the factory; they get full board and all there. There must be a crowd of foreign strike-breakers there—the work’s in full swing.”

This was an overwhelming piece of news! The iron-masters had won the first victory! This would quickly have a most depressing effect on the workers, when they saw that their trade could be kept going without them.

“We must put a bridle on them,” said Pelle, “or they’ll get off the course and the whole organization will fall to pieces. As for those fellows in there, we must get a louse under their shirts somehow.”

“How can we do that when they are locked in, and the police are patrolling day and night in front of the gates? We can’t even speak to them.” Stolpe laughed despairingly.

“Then some one must slink in and pretend he’s in want of employment!”

Stolpe started. “As a strike-breaker? You’ll never in this life get a respectable man to do that, even if it’s only in jest! I wouldn’t do it myself! A strike-breaker is a strike-breaker, turn and twist it how you will.”

“A strike-breaker, I suppose, is one who does his comrades harm. The man who risks his skin in this way deserves another name.”

“I won’t admit that,” said Stolpe. “That’s a little too abstract for me; anyhow, I’m not going to argue with you. But in my catechism it says that he is a strike-breaker who accepts employment where assistance is forbidden—and that I stick to!”

Pelle might talk as much as he liked; the old man would not budge an inch. “But it would be another matter if you wanted to do it yourself,” said Stolpe. “You don’t have to account to any one for what you do—you just do what comes into your head.”

“I have to account to the Cause for my doings,” said Pelle sharply, “and for that very reason I want to do it myself!”

Stolpe contracted his arms and stretched them out again. “Ah, it would be good to have work again!” he cried suddenly. “Idleness eats into one’s limbs like the gout. And now there’s the rent, mother—where the devil are we to get that? It must be paid on the nail on Saturday, otherwise out we go—so the landlord says.”

“We’ll soon find that, father!” said Madam Stolpe. “Don’t you lose heart!”

Stolpe looked round the room. “Yes, there’s still a bit to take, as Hunger said when he began on the bowels. But listen, Pelle—do you know what? I’m your father-in-law-to be sure—but you haven’t a wife like mine!”

“I’m contented with Ellen as she is,” said Pelle.

There was a knock; it was Stolpe’s brother, the carpenter. He looked exhausted; he was thin and poorly dressed; his eyes were surrounded by red patches. He did not look at those whose hands he took.

“Sit down, brother,” said Stolpe, pushing a chair toward him.

“Thanks—I must go on again directly. It was—I only wanted to tell you —well….” He stared out of the window.

“Is anything wrong at home?”

“No, no, not that exactly. I just wanted to say—I want to give notice that I’m deserting!” he cried suddenly.

Stolpe sprang to his feet; he was as white as chalk. “You think what you are doing!” he cried threateningly.

“I’ve had time enough to think. They are starving, I tell you—and there’s got to be an end of it. I only wanted to tell you beforehand so that you shouldn’t hear it from others—after all, you’re my brother.”

“Your brother—I’m your brother no longer! You do this and we’ve done with one another!” roared Stolpe, striking the table. “But you won’t do it, you shan’t do it! God damn me, I couldn’t live through the shame of seeing the comrades condemning my own brother in the open street! And I shall be with them! I shall be the first to give you a kick, if you are my brother!” He was quite beside himself.

“Well, well, we can still talk it over,” said the carpenter quietly. “But now you know—I didn’t want to do anything behind your back.” And then he went.

Stolpe paced up and down the room, moving from one object to another. He picked them up and put them down again, quite unthinkingly. His hands were trembling violently; and finally he went to the other room and shut himself in. After a time his wife entered the room. “You had better go, Pelle! I don’t think father is fit for company to-day. He’s lying there quite gray in the face—if he could only cry even! Oh, those two brothers have always been so much to each other till now! They were so united in everything!”

Pelle went; he was thinking earnestly. He could see that Stolpe, in his integrity, would consider it his duty to treat his brother more harshly than others, dearly as he loved him; perhaps he himself would undertake the picketing of the place where his brother went to work.

Out by the lakes he met a squad of pickets who were on their way out of the city; he accompanied them for some distance, in order to make certain arrangements. Across the road a young fellow came out of a doorway and slunk round the corner. “You there, stop!” cried one of the comrades. “There he is—the toff!” A few pickets followed him down Castle Street and came back leading him among them. A crowd began to form round the whole party, women and children speedily joining it.

“You are not to do anything to him,” said Pelle decisively.

“God knows no one wants to touch him!” they retorted. For a while they stood silently gazing at him, as though weighing him in their minds; then one after another spat at him, and they went their way. The fellow went silently into a doorway and stood there wiping the spittle from his face with his sleeve. Pelle followed him in order to say a kind word to him and lead him back into the organization. The lad pulled himself up hastily as Pelle approached.

“Are you coming to spit at me?” he said contemptuously. “You forgot it before—why didn’t you do it then?”

“I don’t spit at people,” said Pelle, “but your comrades are right to despise you. You have left them in the lurch. Come with me, and I’ll enter you in the organization again, and no one shall molest you.”

“I am to go about as a culprit and be taunted—no, thanks!”

“Do you prefer to injure your own comrades?”

“I ask for permission to look after my old mother. The rest of you can go to the devil. My mother isn’t going to hang about courtyards singing, and picking over the dustbins, while her son plays the great man! I leave that to certain other people!”

Pelle turned crimson. He knew this allusion was meant for Father Lasse; the desperate condition of the old man was lurking somewhere in his mind like an ingrowing grief, and now it came to the surface. “Dare you repeat what you said?” he growled, pressing close up to the other.

“And if I were married I shouldn’t let my wife earn my daily bread for me—I should leave that to the pimps!”

Oho! That was like the tattlers, to blacken a man from behind! Evidently they were spreading all sorts of lying rumors about him, while he had placed all that he possessed at their disposal. Now Pelle was furious; the leader could go to hell! He gave the fellow a few sound boxes on the ear, and asked him which he would rather do—hold his mouth or take some more?

Morten appeared in the doorway—this had happened in the doorway of the house in which he worked. “This won’t do!” he whispered, and he drew Pelle away with him. Pelle could make no reply; he threw himself on Morten’s bed. His eyes were still blazing with anger at the insult, and he needed air.

“Things are going badly here now,” said Morten, looking at him with a peculiar smile.

“Yes, I know very well you can’t stand it—all the same, they must hold together.”

“And supposing they don’t get better conditions?”

“Then they must accept the consequences. That’s better than the whole Cause should go to the wall!”

“Are those the new ideas? I think the ignorant have always had to take the consequences! And there has never been lacking some one to spit on them!” said Morten sadly.

“But, listen!” cried Pelle, springing to his feet. “You’ll please not blame me for spitting at anybody—the others did that!” He was very near losing his temper again, but Morten’s quiet manner mastered him.

“The others—that was nothing at all! But it was you who spat seven times over into the poor devil’s face—I was standing in the shop, and saw it.”

Pelle stared at him, speechless. Was this the truth-loving Morten who stood there lying?

“You say you saw me spit at him?”

Morten nodded. “Do you want to accept the applause and the honor, and sneak out of the beastliness and the destruction? You have taken a great responsibility on yourself, Pelle. Look, how blindly they follow you—at the sight of your bare face, I’m tempted to say. For I’m not myself quite sure that you give enough of yourself. There is blood on your hands—but is any of it your own blood?”

Pelle sat there heavily pondering; Morten’s words always forced his thoughts to follow paths they had never before known. But now he understood him; and a dark shadow passed over his face, which left its traces behind it. “This business has cost me my home,” he said quietly. “Ellen cares nothing for me now, and my children are being neglected, and are drifting away from me. I have given up splendid prospects for the future; I go hungry every day, and I have to see my old father in want and wretchedness! I believe no one can feel as homeless and lonely and forsaken as I do! So it has cost me something—you force me to say it myself.” He smiled at Morten, but there were tears in his eyes.

“Forgive me, my dear friend!” said Morten. “I was afraid you didn’t really know what you were doing. Already there are many left on the field of battle, and it’s grievous to see them—especially if it should all lead to nothing.”

“Do you condemn the Movement, then? According to you, I can never do anything wise!”

“Not if it leads to an end! I myself have dreamed of leading them on to fortune—in my own way; but it isn’t a way after their own heart. You have power over them—they follow you blindly—lead them on, then! But every wound they receive in battle should be yours as well—otherwise you are not the right man for the place. And are you certain of the goal?”

Yes, Pelle was certain of that. “And we are reaching it!” he cried, suddenly inspired. “See how cheerfully they approve of everything, and just go forward!”

“But, Pelle!” said Morten, with a meaning smile, laying his hand on his shoulder, “a leader is not Judge Lynch. Otherwise the parties would fight it out with clubs!”

“Ah, you are thinking of what happened just now!” said Pelle. “That had nothing to do with the Movement! He said my father was going about the backyards fishing things out of dustbins—so I gave him a few on the jaw. I have the same right as any one else to revenge an insult.” He did not mention the evil words concerning Ellen; he could not bring himself to do so.

“But that is true,” said Morten quietly.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” asked Pelle.

“I thought you knew it. And you have enough to struggle against as it is—you’ve nothing to reproach yourself with.”

“Perhaps you can tell me where he could be found?” said Pelle, in a low voice.

“He is usually to be found in this quarter.”

Pelle went. His mind was oppressed; all that day fresh responsibilities had heaped themselves upon him; a burden heavy for one man to bear. Was he to accept the responsibility for all that the Movement destroyed as it progressed, simply because he had placed all his energies and his whole fortune at its disposal? And now Father Lasse was going about as a scavenger. He blushed for shame—yet how could he have prevented it? Was he to be made responsible for the situation? And now they were spitting upon Ellen—that was the thanks he got!

He did not know where to begin his search, so he went into the courts and backyards and asked at random. People were crowding into a courtyard in Blaagaard Street, so Pelle entered it. There was a missionary there who spoke with the sing-song accent of the Bornholmer, in whose eyes was the peculiar expression which Pelle remembered as that of the “saints” of his childhood. He was preaching and singing alternately. Pelle gazed at him with eyes full of reminiscence, and in his despairing mood he was near losing control of himself and bellowing aloud as in his childish years when anything touched him deeply. This was the very lad who had said something rude about Father Lasse, and whom he—young as he was— had kicked so that he became ruptured. He was able to protect his father in those days, at all events!

He went up to the preacher and held out his hand. “It’s Peter Kune! So you are here?”

The man looked at him with a gaze that seemed to belong to another world. “Yes, I had to come over here, Pelle!” he said significantly. “I saw the poor wandering hither from the town and farther away, so I followed them, so that no harm should come to them. For you poor are the chosen people of God, who must wander and wander until they come into the Kingdom. Now the sea has stayed you here, and you can go no farther; so you think the Kingdom must lie here. God has sent me to tell you that you are mistaken. And you, Pelle, will you join us now? God is waiting and longing for you; he wants to use you for the good of all these little ones.” And he held Pelle’s hand in his, gazing at him compellingly; perhaps he thought Pelle had come in order to seek the shelter of his “Kingdom.”

Here was another who had the intention of leading the poor to the land of fortune! But Pelle had his own poor. “I have done what I could for them,” he said self-consciously.

“Yes, I know that well; but that is not the right way, the way you are following! You do not give them the bread of life!”

“I think they have more need of black bread. Look at them—d’you think they get too much to eat?”

“And can you give them food, then? I can give them the joy of God, so that they forget their hunger for a while. Can you do more than make them feel their hunger even more keenly?”

“Perhaps I can. But I’ve got no time to talk it over now; I came to look for my old father.”

“Your father, I have met in the streets lately, with a sack on his back —he did not look very cheerful. And I met him once over yonder with Sort the shoemaker; he wanted to come over here and spend his old age with his son.”

Pelle said nothing, but ran off. He clenched his fists in impotent wrath as he rushed out of the place. People went about jeering at him, one more eagerly than the other, and the naked truth was that he—young and strong and capable as he was in his calling—could not look after his wife and children and his old father, even when he had regular work. Yes, so damnable were the conditions that a man in the prime of his youth could not follow the bidding of nature and found a family without plunging those that were dependent on him into want and misery! Curse it all, the entire system ought to be smashed! If he had power over it he would want to make the best use of it!

In Stone Street he heard a hoarse, quavering voice singing in the central courtyard of one of the houses. It was Father Lasse. The rag-bag lay near him, with the hook stuck into it. He was clasping the book with one hand, while with the other he gesticulated toward the windows as he sang. The song made the people smile, and he tried to make it still more amusing by violent gestures which ill-suited his pitiful appearance.

It cut Pelle to the heart to see his wretched condition. He stepped into a doorway and waited until his father should have finished his song. At certain points in the course of the song Lasse took off his cap and smacked it against his head while he raised one leg in the air. He very nearly lost his equilibrium when he did this, and the street urchins who surrounded him pulled at his ragged coat-tails and pushed one another against him. Then he stood still, spoke to them in his quavering voice, and took up his song again.

“O listen to my song, a tale of woe: I came into the world as do so many: My mother bore me in the street below, And as for father, why, I hadn’t any! Till now I’ve faithfully her shame concealed: I tell it now to make my song complete. O drop a shilling down that I may eat, For eat I must, or soon to Death I yield.

“Into this world without deceit I came, That’s why you see me wear no stockings now. A poor old man who drudges anyhow, I have a wealthy brother, more’s the shame. But he and I are opposites in all; While I rake muck he rakes his money up: Much gold is his and many a jewelled cup, And all he fancies, that is his at call.

“My brother, he has built a palace splendid, And silver harness all his horses bear. Full twenty crowns an hour he gets, I hear, By twiddling thumbs and wishing day were ended! Gold comes to him as dirt to Lasse, blast him! And everywhere he turns there money lies. ’Twill all be mine when once my brother dies— If I but live—so help me to outlast him!

“Luck tried to help me once, but not again! Weary with toiling I was like to swoon. When God let fall milk-porridge ’stead of rain! And I, poor donkey, hadn’t brought a spoon! Yes, Heaven had meant to help me, me accurst! I saw my luck but couldn’t by it profit! Quickly my brother made a banquet of it— Ate my milk-porridge till he nearly burst!

“Want bears the sceptre here on earth below, And life is always grievous to the poor. But God, who rules the world, and ought to know, Says all will get their rights when life is o’er. Therefore, good people, hear me for His sake— A trifle for the poor man’s coffin give, Wherein his final journey he must take; Have mercy on my end while yet I live!

“Yet one thing God has given me—my boy. And children are the poor man’s wealth, I know. O does he think of me, my only joy, Who have no other treasure here below? Long time have we been parted by mishap: I’m tired of picking rags and sick of song; God who sees all reward you all ere long: O drop a trifle in poor Lasse’s cap!”

When Lasse had finished his song the people clapped and threw down coins wrapped in paper, and he went round picking them up. Then he took his sack on his back and stumped away, bent almost double, through the gateway.

“Father!” cried Pelle desperately. “Father!”

Lasse stood up with a jerk and peered through the gateway with his feeble eyes. “Is that you, lad? Ach, it sounded like your voice when you were a child, when any one was going to hurt you and you came to me for help.” The old man was trembling from head to foot. “And now I suppose you’ve heard the whole thing and are ashamed of your old father?” He dared not look at his son.

“Father, you must come home with me now—do you hear?” said Pelle, as they entered the street together.

“No, that I can’t do! There’s not enough even for your own mouths—no, you must let me go my own way. I must look after myself—and I’m doing quite well.”

“You are to come home with me—the children miss you, and Ellen asks after you day after day.”

“Yes, that would be very welcome…. But I know what folks would think if I were to take the food out of your children’s mouths! Besides—I’m a rag-picker now! No, you mustn’t lead me into temptation.”

“You are to come with me now—never mind about anything else. I can’t bear this, father!”

“Well, then, in God’s name, I must publish my shame before you, lad—if you won’t let me be! See now, I’m living with some one—with a woman. I met her out on the refuse-heaps, where she was collecting rubbish, just as I was. I had arranged a corner for myself out there—for the night, until I could find a lodging—and then she said I was to go home with her—it wouldn’t be so cold if there were two of us. Won’t you come home with me, so that you can see where we’ve both got to? Then you can see the whole thing and judge for yourself. We live quite close.”

They turned into a narrow lane and entered a gateway. In the backyard, in a shed, which looked like the remains of an old farm cottage, was Lasse’s home. It looked as though it had once been used as a fuel-shed; the floor was of beaten earth and the roof consisted of loose boards. Under the roof cords were stretched, on which rags, paper, and other articles from the dustbins were hung to dry. In one corner was a mean- looking iron stove, on which a coffee-pot was singing, mingling its pleasant fragrance with the musty stench of the rubbish. Lasse stretched himself to ease his limbs.

“Ach, I’m quite stiff!” he said, “and a little chilled. Well, here you see my little mother—and this is my son, Pelle, my boy.” He contentedly stroked the cheeks of his new life’s partner.

This was an old, bent, withered woman, grimy and ragged; her face was covered with a red eruption which she had probably contracted on the refuse-heaps. But a pair of kind eyes looked out of it, which made up for everything else.

“So that is Pelle!” she said, looking at him. “So that’s what he is like! Yes, one has heard his name; he’s one of those who will astonish the world, although he hasn’t red hair.”

Pelle had to drink a cup of coffee. “You can only have bread-and-butter with it; we old folks can’t manage anything else for supper,” said Lasse. “We go to bed early, both of us, and one sleeps badly with an over-full stomach.”

“Well, now, what do you think of our home?” said Father Lasse, looking proudly about him. “We pay only four kroner a month for it, and all the furniture we get for nothing—mother and I have brought it all here from the refuse-heaps, every stick of it, even the stove. Just look at this straw mattress, now—it’s really not bad, but the rich folks threw it away! And the iron bedstead—we found that there; I’ve tied a leg to it. And yesterday mother came in carrying those curtains, and hung them up. A good thing there are people who have so much that they have to throw it on the dust-heap!”

Lasse was quite cheerful; things seemed to be going well with him; and the old woman looked after him as if he had been the love of her youth. She helped him off with his boots and on with his list slippers, then she brought a long pipe out of the corner, which she placed between his lips; he smiled, and settled down to enjoy himself.

“Do you see this pipe, Pelle? Mother saved up for this, without my knowing anything about it—she has got such a long one I can’t light it myself! She says I look like a regular pope!” Lasse had to lean back in his chair while she lit the pipe.

When Pelle left, Lasse accompanied him across the yard. “Well, what do you think of it?” he said.

“I am glad to see things are going so well with you,” said Pelle humbly.

Lasse pressed his hand. “Thanks for that! I was afraid you would be strict about it. As quite a little boy, you used to be deucedly strict in that direction. And see now, of course, we could marry—there is no impediment in either case. But that costs money—and the times are hard. As for children coming, and asking to be brought into the world respectably, there’s no danger of that.”

Pelle could not help smiling; the old man was so much in earnest.

“Look in on us again soon—you are always welcome,” said Lasse. “But you needn’t say anything of this to Ellen—she is so peculiar in that respect!”

XXXIII

No, Pelle never told Ellen anything now. She had frozen his speech. She was like the winter sun; the side that was turned away from her received no share of her warmth. Pelle made no claims on her now; he had long ago satisfied himself that she could not respond to the strongest side of his nature, and he had accustomed himself to the idea of waging his fight alone. This had made him harder, but also more of a man.

At home the children were ailing—they did not receive proper care, and the little girl was restless, especially during the night. The complaining and coughing of the children made the home uncomfortable. Ellen was dumb; like an avenging fate she went about her business and cared for the children. Her expressive glance never encountered his; although he often felt that her eyes were resting on him. She had grown thin of late, which lent her beauty, a fanatical glow, and a touch of malice. There were times when he would have given his life for an honest, burning kiss as a token of this woman’s love.

He understood her less and less, and was often filled with inexplicable anxiety concerning her. She suffered terribly through the condition of the children; and when she quieted them, with a bleeding heart, her voice had a fateful sound that made him shudder. Sometimes he was driven home by the idea that she might have made away with herself and the children.

One day, when he had hurried home with this impression in his mind, she met him smiling and laid on the table five and twenty kroner.

“What’s that?” asked Pelle, in amazement.

“I’ve won that in the lottery!” she said.

So that was why her behavior had been so peculiarly mysterious during the last few days—as though there had been something which he must not on any account get to know. She had ventured her last shilling and was afraid he would find it out!

“But where did you get the money?” he asked.

“I borrowed it from my old friend, Anna—we went in for it together. Now we can have the doctor and medicine for the children, and we ourselves can have anything we want,” she said.

This money worked a transformation in Ellen, and their relations were once more warmly affectionate. Ellen was more lovingly tender in her behavior than ever before, and was continually spoiling him. Something had come over her that was quite new; her manner showed a sort of contrition, which made her gentle and loving, and bound Pelle to his home with the bonds of ardent desire. Now once more he hurried home. He took her manner to be an apology for her harsh judgment of him; for here, too, she was different, and began to interest herself in his work for the Cause, inciting him, by all sorts of allusions, to continue it. It was evident that in spite of her apparent coldness she had kept herself well informed concerning it. Her manner underwent a most extraordinary transformation. She, the hard, confident Ellen, became mild and uncertain in her manner. She no longer kept sourly out of things, and had learned to bow her head good-naturedly. She was no longer so self-righteous.

One day, toward evening, Pelle was sitting at home before the looking- glass, and shaving himself; he had cut off the whole of his fine big moustache and was now shaving off the last traces of it. Ellen was amused to see how his face was altered. “I can scarcely recognize you!” she said. He had thought she would have opposed its removal, and have put his moustache before the Cause; but she was pleasant about the whole matter. He could not at all understand this alteration in her.

When he had finished he stood up and went over to Young Lasse, but the child cried out in terror. Then he put on his old working-clothes, made his face and head black, and made his way to the machine-works.

The factory was in full swing now; they were working alternate shifts, day and night, with the help of interned strike-breakers, the “locked- in” workers, as the popular wit called them.

The iron-masters had followed up their victory and had managed to set yet another industry in motion again. If this sort of thing went much further the entire iron industry would one day be operated without the locked-out workers, who could stand outside and look on. But now a blow was about to be struck! Pelle’s heart was full of warmth and joy as he left home, and he felt equal for anything.

He slipped through the pickets unnoticed, and succeeded in reaching the door of the factory. “They’re asleep—the devils!” he thought angrily, and was very near spoiling the whole thing by administering a reprimand. He knocked softly on the door and was admitted. The doorkeeper took him to the foreman, who was fortunately a German.

Pelle was given employment in the foundry, with very good wages. He was also promised that he should receive a bonus of twenty-five kroner when he had been there a certain time. “That’s the Judas money,” said the foreman, grinning. “And then as soon as the lock-out is over you’ll of course be placed in the forefront of the workers. Now you are quite clear about this—that you can’t get out of here until then. If you want to send something to your wife, we’ll see to that.”

He was shown to a corner where a sack full of straw lay on the floor; this was his dwelling-place and his refuge for the night.

In the factory the work went on as best it might. The men rushed at their work as in a frolic, drifted away again, lounged about the works, or stood here and there in groups, doing as they chose. The foremen did not dare to speak to them; if they made a friendly remark they were met with insults. The workers were taking advantage of the fact that they were indispensable; their behavior was sheer tyranny, and they were continually harping on the fact that they would just as soon go as stay. These words made them the masters of the situation.

They were paid big wages and received abundance to eat and to drink. And the working day or shift was shorter than usual. They did not understand the real significance of this change of life, but went about playing the bally. But there was a peculiar hesitation visible in their faces, as though they were not quite sure of one another. The native workers, who were in the minority, kept to themselves—as though they felt an inward contempt for those fellows who had travelled so far to fish in the troubled waters of their distress.

They were working three shifts, each of eight hours’ duration.

“Oho!” thought Pelle, “why, this, good God, is the eight-hours’ day! This is surely the State of the future!” At the very moment of his arrival one shift was completed, and the men immediately proceeded to make the most infernal uproar, hammering on metal and shouting for food and brandy. A huge cauldron full of beef and potatoes was dragged in. Pelle was told off to join a mess of ten men.

“Eat, matey!” they said. “Hungry, ain’t you? How long had you been out of work before you gave in?”

“Three months,” said Pelle.

“Then you must be peckish. Here with the beef! More beef here!” they cried, to the cook’s mate. “You can keep the potatoes and welcome! We’ve eaten enough potatoes all our lives!”—“This is Tom Tiddler’s land, with butter sauce into the bargain! This is how we’ve always said it ought to be—good wages and little to do, lots to eat and brandy to drink! Now you can see it was a good thing we held out till it came to this—now we get our reward! Your health! Here, damme, what’s your name, you there?”

“Karlsen,” said Pelle.

“Here’s to you, Karlsen! Well, and how are things looking outside? Have you seen my wife lately? She’s easy to recognize—she’s a woman with seven children with nothing inside their ribs! Well, how goes it with the strikers?”

After eating they sat about playing cards, and drinking, or they loafed about and began to quarrel; they were a sharp-tongued crew; they went about actuated by a malicious longing to sting one another. “Come and have a game with us, mate—and have a drink!” they cried to Pelle. “Damn it all, how else should a man kill the time in this infernal place? Sixteen hours’ sleep a day—no, that’s more than a chap can do with!”

There was a deafening uproar, as though the place had been a vast tavern, with men shouting and abusing one another; each contributed to the din as though he wanted to drown it by his own voice. They were able to buy drink in the factory, and they drank what they earned. “That’s their conscience,” thought Pelle. “At heart they are good comrades.” There seemed to be some hope of success for his audacious maneuver. A group of Germans took no part in the orgy, but had set up a separate colony in the remotest corner of the hall. They were there to make money!

In one of the groups a dispute broke out between the players; they were reviling one another in no measured language, and their terms of abuse culminated in the term “strike-breaker.” This made them perfectly furious. It was as though an abscess had broken; all their bottled-up shame and anger concerning their infamous position burst forth. They began to use knives and tools on one another. The police, who kept watch on the factory day and night, were called in, and restored tranquillity. A wounded smith was bandaged in the office, but no arrest was made. Then a sudden slackness overcame them.

They constantly crowded round Pelle. He was a new man; he came from outside. “How are things going out there?” was the constant question.

“Things are going very well out there. It’s a worse lookout for us in here,” said Pelle.

“Going very well, are they? We’ve been told they are near giving in.”

“Who told you that?”

“The bosses of the factory here.”

“Then they were fooling you, in order to keep you here.”

“That’s a lie! And what d’you mean by saying it’s a worse look-out for us? Out with it, now!”

“We shall never get regular work again. The comrades are winning—and when they begin work again they’ll demand that we others shall be locked out.”

“The devil—and they’ve promised us the best positions!” cried a great smith. “But you’re a liar! That you are! And why did you come here if they are nearly winning outside? Answer me, damn it all! A man doesn’t come slinking into this hell unless he’s compelled!”

“To leave his comrades in the lurch, you might add,” replied Pelle harshly. “I wanted to see how it feels to strike the bread away from the mouths of the starving.”

“That’s a lie! No one would be so wicked! You are making fools of us, you devil!”

“Give him a thrashing,” said another. “He’s playing a crooked game. Are you a spy, or what do you want here? Do you belong to those idiots outside?”

It had been Pelle’s plan to put a good face on a crooked job, and cautiously to feel his way; but now he grew angry.

“You had better think what you’re doing before you call honorable men idiots,” he retorted violently. “Do you know what you are? Swine! You lie there eating your fill and pouring the drink down your throats and living easy on the need of your comrades! Swine, that you are—Judases, who have sold a good cause for dirty money! How much did you get? Five and twenty kroner, eh? And out there they are loyally starving, so that all of us—yes, you too—can live a little more like human beings in the future!”

“You hold your jaw!” said the big smith. “You’ve no wife and children— you can easily talk!”

“Aren’t you the fellow who lives in Jaegersborg Street?” Pelle demanded. “Perhaps you are sending what you earn to your wife and children? Then why are they in want? Yesterday they were turned out of doors; the organization took them in and found a roof to go over their heads— although they were a strike-breaker’s family!” Pelle himself had made this possible.

“Send—damn and blast it all—I’ll send them something! But if one lives this hell of a life in here the bit of money one earns all goes in rot- gut! And now you’re going to get a thrashing!” The smith turned up his shirt-sleeves so that his mighty muscles were revealed. He was no longer reasonable, but glared at Pelle like an angry bull.

“Wait a bit,” said an older man, stepping up to Pelle. “I think I’ve seen you before. What is your real name, if I may make bold to ask?”

“My name? You are welcome to know it. I am Pelle.”

This name produced an effect like that of an explosion. They were dazzled. The smith’s arms fell slack; he turned his head aside in shame. Pelle was among them! They had left him in the lurch, had turned their backs on him, and now he stood there laughing at them, not the least bit angry with them. What was more, he had called them comrades; so he did not despise them! “Pelle is here!” they said quietly; further and further spread the news, and their tongues dwelt curiously on his name. A murmur ran through the shops. “What the devil—has Pelle come?” they cried, stumbling to their legs.

Pelle had leaped onto a great anvil. “Silence!” he cried, in a voice of thunder; “silence!” And there was silence in the great building. The men could hear their own deep breathing.

The foremen came rushing up and attempted to drag him down. “You can’t make speeches here!” they cried.

“Let him speak!” said the big smith threateningly. “You aren’t big enough to stop his mouth, not by a long chalk!” He seized a hammer and stationed himself at the foot of the anvil.

“Comrades!” Pelle began, in an easy tone, “I have been sent here to you with greetings from those outside there—from the comrades who used to stand next to you at work, from your friends and fellow-unionists. Where are our old comrades?—they are asking. We have fought so many battles by their side, we have shared good and evil with them—are we to enter into the new conditions without them? And your wives and children are asking after you! Outside there it is the spring! They don’t understand why they can’t pack the picnic basket and go out into the forest with father!”

“No, there’s no picnic basket!” said a heavy voice.

“There are fifty thousand men accepting the situation without grumbling,” Pelle earnestly replied. “And they are asking after you— they don’t understand why you demand more than they do. Have you done more for the movement than they have?—they ask. Or are you a lot of dukes, that you can’t quietly stand by the rank and file? And now it’s the spring out there!” he cried once more. “The poor man’s winter is past, and the bright day is coming for him! And here you go over to the wrong side and walk into prison! Do you know what the locked-out workers call you? They call you the locked-in workers!”

There were a few suppressed smiles at this. “That’s a dam’ good smack!” they told, one another. “He made that up himself!”

“They have other names for us as well!” cried a voice defiantly.

“Yes, they have,” said Pelle vigorously. “But that’s because they are hungry. People get unreasonable then, you know very well—and they grudge other folks their food!”

They thronged about him, pressing closer and closer. His words were scorching them, yet were doing them good. No one could hit out like Pelle, and yet at the same time make them feel that they were decent fellows after all. The foreign workers stood round about them, eagerly listening, in order that they, too, might catch a little of what was said.

Pelle had suddenly plunged into the subject of the famine, laying bare the year-long, endless despair of their families, so that they all saw what the others had suffered—saw really for the first time. They were amazed that they could have endured so much, but they knew that it was so; they nodded continually, in agreement; it was all literally true. It was Pelle’s own desperate struggle that was speaking through him now, but the refrain of suffering ran through it all. He stood before them radiant and confident of victory, towering indomitably over them all.

Gradually his words became keen and vigorous. He reproached them with their disloyalty; he reminded them how dearly and bitterly they had bought the power of cohesion, and in brief, striking phrases he awakened the inspiriting rhythm of the Cause, that lay slumbering in every heart. It was the old, beloved music, the well-known melody of the home and labor. Pelle sounded it with a new accent. Like all those that forsake their country, they had forgotten the voice of their mother—that was why they could not find their way home; but now she was calling them, calling them back to the old dream of a Land of Fortune! He could see it in their faces, and with a leap he was at them: “Do you know of anything more infamous than to sell your mother-country? That is what you have done—before ever you set foot in it—you have sold it, with your brothers, your wives, and your children! You have foresworn your religion—your faith in the great Cause! You have disobeyed orders, and have sold yourselves for a miserable Judas-price and a keg of brandy!”

He stood with his left hand on the big smith’s shoulder, his right hand he clenched and held out toward them. In that hand he was holding them; he felt that so strongly that he did not dare to let it sink, but continued to hold it outstretched. A murmuring wave passed through the ranks, reaching even to the foreign workers. They were infected by the emotion of the others, and followed the proceedings with tense attention, although they did not understand much of the language. At each sally they nodded and nudged one another, until now they stood there motionless, with expectant faces; they, too, were under the spell of his words. This was solidarity, the mighty, earth-encircling power! Pelle recognized the look of wonder on their faces; a cold shudder ran up and down his spine. He held them all in his hand, and now the blow was to be struck before they had time to think matters over. Now!

“Comrades!” he cried loudly. “I told those outside that you were honorable men, who had been led into the devil’s kitchen by want, and in a moment of misunderstanding. And I am going in to fetch your friends and comrades out, I said. They are longing to come out to you again, to come out into the spring! Did I lie when I spoke well of you?”

“No, that you didn’t!” they replied, with one voice. “Three cheers for Pelle! Three cheers for ‘Lightning’!”

“Come along, then!” Swiftly he leaped down from the anvil and marched through the workshop, roaring out the Socialist marching-song. They followed him without a moment’s consideration, without regret or remorse; the rhythm of the march had seized them; it was as though the warm spring wind were blowing them out into the freedom of Nature. The door was unlocked, the officials of the factory were pushed aside. Singing in a booming rhythm that seemed to revenge itself for the long days of confinement, they marched out into North Bridge Street, with Pelle at their head, and turned into the Labor Building.

XXXIV.

That was a glorious stroke! The employers abandoned all further idea of running the works without the Federation. The victory was the completer in that the trades unions gave the foreign workers their passage-money, and sent them off before they had time for reflection. They were escorted to the steamers, and the workers saw them off with a comradely “Hurrah!”

Pelle was the hero of the day. His doings were discussed in all the newspapers, and even his opponents lowered their swords before him.

He took it all as a matter of course; he was striving with all his might toward a fresh goal. There was no excuse for soaring into the clouds; the lock-out was still the principal fact, and a grievous and burdensome fact, and now he was feeling its whole weight. The armies of workers were still sauntering about the streets, while the nation was consuming its own strength, and there was no immediate prospect of a settlement. But one day the springs would run dry—and what then?

He was too deeply immersed in the conflict to grow dizzy by reason of a little flattery; and the general opinion more than ever laid the responsibility for the situation on him. If this terrible struggle should end in defeat, then his would be the blame! And he racked his brains to find a means of breaking down the opposition of the enemy. The masses were still enduring the conditions with patience, but how much longer would this last? Rumors, which intended mischief, were flying about; one day it was said that one of the leaders, who had been entrusted with making collections, had run off with the cash-box; while another rumor declared that the whole body of workers had been sold to the employers! Something must happen! But what?

One afternoon he went home to see his family before going to a meeting. The children were alone. “Where is mother?” he asked, taking Young Lasse on his knee. Little Sister was sitting upright in her cradle, playing.

“Mother made herself fine and went out into the city,” replied the child. “Mother so fine!”

“So? Was she so fine?” Pelle went into the bed-room; he looked into the wardrobe. Ellen’s wedding-dress was not there.

“That is curious,” he thought, and began to play with the children. The little girl stretched her tiny arms toward him. He had to take her up and sit with a child on either knee. The little girl kept on picking at his upper lip, as though she wanted to say something. “Yes, father’s moustache has fallen off, Little Sister,” said Young Lasse, in explanation.

“Yes, it has flown away,” said Pelle. “There came a wind and—phew!— away it went!” He looked into the glass with a little grimace—that moustache had been his pride! Then he laughed at the children.

Ellen came home breathless, as though she had been running; a tender rosiness lay over her face and throat. She went into the bedroom with her cloak on. Pelle followed her. “You have your wedding-dress on,” he said wonderingly.

“Yes, I wanted something done to it, so I went to the dressmaker, so that she could see the dress on me. But run out now, I’ll come directly; I only want to put another dress on.”

Pelle wanted to stay, but she pushed him toward the door. “Run away!” she said, pulling her dress across her bosom. The tender red had spread all over her bosom—she was so beautiful in her confusion!

After a time she came into the living-room and laid some notes on the table before him.

“What’s this again?” he cried, half startled by the sight of all this money.

“Yes, haven’t I wonderful luck? I’ve won in the lottery again! Haven’t you a clever wife?” She was standing behind him with her arm across his shoulders.

Pelle sat there for a moment, bowed down as though he had received a blow on the head. Then he pushed her arm aside and turned round to her. “You have won again already, you say? Twice? Twice running?” He spoke slowly and monotonously, as though he wanted to let every word sink in.

“Yes; don’t you think it’s very clever of me?” She looked at him uncertainly and attempted to smile.

“But that is quite impossible!” he said heavily. “That is quite impossible!” Suddenly he sprang to his feet, seizing her by the throat. “You are lying! You are lying!” he cried, raging. “Will you tell me the truth? Out with it!” He pressed her back over the table, as though he meant to kill her. Young Lasse began to cry.

She stared at him with wondering eyes, which were full of increasing terror. He released her and averted his face in order not to see those eyes; they were full of the fear of death. She made no attempt to rise, but fixed him with an intolerable gaze, like that of a beast that is about to be killed and does not know why. He rose, and went silently over to the children, and busied himself in quieting them. He had a horrible feeling in his hands, almost as when once in his childhood he had killed a young bird. Otherwise he had no feeling, except that everything was so loathsome. It was the fault of the situation … and now he would go.

He realized, as he packed his things, that she was standing by the table, crying softly. He realized it quite suddenly, but it was no concern of his…. When he was ready and had kissed the children, a shudder ran through her body; she stepped before him in her old energetic way.

“Don’t leave me—you mustn’t leave me!” she said, sobbing. “Oh—I only wanted to do what was best for you—and you didn’t see after anything. No, that’s not a reproach—but our daily bread, Pelle! For you and the children! I could no longer look on and see you go without everything— especially you—Pelle! I love you so! It was out of love for you—above all, out of love for you!”

It sounded like a song in his ears, like a strange, remote refrain; the words he did not hear. He put her gently aside, kissed the boy once more, and stroked his face. Ellen stood as though dead, gazing at his movements with staring, bewildered eyes. When he went out to the door she collapsed.

Pelle left his belongings downstairs with the mangling-woman, and he went mechanically toward the city; he heard no sound, no echo; he went as one asleep. His feet carried him toward the Labor House, and up the stairs, into the room whence the campaign was directed. He took his place among the others without knowing what he did, and there he sat, gazing down at the green table-cloth.

The general mood showed signs of dejection. For a long time now the bottom of the cash-box had been visible, and as more and more workers were turned into the street the product of self-imposed taxation was gradually declining. And the readiness of those outside the movement to make sacrifices was rapidly beginning to fail. The public had now had enough of the affair. Everything was failing, now they would have to see if they could not come to some arrangement. Starvation was beginning to thrust its grinning head among the fifty thousand men now idle. The moment had come upon which capital was counting; the moment when the crying of children for bread begins to break the will of the workers, until they are ready to sacrifice honor and independence in order to satisfy the little creatures’ hunger. And the enemy showed no sign of wishing for peace!

This knowledge had laid its mark on all the members of the Council; and as they sat there they knew that the weal or woe of hundreds of thousands depended on them. No one dared accept the responsibility of making a bold proposal in this direction or that. With things as they stood, they would have, in a week or two, to give up the fight! Then nearly a quarter of a million human beings would have suffered torment for nothing! A terrible apathy would be the result of that suffering and of the defeat; it would put them back many years. But if the employers could not long withstand the pressure which the financial world was beginning to exert on them, they would be throwing away the victory if they gave up the fight now.

The cleverest calculations were useless here. A blind, monstrous Pate would prevail. Who could say that he had lifted the veil of the future and could point out the way?

No one! And Pelle, the blazing torch, who had shown them the road regardless of all else—he sat there drowsing as though it meant nothing to him! Apparently he had broken down under his monstrous labors.

The secretary came in with a newspaper marked with red pencil. He passed it to the chairman, who stared for a while at the underlined portion, then he rose and read it out; the paper was quivering in his hands.

“About thirty working women—young and of good appearance—can during the lock-out find a home with various bachelors. Good treatment guaranteed. The office of the paper will give further information.”

Pelle sprang up out of his half-slumber; the horrible catastrophe of his own home was blindingly clear now! “So it’s come to that!” he cried. “Now capital has laid its fingers on our wives—now they are to turn whore! We must fight on, fight, fight! We must strike one last blow—and it must be a heavy one!”

“But how?” they asked.

Pelle was white with enforced calm. His mind had never been so radiantly clear. Now Ellen should be revenged on those who took everything, even the poor man’s one ewe lamb!

“In the first place we must issue an optimistic report—this very day!” he said, smiling. “The cash-box is nearly empty—good! Then we will state that the workers have abundant means to carry on the fight for another year if need be, and then we’ll go for them!”

Born of anger, an old, forgotten phantasy had flashed into his mind as a definite plan.

“Hitherto we have fought passively,” he continued, “with patience as our chief weapon! We have opposed our necessities of life to the luxuries of the other side; and if they strike at us in order to starve us to skin and bone and empty our homes of our last possessions, we answered them by refusing to do the work which was necessary to their comfort! Let us for once strike at their vital necessities! Let us strike them where they have struck us from the beginning! In the belly! Then perhaps they’ll turn submissive! Hitherto we have kept the most important of the workers out of the conflict—those on whom the health and welfare of the public depend, although we ourselves have benefited nothing thereby. Why should we bake their bread? We, who haven’t the means to eat it! Why should we look after their cleanliness? We, who haven’t the means to keep ourselves clean! Let us bring the dustmen and the street-cleaners into the line of fire! And if that isn’t enough we’ll turn off their gas and water! Let us venture our last penny—let us strike the last blow!”

Pelle’s proposal was adopted, and he went westward immediately to the president of the Scavengers’ Union. He had just got up and was sitting down to his midday meal. He was a small, comfortable little man, who had always a twinkle in his eye; he came from the coal country. Pelle had helped him at one time to get his organization into working order, and he knew that he could count on him and his men.

“Do you remember still, how I once showed you that you are the most important workers in the city, Lars Hansen?”

The president nodded. “Yes, one would have to be a pretty sort of fool to forget that! No, as long as I live I shall never forget the effect your words had on us despised scavengers! It was you who gave us faith in ourselves, and an organization! And even if we aren’t quite the most important people, still—”

“But that’s just what you are—and now it’s your turn to prove it! Could you suspend work this night?”

Lars Hansen sat gazing thoughtfully into the lamp while he chewed his food. “Our relations with the city are rather in the nature of a contract,” he said slowly and at length. “They could punish us for it, and compel us to resume work. But if you want it, irrespective, why of course we’ll do it. There can be only one view as to that among comrades! What you may gain by it you yourself know best.”

“Thanks!” said Pelle, holding out his hand. “Then that is settled—no more carts go out. And we must bring the street-cleaners to a standstill too!”

“Then the authorities will put other men on—there are plenty to be found for that work.”

“They won’t do that—or we’ll put a stop to it if they do!”

“That sounds all right! It’ll be a nasty business for the swells! It’s all the same to the poor, they haven’t anything to eat. But suppose the soldiers are ordered to do it! Scavenging must be done if the city isn’t to become pestilential!”

A flash of intelligence crossed Pelle’s face. “Now listen, comrade! When you stop working, deliver up all the keys, so that the authorities can’t touch you! Only put them all in a sack and give them a good shake-up!”

Lars Hansen broke into a resounding laugh. “That will be the deuce of a joke!” he groaned, smacking his thighs. “Then they’ll have to come to us, for no one else will be able to sort them out again so quickly! I’ll take them the keys myself—I’ll go upstairs as innocent as anything!”

Pelle thanked him again. “You’ll save the whole Cause,” he said quietly. “It’s the bread and the future happiness of many thousands that you are now holding in your hands.” He smiled brightly and took his leave. As soon as he was alone his smile faded and an expression of deathly weariness took its place.

Pelle walked the streets, strolling hither and thither. Now all was settled. There was nothing more to strive for. Everything within him seemed broken; he had not even strength to decide what he should do with himself. He walked on and on, came out into the High Street, and turned off again into the side streets. Over the way, in the Colonial Stores, he saw Karl, smiling and active, behind the counter serving customers. “You ought really to go in and ask him how he’s getting on,” he thought, but he strolled on. Once, before a tenement-house, he halted and involuntarily looked up. No, he had already done his business here—this was where the president of the Scavengers’ Union lived. No, the day’s work was over now—he would go home to Ellen and the children!

Home? No home for him now—he was forsaken and alone! And yet he went toward the north; which road he went by he did not know, but after a time he found himself standing before his own door and staring at the rusty little letter box. Within there was a sound of weeping; he could hear Ellen moving to and fro, preparing everything for the night. Then he turned and hastened away, and did not breathe easily until he had turned the corner of the street.

He turned again and again, from one side street into another. Inside his head everything seemed to be going round, and at every step he felt as if it would crack. Suddenly he seemed to hear hasty but familiar steps behind him. Ellen! He turned round; there was no one there. So it was an illusion! But the steps began again as soon as he went on. There was something about those steps—it was as though they wanted to say something to him; he could hear plainly that they wanted to catch up with him. He stopped suddenly—there was no one there, and no one emerged from the darkness of the side streets.

Were these strange footsteps in his own mind, then? Pelle found them incomprehensible; his heart began to thump; his terrible exhaustion had made him helpless. And Ellen—what was the matter with her? That reproachful weeping sounded in his ears! Understand—what was he to understand? She had done it out of love, she had said! Ugh—away with it all! He was too weary to justify her offence.

But what sort of wanderer was this? Now the footsteps were keeping time with his now; they had a double sound. And when he thought, another creature answered to him, from deep within him. There was something persistent about this, as there was in Morten’s influence; an opinion that made its way through all obstacles, even when reduced to silence. What was wanted of him now—hadn’t he worked loyally enough? Was he not Pelle, who had conducted the great campaign? Pelle, to whom all looked up? But there was no joy in the thought now; he could not now hear the march of his fifty thousand comrades in his own footsteps! He was left in the lurch, left alone with this accursed Something here in the deserted streets—and loneliness had come upon him! “You are afraid!” he thought, with a bitter laugh.

But he did not wish to be alone; and he listened intently. The conflict had taken all that he possessed. So there was a community—mournful as it was—between him and the misery around him here. What had he to complain of?

The city of the poor lay about him, terrible, ravaged by the battle of unemployment—a city of weeping, and cold, and darkness, and want! From the back premises sounded the crying of children—they were crying for bread, he knew—while drunken men staggered round the corners, and the screaming of women sounded from the back rooms and the back yards. Ugh— this was Hell already! Thank God, victory was near!

Somewhere he could plainly hear voices; children were crying, and a woman, who was moving to and fro in the room, was soothing them, and was lulling the youngest to sleep—no doubt she had it in her arms. It all came down to him so distinctly that he looked up. There were no windows in the apartment! They were to be driven out by the cold, he thought indignantly, and he ran up the stairs; he was accustomed to taking the unfortunate by surprise.

“The landlord has taken out the doors and windows; he wanted to turn us into the street, but we aren’t going, for where should we go? So he wants to drive us out through the cold—like the bugs! They’ve driven my husband to death—” Suddenly she recognized Pelle. “So it’s you, you accursed devil!” she cried. “It was you yourself who set him on! Perhaps you remember how he used to drink out of the bottle? Formerly he always used to behave himself properly. And you saw, too, how we were turned out of St. Hans Street—the tenants forced us to go—didn’t you see that? Oh, you torturer! You’ve followed him everywhere, hunted him like a wild beast, taunted him and tormented him to death! When he went into a tavern the others would stand away from him, and the landlord had to ask him to go. But he had more sense of honor than you! ‘I’m infected with the plague!’ he said, and one morning he hanged himself. Ah, if I could pray the good God to smite you!” She was tearless; her voice was dry and hoarse.

“You have no need to do that,” replied Pelle bitterly. “He has smitten me! But I never wished your husband any harm; both times, when I met him, I tried to help him. We have to suffer for the benefit of all—my own happiness is shattered into fragments.” He suddenly found relief in tears.

“They just ought to see that—the working men—Pelle crying! Then they wouldn’t shout ‘Hurrah!’ when he appears!” she cried scornfully.

“I have still ten kroner—will you take them?” said Pelle, handing her the money.

She took it hesitating. “You must need that for your wife and children— that must be your share of your strike pay!”

“I have no wife and children now. Take it!”

“Good God! Has your home gone to pieces too? Couldn’t even Pelle keep it together? Well, well, it’s only natural that he who sows should reap!”

Pelle went his way without replying. The unjust judgment of this woman depressed him more than the applause of thousands would have pleased him. But it aroused a violent mental protest. Where she had struck him he was invulnerable; he had not been looking after his own trivial affairs; but had justly and honorably served the great Cause, and had led the people to victory. The wounded and the fallen had no right to abuse him. He had lost more than any one—he had lost everything!

With care-laden heart, but curiously calm, he went toward the North Bridge and rented a room in a cheap lodging house.

XXXV

The final instructions issued to the workers aroused terrible indignation in the city. At one blow the entire public was set against them; the press was furious, and full of threats and warnings. Even the independent journals considered that the workers had infringed the laws of human civilization. But The Working Man quietly called attention to the fact that the conflict was a matter of life or death for the lower classes. They were ready to proceed to extremities; they still had it in their power to cut off the water and gas—the means of the capital’s commercial and physical life!

Then the tide set in against the employers. Something had to give somewhere! And what was the real motive of the conflict? Merely a question of power! They wanted to have the sole voice—to have their workers bound hand and foot. The financiers, who stood at the back of the big employers, had had enough of the whole affair. It would be an expensive game first and last, and there would be little profit in destroying the cohesion of the workers if the various industries were ruined at the same time.

Pelle saw how the crisis was approaching while he wandered about the lesser streets in search of Father Lasse. Now the Cause was progressing by its own momentum, and he could rest. An unending strain was at last lifted from his shoulders, and now he wanted time to gather together the remnants of his own happiness—and at last to do something for one who had always sacrificed himself for him. Now he and Lasse would find a home together, and resume the old life in company together; he rejoiced at the thought. Father Lasse’s nature never clashed with his; he had always stood by him through everything; his love was like a mother’s.

Lasse was no longer living in his lair behind Baker Street. The old woman with whom he was living had died shortly before this, and Lasse had then disappeared.

Pelle continued to ask after him, and, well known as he was among the poor, it was not difficult for him to follow the old man’s traces, which gradually led him out to Kristianshavn. During his inquiries he encountered a great deal of misery, which delayed him. Now, when the battle was fighting itself to a conclusion, he was everywhere confronted by need, and his old compassion welled up in his heart. He helped where he could, finding remedies with his usual energy.

Lasse had not been to the “Ark” itself, but some one there had seen him in the streets, in a deplorable condition; where he lived no one knew. “Have you looked in the cellar of the Merchant’s House over yonder?” the old night watchman asked him. “Many live there in these hard times. Every morning about six o’clock I lock the cellar up, and then I call down and warn them so that they shan’t be pinched. If I happen to turn away, then they come slinking up. It seems to me I heard of an old man who was said to be lying down there, but I’m not sure, for I’ve wadding in my ears; I’m obliged to in my calling, in order not to hear too much!” He went to the place with Pelle.

The Merchant’s House, which in the eighteenth century was the palace of one of the great mercantile families of Kristianshavn, was now used as a granary; it lay fronting on one of the canals. The deep cellars, which were entirely below the level of the canal, were now empty. It was pitch dark down there, and impracticable; the damp air seemed to gnaw at one’s vocal cords. They took a light and explored among the pillars, finding here and there places where people had lain on straw. “There is no one here,” said the watchman. Pelle called, and heard a feeble sound as of one clearing his throat. Far back in the cellars, in one of the cavities in the wall, Father Lasse was lying on a mattress. “Yes, here I lie, waiting for death,” he whispered. “It won’t last much longer now; the rats have begun to sniff about me already.” The cold, damp air had taken his voice away.

He was altogether in a pitiful condition, but the sight of Pelle put life into him in so far as he was able to stand on his feet. They took him over to the “Ark,” the old night watchman giving up his room and going up to Widow Johnsen;—there he slept in the daytime, and at night went about his duties; a possible arrangement, although there was only one bed.

When Lasse was put into a warm bed he lay there shivering; and he was not quite clear in his mind. Pelle warmed some beer; the old man must go through a sweating cure; from time to time he sat on the bed and gazed anxiously at his father. Lasse lay there with his teeth chattering; he had closed his eyes; now and again he tried to speak, but could not.

The warm drink helped him a little, and the blood flowed once more into his dead, icy hands, and his voice returned.

“Do you think we are going to have a hard winter?” he said suddenly, turning on his side.

“We are going on toward the summer now, dear father,” Pelle replied. “But you must not lie with your back uncovered.”

“I’m so terribly cold—almost as cold as I was in winter; I wouldn’t care to go through that again. It got into my spine so. Good God, the poor folks who are at sea!”

“You needn’t worry about them—you just think about getting well again; to-day we’ve got the sunshine and it’s fine weather at sea!”

“Let a little sunshine in here to me, then,” said Lasse peevishly.

“There’s a great wall in front of the window, father,” said Pelle, bending down over him.

“Well, well, it’ll soon be over, the little time that’s still left me! It’s all the same to the night watchman—he wakes all night and yet he doesn’t see the sun. That is truly a curious calling! But it is good that some one should watch over us while we sleep.” Lasse rocked his head restlessly to and fro.

“Yes, otherwise they’d come by night and steal our money,” said Pelle jestingly.

“Yes, that they would!” Lasse tried to laugh. “And how are things going with you, lad?”

“The negotiations are proceeding; yesterday we held the first meeting.”

Lasse laughed until his throat rattled. “So the fine folks couldn’t stomach the smell any longer! Yes, yes, I heard the news of that when I was lying ill down there in the darkness. At night, when the others came creeping in, they told me about it; we laughed properly over that idea of yours. But oughtn’t you to be at your meeting?”

“No, I have excused myself—I don’t want to sit there squabbling about the ending of a sentence. Now I’m going to be with you, and then we’ll both make ourselves comfortable.”

“I am afraid we shan’t have much more joy of one another, lad!”

“But you are quite jolly again now. To-morrow you will see—”

“Ah, no! Death doesn’t play false. I couldn’t stand that cellar.”

“Why did you do it, father? You knew your place at home was waiting for you.”

“Yes, you must forgive my obstinacy, Pelle. But I was too old to be able to help in the fight, and then I thought at least you won’t lay a burden on them so long as this lasts! So in that way I have borne my share. And do you really believe that something will come of it?”

“Yes, we are winning—and then the new times will begin for the poor man!”

“Yes, yes; I’ve no part in such fine things now! It was as though one served the wicked goblin that stands over the door: Work to-day, eat to- morrow! And to-morrow never came. What kindness I’ve known has been from my own people; a poor bird will pull out its own feathers to cover another. But I can’t complain; I have had bad days, but there are folks who have had worse. And the women have always been good to me. Bengta was a grumbler, but she meant it kindly; Karna sacrificed money and health to me—God be thanked that she didn’t live after they took the farm from me. For I’ve been a landowner too; I had almost forgotten that in all my misery! Yes, and old Lise—Begging Lise, as they called her— she shared bed and board with me! She died of starvation, smart though she was. Would you believe that? ‘Eat!’ she used to say; ‘we have food enough!’ And I, old devil, I ate the last crust, and suspected nothing, and in the morning she was lying dead and cold at my side! There was not a scrap of flesh on her whole body; nothing but skin over dry bones. But she was one of God’s angels! We used to sing together, she and I. Ach, poor people take the bread out of one another’s mouths!”

Lasse lay for a time sunk in memories, and began to sing, with the gestures he had employed in the courtyard. Pelle held him down and endeavored to bring him to reason, but the old man thought he was dealing with the street urchins. When he came to the verse which spoke of his son he wept.

“Don’t cry, father!” said Pelle, quite beside himself, and he laid his heavy head against that of the old man. “I am with you again!”

Lasse lay still for a time, blinking his eyes, with his hand groping to and fro over his son’s face.

“Yes, you are really here,” he said faintly, “and I thought you had gone away again. Do you know what, Pelle? You have been the whole light of my life! When you came into the world I was already past the best of my years; but then you came, and it was as though the sun had been born anew! ‘What may he not bring with him?’ I used to think, and I held my head high in the air. You were no bigger than a pint bottle! ‘Perhaps he’ll make his fortune,’ I thought, ‘and then there’ll be a bit of luck for you as well!’ So I thought, and so I’ve always believed—but now I must give it up. But I’ve lived to see you respected. You haven’t become a rich man—well, that need not matter; but the poor speak well of you! You have fought their battles for them without taking anything to fill your own belly. Now I understand it, and my old heart rejoices that you are my son!”

When Lasse fell asleep Pelle lay on the sofa for a while. But he did not rest long; the old man slept like a bird, opening his eyes every moment. If he did not see his son close to his bed he lay tossing from side to side and complaining in a half-slumber. In the middle of the night he raised his head and held it up in a listening attitude. Pelle awoke.

“What do you want, father?” he asked, as he tumbled onto his feet.

“Ach, I can hear something flowing, far out yonder, beyond the sea- line…. It is as though the water were pouring into the abyss. But oughtn’t you to go home to Ellen now? I shall be all right alone overnight, and perhaps she’s sitting worrying as to where you are.”

“I’ve sent to Ellen to tell her that I shouldn’t be home overnight,” said Pelle.

The old man lay considering his son with a pondering glance, “Are you happy, too, now?” he asked. “It seems to me as though there is something about your marriage that ought not to be.”

“Yes, father, it’s quite all right,” Pelle replied in a half-choking voice.

“Well, God be thanked for that! You’ve got a good wife in Ellen, and she has given you splendid children. How is Young Lasse? I should dearly like to see him again before I go from here—there will still be a Lasse!”

“I’ll bring him to you early in the morning,” said Pelle. “And now you ought to see if you can’t sleep a little, father. It is pitch dark still!”

Lasse turned himself submissively toward the wall. Once he cautiously turned his head to see if Pelle was sleeping; his eyes could not see across the room, so he attempted to get out of bed, but fell back with a groan.

“What is it, father?” cried Pelle anxiously, and he was beside him in a moment.

“I only wanted just to see that you’d got something over you in this cold! But my old limbs won’t bear me any more,” said the old man, with a shamefaced expression.

Toward morning he fell into a quiet sleep, and Pelle brought Madam Johnsen to sit with the old man, while he went home for Young Lasse. It was no easy thing to do; but the last wish of the old man must be granted. And he knew that Ellen would not entrust the child to strange hands.

Ellen’s frozen expression lit up as he came; an exclamation of joy rose to her lips, but the sight of his face killed it. “My father lies dying,” he said sadly—“he very much wants to see the boy.” She nodded and quietly busied herself in making the child ready. Pelle stood at the window gazing out.

It seemed very strange to him that he should be here once more; the memory of the little household rose to his mind and made him weak. He must see Little Sister! Ellen led him silently into the bedroom; the child was sleeping in her cradle; a deep and wonderful peace brooded over her bright head. Ellen seemed to be nearer to him in this room here; he felt her compelling eyes upon him. He pulled himself forcibly together and went into the other room—he had nothing more to do there. He was a stranger in this home. A thought occurred to him—whether she was going on with that? Although it was nothing to him, the question would not be suppressed; and he looked about him for some sign that might be significant. It was a poverty-stricken place; everything superfluous had vanished. But a shoemaker’s sewing machine had made its appearance, and there was work on it. Strike-breaking work! he thought mechanically. But not disgraceful—for the first time he was glad to discover a case of strike-breaking. She had also begun to take in sewing—and she looked thoroughly overworked. This gave him downright pleasure.

“The boy is ready to go with you now,” she said.

Pelle cast a farewell glance over the room. “Is there anything you need?” he asked.

“Thanks—I can look after myself,” she replied proudly.

“You didn’t take the money I sent you on Saturday!”

“I can manage myself—if I can only keep the boy. Don’t forget that you told me once he should always stay with me.”

“He must have a mother who can look him in the face—remember that, Ellen!”

“You needn’t remind me of that,” she replied bitterly.

Lasse was awake when they arrived. “Eh, that’s a genuine Karlsen!” he said. “He takes after our family. Look now, Pelle, boy! He has the same prominent ears, and he’s got the lucky curl on his forehead too! He’ll make his way in the world! I must kiss his little hands—for the hands, they are our blessing—the only possession we come into the world with. They say the world will be lifted up by the hands of poor; I should like to know whether that will be so! I should like to know whether the new times will come soon now. It’s a pity after all that I shan’t live to see it!”

“You may very well be alive to see it yet, father,” said Pelle, who on the way had bought The Working Man, and was now eagerly reading it. “They are going ahead in full force, and in the next few days the fight will be over! Then we’ll both settle down and be jolly together!”

“No, I shan’t live to see that! Death has taken hold of me; he will soon snatch me away. But if there’s anything after it all, it would be fine if I could sit up there and watch your good fortune coming true. You have travelled the difficult way, Pelle—Lasse is not stupid! But perhaps you’ll he rewarded by a good position, if you take over the leadership yourself now. But then you must see that you don’t forget the poor!”

“That’s a long way off yet, father! And then there won’t be any more poor!”

“You say that so certainly, but poverty is not so easily dealt with—it has eaten its way in too deep! Young Lasse will perhaps be a grown man before that comes about. But now you must take the boy away, for it isn’t good that he should see how the old die. He looks so pale—does he get out into the sun properly?”

“The rich have borrowed the sun—and they’ve forgotten to pay it back,” said Pelle bitterly.

Lasse raised his head in the air, as though he were striving against something. “Yes, yes! It needs good eyes to look into the future, and mine won’t serve me any longer. But now you must go and take the boy with you. And you mustn’t neglect your affairs, you can’t outwit death, however clever you may be.” He laid his withered hand on Young Lasse’s head and turned his face to the wall.

Pelle got Madam Johnsen to take the boy home again, so that he himself could remain with the old man. Their paths had of late years lain so little together; they had forever been meeting and then leading far apart. He felt the need of a lingering farewell. While he moved to and fro, and lit a fire to warm up some food, and did what he could to make Father Lasse comfortable, he listened to the old man’s desultory speech and let himself drift hack into the careless days of childhood. Like a deep, tender murmur, like the voice of the earth itself, Lasse’s monotonous speech renewed his childhood; and as it continued, it became the never-silent speech of the many concerning the conditions of life. Now, in silence he turned again from the thousands to Father Lasse, and saw how great a world this tender-hearted old man had supported. He had always been old and worn-out so long as Pelle could remember. Labor so soon robs the poor man of his youth and makes his age so long! But this very frailty endowed him with a superhuman power—that of the father! He had borne his poverty greatly, without becoming wicked or self-seeking or narrow; his heart had always been full of the cheerfulness of sacrifice, and full of tenderness; he had been strong even in his impotence. Like the Heavenly Father Himself, he had encompassed Pelle’s whole existence with his warm affection, and it would be terrible indeed when his kindly speech was no longer audible at the back of everything.

His departing soul hovered in ever-expanding circles over the way along which he had travelled—like the doves when they migrate. Each time he had recovered a little strength he took up the tale of his life anew. “There has always been something to rejoice over, you know, but much of it has been only an aimless struggle. In the days when I knew no better I managed well enough; but from the moment when you were born my old mind began to look to the future, and I couldn’t feel at peace any more. There was something about you that seemed like an omen, and since then it has always stuck in my mind; and my intentions have been restless, like the Jerusalem shoemaker’s. It was as though something had suddenly given me—poor louse!—the promise of a more beautiful life; and the memory of that kept on running in my mind. Is it perhaps the longing for Paradise, out of which they drove us once?—I used to think. If you’ll believe me, I, poor old blunderer as I am, have had splendid dreams of a beautiful, care-free old age, when my son, with his wife and children, would come and visit me in my own cozy room, where I could entertain them a little with everything neat and tidy. I didn’t give up hoping for it even right at the end. I used to go about dreaming of a treasure which I should find out on the refuse-heaps. Ah, I did so want to be able to leave you something! I have been able to do so miserably little for you.”

“And you say that, who have been father and mother to me? During my whole childhood you stood behind everything, protecting me; if anything happened to me I always used to think; ‘Father Lasse will soon set that right!’ And when I grew up I found in everything that I undertook that you were helping me to raise myself. It would have gone but ill indeed with everything if you hadn’t given me such a good inheritance!”

“Do you say that?” cried Lasse proudly. “Shall I truly have done my share in what you have done for the Cause of the poor? Ah, that sounds good, in any case! No, but you have been my life, my boy, and I used to wonder, poor weak man as I was, to see how great my strength was in you! What I scarcely dared to think of even, you have had the power to do! And now here I lie, and have not even the strength to die. You must promise me that you won’t burden yourself on my account with anything that’s beyond your ability—you must leave the matter to the poor-law authorities. I’ve kept myself clear of them till now, but it was only my stupid pride. The poor man and the poor-laws belong together after all. I have learned lately to look at many things differently; and it is good that I am dying—otherwise I should soon be alive and thinking but have no power. If these ideas had come to me in the strength of my youth perhaps I should have done something violent. I hadn’t your prudence and intelligence, to be able to carry eggs in a hop-sack….”

On the morning of the third day there was a change in Lasse, although it was not easy to say where the alteration lay. Pelle sat at the bedside reading the last issue of The Working Man, when he noticed that Lasse was gazing at him. “Is there any news?” he asked faintly.

“The negotiations are proceeding,” said Pelle, “but it is difficult to agree upon a basis…. Several times everything has been on the point of breaking down.”

“It’s dragging out such a long time,” said Lasse dejectedly; “and I shall die to-day, Pelle. There is something restless inside me, although I should dearly like to rest a little. It is curious, how we wander about trying to obtain something different to what we have! As a little boy at home in Tommelilla I used to run round a well; I used to run like one possessed, and I believed if I only ran properly I should be able to catch my own heels! And now I’ve done it; for now there is always some one in front of me, so that I can’t go forward, and it’s old Lasse himself who is stopping the way! I am always thinking I must overtake him, but I can’t find my old views of the world again, they have altered so. On the night when the big employers declared the lock-out I was standing out there among the many thousands of other poor folks, listening. They were toasting the resolution with champagne, and cheering, and there my opinions were changed! It’s strange how things are in this world. Down in the granary cellar there lay a mason who had built one of the finest palaces in the capital, and he hadn’t even a roof over his head.”

A sharp line that had never been there before appeared round his mouth. It became difficult for him to speak, but he could not stop. “Whatever you do, never believe the clergy,” he continued, when he had gathered a little strength. “That has been my disadvantage—I began to think over things too late. We mustn’t grumble, they say, for one thing has naturally grown out of another, big things out of little, and all together depends on God’s will. According to that our vermin must finally become thorough-bred horse for the rich—and God knows I believe that is possible! They have begun by sucking the blood of poverty—but only see how they prance in front of the carriage! Ah, yes—how will the new period take shape? What do you think about it?”

“It will be good for us all, father,” replied Pelle, with anxiety in his voice. “But it will be sad for me, because you will no longer have your part in it all. But you shall have a fine resting-place, and I will give you a great stone of Bornholm granite, with a beautiful inscription.”

“You must put on the stone: ‘Work to-day, eat to-morrow!’” replied Lasse bitterly.

All day long he lay there in a half-sleep. But in the evening twilight he raised his head. “Are those the angels I hear singing?” he whispered. The ring had gone out of his voice.

“No, those are the little children of the factory women, their mothers will be coming home directly to give them the breast; then they’ll stop.”

Lasse sighed. “That will be poor food if they have to work all day. They say the rich folks drink wine at twelve and fifteen kroner a bottle; that sounds as if they take the milk away from the little children and turn it into costly liquors.”

He lay there whispering; Pelle had to bend his head till it was almost against his mouth. “Hand in hand we’ve wandered hither, lad, yet each has gone his own way. You are going the way of youth, and Lasse—but you have given me much joy.”

Then the loving spirit, which for Pelle had burned always clear and untroubled amid all vicissitudes, was extinguished. It was as though Providence had turned its face from him; life collapsed and sank into space, and he found himself sitting on a chair—alone. All night long he sat there motionless beside the body, staring with vacant eyes into the incomprehensible, while his thoughts whispered sadly to the dead of all that he had been. He did not move, but himself sat like a dead man, until Madam Johnsen came in the morning to ask how matters were progressing.

Then he awoke and went out, in order to make such arrangements as were necessary.

XXXVI

On Saturday, at noon, it was reported that the treaty of peace was signed, and that the great strike was over. The rumor spread through the capital with incredible speed, finding its way everywhere. “Have you heard yet? Have you heard yet? Peace is concluded!” The poor were busy again; they lay huddled together no longer, but came out into the light of day, their lean faces full of sunlight. The women got out their baskets and sent the children running to make a few purchases for Sunday—for now the grocer would give them a little credit! People smiled and chattered and borrowed a little happiness! Summer had come, and a monstrous accumulation of work was waiting to be done, and at last they were going to set to work in real earnest! The news was shouted from one back door to the next; people threw down what they had in their hands and ran on with the news. It occurred to no one to stand still and to doubt; they were only too willing to believe!

Later in the afternoon The Working Man issued a board-sheet confirming the rumor. Yes, it was really true! And it was a victory; the right of combination was recognized, and Capital had been taught to respect the workers as a political factor. It would no longer be possible to oppress them. And in other respects the status quo was confirmed.

“Just think—they’ve been taught to respect us, and they couldn’t refuse to accept the status quo!” And they laughed all over their faces with joy to think that it was confirmed, although no one knew what it was!

The men were in the streets; they were flocking to their organizations, in order to receive orders and to learn the details of the victory. One would hardly have supposed from their appearance that the victory was theirs; they had become so accustomed to gloom that it was difficult to shake it off.

There was a sound of chattering in backyards and on staircases. Work was to be resumed—beautiful, glorious labor, that meant food and drink and a little clothing for the body! Yes, and domestic security! No more chewing the cud over an empty manger; now one could once more throw one’s money about a little, and then, by skimping and saving, with tears and hardship, make it suffice! To-night father would have something really good with his bread and butter, and to-morrow, perhaps, they could go out into the forest with the picnic-basket! Or at all events, as soon as they had got their best clothes back from the pawn-shop! They must have a bit of an airing before the winter came, and they had to go back into pawn! They were so overjoyed at the mere thought of peace that they quite forgot, for the moment, to demand anything new!

Pelle had taken part in the concluding negotiations; after Father Lasse’s burial he was himself again. Toward evening he was roaming about the poor quarter of the city, rejoicing in the mood of the people; he had played such an important part in the bitter struggle of the poor that he felt the need to share their joy as well. From the North Bridge he went by way of the Lakes to West Bridge; and everywhere swarms of people were afoot. In the side-streets by West Bridge all the families had emerged from their dwellings and established themselves on the front steps and the pavements; there they sat, bare-headed in the twilight, gossiping, smoking, and absorbing refreshments. It was the first warm evening; the sky was a deep blue, and at the end of the street the darkness was flooded with purple. There was something extravagant about them all; joy urged their movements to exceed the narrow every-day limits, and made them stammer and stagger as though slightly intoxicated.

Now they could all make their appearance again, all those families that had hidden themselves during the time of want; they were just as ragged, but that was of no consequence now! They were beaming with proud delight to think that they had come through the conflict without turning to any one for help; and the battles fought out in the darkness were forgotten.

Pelle had reached the open ground by the Gasworks Harbor; he wanted to go over to see his old friends in the “Ark.” Yonder it lay, lifting its glowing mass into the deep night of the eastern sky. The red of the sinking sun fell over it. High overhead, above the crater of the mass, hung a cloud of vapor, like a shadow on the evening sky. Pelle, as he wandered, had been gazing at this streak of shadow; it was the dense exhalation of all the creatures in the heart of the mass below, the reek of rotting material and inferior fuel. Now, among other consequences of victory, there would be a thorough cleansing of the dens of poverty. A dream floated before him, of comfortable little dwellings for the workers, each with its little garden and its well-weeded paths. It would repay a man then to go home after the day’s fatigue!

It seemed to him that the streak of smoke yonder was growing denser and denser. Or were his eyes merely exaggerating that which was occupying his thoughts? He stood still, gazing—then he began to run. A red light was striking upward against the cloud of smoke—touched a moment, and disappeared; and a fresh mass of smoke unrolled itself, and hung brooding heavily overhead.

Pelle rushed across the Staple Square, and over the long bridge. Only too well did he know the terrible bulk of the “Ark”—and there was no other exit than the tunnel! And the timber-work, which provided the sole access to the upper stories! As he ran he could see it all clearly before his eyes, and his mind began to search for means of rescue. The fire brigade was of course given the alarm at once, but it would take time to get the engines here, and it was all a matter of minutes! If the timber staging fell and the tunnel were choked all the inmates would be lost—and the “Ark” did not possess a single emergency-ladder!

Outside, in front of the “Ark,” was a restless crowd of people, all shouting together. “Here comes Pelle!” cried some one. At once they were all silent, and turned their faces toward him. “Fetch the fire-escape from the prison!” he shouted to some of the men in passing, and ran to the tunnel-entry.

From the long corridors on the ground floor the inmates were rushing out with their little children in their arms. Some were dragging valueless possessions—the first things they could lay hands on. All that was left of the timber-work after the wreckage of the terrible winter was now brightly blazing. Pelle tried to run up the burning stairs, but fell through. The inmates were hanging half out of their windows, staring down with eyes full of madness; every moment they ran out onto the platforms in an effort to get down, but always ran shrieking back.

At her third-story window Widow Johnsen stood wailing, with her grandchild and the factory-girl’s little Paul in her arms. Hanne’s little daughter stared silently out of the window, with the deep, wondering gaze of her mother. “Don’t be afraid,” Pelle shouted to the old woman; “we are coming to help you now!” When little Paul caught sight of Pelle he wrenched himself away from Madam Johnsen and ran out onto the gallery. He jumped right down, lay for a moment on the flagstones, turned round and round, quite confused, and then, like a flash of lightning, he rushed by Pelle and out into the street.

Pelle sent a few of the men into the long corridor, to see whether all were out. “Break in the closed doors,” he said; “there may possibly be children or sick people inside.” The inmates of the first and second stories had saved themselves before the fire had got a hold on the woodwork.

Pelle himself ran up the main staircase up to the lofts and under the roof, in order to go to the assistance of the inmates of the outbuildings over the attics. But he was met by the inmates of the long roof-walk. “You can’t get through any longer,” said the old rag-picker; “Pipman’s whole garret is burning, and there are no more up here. God in heaven have mercy on the poor souls over there!”

In spite of this, Pelle tried to find a way over the attics, but was forced to turn back.

The men had fetched the fire-escape, and had with difficulty brought it through the entry and had set it up! The burning timbers were beginning to fall; fragments of burning woodwork lay all around, and at any moment the whole building might collapse with a crash. But there was no time to think of one’s self. The smoke was rolling out of Vinslev’s corridor and filling the yard. There was need of haste.

“Of course, it was the lunatic who started the fire,” said the men, as they held the ladder.

It reached only to the second story, but Pelle threw a rope up to Madam Johnsen, and she fastened it to the window-frame, so that he was able to clamber up. With the rope he lowered first the child and then the old woman to his comrades below, who were standing on the ladder to receive them. The smoke was smarting in his eyes and throat, and all but stifled him; he could see nothing, but he heard a horrible shrieking all about him.

Just above him a woman was wailing. “Oh, Pelle, help me!” she whimpered, half choking. It was the timid seamstress, who had moved thither; he recognized her emotional voice. “She loves me!” suddenly flashed upon his mind.

“Catch the rope and fasten it well to the window-frame, and I’ll come up and help you!” he said, and he swung the end of the rope up toward the fourth story. But at the same moment a wild shriek rang out. A dark mass flew past his head and struck the flagstones with a dull thud. The flames darted hissing from the window, as though to reach after her, and then drew back.

For a moment he hung stupefied over the window-sill. This was too horrible. Was it not her gentle voice that he now heard singing with him? And then the timbers fell with a long cracking sound, and a cloud of hot ashes rose in the air and filled the lungs as with fire. “Come down!” cried his comrades, “the ladder is burning!”

A deafening, long-drawn ringing told him that the fire-brigade was near at hand.

But in the midst of all the uproar Pelle’s ears had heard a faint, intermittent sound. With one leap he was in Madam Johnsen’s room; he stood there listening; the crying of a child reached him from the other side of the wall, where the rooms opened on to the inner corridor. It was horrible to hear it and to stand there and be able to do nothing. A wall lay between, and there was no thoroughfare on the other side. In the court below they were shouting his name. Devil take them, he would come when he was ready. There he stood, obstinate and apathetic, held there by that complaining, childish voice. A blind fury arose in him; sullenly he set his shoulder against that accursed wall, and prepared himself for the shock. But the wall was giving! Yet again he charged it —a terrible blow—and part of the barrier was down!

He was met by a rush of stifling heat and smoke; he had to hold his breath and cover his face with his hands as he pressed forward. A little child lay there in a cradle. He stumbled over to it and groped his way back to the wall. The fire, now that it had access to the air, suddenly leaped at him with an explosive force that made him stagger. He felt as though a thirsty bull had licked his cheek. It bellowed at his heels with a voice of thunder, but was silent when he slammed the door. Half choking he found his way to the window and tried to shout to those below, but he had no voice left; only a hoarse whisper came from his throat.

Well, there he stood, with a child in his arms, and he was going to die! But that didn’t matter—he had got through the wall! Behind him the fire was pressing forward; it had eaten a small hole through the door, and had thus created the necessary draught. The hole grew larger; sparks rose as under a pair of bellows, and a dry, burning heat blew through the opening. Small, almost imperceptible flames were dancing over the polished surface; very soon the whole door would burst into a blaze. His clothes smelt of singeing; his hands were curiously dry like decaying wood, and he felt as if the hair at the back of his head was curling. And down below they were shouting his name. But all that was of no consequence; only his head was so heavy with the smoke and heat! He felt that he was on the point of falling. Was the child still alive? he wondered. But he dared not look to see; he had spread his jacket over its face in order to protect it.

He clutched the window-frame, and directed his dying thoughts toward Ellen and the children. Why was he not with them? What nonsense had it been that induced him to leave them? He could no longer recollect; but if it had not been all up with him now he would have hurried home to them, to play with Young Lasse. But now he must die; in a moment he would fall, suffocated—even before the flames could reach him.

There was some slight satisfaction in that—it was as though he had played a trick on some one.

Suddenly something shot up before his dying gaze and called him back. It was the end of a fire-escape, and a fireman rose out of the smoke just in front of him, seized the child, and handed it down. Pelle stood there wrestling with the idea that he must move from where he was; but before it had passed through his mind a fireman had seized him by the scruff of his neck and had run down the ladder with him.

The fresh air aroused him. He sprang up from the stretcher on which the fireman had laid him and looked excitedly about him. At the same moment the people began quite senselessly to shout his name and to clap their hands, and Madam Johnsen pushed her way through the barrier and threw herself upon him. “Pelle!” she cried, weeping; “oh, you are alive, Pelle!”

“Yes, of course I’m alive—but that’s nothing to cry about.”

“No, but we thought you were caught in there. But how you look, you poor boy!” She took him with her to a working-man’s home, and helped him to set himself to rights. When he had once seen a looking-glass he understood! He was unrecognizable, what with smoke and ashes, which had burnt themselves into his skin and would not come off. And under the grime there was a bad burn on one of his cheeks. He went to one of the firemen and had a plaster applied.

“You really want a pair of eyebrows too,” said the fireman. “You’ve been properly in the fire, haven’t you?”

“Why did the fire-engines take so long?” asked Pelle.

“Long? They were ten minutes getting here after the alarm was given. We got the alarm at eight, and now it’s half-past.”

Pelle was silent; he was quite taken aback; he felt as though the whole night must have gone by, so much had happened. Half an hour—and in that time he had helped to snatch several people out of the claws of death and had seen others fall into them. And he himself was singed by the close passage of death! The knowledge was lurking somewhere at the back of his mind, an accomplished but elusive fact; when he clenched his fist cracks appeared in the skin, and his clothes smelt like burnt horn. In the court the firemen were working unceasingly.

Some, from the tops of their ladders in the court, were pouring streams of water upon the flames; others were forcing their way into the body of the building and searching the rooms; and from time to time a fireman made his appearance carrying a charred body. Then the inmates of the “Ark” were called inside the barrier in order to identify the body. They hurried weeping through the crowd, seeking one another; it was impossible for the police to assemble them or to ascertain how many had failed to escape.

Suddenly all eyes were directed toward the roof of the front portion of the building, where the fire had not as yet entirely prevailed. There stood the crazy Vinslev, playing on his flute; and when the cracking of the fire was muffled for a moment one could hear his crazy music “Listen! Listen! He is playing the march!” they cried. Yes, he was playing the march, but it was interwoven with his own fantasies, so that the well-known melody sounded quite insane on Vinslev’s flute.

The firemen erected a ladder and ran up to the roof in order to save him, but he fled before them. When he could go no farther he leaped into the sea of flame.

The market-place and the banks of the canal were thick with people; shoulder to shoulder they stood there, gazing at the voluptuous spectacle of the burning “Ark.” The grime and poverty and the reek of centuries were going up in flames. How it rustled and blazed and crackled! The crowd was in the best of spirits owing to the victory of Labor; no one had been much inclined to sleep that night; and here was a truly remarkable display of fireworks, a magnificent illumination in honor of the victory of the poor! There were admiring cries of “Ah!” people hissed in imitation of the sound of rockets and clapped their hands when the flames leaped up or a roof crashed in.

Pelle moved about in the crowd, collecting the bewildered inmates of the “Ark” by the gates of the prison, so that those who had relatives could find them. They were weeping, and it was difficult to console them. Alas, now the “Ark” was burnt, the beloved place of refuge for so many ruined souls! “How can you take it to heart so?” said Pelle consolingly. “You will be lodged overnight by the city, and afterward you will move into proper dwelling-houses, where everything is clean and new. And you needn’t cry over your possessions, I’ll soon get up a collection, and you’ll have better things than you had before.”

Nevertheless they wept; like homeless wild beasts they whimpered and rambled restlessly to and fro, seeking for they knew not what. Their forest fastness, their glorious hiding-place, was burning! What was all the rest of the city to them? It was not for them; it was as though there was no place of refuge left for them in all the world! Every moment a few of them slipped away, seeking again to enter the site of the fire, like horses that seek to return to the burning stable. Pelle might have spared his efforts at consolation; they were races apart, a different species of humanity. In the dark, impenetrable entrails of the “Ark” they had made for themselves a world of poverty and extremest want; and they had been as fantastically gay in their careless existence as though their world had been one of wealth and fortune. And now it was all going up in flame!

The fire was unsparing; its purifying flames could not be withstood. The flames tore off great sheets of the old wallpapers and flung them out half-burned into the street. There were many layers pasted together, many colors and patterns, one dimly showing through another, making the most curious and fantastic pictures. And on the reverse side of these sheets was a layer as of coagulated blood; this was the charred remnant of the mysterious world of cupboards and chimney-corners, the fauna of the fireplace, that had filled the children’s sleep with dreams, and in the little mussel-shaped bodies was contained the concentrated exhalation of the poor man’s night! And now the “Ark” must have been hot right through to the ground, for the rats were beginning to leave. They came in long, winding files from the entry, and up out of the cellars of the old iron merchant and the old clothes dealer, headed by the old, scabby males which used to visit the dustbins in the middle of the day. The onlookers cheered and drove them back again.

About ten o’clock the fire was visibly decreasing and the work of clearance could begin. The crowd scattered, a little disappointed that all was over so soon. The “Ark” was an extinct bonfire! There could not have been a sackful of sound firewood in all that heap of lumber!

Pelle took Madam Johnsen and her little grand-daughter to his lodgings with him. The old woman had been complaining all the time; she was afraid of being given over to the public authorities. But when she heard that she was to go with Pelle she was reassured.

On the High Bridge they met the first dust-carts on their way outward. They were decked out with green garlands and little national flags.

XXXVII

The next day broke with a lofty, radiant Sabbath sky. There was something about it that reminded one of Easter—Easter morning, with its hymns and the pure winds of resurrection. The Working Man rung in the day with a long and serious leading article—a greeting to the rosy dawn—and invited the working-classes to attend a giant assembly on the Common during the afternoon. All through the forenoon great industry prevailed—wardrobes had to be overhauled, provision-baskets packed, and liquid refreshment provided. There was much running across landings and up and down stairs, much lending and borrowing. This was to be not merely a feast of victory; it was also intended as a demonstration—that was quite clear. The world should see how well they were still holding together after all these weeks of the lock-out! They were to appear in full strength, and they must look their best.

In the afternoon the people streamed from all sides toward the Labor Building; it looked as though the whole city was flocking thither. In the big court-yard, and all along the wide street as far as High Street, the trades unions were gathered about their banners. The great review had all been planned beforehand, and all went as by clockwork by those who were accustomed to handling great masses of men; there was no running from side to side; every one found his place with ease. Pelle and Stolpe, who had devised the programme, went along the ranks setting all to rights.

With the men there were no difficulties; but the women and children had of course misunderstood their instructions. They should have gone direct to the Common, but had turned up here with all their impedimenta. They stood crowding together on both the side-walks; and when the procession got under way they broke up and attached themselves to its sides. They had fought through the campaign, and their place was beside their husbands and fathers! It was a bannered procession with a double escort of women and children! Had the like ever been seen?

No, the city had never seen such a going forth of the people! Like a giant serpent the procession unrolled itself; when its head was at the end of the street the greater part of its body was still coiled together. But what was the matter in front there? The head of the procession was turning toward the wrong side—toward the city, instead of taking the direct way to the Common, as the police had ordered! That wouldn’t do! That would lead to a collision with the police! Make haste and get Pelle to turn the stream before a catastrophe occurs!—Pelle? But there he is, right in front! He himself has made a mistake as to the direction! Ah, well, then, there is nothing to be said about it. But what in the world was he thinking of?

Pelle marches in the front rank beside the standard-bearer. He sees and hears nothing, but his luminous gaze sweeps over the heads of the crowd. His skin is still blackened by the smoke of the fire; it is peeling off his hands; his hair and moustache seem to have been cropped very strangely; and the skin is drawn round the burn on his cheek. He is conscious of one thing only: the rhythmic tread of fifty thousand men! As a child he has known it in dreams, heard it like a surging out of doors when he laid his head upon his pillow. This is the great procession of the Chosen People, and he is leading them into the Promised Land! And where should their road lie if not through the capital?

At the North Wall the mounted police are drawn up, closing the inner city. They are drawn up diagonally across the thoroughfare, and were backing their horses into the procession, in order to force it to turn aside. But they were swept aside, and the stream flowed on; nothing can stop it.

It passes down the street with difficulty, like a viscous mass that makes its way but slowly, yet cannot be held back. It is full of a peaceful might. Who would venture to hew a way into it? The police are following it like watchful dogs, and on the side-walks the people stand pressed against the houses; they greet the procession or scoff at it, according as they are friends or foes. Upstairs, behind the big windows, are gaily clad ladies and gentlemen, quizzing the procession with half- scornful, half-uneasy smiles. What weird, hungry, unkempt world is this that has suddenly risen up from obscurity to take possession of the highway? And behind their transparent lace curtains the manufacturers gaze and grumble. What novel kind of demonstration is this? The people have been forgiven, and instead of going quietly back to their work they begin to parade the city as though to show how many they are—yes, and how thin starvation has made them!

It is a curious procession in every way. If they wanted to demonstrate how roughly they have been handled, they could not have done better! They all bear the marks of battle—they are pale and sallow and ill- clad; their Sunday best hangs in the great common wardrobe still; what they wear to-day is patched and mended. Hunger has refined their features; they are more like a procession of ghosts who have shaken off the heavy bonds of earth and are ready to take possession of the world of the spirit, than people who hope to conquer the Promised Land for themselves and posterity. Such a procession of conquerors! They are all limping! A flock with broken wings, that none the less are seeking to fly. And whither are they going?

One of their choirs breaks into song: “We are bound for the Land of Fortune!”

And where does that land lie? has any of your watchers seen it? Or was it not merely a deceitful dream, engendered by hunger? Eat enough, really enough, for once, good people, and then let us talk together! What is it yonder? The emptiness that gave birth to you and even yet surges crazily in your starving blood? Or the land of the living? Is this then the beginning of a new world for you? Or is the curse eternal that brings you into the world to be slaves?

There is a peculiar, confident rhythm in their tread which drowns all other sounds, and seems to say, “We are the masters, poor as we look to the eye! We have used four million kroner in waging the war, and twenty millions have been wasted because they brought the work of our hands to a standstill! We come from the darkness, and we go toward the light, and no one can hold us back! Behind us lie hunger and poverty, ignorance and slavery, and before us lies a happy existence, radiant with the rising sun of Freedom! From this day onward a new age begins; we are its youthful might, and we demand power for ten thousand families! The few have long enough prevailed!”

Imperturbably they march onward, despite the wounds that must yet be smarting; for see, they limp! Why should they still doubt?

Listen, they are singing! Hoarsely the sound emerges from ten thousand throats, as though the song had grown rusty, or must first tear itself free. A new instrument this, that has not yet been tuned by the master— its first notes are discords! But the song runs to and fro along the procession in rhythmical waves, it is an army on the march, and their eyes kindle and blaze with the growing sense of their power, the consciousness that they are the many! And the sound grows mighty, a storm that rolls above the housetops, “Brother, soon will dawn the day!”

Touch not the humblest of them now! A vast, intoxicating power has descended upon them; each one has grown beyond himself, and believes himself capable of performing miracles. There are no loose particles; the whole is a mighty avalanche. Touch but one of them and the might of the mass will pour into him. He will be oblivious of consequences, but will behave as though urged by destiny—as though the vast being of which he forms a part will assume all responsibility, and constitutes the law!

It is intoxicating to walk in the ranks, to be permitted to bear the Union banners; even to look on fills one with strength and joy. Mothers and children accompany the men, although they have for the most part to walk in the gutters. It is great sport to fall out and watch the whole mighty procession go by, and then, by taking a short cut, again to station one’s self at the head. Stand at a street-corner, and it will take hours for the whole to pass you. Trapp, trapp! Trapp, trapp! It gets into one’s blood, and remains there, like an eternal rhythm.

One Union passes and another comes up; the machinists, with the sturdy Munck at their head, as standard-bearer, the same who struck the three blows of doom that summoned five and forty thousand men to the battle for the right of combination! Hurrah for Munck! Here are the house- painters, the printers, the glove-makers, the tinsmiths, the cork- cutters, the leather-dressers, and a group of seamen with bandy legs. At the head of these last marches Howling Peter, the giant transfigured! The copper-smiths, the coal-miners, the carpenters, the journeymen bakers, and the coach-builders! A queer sort of procession this! But here are the girdlers and there the plasterers, the stucco-workers, and the goldsmiths, and even the sand-blasters are here! The tailors and the shoemakers are easy to recognize. And there, God bless me, are the slipper-makers, close at their heels; they wouldn’t be left in the cold! The gilders, the tanners, the weavers, and the tobacco-workers! The file-cutters, the bricklayers’-laborers, the pattern-makers, the coopers, the book-binders, the joiners and shipbuilders! What, is there no end to them? Hi, make way for the journeymen glaziers! Yes, you may well smile—they are all their own masters! And here come the gasworkers, and the water-company’s men, and the cabinet-makers, who turn in their toes like the blacksmiths, and march just in front of them, as though these had anything to learn from them! Those are the skilful ivory-turners, and those the brush-makers; spectacled these, and with brushes growing out of their noses—that is, when they are old. Well, so it is all over at last! The tail consists of a swarm of frolicsome youngsters.

But no—these are the milk-boys, these young vagabonds! And behind them come the factory-girls and behind them it all begins again—the pianoforte-makers, the millers, the saddlers, and the paper-hangers— banners as far as one can see! How big and how gay the world is, after all! How many callings men pursue, so that work shall never fail them! Ah, here are the masons, with all the old veterans at their head—those have been in the movement since the beginning! Look, how steady on his leg is old Stolpe! And the slaters, with the Vanishing Man at their head—they look as if they don’t much care about walking on the level earth! And here are the sawyers, and the brewers, and the chair-makers! Year by year their wages have been beaten down so that at the beginning of the struggle they were earning only half as much as ten years ago; but see how cheerful they look! Now there will be food in the larder once more. Those faded-looking women there are weavers; they have no banner; eight öre the hour won’t run to flags. And finally a handful of newspaper-women from The Working Man. God how weary they look! Their legs are like lead from going up and down so many stairs. Each has a bundle of papers under her arm, as a sign of her calling.

Trapp, trapp, trapp, trapp! On they go, with a slow, deliberate step. Whither? Where Pelle wills. “Brother, soon will dawn the day!” One hears the song over and over again; when one division has finished it the next takes it up. The side-streets are spewing their contents out upon the procession; shrunken creatures that against their will were singed in the struggle, and cannot recover their feet again. But they follow the procession with big eyes and break into fanatical explanations.

A young fellow stands on the side-walk yonder; he has hidden himself behind some women, and is stretching his neck to see. For his own Union is coming now, to which he was faithless in the conflict. Remorse has brought him hither. But the rhythm of the marching feet carries him away, so that he forgets all and marches off beside them. He imagines himself in the ranks, singing and proud of the victory. And suddenly some of his comrades seize him and drag him into the ranks; they lift him up and march away with him. A trophy, a trophy! A pity he can’t be stuck on a pole and carried high overhead!

Pelle is still at the head of the procession, at the side of the sturdy Munck. His aspect is quiet and smiling, but inwardly he is full of unruly energy; never before has he felt so strong! On the side-walks the police keep step with him, silent and fateful. He leads the procession diagonally across the King’s New Market, and suddenly a shiver runs through the whole; he is going to make a demonstration in front of Schloss Amalienborg! No one has thought of that! Only the police are too clever for them the streets leading to the castle are held by troops.

Gradually the procession widens out until it fills the entire market- place. A hundred and fifty trades unions, each with its waving standard! A tremendous spectacle! Every banner has its motto or device. Red is the color of all those banners which wave above the societies which were established in the days of Socialism, and among them are many national flags—blue, red, and white—the standards of the old guilds and corporations. Those belong to ancient societies which have gradually joined the movement. Over all waves the standard of the millers, which is some hundreds of years old! It displays a curious-looking scrawl which is the monogram of the first absolute king!

But the real standard is not here, the red banner of the International, which led the movement through the first troubled years. The old men would speedily recognize it, and the young men too, they have heard so many legends attaching to it. If it still exists it is well hidden; it would have too great an effect on the authorities—would be like a red rag to a bull.

And as they stand staring it suddenly rises in the air—slashed and tattered, imperishable as to color. Pelle stands on the box of a carriage, solemnly raising it in the air. For a moment they are taken by surprise; then they begin to shout, until the shouts grow to a tempest of sound. They are greeting the flag of brotherhood, the blood-red sign of the International—and Pelle, too, who is raising it in his blistered hands—Pelle, the good comrade, who saved the child from the fire; Pelle, who has led the movement cause to victory!

And Pelle stands there laughing at them frankly, like a great child. This would have been the place to give them all a few words, but he has not yet recovered his mighty voice. So he waves it round over them with a slow movement as though he were administering an oath to them all. And he is very silent. This is an old dream of his, and at last it has come to fulfillment!

The police are pushing into the crowd in squads, but the banner has disappeared; Munck is standing with an empty stave in his hands, and is on the point of fixing his Union banner on it.

“You must take care to get these people away from here, or we shall hold you responsible for the consequences,” says the police inspector, with a look that promises mischief. Pelle looks in the face. “He’d like to throw me into prison, if only he had the courage,” he thought, and then he sets the procession in motion again.

Out on the Common the great gathering of people rocked to and fro, in restless confusion. From beyond its confines it looked like a dark, raging sea. About each of the numerous speakers’ platforms stood a densely packed crowd, listening to the leaders who were demonstrating the great significance of the day. But the majority did not feel inclined to-day to stand in a crowd about a platform. They felt a longing to surrender themselves to careless enjoyment, after all the hardships they had endured; to stand on their heads in the grass, to play the clown for a moment. Group upon group lay all over the great Common, eating and playing. The men had thrown off their coats and were wrestling with one another, or trying to revive the gymnastic exercises of their boyhood. They laughed more than they spoke; if any one introduced a serious subject it was immediately suppressed with a punning remark. Nobody was serious to-day!

Pelle moved slowly about, delighting in the crowd, while keeping a look- out for Madam Johnsen and the child, who were to have met him out here. Inwardly, at the back of everything, he was in a serious mood, and was therefore quiet. It must be fine to lie on one’s belly here, in the midst of one’s own family circle, eating hard-boiled eggs and bread-and- butter—or to go running about with Young Lasse on his shoulders! But what did it profit a man to put his trust in anything? He could not begin over again with Ellen; the impossible stood between them. To drive Young Lasse out of his thoughts—that would be the hardest thing of all; he must see if he could not get him away from Ellen in a friendly manner. As for applying to the law in order to get him back, that he would not do.

The entire Stolpe family was lying in a big circle, enjoying a meal; the sons were there with their wives and children; only Pelle and his family were lacking.

“Come and set to!” said Stolpe, “or you’ll be making too long a day of it.”

“Yes,” cried Madam Stolpe, “it is such a time since we’ve been together. No need for us to suffer because you and Ellen can’t agree!” She did not know the reason of the breach—at all events, not from him—but was none the less friendly toward him.

“I am really looking for my own basket of food,” said Pelle, lying down beside them.

“Now look here, you are the deuce of a fellow,” said Stolpe, suddenly laughing. “You intended beforehand to look in and say how-d’ye-do to Brother Christian,[1] hey? It wasn’t very wise of you, really—but that’s all one to me. But what you have done to-day no one else could do. The whole thing went like a dance! Not a sign of wobbling in the ranks! You know, I expect, that they mean to put you at the head of the Central Committee? Then you will have an opportunity of working at your wonderful ideas of a world-federation. But there’ll be enough to do at home here without that; at the next election we must win the city—and part of the country too. You’ll let them put you up?”

[1] The king was so called.

“If I recover my voice. I can’t speak loudly at present.”

“Try the raw yolk of an egg every night,” said Madam Stolpe, much concerned, “and tie your left-hand stocking round your throat when you go to bed; that is a good way. But it must be the left-hand stocking.”

“Mother is a Red, you know,” said Stolpe. “If I go the right-hand side of her she doesn’t recognize me!”

The sun must have set—it was already beginning to grow dark. Black clouds were rising in the west. Pelle felt remorseful that he had not yet found the old woman and her grandchild, so he took his leave of the Stolpes.

He moved about, looking for the two; wherever he went the people greeted him, and there was a light in their eyes. He noticed that a policeman was following him at some little distance; he was one of the secret hangers-on of the party; possibly he had something to communicate to him. So Pelle lay down in the grass, a little apart from the crowd, and the policeman stood still and gazed cautiously about him. Then he came up to Pelle. When he was near he bent down as though picking something up. “They are after you,” he said, under his breath; “this afternoon there was a search made at your place, and you’ll be arrested, as soon as you leave here.” Then he moved on.

Pelle lay there some minutes before he could understand the matter. A search—but what was there at his house that every one might not know of? Suddenly he thought of the wood block and the tracing of the ten-kroner note. They had sought for some means of striking at him and they had found the materials of a hobby!

He rose heavily and walked away from the crowd. On the East Common he stood still and gazed back hesitatingly at this restless sea of humanity, which was now beginning to break up, and would presently melt away into the darkness. Now the victory was won and they were about to take possession of the Promised Land—and he must go to prison, for a fancy begotten of hunger! He had issued no false money, nor had he ever had any intention of doing so. But of what avail was that? He was to be arrested—he had read as much in the eyes of the police-inspector. Penal servitude—or at best a term in prison!

He felt that he must postpone the decisive moment while he composed his mind. So he went back to the city by way of the East Bridge. He kept to the side-streets, in order not to be seen, and made his way toward St. Saviour’s churchyard; the police were mostly on the Common.

For a moment the shipping in the harbor made him think of escape. But whither should he flee? And to wander about abroad as an outlaw, when his task and his fate lay here could he do it? No, he must accept his fate!

The churchyard was closed; he had to climb over the wall in order to get in. Some one had put fresh flowers on Father Lasse’s grave. Maria, he thought. Yes, it must have been she! It was good to be here; he no longer felt so terribly forsaken. It was as though Father Lasse’s untiring care still hovered protectingly about him.

But he must move on. The arrest weighed upon his mind and made him restless. He wandered through the city, keeping continually to the narrow side-streets, where the darkness concealed him. This was the field of battle—how restful it was now! Thank God, it was not they who condemned him! And now happiness lay before them—but for him!

Cautiously he drew near his lodging—two policemen in plain clothes were patrolling to and fro before the house. After that he drew back again into the narrow side-streets. He drifted about aimlessly, fighting against the implacable, and at last resigning himself.

He would have liked to see Ellen—to have spoken kindly to her, and to have kissed the children. But there was a watch on his home too—at every point he was driven back into the solitude to which he was a stranger. That was the dreadful part of it all. How was he going to live alone with himself, he who only breathed when in the company of others? Ellen was still his very life, however violently he might deny it. Her questioning eyes still gazed at him enigmatically, from whatever corner of existence he might approach. He had a strong feeling now that she had held herself ready all this time—that she had sat waiting for him, expecting him. How would she accept this?

From Castle Street he saw a light in Morten’s room. He slipped into the yard and up the stairs. Morten was reading.

“It’s something quite new to see you—fireman!” he said, with a kindly smile.

“I have come to say good-bye,” said Pelle lightly.

Morten looked at him wonderingly. “Are you going to travel?”

“Yes … I—I wanted….” he said, and sat down.

He gazed on the floor in front of his feet. “What would you do if the authorities were sneaking after you?” he asked suddenly. Morten stared at him for a time. Then he opened a drawer and took out a revolver. “I wouldn’t let them lay hands on me,” he said blackly. “But why do you ask me?”

“Oh, nothing…. Will you do me a favor, Morten? I have promised to take up a collection for those poor creatures from the ‘Ark,’ but I’ve no time for it now. They have lost all their belongings in the fire. Will you see to the matter?”

“Willingly. Only I don’t understand——”

“Why, I have got to go away for a time,” said Pelle, with a grim laugh. “I have always wanted to travel, as you know. Now there’s an opportunity.”

“Good luck, then!” said Morten, looking at him curiously as he pressed his hand. How much he had guessed Pelle did not know. There was Bornholm blood in Morten’s veins; he was not one to meddle in another’s affairs.

And then he was in the streets again. No, Morten’s way out was of no use to him—and now he would give in, and surrender himself to the authorities! He was in the High Street now; he had no purpose in hiding himself any longer.

In North Street he saw a figure dealing with a shop-door in a very suspicious manner; as Pelle came up it flattened itself against the door. Pelle stood still on the pavement; the man, too, was motionless for a while, pressing himself back into the shadow; then, with an angry growl, he sprang out, in order to strike Pelle to the ground.

At that very moment the two men recognized one another. The stranger was Ferdinand.

“What, are you still at liberty?” he cried, in amazement. “I thought they had taken you!”

“How did you know that?” asked Pelle.

“Ach, one knows these things—it’s part of one’s business. You’ll get five to six years, Pelle, till you are stiff with it. Prison, of course —not penal servitude.”

Pelle shuddered.

“You’ll freeze in there,” said Ferdinand compassionately. “As for me, I can settle down very well in there. But listen, Pelle—you’ve been so good, and you’ve tried to save me—next to mother you are the only person I care anything about. If you would like to go abroad I can soon hide you and find the passage-money.”

“Where will you get it?” asked Pelle, hesitating.

“Ach, I go in for the community of goods,” said Ferdinand with a broad smile. “The prefect of police himself has just five hundred kroner lying in his desk. I’ll try to get it for you if you like.”

“No,” said Pelle slowly, “I would rather undergo my punishment. But thanks for your kind intentions—and give my best wishes to your old mother. And if you ever have anything to spare, then give it to Widow Johnsen. She and the child have gone hungry since Hanne’s death.”

And then there was nothing more to do or say; it was all over…. He went straight across the market-place toward the court-house. There it stood, looking so dismal! He strolled slowly past it, along the canal, in order to collect himself a little before going in. He walked along the quay, gazing down into the water, where the boats and the big live- boxes full of fish were just visible. By Holmens Church he pulled himself together and turned back—he must do it now! He raised his head with a sudden resolve and found himself facing Marie. Her cheeks glowed as he gazed at her.

“Pelle,” she cried, rejoicing, “are you still at liberty? Then it wasn’t true! I have been to the meeting, and they said there you had been arrested. Ach, we have been so unhappy!”

“I shall be arrested—I am on the way now.”

“But, Pelle, dear Pelle!” She gazed at him with tearful eyes. Ah, he was still the foundling, who needed her care! Pelle himself had tears in his eyes; he suddenly felt weak and impressible. Here was a human child whose heart was beating for him—and how beautiful she was, in her grief at his misfortune!

She stood before him, slender, but generously formed; her hair—once so thin and uncared-for—fell in heavy waves over her forehead. She had emerged from her stunted shell into a glorious maturity. “Pelle,” she said, with downcast eyes, gripping both his hands, “don’t go there to- night—wait till tomorrow! All the others are rejoicing over the victory to-night—and so should you! … Come with me, to my room, Pelle, you are so unhappy.” Her face showed him that she was fighting down her tears. She had never looked so much a child as now.

“Why do you hesitate? Come with me! Am I not pretty? And I have kept it all for you! I have loved you since the very first time I ever saw you, Pelle, and I began to grow, because I wanted to be beautiful for you. I owe nothing to any one but you, and if you don’t want me I don’t want to go on living!”

No, she owed nothing to any one, this child from nowhere, but was solely and entirely her own work. Lovely and untouched she came to him in her abandonment, as though she were sent by the good angel of poverty to quicken his heart. Beautiful and pure of heart she had grown up out of wretchedness as though out of happiness itself, and where in the world should he rest his head, that was wearied to death, but on the heart of her who to him was child and mother and beloved?

“Pelle, do you know, there was dancing to-day in the Federation building after the meeting on the Common, and we young girls had made a green garland, and I was to crown you with it when you came into the hall. Oh, we did cry when some one came up and called out to us that they had taken you! But now you have won the wreath after all, haven’t you? And you shall sleep sweetly and not think of to-morrow!”

And Pelle fell asleep with his head on her girlish bosom. And as she lay there gazing at him with the eyes of a mother, he dreamed that Denmark’s hundred thousand workers were engaged in building a splendid castle, and that he was the architect. And when the castle was finished he marched in at the head of the army of workers; singing they passed through the long corridors, to fill the shining halls. But the halls were not there —the castle had turned into a prison! And they went on and on, but could not find their way out again.

IV. DAYBREAK

I

Out in the middle of the open, fertile country, where the plough was busy turning up the soil round the numerous cheerful little houses, stood a gloomy building that on every side turned bare walls toward the smiling world. No panes of glass caught the ruddy glow of the morning and evening sun and threw back its quivering reflection; three rows of barred apertures drank in all the light of day with insatiable avidity. They were always gaping greedily, and seen against the background of blue spring sky, looked like holes leading into the everlasting darkness. In its heavy gloom the mass of masonry towered above the many smiling homes, but their peaceable inhabitants did not seem to feel oppressed. They ploughed their fields right up to the bare walls, and wherever the building was visible, eyes were turned toward it with an expression that told of the feeling of security that its strong walls gave.

Like a landmark the huge building towered above everything else. It might very well have been a temple raised to God’s glory by a grateful humanity, so imposing was it; but if so, it must have been in by-gone ages, for no dwellings—even for the Almighty—are built nowadays in so barbaric a style, as if the one object were to keep out light and air! The massive walls were saturated with the dank darkness within, and the centuries had weathered their surface and made on it luxuriant cultures of fungus and mould, and yet they still seemed as if they could stand for an eternity.

The building was no fortress, however, nor yet a temple whose dim recesses were the abode of the unknown God. If you went up to the great, heavy door, which was always closed you could read above the arch the one word Prison in large letters and below it a simple Latin verse that with no little pretentiousness proclaimed:

“I am the threshold to all virtue and wisdom; Justice flourishes solely for my sake.”

One day in the middle of spring, the little door in the prison gate opened, and a tall man stepped out and looked about him with eyes blinking at the light which fell upon his ashen-white face. His step faltered and he had to lean for support against the wall; he looked as if he were about to go back again, but he drew a deep breath and went out on to the open ground.

The spring breeze made a playful assault upon him, tried to ruffle his prison-clipped, slightly gray hair, which had been curly and fair when last it had done so, and penetrated gently to his bare body like a soft, cool hand. “Welcome, Pelle!” said the sun, as it peeped into his distended pupils in which the darkness of the prison-cell still lay brooding. Not a muscle of his face moved, however; it was as though hewn out of stone. Only the pupils of his eyes contracted so violently as to be almost painful, but he continued to look earnestly before him. Whenever he saw any one, he stopped and gazed eagerly, perhaps in the hope that it was some one coming to meet him.

As he turned into the King’s Road some one called to him. He turned round in sudden, intense joy, but then his head dropped and he went on without answering. It was only a tramp, who was standing half out of a ditch in a field a little way off, beckoning to him. He came running over the ploughed field, crying hoarsely: “Wait a little, can’t you? Here have I been waiting for company all day, so you might as well wait a little!”

He was a broad-shouldered, rather puffy-looking fellow, with a flat back and the nape of his neck broad and straight and running right up into his cap without forming any projection for the back of his head, making one involuntarily think of the scaffold. The bone of his nose had sunk into his purple face, giving a bull-dog mixture of brutality and stupid curiosity to its expression.

“How long have you been in?” he asked, as he joined him, breathless. There was a malicious look in his eyes.

“I went in when Pontius Pilate was a little boy, so you can reckon it out for yourself,” said Pelle shortly.

“My goodness! That was a good spell! And what were you copped for?”

“Oh, there happened to be an empty place, so they took me and put me in —so that it shouldn’t stand empty, you know!”

The tramp scowled at him. “You’re laying it on a little too thick! You won’t get any one to believe that!” he said uncertainly. Suddenly he put himself in front of Pelle, and pushed his bull-like forehead close to the other’s face. “Now, I’ll just tell you something, my boy!” he said. “I don’t want to touch any one the first day I’m out, but you’d better take yourself and your confounded uppishness somewhere else; for I’ve been lying here waiting for company all day.”

“I didn’t mean to offend any one,” said Pelle absently. He looked as if he had not come back to earth, and appeared to have no intention of doing anything.

“Oh, didn’t you! That’s fortunate for you, or I might have taken a color-print of your doleful face, however unwillingly. By the way, mother said I was to give you her love.”

“Are you Ferdinand?” asked Pelle, raising his head.

“Oh, don’t pretend!” said Ferdinand. “Being in gaol seems to have made a swell of you!”

“I didn’t recognize you,” said Pelle earnestly, suddenly recalled to the world around him.

“Oh, all right—if you say so. It must be the fault of my nose. I got it bashed in the evening after I’d buried mother. I was to give you her love, by the way.”

“Thank you!” said Pelle heartily. Old memories from the “Ark” filled his mind and sent his blood coursing through his veins once more. “Is it long since your mother died?” he asked sympathetically.

Ferdinand nodded. “It was a good thing, however,” he said, “for now there’s no one I need go and have a bad conscience about. I’d made up my mind that she deserved to have things comfortable in her old age, and I was awfully careful; but all the same I was caught for a little robbery and got eight months. That was just after you got in—but of course you know that.”

“No! How could I know it?”

“Well, I telegraphed it over to you. I was just opposite you, in Wing A, and when I’d reckoned out your cell, I bespoke the whole line one evening, and knocked a message through to you. But there was a sanctimonious parson at the corner of your passage, one of those moral folk—oh, you didn’t even know that, then? Well, I’d always suspected him of not passing my message on, though a chap like that’s had an awful lot of learning put into him. Then when I came out I said to myself that there must be an end to all this, for mother’d taken it very much to heart, and was failing. I managed to get into one of the streets where honest thieves live, and went about as a colporteur, and it all went very well. It would have been horribly mean if she’d died of hunger. And we had a jolly good time for six months, but then she slipped away all the same, and I can just tell you that I’ve never been in such low spirits as the day they put her underground in the cemetery. Well, I said to myself, there lies mother smelling the weeds from underneath, so you can just as well give it all up, for there’s nothing more to trouble about now. And I went up to the office and asked for a settlement, and they cheated me of fifty subscribers, the rogues!

“Of course I went to the police: I was stupid enough to do that at that time. But they’re all a lot of rogues together. They thought it wouldn’t do to believe a word that I said, and would have liked to put me in prison at once; but for all they poked about they couldn’t find a peg to hang their hat upon. ‘He’s managing to hide it well this time, the sly fellow!’ they said, and let me go. But there soon was something, for I settled the matter myself, and you may take your oath my employers didn’t get the best of the arrangement. You see there are two kinds of people—poor people who are only honest when they let themselves be robbed, and all the others. Why the devil should one go about like a shorn sheep and not rob back! Some day of course there’ll be a bust-up, and then—‘three years, prisoner!’ I shall be in again before long.”

“That depends upon yourself,” said Pelle slowly.

“Oh, well, of course you can do something; but the police are always getting sharper, and the man isn’t born who won’t fall into the trap sooner or later.”

“You should try and get some honest employment again. You’ve shown that you can succeed.”

Ferdinand whistled. “In such a paltry way as that! Many thanks for the good advice! You’d like me to look after a bloated aristocrat’s geese and then sit on the steps and eat dry bread to the smell of the roast bird, would you? No, thank you! And even if I did—what then? You may be quite sure they’d keep a good watch on a fellow, if he tried an honest job, and it wouldn’t be two days before the shadow was there. ‘What’s this about Ferdinand? I hear things are not all square with him. I’m sorry, for he’s really worked well; but he’d better look out for another place.’ That’s what the decent ones would do; the others would simply wait until his wages were due and take something off—because he’d been in once. They could never be sure that he hadn’t stolen something from them, could they? and it’s best to be careful! If you make a fuss, you’re called a thief to your face. I’ve tried it, let me tell you! And now you can try it yourself. You’ll be in again as soon as ever the spring comes! The worst of it is that it gets more every time; a fellow like me may get five years for stealing five krones (five shillings). Isn’t that a shame? So it’s just as well to do something to make it worth while. It wouldn’t matter if you could only get a good hit at it all. It’s all one to me now that mother’s dead. There’s a child crying, but it’s not for me. There isn’t a soul that would shed a tear if I had to lay my head on the block. They’d come and stare, that’s what they’d do—and I should get properly into the papers!

“Wicked? Of course I’m wicked! Sometimes I feel like one great sore, and would like to let them hear all about it. There’s no such thing as gentle hands. That’s only a lie, so I owe nothing to anybody. Several times while I’ve been in there I’ve made up my mind to kill the warder, just so as to have a hit at something; for he hadn’t done me any harm. But then I thought after all it was stupid. I’d no objection to kick the bucket; it would be a pleasant change anyhow to sitting in prison all one’s life. But then you’d want to do something first that would make a stir. That’s what I feel!”

They walked on at a good pace, their faces turned in the direction of the smoky mist of the town far ahead, Ferdinand chewing his quid and spitting incessantly. His hardened, bulldog face with its bloodshot eyes was entirely without expression now that he was silent.

A peasant lad came toward them, singing at the top of his voice. He must have been about twelve or fourteen years of age.

“What are you so happy about, boy?” asked Ferdinand, stopping him.

“I took a heifer into the town, and I got two krones (two shillings) for the job,” answered the boy, smiling all over his face.

“You must have been up early then,” said Pelle.

“Yes, I left home at three last night. But now I’ve earned a day’s wages, and can take it easy the rest of the day!” answered the boy, throwing the two-krone piece into the air and catching it again.

“Take care you don’t lose it,” said Ferdinand, following the coin with covetous eyes.

The boy laughed merrily.

“Let’s see whether it’s a good one. They’re a fearful lot of thieves on the market in there.”

The boy handed him the coin. “Ah, yes, it’s one of those that you can break in half and make two of,” said Ferdinand, doing a few juggling tricks with it. “I suppose I may keep one?” His expression had become lively and he winked maliciously at Pelle as he stood playing with the coin so that it appeared to be two. “There you are; that’s yours,” he said, pressing the piece of money firmly into the boy’s hand. “Take good care of it, so that you don’t get a scolding from your mother.”

The boy opened his empty hand in wonderment. “Give me my two-krone!” he said, smiling uncertainly.

“What the devil—I’ve given it you once!” said Ferdinand, pushing the boy aside roughly and beginning to walk on.

The boy followed him and begged persistently for his money. Then he began to cry.

“Give him his money!” said Pelle crossly. “It’s not amusing now.”

“Amusing?” exclaimed Ferdinand, stopping abruptly and gazing at him in amazement. “Do you think I play for small sums? What do I care about the boy! He may take himself off; I’m not his father.”

Pelle looked at him a moment without comprehending; then he took a paper containing a few silver coins out of his waistcoat pocket, and handed the boy two krones. The boy stood motionless with amazement for a moment, but then, seizing the money, he darted away as quickly as he could go.

Ferdinand went on, growling to himself and blinking his eyes. Suddenly he stopped and exclaimed: “I’ll just tell you as a warning that if it wasn’t you, and because I don’t want to have this day spoiled, I’d have cracked your skull for you; for no one else would have played me that trick. Do you understand?” And he stood still again and pushed his heavy brow close to Pelle’s face.

Quick as thought, Pelle seized him by his collar and trousers, and threw him forcibly onto a heap of stones. “That’s the second time to-day that you’ve threatened to crack my skull,” he said in fury, pounding Ferdinand’s head against the stones. For a few moments he held him down firmly, but then released him and helped him to rise. Ferdinand was crimson in the face, and stood swaying, ready to throw himself upon Pelle, while his gaze wandered round in search of a weapon. Then he hesitatingly drew the two-krone piece out of his pocket, and handed it to Pelle in sign of subjection.

“You may keep it,” said Pelle condescendingly.

Ferdinand quickly pocketed it again, and began to brush the mud off his clothes. “The skilly in there doesn’t seem to have weakened you much,” he said, shaking himself good-naturedly as they went on. “You’ve still got a confounded hard hand. But what I can’t understand is why you should be so sorry for a hobbledehoy like that. He can take care of himself without us.”

“Weren’t you once sorry too for a little fellow when some one wanted to take his money away from him?”

“Oh, that little fellow in the ‘Ark’ who was going to fetch the medicine for his mother? That’s such a long time ago!”

“You got into difficulties with the police for his sake! It was the first time you were at odds with the authorities, I think.”

“Well, the boy hadn’t done anything; I saw that myself. So I hobbled the copper that was going to run him in. His mother was ill—and my old ’un was alive; and so I was a big idiot! You’ll see you won’t get far with your weak pity. Do we owe any one anything, I should like to know?”

“Yes, I do,” said Pelle, suddenly raising his face toward the light. “But I can’t say you’ve much to thank any one for.”

“What confounded nonsense!” exclaimed Ferdinand, staring at him. “Have they been good to you, did you say? When they shut you up in prison too, perhaps? You’re pretending to be good, eh? You stop that! You’ll have to go farther into the country with it. So you think you deserved your house-of-correction turn, while another was only suffering the blackest injustice? Nonsense! They know well enough what they’re doing when they get hold of me, but they might very well have let you off. You got together fifty thousand men, but what did you all do, I should like to know? You didn’t make as much disturbance as a mouse in a pair of lady’s unmentionables. Well-to-do people are far more afraid of me than of you and all your fellows together. Injustice! Oh, shut up and don’t slobber! You give no quarter, and you don’t ask any either: that’s all. And by the way, you might do me the favor to take back your two-krone. I don’t owe any one anything.”

“Well, borrow it, then,” said Pelle. “You can’t go to town quite without money.”

“Do take it, won’t you?” begged Ferdinand. “It isn’t so easy for you to get hold of any as for any one else, and it was a little too mean the way I got it out of you. You’ve been saving it up in there, a halfpenny a day, and perhaps gone without your quid, and I come and cheat you out of it! No, confound it! And you gave mother a little into the bargain; I’d almost forgotten it! Well, never mind the tin then! I know a place where there’s a good stroke of business to be done.”

A little above Damhus Lake they turned into a side road that led northward, in order to reach the town from the Nörrebro side. Far down to the right a great cloud of smoke hung in the air. It was the atmosphere of the city. As the east wind tore off fragments of it and carried them out, Ferdinand lifted his bull-dog nose and sniffed the air. “Wouldn’t I like to be sitting in the ‘Cupping-Glass’ before a horse-steak with onions!” he said.

By this time the afternoon was well advanced. They broke sticks out of a hedge and went on steadily, following ditches and dikes as best they could. The plough was being driven over the fields, backward and forward, turning up the black earth, while crows and sea-birds fought in the fresh furrows. The ploughmen put the reins round their waist each time they came to the end of their line, threw the plough over and brought it into position for a new furrow, and while they let their horses take breath, gazed afar at the two strange spring wayfarers. There was such a foreign air about their clothes that they must be two of that kind of people that go on foot from land to land, they thought; and they called after them scraps of foreign sentences to show they knew something about them. Ah, yes! They were men who could look about them! Perhaps by to-morrow those two would be in a foreign country again, while other folk never left the place they were once in!

They passed a white house standing in stately seclusion among old trees, a high hawthorn hedge screening the garden from the road. Ferdinand threw a hasty glance over the gate. The blinds were all down! He began to be restless, and a little farther on he suddenly slipped in behind a hedge and refused to go any farther. “I don’t care to show myself in town empty-handed,” he said. “And besides evening’s the best time to go in at full speed. Let’s wait here until it’s dark. I can smell silver in that house we passed.”

“Come on now and let those fancies alone,” said Pelle earnestly. “A new life begins from to-day. I’ll manage to help you to get honest work!”

Ferdinand broke into laughter. “Good gracious me! You help others! You haven’t tried yet what it is to come home from prison! You’ll find it hard enough to get anywhere yourself, my good fellow. New life, ha, ha! No; just you stay here and we’ll do a little business together when it gets dark. The house doesn’t look quite squint-eyed. Then this evening we can go to the ‘Cupping-Glass’ and have a jolly good spree, and act the home-coming American. Besides it’s not right to go home without taking something for your family. Just you wait! You should see ‘Laura with the Arm’ dance! She’s my cupboard-love, you know. She can dance blindfold upon a table full of beer-mugs without spilling a drop. There might be a little kiss for you too.—Hang it!—you don’t surely imagine you’ll be made welcome anywhere else, do you? I can tell you there’s no one who’ll stand beckoning you home.—Very well, then go to the devil, you fool, and remember me to your monthly nurse! When you’re tired of family life, you can ask for me at my address, the ‘Cupping-Glass’.” His hoarse, hollow voice cut through the clear spring air as he shouted the last words with his hand to his mouth.

Pelle went on quickly, as though anxious to leave something behind him. He had had an insane hope of being received in some kind way or other when he came out—comrades singing, perhaps, or a woman and two children standing on the white highroad, waiting for him! And there had only been Ferdinand to meet him! Well, it had been a damper, and now he shook off the disappointment and set out at a good pace. The active movement set his pulses beating. The sky had never before been so bright as it was to-day; the sun shone right into his heart. There was a smiling greeting in it all—in the wind that threw itself into his very arms, in the fresh earth and in the running water in the ditches. Welcome back again, Pelle!

How wide and fair the world looks when you’ve spent years within four bare walls! Down in the south the clouds were like the breast of a great bright bird, one of those that come a long way every year with summer in the beat of their strong wings; and on all sides lay the open, white roads, pointing onward with bright assurances.

For the fourth time he was setting out to conquer the world, and this time it was in bitter earnest. There had always before proved to be something more behind, but now he felt that what he should now set out upon would be decisive; if he was victorious now, he would conquer eternity. This time it must be either for weal or woe, and all that he possessed he was now bringing into the field. He had never before been so heavily equipped. Far off he could still make out the dome of the prison, which stood there like a huge mill over the descent to the nether world, and ground misery into crime in the name of humanity. It sucked down every one who was exposed to life’s uncertainty; he had himself hung in the funnel and felt how its whirling drew him down.

But Pelle had been too well equipped. Hitherto he had successfully converted everything into means of rising, and he took this in the same way. His hair was no longer fair, but, on the other hand, his mind was magically filled with a secret knowledge of the inner nature of things, for he had sat at the root of all things, and by listening had drawn it out of the solitude. He had been sitting moping in the dark mountain like Prince Fortune, while Eternity sang to him of the great wonder. The spirits of evil had carried him away into the mountains; that was all. And now they had set him free again, believing that he had become a troll like all his predecessors. But Pelle was not bewitched. He had already consumed many things in his growth, and this was added to the rest. What did a little confinement signify as compared with the slow drip, drip, of centuries? Had he not been born with a caul, upon which neither steel nor poison made any impression?

He sat down on an elevation, pulled off his cap, and let the cool breeze play upon his forehead. It was full of rich promises; in its vernal wandering over the earth it had gathered up all that could improve and strengthen, and loaded him with it. Look around you, Pelle!

On all sides the soil was being prepared, the plough-teams nodded up the gentle inclines and disappeared down the other side. A thin vapor rose from the soil; it was the last of the cold evaporating in the declining spring day. Some way down a few red cottages smilingly faced the sunset, and still farther on lay the town with its eternal cloud of smoke hanging over it.

What would his future be like down there? And how did matters stand? Had the new made its way to the front, or would he once more have to submit to an extortioner, get only the bare necessaries of life out of his work, and see the rest disappear into some one else’s pocket? A number of new factories had grown up, and now formed quite a belt about the city, with their hundreds of giant chimneys stretching up into the sky. But something must be going on, since they were not smoking. Was it a wages conflict?

He was now going to lay plans for his life, build it up again upon the deep foundation that had been laid in his solitude; and yet he knew absolutely nothing of the conditions down in the town! Well, he had friends in thousands; the town was simply lying waiting to receive him with open arms, more fond of him than ever because of all he had suffered. With all his ignorance he had been able to lead them on a little way; the development had chosen him as its blind instrument, and it had been successful; but now he was going to lead them right into the land, for now he felt the burden of life within him.

Hullo! if he wasn’t building castles in the air just as in the old days, and forgetting all that the prison cell had taught him so bitterly! The others’ good indeed! He had been busily concerned for the homes of others, and had not even succeeded in building his own! What humbug! Down there were three neglected beings who would bring accusations against him, and what was the use of his sheltering himself behind the welfare of the many? What was the good of receiving praise from tens of thousands and being called benefactor by the whole world, if those three whose welfare had been entrusted to him accused him of having failed them? He had often enough tried to stifle their accusing voices, but in there it was not possible to stifle anything into silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who is doing the work, then?” he asked of a man whom he met.

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

“Why, that’s me!” exclaimed Pelle, laughing with pleasure.

“You! What absurdity! Why, you’re a young man, and all this happened many years ago.”

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

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

“Sit down!” she said kindly. “My husband’ll be here directly.”

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

“I’m Pelle!” he said, holding out his hand beseechingly. “Don’t you know me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’ll make a difference in things, I suppose?”

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

“Tell me—there was a man in the Movement a few years ago called Pelle; what’s become of him?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pelle had never seen the city so excited, not even during the great lock-out. Class faced class with clenched fists, the workmen even more eager than the upper class: they had become out-and-out politicians. He could see that the Movement had shifted its center of gravity over this. What was necessary was to gain seats; to-day they expected to get the upper hand in the city and a firm footing out in the country. Several of the old leaders were already in parliament and brought forward their practical experience in the debate; their aim now was nothing less than to usurp the political power. This was bold enough: they must have been successful, after all. He still possessed his old quickness of hearing as regards the general feeling, and perceived a change in the public tone. It had become broader, more democratic. Even the upper classes submitted to the ballot now, and condescended to fight for a majority of votes.

Pelle could see no place for himself, however, in this conflict. “Hi, you there! I suppose you’ve voted?” men shouted to him as they passed. Voted! He had not even the right to vote! In the battle that was now being fought, their old leader was not even allowed to take part as an ordinary soldier.

Out of the road! They marched in small bands on their way to the polling-booths or the Assembly Rooms, taking up the whole pavement, and Pelle readily moved out of their way. This time he did not come like a king’s son for whom the whole world stood waiting.

He was of the scum of the earth, neither more nor less, one who had been thrown aside and forgotten. If he succeeded in recalling himself to their remembrance, it would only be the bringing up of the story of a criminal. There was the house where the Stolpes lived. Perhaps they knew where Ellen was. But what did it matter to him? He had not forgotten Lasse Frederik’s terror-stricken face. And there was the corner house where Morten had managed the business. Ah, it was long since their ways had parted! Morten had in reality always envied him; he had not been able to bear his tremendous success. Now he would be able to crow over him!

Anger and bitterness filled his heart, and his head was confused, and his thoughts, bred of malice, were like clumsy faultfinders. For years the need of associating with human beings had been accumulating within him; and now the whole thing gave way like an avalanche. He could easily pick a quarrel with some one, just to make himself less a matter of indifference to the rest of the world. Why shouldn’t he go to the “Cupping-Glass”? He would be expected there at any rate.

Outside Griffenfeldt Street there was a crowd. A number of people had gathered round a coal-heaver, who was belaboring a lamp-post with the toes of his wooden shoes, at the same time using abusive language. He had run against it and had a bruise on his forehead. People were amusing themselves at his expense.

As the light from the lamp fell upon the coal-blackened face of the drunken man, Pelle recognized him. It was Merry Jacob. He pushed his way angrily through the crowd and took him by the shoulder. “What’s the matter with you, Jacob? Have you become a drunkard?” he said hotly. “How’s that?”

“It’s got no business to get in the way of an organized workman,” Jacob said indistinctly, kicking the air to the great delight of the onlookers, who encouraged him to continue. “I’m a member of my organization, and don’t owe anything; you can see for yourselves!” He pulled out of his breast-pocket a little book in a black leather cover, and turned over its pages. “Just look for yourselves! Member’s subscription paid, isn’t it? Strike subscription paid, isn’t it? Shown on entrance, isn’t it? Just you shut up! Take it and pass it round; we must have our papers in order. You’re supporting the election fund, I suppose? Go up and vote, confound you! The man who won’t give his mite is a poor pal. Who says thief? There’s no one here that steals. I’m an honest, organized—” He suddenly began to weep, and the saliva dropped from the corners of his mouth onto his coat, while he made fearful grimaces.

Pelle managed to get him into a courtyard, and washed his wound at the pump. The cold water made him shiver, and his head lolled weakly. “Such a snotty blackleg!” he murmured. “I’ll get the chairman to give him a doing in the paper.”

Suddenly he recognized Pelle. He started, and consciousness struggled to obtain control over his dulled senses. “Why, is that you, master?” he asked shamefacedly, seizing Pelle’s hand. “So you’ve come back! I suppose you think me a beast, but what can I do?”

“Just come along!” said Pelle sharply, anxious to get away from the crowd of spectators.

They went down Meinung Street, Jacob staggering along in silence, and looking askance at his former leader. He walked a little awkwardly, but it came from his work; the meeting with Pelle had made him almost sober. “I’m sure you think I’m a beast,” he said again at last in a pitiful voice. “But you see there’s no one to keep me straight.”

“It’s the fault of the brandy,” said Pelle shortly.

“Well, you may be right, but a fellow needs a kind word now and then, and you have to take it where you can get it. Your pals look down upon you and chuck you out of their set.”

“What’s the matter, then?” asked Pelle.

“What’s the matter? Six times five’s the matter, because I wouldn’t let my old father starve during the lockout. We had a jolly good time then. I was a good son! Didn’t mind the fat purses of the bigwigs and a little bread and water—and the devil and his standpipe! But now they’re singing another tune: That man! Why, he’s been punished for theft! End of him. No one asks why; they’ve become big men, you see. In olden days I was always called Merry Jacob, and the fellows liked to be in my shift. Do you know what they call me now? Thieving Jacob. Well, they don’t say it right out, for if they did, some one ’ud crack their heads for them; but that is my name. Well, I say to myself, perhaps you saw everything topsy-turvy in those days; perhaps, after all, you’re nothing but a thief. And then I have to drink to become an honest man again.”

“And get in rages with the lamp-posts! Don’t you think you’d do better to hit out at those who wrong you?”

Jacob was silent and hung his head; the once strong, bold fellow had become like a dog that any one might kick. If it were so dreadful to bear six times five among one’s own people, what could Pelle say? “How is your brother?” he asked, in order to divert Jacob’s thoughts to something brighter. “He was a splendid fellow.”

“He hung himself,” answered Jacob gloomily. “He couldn’t stand it any longer. We broke into a house together, so as to be equal about it; and the grocer owed the old man money—he’d worked for it—and they meant to cheat him out of it. So the two old things were starving, and had no fire either; and we got them what they’d a right to, and it was so splendidly done too. But afterward when there was a row at the works, agitation and election fuss and all that kind of thing, they just went and left him and me out. We weren’t the right sort, you see; we hadn’t the right to vote. He couldn’t get even with the business in any other way than by putting a rope over the lamp-hook in the ceiling. I’ve looked at the matter myself all round, you see, but I can’t make anything of it.” He walked on a little without speaking, and then said: “Would you hit out properly now? There’s need of a kind word.”

Pelle did not answer; it was all too sad. He did not even hear the question.

“It was chiefly what you said that made me believe in a better time coming,” Jacob continued persistently, “or perhaps my brother and me would have done differently and things might have gone better with both of us. Well, I suppose you believed it yourself, but what do you think now? Do you still believe in that about the better time? For I should like to be an honest man again.”

Of course Pelle still believed in it.

“For there aren’t many who’d give a brass farthing for that story now; but if you say so—I’ve got faith in you all the same. Others wouldn’t have the brains to think of anything for themselves, and it was like the cork going off, so to speak, for us poor people when you went away; everything went flat. If anything happens, it doesn’t do for a poor devil to look on; and every time any one wants to complain, he gets a voting-paper pushed into his hand and they say: Go and vote and things will be altered! But confound it, that can’t rouse a fellow who’s not learnt anything from the time he was small. They’d taken a lot of trouble about me now—whitewashing me so that I could use my right to vote; but they can’t make me so that no one looks down on me. And so I say, Thank you for nothing! But if you still believe in it, so will I, for I’ve got faith in you. Here’s my hand on it!”

Jacob was the same simple, good-hearted fellow that he had been in former days when he lived in the attic in the “Ark.” There might very well have been a little more evil in him. But his words warmed Pelle’s heart. Here was some one who needed him, and who still believed in him although he had been maimed in the fight. He was the first of the disabled ones, and Pelle was prepared to meet with more and to hear their accusations. Many of them would turn against him now that he was powerless, but he would have to put up with that. He felt as though he had the strength for it now.

Pelle went into the street again, letting his feet carry him where they would, while he thought of the past and the future. They had been so certain that a new age would dawn upon them at once! The new, great truth had been so self-evident that it seemed as if all the old conditions must fall before it as at a magic word; and now the everyday reality had worn the gloss off it. As far as he could see, nothing particular had happened, and what was there to happen? That was not the way to overturn systems. From Merry Jacob’s opinion he could draw his own, but he was no longer despondent, he did not mind what happened. He would have had no objection to challenge the opinion of his old comrades at once, and find out how he stood.

He had passed through several side streets when he suddenly found himself in front of a large, well-lighted building with a broad flight of steps, up which people were flocking. It was one of the working-men’s halls, and festivities were being held in it to celebrate the elections. Pelle went, by force of habit, with the stream.

He remained at the back of the hall, and used his eyes as though he had just dropped down from some other planet; strange feelings welled up within him when he found himself once more among the people. For a moment he felt a vehement desire to cry: Here I am! and stretch out his arms to them all; but he quickly controlled it, and his face regained its stony composure.

This then was his army from the conflict. They were decidedly better clothed than on the day when he led them in triumph into the city as its true citizens; they carried their heads higher too, did not get behind one another, but claimed room for themselves. They had more to eat, he could see, for their faces shone more; and their eyes had become indolent in expression, and no longer looked hungrily out into uncertainty but moved quietly and unhesitatingly from place to place. They were prepared for another long march, and perhaps it was as well; great things did not happen in the twinkling of an eye.

He was aroused from his thoughts by discovering that the people nearest to him were turning and gazing at him. The number of faces looking round at him increased, and the words, “Pelle is here!” passed in a murmur through the crowd. Hundreds of eyes were directed toward him questioningly and searchingly, some of them in evident expectation of something unusual happening at once.

The movement became general—a wave that carried him resistlessly to the front of the hall and up onto the platform. A great roar like the breaking of surf arose on all sides of him and stupefied his sensitive brain in which silence sat always putting together a fine new world about which no one else knew. Suddenly everything was still, so still that the solitude was again audible to his ear.

Pelle spoke quietly and with confidence. His words were a greeting to them from a world they as yet did not know, the great solitude through which man must move alone—without loud-voiced companions to encourage him—and listen until he hears his own heart beat within it. He sits in a cell again, like the first original germ of life, alone and forsaken; and over him a spider skilfully spins its web. At first he is angry with the busy insect, and tears down the web; but the insect begins again patiently. And this suddenly becomes a consolatory lesson to him never to give up; he becomes fond of the little vigilant creature that makes its web as skilfully as if it had a great responsibility, and he asks himself whether it is at all conscious of his existence. Is it sorry for him in his forsaken condition, since it does not move to another place, but patiently builds its web up again, finer and finer, as if it had only been torn down because it was not made well enough? He bitterly regrets his conduct, and would give much for a sign that the little insect is not angry with him, for no one can afford to offend another; the smallest creature is of vital importance to you. In the loneliness of the prison cell you learn solidarity. And one day when he is sitting reading, the spider, in its busy efforts to carry its thread past him, drops down and uses his shoulder as a temporary attachment. Never before has such confidence been shown him notwithstanding everything; the little insect knew how a hardened criminal should be taken. It taught him that he had both a heart and a soul to take care of. A greeting to his comrades from the great silence that was waiting to speak to them one by one.

He spoke from the depths of his soul, and saw surprise in their faces. What in the world did he want? Did he want them all to go to prison only because he himself had been there? Was that all that was left of the old Pelle—Lightning, as he was then called? He was certainly rather weak in the legs; there wasn’t much of his eloquence left! They quickly lost interest and began to talk together in undertones; there came only a little desultory applause here and there from the corners.

Pelle felt the disappointment and indifference, and smiled. He no longer had need of storms of approbation; he listened for it now within himself. This much he had learned by standing up there, namely, that he had not done with the men below; he was, in fact, only just beginning with them. His work had been swept away: well then he would build up a new one that was better. He had sat in his prison-cell and learned long- suffering.

He took a seat below the platform among the leaders of the meeting, and felt that he was really a stranger there. It was out of compassion they had drawn him into the meeting; he read in their eyes that the work that had been done was done without him, and that he came at an inopportune moment. Would they have to reckon with him, the hare-brained fellow, now again, or did he mean to emigrate? Alas, he did not give much impetus to the Movement! but if they only knew how much wisdom he had gained in his solitude!

He did not talk, but looked on absently, trying to listen through the noise for something lasting. They laughed and drank and made speeches— for him too; but all this was so unnecessary! They had gained confidence, they spoke quite openly, there was a certain emancipation in their general behavior; taken as a whole, they made a good impression. But the miracle? the incomprehensible? He missed a little anxiety behind the prosperity, the deep, silent pondering that would show that they had gazed into a new world. Did they not hear the undertone at all, since they were making such a noise—the unceasing, soft rhythm that was in his own ears continually and contained the whole thing? The stillness of the cell had made his hearing acute; the boisterous laughter, which expressed their pleasure in life, caused him suffering.

Beside a large blackboard on the platform stood one of the leaders, writing up the victories of the day, amid the rejoicing of the crowd. Pelle slipped out unnoticed, and was standing on the steps, breathing in the quiet night air, when a young man came up to him and held out his hand. It was his brother-in-law, Frederik Stolpe. “I just wanted to wish you welcome back,” he said, “and to thank you for what you said in there.”

“How is Ellen?” Pelle asked in a low voice.

“She’s only pretty well. She lives at 20, Victoria Street, and takes in washing. I think she would be glad to see you.” He looked searchingly at Pelle. “If you like, I can easily arrange for you to meet at my place.”

“Thank you!” Pelle answered, “but I’ll go out to her early to-morrow morning.” He no longer needed to go by circuitous routes.

II

Pelle was awakened by a distant sound resembling thunder, that came nearer and nearer out of the night and kept close to the prison. He lay still and listened shudderingly in the hope of hearing the reassuring step of the watchman passing his door, while fancies chased one another in his heavy head like riderless horses. The hollow, threatening sound grew ever louder and clearer, until it suddenly shattered the stillness of the night with a thunderous roar, which seemed to bring everything crashing down. It was as though a great gulf had opened and swallowed everything.

In one panic-stricken bound he was at the window, his heart beating tumultuously; but the next moment he was ashamed of his mistake. It had been the same terrifying Doomsday that he had dreaded in the days of his childhood, when the lightning zig-zagged among the rocks at home; and yet it was nothing but the noise of the first farm-carts as they passed from the highroad onto the stone paving of the town. It was the solitude brooding in his imagination, making it start in fear at every sound. But that would wear off.

He stretched himself and shook off the nightmare. Free! No gaoler was coming like a bad spirit to shatter the night’s happy dream of freedom. He was free! His pallet had not to be hooked up to the wall at a certain hour; he could lie as long as he wanted to, the whole day, if he liked. But now he had more important things to do; life was waiting. He hastily put on his clothes.

In the street the lamplighter was lighting every other lamp. An endless procession of carts was pouring in from the country to supply the town. Pelle threw open the window and looked out over the wakening city while he dressed himself. He was accustomed to sleep in a silence that was only broken by the soft squeaking of the mice under the heat-grating; and the night-noises of the city—the rumble of the electric trams, the shouts of night-wanderers—all these unwonted sounds that pierced the darkness so startlingly, had filled, his sleep with feverish dreams and caused a series of ugly, deformed visions to pass through his brain.

He now felt quite rested, however, and greeted the city with awakened pleasure. Yes, he had slept more than sufficiently; the noise called him and he must go down and give a helping hand to keep it going. For years he had done nothing but hoard; now he would set to work again with strength and courage. As soon as he was dressed he went out. It was too early to visit Ellen, but he could not bear to stay in any longer. It was early morning. The first tram-car came in, filled with workmen, some even hanging on to the steps both of the motor-wagon and the two cars following it. And there was the first peasant with milk: they were not even up yet in the ice-dairy! Every quarter of an hour trams came in with workmen, and the market-carts continued to drive in from the country laden with vegetables, corn or pigs’ carcasses. The street was like a feeding-tube through which nourishment was continually being drawn into the city.

On the top of swaying loads of straw sat Zealand peasants nodding. They had come all the way from the Frederikssund quarter, and had been driving all night. Here and there came a drover with a few animals intended for the cattle-market. The animals did not like the town, and constantly became restive, hitching themselves round lamp-posts or getting across the tram-lines. The newspaper-women trudged from street- door to street-door with their aprons laden with morning papers, and he heard them toiling up the stairs as though their feet were weighted with lead. And beneath all this could be heard the endless tramp-tramp of workmen hastening to their work.

There was a peculiarly familiar sound in those footsteps, which suddenly reminded him that he no longer belonged to their party, but had marked out his own way for good and evil.

Why was he not still a small, impersonal fraction of this great stream which day after day mechanically followed the same round in the mill? Solitude had made his view of mankind a new and wondering one; he now, in every strange face he met, involuntarily sought for a little of that which makes each individual a world in himself. But these men were all alike, he thought; they came hurrying out of the darkness of the side streets, and were not fully awake and steady on their feet until they joined the throng, but then they did walk capitally. He recognized the firm beat again: he had himself taught it to them.

Daylight came stealing in over Vesterbro, gray and heavy with spring moisture and the city smoke. That part of the town was not quite awake yet; the step sounding in the main street was that of the belated night- wanderer. He turned down Victoria Street, looking about him in surprise; he had never been here before. He read the door-plates: Artists’ Bureau, Artisan Heim, Lodging for Artists, Masseur & Chiropodist, Costumes for Hire. Most of the announcements were in foreign languages. There was also a Gymnasium for Equilibrists and a Conservatorium for Singing and Music, Dancing and Deportment. Nor did there seem to be a scarcity of pawnbrokers and dealers in second-hand goods. How had Ellen drifted into this strange atmosphere of perfumes and old clothes and foreign countries? Behind the windows in the low rooms he saw wonderful dresses thrown over chair-backs—burnouses and red fezes; and a little dark figure with a long pigtail and bare feet in yellow slippers, glided noiselessly past him in the old-fashioned, palatial doorway of No. 20.

He mounted the stairs with a beating heart. The steps were worn and groaned ominously when trodden on. The door of the flat stood ajar, and he heard the sound of sweeping in the front room, while farther in a child was talking to itself or its doll. He had to stand a little while on the landing to take breath and to regain his composure.

Ellen was sweeping under the sofa with quick movements. She rose and gazed at him in bewilderment; the broom fell from her hand and she swayed to and fro. Pelle caught her, and she leaned inert and helpless against him, and remained thus for a considerable time, pale and with closed eyes. When at last he turned her inanimate face toward him and kissed it, she burst into tears.

He spoke gently and reassuringly to her as to a child. She kept her eyes closed, as she had always done when anything overwhelmed her. She lay back on his arm, and he felt her body tremble at the sound of his voice. Her tears seemed to soften her, and from the yielding of her body now he could see how stiffly she must have held herself, and was filled with joy. It had all been for his sake, and with a tremendous effort of her will she had defied fate until he came. She now placed it all at his feet and lay prostrate. How tired she must be! But now she and the children should have a good time; he would live for her now!

He had laid her on the sofa and sat bending over her and telling her quietly how he had repented and longed for her. She made no answer, but held his hand in a convulsive grasp, now and then opening her eyes and stealing a glance at him. Suddenly she discovered how worn and lined his face was, and as she passed her hand over it as if to soften the features, she broke into a storm of weeping.

“You have suffered so, Pelle!” she exclaimed vehemently, passing her trembling fingers through his iron-gray hair. “I can feel by your poor head how badly they’ve treated you. And I wasn’t even with you! If I could only do something really nice to make you look happy!”

She drew his head down onto her bosom and stroked it as a mother might her child’s, and Pelle’s face changed as would a child’s when taken to its mother’s breast. It was as though the well of life flowed through him, the hardness of his expression disappeared, and life and warmth took its place. “I didn’t think you’d come back to us,” said Ellen. “Ever since Lasse Frederik met you yesterday I’ve been expecting you to come.”

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 façade 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 Nörrebro 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.

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.

Morten looked tired out, for he was still not strong. “I’ve let myself in for something that I’m not equal to,” he said despondently.

“Who is the poor child?” asked Pelle softly.

“I don’t know. She came to me this spring, almost dead drunk and in a fearful state; and the next day she regretted it and went off, but I got hold of her again. She’s one of those poor creatures who have no other home than the big timber-yards, and there she’s made a living by going from one to another of the bigger lads. I can get nothing out of her, but I’ve found out in other ways that she’s lived among timber-stacks and in cellars for at least two years. The boys enticed dissolute men out there and sold her, taking most of the money themselves and giving her spirits to encourage her. From what I can make out there are whole organized bands which supply the dissolute men of the city with boys and girls. It makes one sick to think of it! The child must be an orphan, but won’t, as I said, tell me anything. Once or twice I’ve heard her talk in her sleep of her grandmother; but when I’ve referred to it, she sulks and won’t speak.”

“Does she drink?” asked Pelle.

Morten nodded. “I’ve had some bad times with her on that account,” he said. “She shows incredible ingenuity when it’s a case of getting hold of liquor. At first she couldn’t eat hot food at all, she was in such a state. She’s altogether fearfully shattered in soul and body, and causes me much trouble.”

“Why don’t you get her into some home?”

“Our public institutions for the care of children are not calculated to foster life in a down-trodden plant, and you’ll not succeed with Johanna by punishment and treatment like any ordinary child. At times she’s quite abnormally defiant and unmanageable, and makes me altogether despair; and then when I’m not looking, she lies and cries over herself. There’s much good in her in spite of everything, but she can’t let it come out. I’ve tried getting her into a private family, where I knew they would be kind to her; but not many days had passed before they came and said she’d run away. For a couple of weeks she wandered about, and then came back again to me. Late one evening when I came home, I found her sitting wet and shivering in the dark corner outside my door. I was quite touched, but she was angry because I saw her, and bit and kicked as she did just now. I had to carry her in by force. Her unhappy circumstances have thrown her quite off her balance, and I at any rate can’t make her out. So that’s how matters stand. I sleep on the sofa in here, but of course a bachelor’s quarters are not exactly arranged for this. There’s a lot of gossip too among the other lodgers.”

“Does that trouble you?” asked Pelle in surprise.

“No, but the child, you see—she’s terribly alive to that sort of thing. And then she doesn’t comprehend the circumstances herself. She’s only about eleven or twelve, and yet she’s already accustomed to pay for every kindness with her weak body. Can’t you imagine how dreadful it is to look into her wondering eyes? The doctor says she’s been injured internally and is probably tuberculous too; he thinks she’ll never get right. And her soul! What an abyss for a child! For even one child to have such a fate is too much, and how many there are in the hell in which we live!”

They were both silent for a little while, and then Morten rose. “You mustn’t mind if I ask you to go,” he said, “but I must get to work; there’s something I’ve got to finish this evening. You won’t mind, will you? Come and see me again as soon as you can, and thanks for coming this time!” he said as he pressed Pelle’s hand.

“I’d like you to keep your eyes open,” he said as he followed him to the door. “Perhaps you could help me to find out the history of the poor thing. You know a lot of poor people, and must have come in some way or other into her life, for I can see it in her. Didn’t you notice how eager she was to have a look at you? Try to find out about it, will you?”

Pelle promised, but it was more easily said than done. When his thoughts searched the wide world of poverty to which he had drawn so close during the great lock-out, he realized that there were hundreds of children who might have suffered Johanna’s fate.

V

Pelle had got out his old tools and started as shoemaker to the dwellers in his street. He no longer went about seeking for employment, and to Ellen it appeared as if he had given up all hope of getting any. But he was only waiting and arming himself: he was as sanguine as ever. The promise of the inconceivable was still unfulfilled in his mind.

There was no room for him up in the small flat with Ellen doing her washing there, so he took a room in the high basement, and hung up a large placard in the window, on which he wrote with shoemaker’s ink, “Come to me with your shoes, and we will help one another to stand on our feet.” When Lasse Frederik was not at work or at school, he was generally to be found downstairs with his father. He was a clever fellow and could give a hand in many ways. While they worked they talked about all sorts of things, and the boy related his experiences to his father.

He was changing very rapidly and talked sensibly about everything. Pelle was afraid he was getting too little out of his childhood. “Aren’t you going up to play with them?” he asked, when the boys of the neighborhood rushed shouting past the basement window; but Lasse Frederik shook his head. He had played at being everything, from a criminal to a king, so there was nothing more to be had in that direction. He wanted something real now, and in the meantime had dreams of going to sea.

Although they all three worked, they could only just make ends meet; there was never anything over for extras. This was a sorrow to Ellen especially; Pelle did not seem to think much about it. If they only put something eatable before him, he was contented and did not mind what it was.

It was Ellen’s dream that they should still, by toiling early and late, be able to work themselves up into another stratum; but Pelle was angry when she worked on after the time for leaving off. He would rather they were a little poor, if only they could afford to be human beings. Ellen did not understand it, but she saw that his mind was turned in another direction; he who had hitherto always fallen asleep over books would now become so absorbed in them that he did not hear the children playing round him. She had actually to rouse him when there was anything she wanted; and she began to fear this new power which had come in place of the old. It seemed like a curse that something should always work upon him to take him beyond her. And she dared not oppose it; she had bitter experience from former times.

“What are you looking for in those books?” she asked, sitting down beside him. Pelle looked up absently. His thoughts were in far-off regions where she had never been. What was he looking for? He tried to tell her, but could not explain it. “I’m looking for myself!” he said suddenly, striking boldly through everything. Ellen gazed at him, wondering and disappointed.

But she tried again. This time nothing should come between them and destroy her world. She no longer directly opposed anything; she meant to go with him and be where he was. “Tell me what you are doing and let me take part in it,” she said.

Pelle had been prepared to some extent to go into this by himself, and was glad to meet with a desire for development in her too. For the present the intellectual world resembled more or less a wilderness, and it was good to have a companion with him in traversing it.

He explained to her the thoughts that occupied him, and discussed them with her; and Ellen observed wonderingly that it was all about things that did not concern their own little well-being. She took great pains to comprehend this flight away from the things that mattered most; it was like children who always wanted what they ought not to have.

In the evening, when Boy Comfort and Sister had been put to bed, Pelle would take a book and read aloud. Ellen was occupied with some mending or other, and Lasse Frederik, his ears standing out from his head, hung over a chair-back with his eyes fixed upon his father. Although he did not understand the half of it, he followed it attentively until Nature asserted herself, and he fell asleep.

Ellen understood this very well, for she had great difficulty herself in keeping her eyes open. They were not stories that Pelle read. Sometimes he would stop to write something down or to discuss some question or other. He would have the most extraordinary ideas, and see a connection between things that seemed to Ellen to be as far apart as the poles; she could not help thinking that he might very well have studied to be a pastor. It suited him, however; his eyes became quite black when he was explaining some subject that he was thoroughly interested in, and his lips assumed an expression that made her long to kiss them. She had to confess to herself that in any case it was a very harmless evening occupation, and was glad that what was interesting him this time kept him at home at any rate.

One day Pelle became aware that she was not following him. She did not even believe in what he was doing; she had never believed in him blindly. “She’s never really loved me either: that’s why!” he thought despondently. Perhaps that explained why she took Boy Comfort as calmly as if he were her own child: she was not jealous! Pelle would willingly have submitted to a shower of reproaches if afterward she had given him a kiss wetted with hot tears; but Ellen was never thrown off her balance.

Happy though they were, he noticed that she, to a certain extent, reckoned without him, as if he had a weakness of which it was always well to take account. Her earlier experiences had left their mark upon her.

Ellen had been making plans with regard to the old room and the two small ante-rooms at the end of it. She was tired of washing; it paid wretchedly and gave a great deal of work, and she received very little consideration. She now wanted to let lodgings to artistes. She knew of more than one woman in their street who made a nice living by taking in artistes. “If I’d only got a couple of hundred krones (10 or 11 pounds) to start it with, I’m sure I should make it pay,” she said. “And then you’d have more time and quiet for reading your books,” she added coaxingly.

Pelle was against the plan. The better class of artistes took rooms at the artiste hotels, and the people they might expect to get had not much to pay with. He had seen a good deal of them from his basement window, and had mended shoes for some of them: they were rather a soleless tribe. She said no more about it, but he could see that she was not convinced. She only dropped the subject because he was against it and it was he who would have to procure the money.

He could not bear to think this; he had become cautious about deciding for others. The money might be obtained, if in no other way, by giving security in his furniture and tools. If the plan did not succeed, it would be certain ruin; but perhaps Ellen thought him a wet blanket.

One day he threw down his leather apron and went out to raise the money. It was late when he came home, and Ellen was standing at the door waiting for him with a face of anxiety.

“Here’s the money, my dear! What’ll you give me for it?” he said gaily, and counted out into her hand a hundred and eighty krones (£10) in notes. Ellen gazed in surprise at the money; she had never held so large a sum in her hands before.

“Wherever did you get all that money from?” she asked at last.

“Well, I’ve trudged all day from place to place,” said Pelle cheerfully, “and at last I was directed to a man in Blaagaard Street. He gave me two hundred krones (£11) on the furniture.”

“But there’s only one hundred and eighty (£10) here!”

“Oh, well, he took off twenty krones (£1 2_s_.). The loan’s to be repaid in instalments of twenty krones (£1 2_s_.) a month for fifteen months. I had to sign a statement that I had borrowed three hundred krones (£16 10_s_.), but then we shan’t have to pay any interest.”

Ellen stared at him in amazement. “Three hundred krones, and we’ve only got a hundred and eighty, Pelle!” But she suddenly threw her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately. “Thank you!” she whispered. He felt quite dazed; it was not like her to be so vehement.

She had plenty to do, after hiring the room, in putting it in order. The loose beams had to be fixed up, and the walls plastered and whitewashed a little. The old peasant was willing enough to let it, but he would not hear of going to any expense. Ellen at last succeeded, however, in getting him to agree to pay half the repairs on condition that she took the room for a year and payed the rent in advance. “We can get my brother Frederik to do some of the repairs on Sunday morning,” she said to Pelle, “and then perhaps we shall get it done for nothing.” She was altogether very energetic.

There was need for it too. The rent swallowed up the hundred krones (£5 10_s_.), and then there were all the things that had to be got. She bought a quantity of cheap print, and hung it up so as to divide one side of the room into a number of small compartments each provided with a second-hand bed and hay mattress, and a washing-stand. “Artistes are not so particular,” she said, “and I’m sure they’ll be glad to have the room to practise in.” Finally there were the two little anterooms, which were to be furnished a little better for more particular artistes. There was not nearly enough money, and some of the things had to be taken on credit.

At last it was all ready to receive the guests. It looked quite smart for the amount spent on it, and Pelle could not but admire her cleverness in making a little go a long way. The only thing now left to do was to catch the birds, but here Ellen’s practical sense ceased to act; she had no idea how to proceed. “We must advertise,” she said, and counted up her remaining pence.

Pelle laughed at her. A lot of good it would be to advertise for people who were goodness knows where on railways and steamers! “What shall we do then?” she said, looking anxiously to him for help. After all, he was the man for it all.

Well, first of all there must be a German placard down on the street- door, and then they must make the rooms known. Pelle had studied both German and English in the prison, and he made up the placard himself. He had cards printed, and left them in the artistes’ tavern at the corner of Vesterbro Street, went there himself two or three times after midnight when the artistes gathered there when their work was finished, and stationed himself at the stage-entrances of the music-halls. He soon came to look upon it as a task to be performed, like everything with which he occupied himself; and this should succeed!

Ellen looked on wondering and helpless. She had all at once grown frightened, and followed each of his movements with anxious attention.

Soon, however, things began to move. The girls whose washing Ellen had done took an interest in the undertaking, and sent lodgers to her; and Lasse Frederik, who had the run of the circus stables, often returned with some Russian groom or other who did a turn as a rustic dancer or a Cossack horseman. Sometimes there lived with her people from the other side of the world where they walk with their heads down—fakirs and magicians from India and Japan, snake-charmers from Tetuan, people with shaven heads or a long black pigtail, with oblique, sorrowful eyes, loose hips and skin that resembled the greenish leather that Pelle used for ladies’ boots. Sister was afraid of them, but it was the time of his life to Lasse Frederik. There were fat Tyrolese girls, who came three by three; they jodeled at the music-halls, and looked dreadful all day, much to Ellen’s despair. Now and then a whole company would come, and then trapezes and rings creaked in the great room, Spanish dancers went through their steps, and jugglers practised new feats.

They were all people who should preferably not be seen off the stage. Ellen often went to the circus and music-halls now, but could never quite believe that the performers were the same men and women who went about at home looking like scarecrows. Most of them required nothing except that the lodging should be cheap; they boarded themselves, and goodness knows what they lived on. Some of them simply lighted a fire on a sheet of iron on the floor and made a mixture of rice or something of the sort. They could not eat Danish food, Pelle said. Sometimes they went away without paying, and occasionally took something with them; and they often broke things. There was no fortune to be made out of them, but in the meantime Ellen was satisfied as long as she could keep it going, so that it paid the rent and instalments on the loan and left her a little for her trouble. It was her intention to weed out the more worthless subjects, and raise the whole tone of the business when it had got into good order.

“You really might refuse the worst work now, and save yourself a little,” she said to Pelle when he was sitting over some worn-out factory shoes that had neither sole nor upper. Most boots and shoes had done service somewhere else before they reached this neighborhood; and when they came to Pelle there was not much left of them. “Say no to it!” said Ellen. “It’s far too hardly earned for you! And we shall get on now without having to take everything.” In the kindness of her heart she wanted him to be able to read his books, since he had a weakness for them. Her intention was good, but Pelle had no thought of becoming an aesthetic idler, who let his wife keep him while he posed as a learned man. There were enough of them in the neighborhood, and the inhabitants looked up to them; but they were not interesting. They were more or less another form of drunkard.

To Pelle books were a new power, grown slowly out of his sojourn in prison. He had sat there alone with his work, thrown on himself for occupation, and he had examined himself in every detail. It was like having companionship when he brought to light anything new and strange in himself; and one day he chanced upon the mistiness of his own being, and discovered that it consisted of experience that others had gone through before him. The Bible, which always lay on the prisoner’s table for company, helped him; its words had the sound of a well-known voice that reminded him strongly of Father Lasse’s in his childhood. From the Bible he went on further and discovered that the serious books were men who sat in solitude like himself, and spoke out.

Was solitude so dreadful then when you had such company? Pelle was no longer able to comprehend his own fear of it. As a child he had been a creature in the widest sense, and found companionship in everything; he could converse with trees, animals, and stones. Those fibers had withered, and no longer conveyed nourishment; but then he became one with the masses, and thought and felt exactly as they did. That was crumbling away too now; he was being isolated distinctly, bit by bit, and he was interested in discovering a plan in it. He had made Nature subject to him even as a child, and had afterward won the masses! It was solitude now that had to be taken, and he himself was going about in the midst of it, large and wonderful! It was already leaving indelible traces in his mind, although he had seen nothing of it yet. He felt strangely excited, very much as he had felt when, in his childhood, he arrived in Bornholm with his father and could see nothing, but heard the movement of thronging life behind the mist. A new and unknown world, full of wonders and throbbing with anticipation, would meet him in there.

Pelle’s action was not due to his own volition. He might as well try to lift himself up by his hair as determine that now he would be a human being by himself. It was an awakening of new powers. He no longer let sunshine and rain pass unnoticed over his head. A strange thing happened to him—he looked wonderingly at everything that he had formerly passed by as commonplace, and saw it all in a new, brilliant light. He had to go all over it from the beginning, look at every detail. How wonderfully everything was connected, sorrow and joy and apparent trifles, to make him, Pelle, who had ruled over hundreds of thousands and yet had to go to prison in order to feel himself rich! Something had been ignited in him that could never be extinguished, a sacred fire to which everything must bear fuel, whether it would or not. He could not be conquered now; he drew strength from infinity itself.

The bare cell—three paces one way and six the other—with its tiny window and the mysterious peephole in the door which was like a watchful eye upon one always, how much it had held! It had always been the lot of the poor man to create worlds out of the void, beautiful mirages which suddenly broke and threw him back even poorer and more desolate. But this lasted. All the threads of life seemed to be joined together in the bare cell. It was like the dark, underground place in large buildings where the machinery is kept that admits and excludes light and heat to the whole block. There he discovered how rich and varied life is.

Pelle went about in a peculiarly elevated frame of mind. He felt that something greater and finer than himself had taken up its abode within him and would grow on to perfection there.

It was a new being that yet was himself; it remained there and drew nourishment from everything that he did. He went about circumspectly and quietly, with an introspective expression as though he were weighing everything: there was so much that was not permissible because it might injure it! There were always two of them now—Pelle and this wonderful, invisible ego, which lay securely and weightily within him like a living thing, with its roots in the darkness.

Pelle’s relations to books were deeply grounded: he had to find out what the world meant now. He was a little distrustful of works of fiction; you got at their subject-matter too easily, and that could not be right. They were made up, too! He needed real stuff, facts. There were great spaces in his brain that longed to be filled with a tangible knowledge of things. His favorite reading was historical works, especially social history; and at present he read everything that came in his way, raw and unsweetened; it would have to sort itself out. It was a longing that had never been satisfied, and now seemed insatiable.

He minded his work punctiliously, however. He had made it a principle never to touch a book as long as any work lay waiting unfinished on the floor. In prison he had dreamt of a reasonable working-day of—for instance—eight hours, so that he would have time and strength to occupy himself with intellectual matters; but now he took it off his night’s sleep instead. This was at any rate a field out of which they need not try to keep him; he would have his share in the knowledge of the times. He felt it was a weapon. The poor man had long enough retired willingly into the corner for want of enlightenment, and whenever he put out his head he was laughed back again. Why did he not simply wrest the prerogative from the upper classes? It cost only toil, and in that coin he was accustomed to pay! He was scarcely deficient in ability; as far as Pelle could see at present, almost all the pioneers of the new state of things came from the lower classes.

He discovered with pleasure that his inward searching did not carry him away from the world, for far in there he came out again into the light— the light itself! He followed the secret laws for his own inward being, and found himself once more deep in the question of the welfare of the multitude. His practical sense required this confirmation of the conditions. There were also outward results. Even now history could no longer be used to light him and his ideas home; he knew too much. And his vision grew from day to day, and embraced an ever-widening horizon. Some day he would simply take the magic word from the trolls and wake the giant with it!

He worked hard and was as a rule full of confidence. When the last of the artistes came home from their café, he was often sitting working by the light of his shoemaker’s lamp. They would stop before the open basement window and have a chat with him in their broken Danish. His domestic circumstances were somewhat straitened; the instalments in repayment of the loan, and the debt on the furniture still swallowed all that they were able to scrape together, and Pelle had no prospect of getting better work. But work is the bearer of faith, and he felt sure that a way would open out if only he kept on with it unweariedly.

He took Ellen’s unspoken mistrust of his projects quietly. He felt himself to be greater than she in this; she could not reach up to the level of his head!

VI

Pelle was awake as early as four o’clock, although he had gone to bed late. He slept lightly at this time, when the summer night lay lightly upon his eyelids. He stole out into the kitchen and washed himself under the tap, and then went down to his work. The gray spirit of the night was still visible down in the street, but a tinge of red was appearing above the roofs. “The sun’s rising now over the country,” he thought, recalling the mornings of his childhood, the fields with their sheen of silvery dew, and the sun suddenly coming and changing them into thousands of sparkling diamond drops. Ah, if one could once more run bare-footed, if a little shrinkingly, out into the dewy grass, and shout a greeting to the dawning day: “Get up, Sun! Pelle is here already!” The night-watchman came slowly past the open window on his way home. “Up already?” he exclaimed in a voice hoarse with the night air, as he nodded down to Pelle. “Well, it’s the early bird that catches the worm! You’ll be rich one of these days, shoemaker!” Pelle laughed; he was rich!

He thought of his wife and children while he worked. It was nice to think of them sleeping so securely while he sat here at work; it emphasized the fact that he was their bread-winner. With every blow of his hammer the home grew, so he hammered away cheerfully. They were poor, but that was nothing in comparison with the fact that if he were taken away now, things would go to pieces. He was the children’s Providence; it was always “Father’s going to,” or “Father said so.” In their eyes he was infallible. Ellen too began to come to him with her troubles; she no longer kept them to herself, but recognized that he had the broader back.

It was all so undeserved—as if good spirits were working for him. Shameful though it was that the wife should work to help to keep the family, he had not been able to exempt her from it. And what had he done for the children? It was not easy to build everything up at once from a bare foundation, and he was sometimes tempted to leave something alone so as to accomplish the rest the more quickly. As it was now, he was really nothing! Neither the old Pelle nor the new, but something indeterminate, in process of formation, something that was greatly in need of indulgence! A removing van full of furniture on its way to a new dwelling.

He often enough had occasion to feel this from outside; both old enemies and old friends looked upon him as a man who had gone very much down in the world. Their look said: “Is that really all that remains of that stalwart fellow we once knew?” His own people, on the other hand, were lenient in their judgment. “Father hasn’t got time,” Sister would say in explanation to herself when she was playing about down in his work-room —“but he will have some day!” And then she would picture to herself all the delightful things that would happen then. It affected Pelle strangely; he would try to get through this as quickly as possible.

It was a dark and pathless continent into which he had ventured, but he was now beginning to find his way in it. There were ridges of hills that constantly repeated themselves, and a mountain-top here and there that was reached every time he emerged from the thicket. It was good to travel there. Perhaps it was the land he and the others had looked for. When he had got through, he would show it to them.

Pelle had a good memory, and remembered all that he read. He could quote much of it verbatim, and in the morning, before the street had wakened, he used to go through it all in his mind while he worked. It surprised him to find how little history concerned itself with his people; it was only in quite recent times that they had been included. Well, that did not trouble him! The Movement was really something new, and not one of history’s everlasting repetitions. He now wanted to see its idea in print, and one day found him sitting with a strange solemnity in the library with Marx and Henry George in front of him. Pelle knew something about this subject too, but this was nevertheless like drawing up a net from the deep; a brilliant world of wonders came up with it. There were incontrovertible logical proofs that he had a right apprehension, though it had been arrived at blindly. The land of fortune was big enough for all; the greater the number that entered it, the larger did it become. He felt a desire to hit out again and strike a fresh blow for happiness!

Suddenly an avalanche seemed to fall from the top to the bottom of the house, a brief, all-pervading storm that brought him back to his home. It was only Lasse Frederik ushering in the day; he took a flight at each leap, called a greeting down to his father, and dashed off to his work, buttoning the last button of his braces as he ran. A little later Ellen came down with coffee.

“Why didn’t you call me when you got up?” she said sulkily. “It’s not good to sit working so long without having had something to eat.”

Pelle laughed and kissed her good-morning. “Fine ladies don’t get up until long after their husbands,” he said teasingly.

But Ellen would not be put off with a jest. A proper wife would be up before her husband and have something ready for him. “I will have you call me!” she said decidedly, her cheeks very red. It suited her to get roused now and then.

While he drank his coffee, she sat and talked to him about her affairs, and they discussed the plans for the day, after which she went upstairs to help the children to dress.

Later in the morning Pelle laid aside his work, dressed himself and went out to deliver it. While he was out he would go into the Library and look up something in the large dictionaries.

The street lived its own quiet life here close up to the greater thoroughfares—the same life day after day. The fat second-hand dealer from Jutland was standing as usual at his door, smoking his wooden pipe. “Good-morning, shoemaker!” he cried. A yellow, oblique-eyed oriental in slippers and long black caftan was balancing himself carelessly on the steps of the basement milk-shop with a bowl of cream in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other. Above on the pavement two boys were playing hopscotch, just below the large red lamp which all night long advertised its “corn-operator” right up to the main thoroughfare. Two girls in cycling costume came out of a gateway with their machines; they were going to the woods. “Good-day, Pelle! How is Ellen’s business getting on?” they asked familiarly. They were girls for whom she had washed.

Pelle was fond of this busy part of the town where new shops with large plate-glass windows stood side by side with low-roofed cottages where retail business was carried on behind ordinary windows with wallflowers and dahlias in them as they might be in any provincial town. A string was stretched above the flower-pots, with a paper of safety-pins or a bundle of shoelaces hanging from it. There were poor people enough here, but life did not run in such hard grooves as out at Nörrebro. People took existence more easily; he thought them less honorable, but also less self-righteous. They seemed to be endowed with a more cheerful temperament, did not go so steadily and methodically to and from their fixed work, but, on the other hand, had several ways of making a living.

There was everywhere a feeling of breaking up, which corresponded well with Pelle’s own condition; the uncertainty of life enveloped everything in a peculiarly tense atmosphere. Poverty did not come marching in close columns of workmen; its clothing was plentiful and varied; it might appear in the last woollen material from the big houses of old Copenhagen, or in gold-rimmed spectacles and high hat. Pelle thought he knew all the trades, but here there were hundreds of businesses that could not be organized; every day he discovered new and remarkable trades. He remembered how difficult it had been to organize out here; life was too incalculable.

There was room here for everything; next door to one another lived people whom the Movement had not yet gathered in, and people who had been pushed up out of it in obstinate defiance. There was room here for him too; the shadow he had dreaded did not follow him. The people had seen too much of life to interfere in one another’s affairs; respectable citizenship had not been able to take possession of the poor man. There was something of the “Ark” about this part of the town, only not its hopelessness; on the contrary, all possibilities were to be found here. The poor man had conquered this ground from the rich citizens, and it seemed as if the development had got its direction from them. Here it was the proletariat whose varied nature forced its way upward, and leavened—so to speak—the whole. In the long side streets, which were full of second-hand dealers and pawnbrokers, existence had not resolved itself into its various constituents. Girls and gamblers were next-door neighbors to old, peaceable townsfolk, who lived soberly on the interest of their money, and went to church every Sunday with their hymn-books in their hands. The ironmonger had gold watches and antique articles among the lumber in his cellar.

Pelle went along Vesterbro Street. The summer holidays were just over, and the pavement on the Figaro side was crowded with sunburnt people— business-men, students and college girls—who were conspicuous in the throng by their high spirits. They had just returned to town, and still had the scent of fresh breeze and shore about them: it was almost as good as a walk in the country. And if he wanted to go farther out into the world, he could do that too; there were figures enough in the Vesterbro neighborhood to arrest his fancy and carry him forth. It was like a quay on which people from all parts of the world had agreed to meet—artists, seamen and international agents. Strange women came sailing through the crowd, large, exotic, like hot-house fruits; Pelle recognized them from the picture of the second-hand dealer’s daughter in the “Ark,” and knew that they belonged to the international nursing corps. They wore striped costumes, and their thick, fair hair emitted a perfume of foreign lands, of many ports and routes, like the interior of steamers; and their strong, placid faces were big with massage. They floated majestically down the current like full-rigged vessels. In their wake followed some energetic little beings who also belonged to the show, and had decked themselves out to look like children, with puffed sleeves, short skirts, and hair tied up with ribbons. Feeble old men, whom the sun had enticed out, stood in silent wonder, following the lovely children with their eyes.

Pelle felt a peculiar pleasure in being carried along with this stream which flowed like life itself, broad and calm. The world was greater than he had thought, and he took no side for or against anything, but merely wondered over its variety.

He came home from the library at two, with a large volume of statistics under his arm. Ellen received him with red eyes.

“Have your lodgers been making things unpleasant for you again?” he asked, looking into her face. She turned her head away.

“Did you get the money for your work?” she asked instead of answering.

“No, the man wasn’t in the shop himself. They’re coming here to pay.”

“Then we haven’t got a farthing, and I’ve got no dinner for you!” She tried to smile as she spoke, but her heavy eyelids quivered.

“Is that all?” said Pelle, putting his arm round her. “Why didn’t you make me some porridge? I should have liked a good plateful of that.”

“I have made it, but you’ll get hardly anything else, and that’s no food for a man.”

He took her round the waist with both hands, lifted her up and put her carefully down upon the kitchen table. “That’s porridge, my dear!” he said merrily. “I can hardly walk, I’m so strong!”

But there was no smile to be coaxed out of Ellen; something had happened that she did not want to tell him. At last he got out of her that the two musical clowns had gone off without paying. They had spoiled her good bed-clothes by lying in them with their clothes on, and had made them so filthy that nothing could be done with them. She was unwilling to tell Pelle, because he had once advised her against it; but all at once she gave in completely. “You mustn’t laugh at me!” she sobbed, hiding her face on his shoulder.

Pelle attempted to comfort her, but it was not so easily done. It was not the one misfortune but the whole fiasco that had upset her so; she had promised herself so much from her great plan. “It isn’t all lost yet,” he said to comfort her. “We’ll just keep on and you’ll see it’ll be all right.”

Ellen was not to be hoodwinked, however. “You know you don’t mean it,” she said angrily. “You only say it because of me! And the second-hand dealer sent up word this morning that if he didn’t soon get the rest of his money, he’d take all the furniture back again.”

“Then let him take it, and that’ll be an end of the matter.”

“But then we shall lose all that we’ve paid!” she exclaimed quickly, drying her eyes.

Pelle shrugged his shoulders. “That can’t be helped.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to get the things sold little by little? We only owe a third on them.”

“We can’t do that; it’s punishable. We’ve got a contract for the hire of the furniture, and as long as we owe a farthing on it, it’s his. But we’re well and strong all of us; what does it matter?”

“That’s true enough,” answered Ellen, trying to smile, “but the stronger we are, the more food we need.”

A girl came running up with a pair of boots that were to be soled as quickly as possible. They were “Queen Theresa’s,” and she was going to wear them in the evening. “That’ll bring us in a few pence!” said Ellen, brightening. “I’ll help you to get them done quickly.”

They seated themselves one on each side of the counter, and set to work. It reminded them of the early days of their married life. Now and then they stopped to laugh, when Ellen had forgotten some knack. In an hour and a half the boots were ready, and Pelle went himself with them to make sure of the money.

“You’ll most likely find her in the tavern,” said Ellen. “The artistes generally have their dinner at this hour, and she’s probably there.”

It was a busy time in the artistes’ restaurant. At the small tables sat bony, close-cropped men of a peculiar rubicund type, having dinner with some girl or other from the neighborhood. They were acrobats, clowns, and wrestlers, people of a homogeneous type, dressed in loud checks, with enormous cuffs and boots with almost armor-plated toes. They chewed well and looked up stupidly at the call of the girls; they wore a hard, brutal mask for a face, and big diamond rings on their fingers. Some of them had such a powerful lower jaw that they looked as if they had developed it for the purpose of taking blows in a boxing-match. In the adjoining room some elegant young men were playing billiards while they secretly kept an eye on what was going on at the tables. They had curls on their forehead, and patent leather shoes.

“Queen Theresa” was not there, so Pelle went to Dannebrog Street, where she lived, but found she was not at home. He had to hand in the boots to a neighbor, and go back empty-handed.

Well, it was no more than might have been expected. When you needed a thing most, chance played with you as a cat played with a mouse. Pelle was not nearly so cheerful as he appeared to be when he faced Ellen. The reality was beginning to affect him. He went out to Morten, but without any faith in the result; Morten had many uses for what he earned.

“You’ve just come at the right moment!” said Morten, waving two notes in the air. “I’ve just had twenty krones (a guinea) sent me from The Working Man, and we can divide them. It’s the first money I’ve got from that quarter, so of course I’ve spat upon it three times.”

“Then they’ve found their way to you, after all!” exclaimed Pelle joyfully.

Morten laughed. “I got tired of seeing my work repeated in their paper,” he said, “when they’ll have nothing to do with me up there; and I went up to them and drew their attention to the paragraph about piracy. You should have seen their expression! Goodness knows it’s not pleasant to have to earn your bread on wretchedness, so to speak, but it’s still more painful when afterward you have to beg for your hard-earned pence. You mustn’t think I should do it either under other circumstances; I’d sooner starve; but at any rate I won’t be sweated, by my own side! It’s a long time since you were here.”

“I’ve been so busy. How’s Johanna?” The last words were spoken in a whisper.

“Not well just now; she’s keeping her bed. She’s always asking after you.”

“I’ve been very busy lately, and unfortunately I can’t find out anything about her. Is she just as cross?”

“When she’s in a bad temper she lets me understand that she could easily help to put us on the right track if she wanted to. I think it amuses her to see us fooled.”

“A child can’t be so knowing!”

“Don’t be so sure of that! Remember she’s not a child; her experiences have been too terrible. I have an idea that she hates me and only meditates on the mischief she can do me. You can’t imagine how spiteful she can be; it’s as though the exhalations from down there had turned to poison in her. If any one comes here that she notices I like, she reviles them as soon as they’re gone, says some poisonous thing about them in order to wound me. You’re the only one she spares, so I think there must be some secret link between you. Try to press her on the subject once more.”

They went in to her. As the door opened she slipped hastily down beneath the clothes—she had been listening at the door—and pretended to be asleep. Morten went back to his work and closed the door after him.

“Well, Johanna,” said Pelle, seating himself on the edge of the bed. “I’ve got a message for you. Can you guess who it’s from?”

“From grandmother!” she exclaimed, sitting up eagerly; but the next moment she was ashamed at having been outwitted, and crept down under the clothes, where she lay with compressed lips, and stole distrustful glances at Pelle. There was something in the glance and the carriage of her head that awakened dormant memories in him, but he could not fix them.

“No, not grandmother,” he said. “By-the-bye, where is she now? I should like to speak to her. Couldn’t you go out to her with me when you get well?”

She looked at him with sparkling eyes and a mocking expression. “Don’t you wish you may get it!” she answered.

“Tell me where she lives, Johanna,” Pelle went on, taking her thin hand in his, “there’s a good girl!”

“Oh, yes, at night!”

Pelle frowned. “You must be very heartless, when you can leave your old grandmother and not even like others to help her. I’m certain she’s in want somewhere or other.”

Johanna looked at him angrily. “I whipped her too,” she exclaimed malignantly, and then burst into a laugh at Pelle’s expression. “No, I didn’t really,” she said reassuringly. “I only took away her stick and hid her spectacles so that she couldn’t go out and fetch the cream. So she was obliged to send me, and I drank up all the cream and put water in the can. She couldn’t see it, so she scolded the milk people because they cheated.”

“You’re making all this up, I think,” said Pelle uncertainly.

“I picked the crumb out of the loaf too, and let her eat the crust,” Johanna continued with a nod.

“Now stop that,” said Pelle, stroking her damp forehead. “I know quite well that I’ve offended you.”

She pushed away his hand angrily. “Do you know what I wish?” she said suddenly. “I wish you were my father.”

“Would you like me to be?”

“Yes, for when you became quite poor and ill, I’d treat you just as well as I’ve treated grandmother.” She laughed a harsh laugh.

“I’m certain you’ve only been kind to grandmother,” said Pelle gravely.

She looked hard at him to see whether he meant this too, and then turned her face to the wall. He could see from the curve of her body that she was struggling to keep back her tears, and he tried to turn her round to him; but she stiffened herself.

“I won’t live with grandmother!” she whispered emphatically, “I won’t!”

“And yet you’re fond of her!”

“No, I’m not! I can’t bear her! She told the woman next door that I was only in the way! It was that confounded child’s fault that she couldn’t get into the Home, she said; I heard her myself! And yet I went about and begged all the food for her. But then I left her!” She jerked the sentences out in a voice that was quite hoarse, and crumpled the sheet up in her hands.

“But do tell me where she is!” said Pelle earnestly. “I promise you you shan’t go to her if you don’t want to.”

The child kept a stubborn silence. She did not believe in promises.

“Well, then, I must go to the police to find her, but I don’t want to do that.”

“No, because you’ve been in prison!” she exclaimed, with a short laugh.

A pained expression passed over Pelle’s face. “Do you think that’s so funny?” he said, winking his eyes fast. “I’m sure grandmother didn’t laugh at it.”

Johanna turned half round. “No, she cried!” she said. “There was no one to give us food then, and so she cried.”

It began to dawn upon him who she was. “What became of you two that day on the common? We were going to have dinner together,” he said.

“When you were taken up? Oh, we couldn’t find you, so we just went home.” Her face was now quite uncovered, and she lay looking at him with her large gray eyes. It was Hanne’s look; behind it was the same wondering over life, but here was added to it a terrible knowledge. Suddenly her face changed; she discovered that she had been outwitted, and glared at him.

“Is it true that you and mother were once sweethearts?” she suddenly asked mischievously.

Pelle’s face flushed. The question had taken him by surprise. “I’ll tell you everything about your mother if you’ll tell me what you know,” he said, looking straight at her.

“What is it you want to know?” she asked in a cross-questioning tone. “Are you going to write about me in the papers?”

“My dear child, we must find your grandmother! She may be starving.”

“I think she’s at the ‘Generality,’” said the child quietly. “I went there on Thursday when the old things had leave to go out and beg for a little coffee; and one day I saw her.”

“Didn’t you go up to her then?”

“No; I was tired of listening to her lamentations!”

Johanna was no longer stiff and defiant. She lay with her face turned away and answered—a little sullenly—Pelle’s questions, while she played nervously with his fingers. Her brief answers made up for him one connected, sad story.

Widow Johnsen was not worth much when once the “Ark” was burnt down. She felt old and helpless everywhere else, and when Pelle went to prison, she collapsed entirely. She and the little girl suffered want, and when Johanna felt herself in the way, she ran away to a place where she could be comfortable. Her grandmother had also been in her way. She had her mother’s whimsical, dreamy nature, and now she gave up everything and ran away to meet the wonderful. An older playfellow seduced her and took her out to the boys of the timber-yard. There she was left to take care of herself, often slept out in the open, and stole now and then, but soon learned to earn money for herself. When it became cold she went as scullery-maid to the inns or maid-of-all-work to the women in Dannebrog Street. Strange to say, she always eluded the police. At first there were two or three times when she started to return to her grandmother, but went no farther than the stairs; she was afraid of being punished, and could not endure the thought of having to listen to the old lady’s complaints. Later on she became accustomed to her new way of living, and no longer felt any desire to leave it, probably because she had begun to take strong drink. Now and again, however, she stole in to the Home and caught a glimpse of her grandmother. She could not explain why she did it, and firmly maintained that she could not endure her. The old woman’s unreasonable complaint that she was an encumbrance to her had eaten deeply into the child’s mind. During the last year she had been a waitress for some time at a sailors’ tavern down in Nyhavn with an innkeeper Elleby, the confidence-man who had fleeced Pelle on his first arrival in the city. It was Elleby’s custom to adopt young girls so as to evade the law and have women-servants for his sailors; and they generally died in the course of a year or two: he always wore a crape band round his sleeve. Johanna was also to have been adopted, but ran away in time.

She slowly confessed it all to Pelle, coarse and horrible as it was, with the instinctive confidence that the inhabitants of the “Ark” had placed in him, and which had been inherited by her from her mother and grandmother. What an abyss of horrors! And he had been thinking that there was no hurry, that life was richer than that! But the children, the children! Were they to wait too, while he surveyed the varied forms of existence—wait and go to ruin? Was there on the whole any need of knowledge and comprehensiveness of survey in order to fight for juster conditions? Was anything necessary beyond the state of being good? While he sat and read books, children were perhaps being trodden down by thousands. Did this also belong to life and require caution? For the first time he doubted himself.

“Now you must lie down and go to sleep,” he said gently, and stroked her forehead. It was burning hot and throbbed, and alarmed he felt her pulse. Her hand dropped into his, thin and worn, and her pulse was irregular. Alas, Hanne’s fever was raging within her!

She held his hand tight when he rose to go. “Were you and mother sweethearts, then?” she asked in a whisper, with a look of expectation in the bright eyes that she fixed upon him. And suddenly he understood the reiterated question and all her strange compliance with his wishes.

For a moment he looked waveringly into her expectant eyes. Then he nodded slowly. “Yes, Johanna; you’re my little daughter!” he said, bending down over her. Her pale face was lighted with a faint smile, and she shyly touched his stubbly chin and then turned over to go to sleep.

In a few words Pelle told Morten the child’s previous history—Madam Johnsen and her husband’s vain fight to get on, his horrible death in the sewer, how Hanne had grown up as the beautiful princess of the “Ark”—Hanne who meant to have happiness, and had instead this poor child!

“You’ve never told me anything about Hanne,” said Morten, looking at him.

“No,” said Pelle slowly. “She was always so strangely unreal to me, like an all too beautiful dream. Do you know she danced herself to death! But you must pretend to the child that I’m her father.”

Morten nodded. “You might go out to the Home for me, and hear about the old lady. It’s a pity she should have to spend her old age there!” He looked round the room.

“You can’t have her here, however,” said Pelle.

“It might perhaps be arranged. She and the child belong to one another.”

Pelle first went home to Ellen with the money and then out to the Home.

Madam Johnsen was in the infirmary, and could not live many days. It was a little while before she recognized Pelle, and she seemed to have forgotten the past. It made no impression whatever on her when he told her that her grandchild had been found. She lay most of the time, talking unintelligibly; she thought she still had to get money for the rent and for food for herself and the child. The troubles of old age had made an indelible impression upon her. “She gets no pleasure out of lying here and being comfortable,” said an old woman who lay in the next bed to hers. “She’s always trying and trying to get things, and when she’s free of that, she goes to Jutland.”

At the sound of the last word, Madam Johnsen fixed her eyes upon Pelle. “I should so like to see Jutland again before I die,” she said. “Ever since I came over here in my young days, I’ve always meant to use the first money I had over on an excursion home; but I never managed it. Hanne’s child had to live too, and they eat a lot at her age.” And so she was back in her troubles again.

The nurse came and told Pelle that he must go now, and he rose and bent over the old woman to say farewell, strangely moved at the thought that she had done so much for him, and now scarcely knew him. She felt for his hand and held it in both hers like a blind person trying to recognize, and she looked at him with her expressionless eyes that were already dimmed by approaching death. “You still have a good hand,” she said slowly, with the far-sounding voice of old age. “Hanne should have taken you, and then things would have been very different.’”

VII

People wondered, at the library, over the grave, silent working-man who took hold of books as if they were bricks. They liked him and helped him to find what he wanted.

Among the staff there was an old librarian who often came and asked Pelle if there were anything he could help him with. He was a little wizened man with gold spectacles and thin white hair and beard that gave a smiling expression to his pale face. He had spent his time among the stacks of books during the greater part of his life; the dust of the books had attacked his chest, and every minute his dry cough sounded through the room.

Librarian Brun was a bachelor and was said to be very rich. He was not particularly neat or careful in his dress, but there was something unspoiled about his person that made one think he could never have been subjected to the world’s rough handling. In his writings he was a fanatical worshipper of the ego, and held up the law of conscience as the only one to which men should be subject. Personally he was reserved and shy, but something drew him to Pelle, who, he knew, had once been the soul in the raising of the masses; and he followed with wonder and curiosity the development of the new working-man. Now and then he brought one of his essays to Pelle and asked him to read it. It often treated of the nature of personality, took as its starting-point the ego of some philosopher or other, or of such and such a religion, and attempted to get at the questions of the day. They conversed in whispers on the subject. The old, easily-approached philosopher, who was read by very few, cherished an unrequited affection for the general public, and listened eagerly to what a working-man might be able to make out of his ideas. Quiet and almost timid though his manner was, his views were strong, and he did not flinch from the thought of employing violent measures; but his attitude toward the raising of the lower classes was sceptical. “They don’t know how to read,” he said. “The common people never touch a real book.” He had lived so long among books that he thought the truths of life were hidden away in them.

They gradually became well acquainted with one another. Brun was the last descendant of an old, decayed family, which had been rich for many generations. He despised money, and did not consider it to be one of the valuable things of life. Never having known want, he had few pretensions, and often denied himself to help others. It was said that he lived in a very Spartan fashion, and used a large proportion of his income for the relief of the poor. On many points he agreed with the lower classes, not only theoretically but purely organically; and Pelle saw, to his amazement, that the dissolution of existing conditions could also take place from the upper grades of society. Perhaps the future was preparing itself at both extremities!

One day Brun carefully led the conversation on to Pelle’s private affairs: he seemed to know something about them. “Isn’t there anything you want to start?” he asked. “I should be so glad if you would allow me to help you.”

Pelle was not yet clear as to what was to be done about the future. “At present,” he said, “the whole thing is just a chaos to me.”

“But you must live! Will you do me the favor of taking a loan from me at any rate, while you’re looking about you? Money is necessary to make one capable and free,” he continued, when Pelle refused it. “It’s a pity, but so it is. You don’t take what you want anyhow, so you must either get the money in the way that offers, or do without.”

“Then I’ll do without,” said Pelle.

“It seems to me that’s what you and yours have always done, and have you ever succeeded in heaping coals of fire on the head of society by it? You set too high a value upon money; the common people have too great respect for the property of others. And upon my word it’s true! The good old poor man could scarcely find it in his heart to put anything into his own miserable mouth; his wife was to have all the good pieces. So he is mourned as lost to our side; he was so easy to get wealth by. His progeny still go about with a good deal of it.”

“Money makes you dependent,” Pelle objected.

“Not always,” answered Brun, laughing. “In my world people borrow and take on credit without a thought: the greater the debt, the better it is; they never treat a man worse than when they owe him money. On that point we are very much more emancipated than you are, indeed that’s where the dividing line goes between the upper classes and the common people. This fear of becoming indebted to any one, and carefulness to do two services in return for one, is all very nice and profitable in your own world; but it’s what you’ll be run down by in your relations to us. We don’t know it at all; how otherwise would those people get on who have to let themselves be helped from their cradle to their grave, and live exclusively upon services received?”

Pelle looked at him in bewilderment. “Poor people have nothing but their sense of honor, and so they watch over it,” he said.

“And you’ve really never halted at this sense of honor that works so splendidly in our favor?” asked Brun in surprise. “Just examine the existing morals, and you’ll discover that they must have been invented by us—for your use. Yes, you’re surprised to hear me say that, but then I’m a degenerate upper-class man, one of those who fall outside the established order of things. I saw your amazement at my not having patted you on the shoulder and said: ‘Poor but proud! Go on being so, young man!’ But you mustn’t draw too far-reaching conclusions from that; as I told you, I’m not that sort. Now mayn’t I give you a helping hand?”

No, Pelle was quite determined he should not. Something had been shattered within him, and the knowledge made him restive.

“You’re an obstinate plebeian,” said Brun, half vexed.

On his way home Pelle thought it all over. Of course he had always been quite aware that the whole thing resembled a gentleman’s carriage, in which he and others like him had to be the horses; the laws and general arrangement were the reins and harness, which made them draw the carriage well. The only thing was that it was always denied from the other side; he was toiling at history and statistics in order to furnish incontrovertible proof of this. But here was some one who sat in the carriage himself, and gave evidence to the effect that it was right enough; and this was not a book, but a living man with whom he stood face to face. It gave an immense support to his belief.

There was need enough for it too, for at home things were going badly. The letting of rooms was at a standstill, and Ellen was selling the furniture as fast as she could. “It’s all the same to me what the law is!” was her reply to Pelle’s warnings. “There surely can be no sense in our having to make the furniture-dealer a present of all we’ve paid upon it, just because he has a scrap of paper against us. When the furniture’s sold, he shall have the rest of what we owe him.”

He did not get the whole, however, for in the first place they had to live. The remainder of the debt hung like a threat over them; if he discovered that the furniture was sold, it might end badly for them. “Remember I’ve been in prison before,” said Pelle.

“They surely can’t punish you for what I’ve done?” said Ellen, looking at him in terror. “Pelle, Pelle, what have I done! Why didn’t I do what you told me!” For a time she collapsed, but then suddenly rose energetically, saying: “Then we must get it paid at once. It’s surely possible to find twenty krones (a guinea)!” And hastening up to their flat, she quickly returned in her hat and jacket.

“What are you going to do?” asked Pelle in amazement.

“What am I going to do? I’m going to ‘Queen Theresa.’ She can get it! Don’t be afraid!” she said, bending down and kissing him. She soon returned with the money. “I may pay it back by washing,” she said cheerfully.

So that matter was settled, and they would have been glad if the loan had been the same. It scarcely moved, however; the instalments ate themselves up in some wonderful way. Two or three times they had had to ask for a postponement, and each time the usurer added the amount of the instalment to the sum still owing; he called it punishment interest.

Pelle read seldom; he felt no wish to do so. He was out early and late looking for a job. He fetched and took back furniture in the town for the second-hand dealer, and did anything else that came to hand.

One evening Ellen came up with a newspaper cutting that “Queen Theresa” had sent her, an advertisement of a good, well-paid situation for a trustworthy man, who had been trained as a shoemaker. “It’s this morning’s,” said Ellen anxiously, “so I only hope it isn’t too late. You must go out there at once.” She took out Pelle’s Sunday clothes quickly, and helped him to make himself tidy. It was for a boot-factory in Borger Street. Pelle took the tram in order to get there quickly, but he had no great hopes of getting the place. The manufacturer was one of his most bitter opponents among the employers at the time when he was organizing the trade—a young master-shoemaker who had had the good sense to follow the development and take the leap over to manufacturer.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “Well, well, old differences shan’t stand between us if we can come to an agreement in other ways. What I want is a man who’ll look a little after everything, a kind of right- hand man who can take something off my shoulders in a general way, and superintend the whole thing when I’m travelling. I think you’ll do capitally for that, for you’ve got influence with the men; and I’d like things to go nicely and smoothly with them, without giving in to them too much, you understand. One may just as well do things pleasantly; it doesn’t cost an atom more, according to my experience, and now one belongs to the party one’s self.”

“Do you?” said Pelle, hardly able to believe his ears.

“Yes! Why shouldn’t an employer be a fellow-partisan? There’s nothing to be afraid of when once you’ve peeped in behind the scenes; and it has its advantages, of course. In ten years’ time every sensible man will be a social democrat.”

“That’s not at all unlikely,” said Pelle, laughing.

“No, is it! So one evening I said to my wife: ‘I say, you know it won’t do soon to own that you don’t belong to the party; in other countries millionaires and counts and barons already belong to it.’ She didn’t quite like it, but now she’s quite satisfied. They’re quite nice people, as she said herself. There are even persons of rank among them. Well, it wasn’t conviction that drove me at first, but now I agree because what they say’s very sensible. And upon my word it’s the only party that can thrash the anarchists properly, don’t you think so? In my opinion all should unite in fighting against them, and that’ll be the end of it, I suppose. I’ve reflected a good deal upon politics and have come to the conclusion that we employers behaved like asses from the beginning. We oughtn’t to have struggled against the Movement; it only drove it to extremes. Just see how well-behaved it’s become since we began to take off our hats to it! You become what you’re treated as, let me tell you. You wouldn’t have acted so harshly if we others had been a little kinder to you. Don’t you allow that? You’re exactly like every one else: you want to have good food and nice clothes—be considered respectable people. So it was wise to cut off the lower end; you can’t rise when you’ve too much lumber as ballast. Fellows who pull up paving- stones and knock you down are no company for me. You must have patience and wait until the turn comes to your party to come in for a share: those are my politics. Well, what do you think about the job?”

“I don’t understand the machines,” said Pelle.

“You’ll soon get into that! But it’s not that that matters, if only you know how to treat the workmen, and that of course you do. I’ll pay you thirty-five krones (£2) a week—that’s a good weekly wage—and in return you’ll have an eye to my advantage of course. One doesn’t join the party to be bled—you understand what I mean? Then you get a free house—in the front building of course—so as to be a kind of vice-landlord for the back building here; there are three stairs with one-roomed flats. I can’t be bothered having anything to do with that; there’s so much nonsense about the mob. They do damage and don’t pay if they can help it, and when you’re a little firm with them they fly to the papers and write spiteful letters. Of course I don’t run much risk of that, but all the same I like things to go smoothly, partly because I aspire to become a member of the management. So you get eighteen hundred krones (£100) a year and a flat at four hundred (£22), which makes two thousand two hundred krones (£l22)—a good wage, though perhaps I oughtn’t to say so myself; but good pay makes good work. Well, is it a bargain?”

Pelle wanted to have till the next day to think it over.

“What do you want to think over? One ought never to think over things too much; our age requires action. As I said before, an expert knowledge is not the main thing; it’s your authority that I chiefly want. In other words, you’ll be my confidential man. Well, well, then you’ll give me your answer to-morrow.”

Pelle went slowly homeward. He did not know why he had asked time to think it over; the matter was settled. If you wanted to make a home, you must take the consequences of it and not sneak away the first time a prospect offered of making it a little comfortable for your wife and children. So now he was the dog set to watch his companions.

He went down the King’s New Market and into the fashionable quarter. It was bright and gay here, with the arc-lamps hanging like a row of light- birds above the asphalt, now and then beating their wings to keep themselves poised. They seemed to sweep down the darkness of night, and great shadows flickered through the street and disappeared. In the narrow side streets darkness lay, and insistent sounds forced their way out of it—a girl’s laugh, the crying of a lonely child, the ceaseless bickering of a cowed woman. But people strolled, quietly conversing, along the pavement in couples and heard nothing. They had got out their winter coats, and were luxuriating in the first cold weather.

Music sounded from the large cafés, which were filled to overflowing. People were sitting close together in small select companies, and looked gay and happy. On the tables round which they sat, stood the wine-cooler with the champagne bottle pointing obliquely upward as though it were going to shoot down heaven itself to them. How secure they appeared to feel! Had they no suspicion that they were sitting upon a thin crust, with the hell of poverty right beneath them? Or was that perhaps why they were enjoying themselves—to-day your turn, to-morrow mine? Perhaps they had become reconciled to the idea, and took what they could get without listening too carefully to the hoarse protests of the back streets!

Under one of the electric lamp-posts on the Town Hall Square a man was standing selling papers. He held one out to Pelle, saying: “A halfpenny if you can afford it, if not you can have it for nothing!” He was pale, with dark shadows under his eyes, and he had a dark beard. He looked as if he were suffering from some internal complaint which was slowly consuming him. Pelle looked at him, and saw to his surprise that it was Peter Dreyer, his comrade of long ago!

“Do you go about selling newspapers?” he exclaimed in astonishment, holding out his hand.

Peter Dreyer quietly returned his greeting. He had the same heavy, introspective look that he had had when Pelle met him in the garret in Jager Street, but looked even more perplexed.

“Yes, I’ve become a newspaper man,” he said, “but only after working hours. It’s a little paper that I write and print myself. It may perhaps do you good to read it.”

“What’s it about?”

“About you and me.”

“It’s anarchistic, I suppose?” said Pelle, looking at the title of the paper. “You were so strange last time I met you.”

“Well, you can read it. A halfpenny if you can afford it, if not gratis!” he cried, holding out a copy to the passers-by. A policeman was standing a little way off observing him. He gradually drew nearer.

“I see you’re under observation!” said Pelle, drawing his attention to the policeman.

“I’m used to that. Once or twice they’ve seized my inoffensive little paper.”

“Then it can’t have been altogether inoffensive?” said Pelle, smiling.

“I only advise people to think for themselves.”

“That advice may be dangerous enough too, if it’s followed.”

“Oh, yes. The mean thing is that the police pursue me financially. As soon as I’ve got work with any master, a policeman appears and advises him to discharge me. It’s their usual tactics! They aim at the stomach, for that’s where they themselves have their heart.”

“Then it must be very hard for you to get on,” said Pelle sympathetically.

“Oh, I get along somehow. Now and then they put me in prison for no lawful reason, and when a certain time has passed they let me out again —the one with just as little reason as the other. They’ve lost their heads. It doesn’t say much for machinery that’s exclusively kept going to look after us. I’ve a feeling that they’d like to put me out of the way, if it could be done; but the country’s not large enough to let any one disappear in. But I’m not going to play the hunted animal any longer. Although I despise our laws, which are only a mask for brute force, I’m very careful to be on the right side; and if they use violence against me again, I’ll not submit to it.”

“The conditions are so unequal,” said Pelle, looking seriously at him.

“No one need put up with more than he himself likes. But there’s something wanting in us here at home—our own extreme consequence, self- respect; and so they treat us as ignominiously as they please.”

They went on together. On the pavement outside one of the large cafés stood an anaemic woman with a child upon her arm, offering for sale some miserable stalks which were supposed to represent flowers. Peter Dreyer pointed silently from her to the people in the café. His face was distorted.

“I’ve no objection to people enjoying life,” said Pelle; “on the contrary, I’m glad to see that there are some who are happy. I hate the system, but not the people, you see, unless it were those who grudge us all anything, and are only really happy in the thought that others are in want.”

“And do you believe there’s any one in there who seriously doesn’t grudge others anything? Do you believe any of them would say: ‘I’m fortunate enough to earn twenty-five thousand krones (£1,400) a year and am not allowed to use more than five thousand (£300), so the rest belongs to the poor’? No, they’re sitting there abusing the poor man while they drink up the surplus of his existence. The men abuse the workmen, and their wives the servant girls. Just go in among the tables and listen! The poor are bestial, unreliable, ungrateful in spite of everything that is done for them; they are themselves to blame for their misery. It gives a spice to the feast to some of them, others dull their uneasy conscience with it. And yet all they eat and drink has been made by the poor man; even the choicest dainties have passed through his dirty hands and have a piquant flavor of sweat and hunger. They look upon it as a matter of course that it should be so; they are not even surprised that nothing is ever done in gratitude for kind treatment— something to disagree with them, a little poison, for instance. Just think! There are millions of poor people daily occupied in making dainties for the rich man, and it never occurs to any of them to revenge themselves, they are so good-natured. Capital literally sleeps with its head in our lap, and abuses us in its sleep; and yet we don’t cut its throat!”

At Victoria Street they stopped. The policeman had followed them and stopped on the other side of the street when they stopped. Pelle drew the other’s attention to the fact.

Peter looked across carelessly. “He’s like an English bloodhound,” he said quietly—“a ferocious mouth and no brain! What vexes me most is that we ourselves produce the dogs that are to hunt us; but we shall soon begin to agitate among the military.” He said good-night and turned toward Enghave Road, where he lived.

Ellen met Pelle at the top of the street. “How did you get on?” she asked eagerly. “Did you get the place?”

He quietly explained matters to her. She had put her arm round him. “You great big man,” she said, looking up at him with a happy face. “If you only knew how proud I am of you! Why, we’re rich now, Pelle—thirty-five krones (2 Pounds) a week! Aren’t you glad yourself?”

“Yes, I’m glad that you and the children will be a little comfortable for once.”

“Yes, but you yourself—you don’t seem to be very delighted, and yet it’s a good place you’re getting.”

“It won’t be an easy place for me, but I must make the best of it,” he answered.

“I don’t see why not. You’re to be on the side of the manufacturer, but that’s always the way with that kind of position; and he’s got a right too to have his interests looked after.”

When they got in Ellen brought him his supper, which had been standing on the stove to keep warm. Now and then she looked at him in wonder; there was something about him to-day that she did not understand. He had on the whole become a little peculiar in his views about things in the prison, and it was not to be wondered at. She went to him and stroked his hair.

“You’ll be satisfied on your own account too, soon,” she said. “It’s fortunate for us that he can’t be bothered to look after things himself.”

“He’s taken up with politics,” answered Pelle absently. “At present he’s thinking of getting into the Town Council by the help of the working- men’s votes.”

“Then it’s very wise of him to take you,” Ellen exclaimed vivaciously. “You understand these matters and can help him. If we save, we may perhaps have so much over that we could buy the business from him some day.”

She looked happy, and treated him to a little petting, now in one way and now in another. Her joy increased her beauty, and when he looked at her it was impossible for him to regret anything. She had sacrificed everything for him, and he could do nothing without considering her. He must see her perfectly happy once more, let it cost what it might, for he owed her everything. How beautiful she was in her unaffectedness! She still had a fondness for dressing in black, and with her dark hair about her pale face, she resembled one of those Sisters who have suffered much and do everything out of compassion.

It struck him that he had never heard her really laugh; she only smiled. He had not awakened the strongest feeling in her yet, he had not succeeded in making her happy; and therefore, though she had shared his bed and board, she had kept the most beautiful part to herself, like an unapproachable virgin. But now her cheeks glowed with happy expectation, and her eyes rested upon him eagerly; he no longer represented for her the everyday dullness, he was the fairy-story that might take her by surprise when the need was greatest. He felt he could hardly pay too dearly for this change. Women were not made for adversity and solitude; they were flowers that only opened fully when happiness kissed them. Ellen might shift the responsibility over onto his shoulders.

The next day he dressed himself carefully to go out and make the final agreement with the manufacturer. Ellen helped him to button his collar, and brushed his coat, talking, as she did so, with the lightheartedness of a bird, of the future. “What are we going to do now? We must try and get rid of this flat and move out to that end of the town,” she said, “or else you’ll have too far to walk.”

“I forgot to tell you that we shall live out there,” said Pelle. “He has three stairs with one-roomed apartments, and we’re to be the vice- landlord of them. He can’t manage the tenants himself.” Pelle had not forgotten it, but had not been able to bring himself to tell her that he was to be watch-dog.

Ellen looked at him in petrified astonishment. “Does that go with the post?” she gasped.

Pelle nodded.

“You mustn’t do it!” she cried, suddenly seizing him by the arms. “Do you hear, Pelle? You mustn’t do it!” She was greatly disturbed and gazed beseechingly at him. “I don’t understand you at all.”

He looked at her in bewilderment and murmured something in self-defence.

“Don’t you see that he only wants to make use of you?” she continued excitedly. “It’s a Judas post he’s offered you, but we won’t earn our bread by turning poor people into the street. I’ve seen my own bits of furniture lying in the gutter. Oh, if you’d gone there!” She gazed shudderingly straight before her.

“I can’t understand what you can have been thinking about—you who are generally so sensible,” she said when she had once more calmed down, looking reproachfully at him; but the next instant she understood it all, and sank down weeping.

“Oh, Pelle, Pelle!” she exclaimed, and hid her face.

VIII

Pelle read no more and no longer went to the library. He had enough to do to keep things going. There was no question now of trying to get a place; winter was at the door, and the army of the unemployed grew larger every day. He stayed at home, worked when there was anything to do, and for the rest minded the children for Ellen while she washed. He talked to Lasse Frederik as he would to a comrade, but it was nice to have to look after the little ones too. They were grateful for it, and he discovered that it gave him much pleasure. Boy Comfort he was very fond of now, his only sorrow being that the boy could not talk yet. His dumbness was always a silent accusation.

“Why don’t you bring books home?” Ellen would say when she came up from the wash-house to look after them, with her arms bare and tiny drops in her hair from the steam down there. “You’ve plenty of time now.”

No, what did he want with books? They did perhaps widen his horizon a little, but what lay behind it became so very much greater again; and he himself only grew smaller by reading. It was impossible in any case to obtain any reassuring view of the whole. The world followed its own crooked course in defiance of all wisdom. There was little pleasure in absorbing knowledge about things that one could not remedy; poor people had better be dull.

He and Morten had just been to Madam Johnsen’s funeral. She had not succeeded in seeing Jutland. Out of a whole life of toil there had never been ten krones (10s.) over for a ticket home; and the trains ran day after day with hundreds of empty places. With chilling punctuality they whirled away from station to station. Heaven knows how many thousand empty seats the trains had run with to Jutland during the years in which the old woman longed to see her home! And if she had trudged to the railway-station and got into the train, remorseless hands would have removed her at the first station. What had she to do with Jutland? She longed to go there, it was true, but she had no money!

Was it malice or heartless indifference? A more fiendish sport can at any rate hardly be imagined than this running with empty places. It was they that made the journey so terribly vivid—as though the devil himself were harnessed to the train and, panting with wantonness, dragging it along through the country to places that people were longing to see. It must be dreadful to be the guard and call the names of the stations in to those seats for the people left behind!

And Sister walked about the floor so pale and thin! There was no strength in her fair hair, and when she was excited, her breath whistled in her windpipe with that painful sound that was practically inseparable from the children of the poor neighborhoods. It was always the vitiated air of the back-yards that had something to say now—depressing, like almost everything his understanding mastered. All she wanted was sunshine, and all the summer it had been poured down in open-handed generosity, only it went over the heads of poor people like everything else. It had been a splendid year for strawberries, but the large gardeners had decided to let half of them rot on their stalks in order to keep up the prices and save the money spent on picking them. And here were the children hungering for fruit, and ailing for want of it! Why? No, there was no possible answer to be given to that question.

And again—everywhere the same! Whenever he thought of some social institution or other, the same melancholy spectacle presented itself—an enormous rolling stock, only meant for a few, and to a great extent running empty; and from the empty places accusing eyes gazed out, sick and sad with hunger and want and disappointed hope. If one had once seen them, it was impossible to close one’s eyes to them again.

Sometimes his imagination took another direction, and he found himself planning, for instance, kingdoms in which trains were used according to the need for them, and not according to the purse, where the food was eaten by those who were hungry, and the only poor people were those who grudged others things.

But he pulled himself up there; it was too idiotic! A voice from the unseen had called him and his out into the day, and then nothing had happened! It had only been to fool them.

Brun often came down to see him. The old librarian missed his young friend.

“Why do you never come in to us now?” he asked.

“What should I do there?” answered Pelle shortly. “The poor man has no use for knowledge; he’s everlastingly damned.”

He had broken with all that and did not care either about the librarian’s visits. It was best for every one to look after himself; the great were no company for such as he. He made no attempt to conceal his ill humor, but Brun took no notice. The latter had moved out into Frederiksberg Avenue in October, and dropped in almost every afternoon on his way home from the library. The children took care to be down there at that time, for he always brought something for them.

Neither Pelle nor Ellen demanded much of life now. They had settled down in resignation side by side like a pair of carthorses that were accustomed to share manger and toil. It would have been a great thing now to have done with that confounded loan, so that they need not go about with their lives in their hands continually; but even that was requiring too much! All that could be scraped together went every month to the money-lender, and they were no nearer the end. On the one hundred and eighty krones (£10) that Pelle had received they had now in all paid off one hundred and twenty (£7), and yet they still owed two hundred and forty (more than £13). It was the “punishment interest” that made it mount up whenever they came only a day or two too late with the instalments or whatever it might be. In any case it was an endless screw that would go on all their life pumping out whatever they could scrape together into the money-lender’s pocket.

But now Pelle meant to put an end to this. He had not paid the last instalment and meant to pay no more, but let things go as they liked. “You ought to borrow of Herr Brun and pay off that money-lender,” said Ellen, “or else he’ll only come down on us and take our furniture.” But Pelle was obstinate and would not listen to reason. The consciousness that a parasite had fastened upon him and sucked him dry in spite of all his resistance, made him angry. He would like to see them touching his things!

When the money-lender came to fetch his instalment, Pelle shut the door in his face. For the rest he took everything with the calmness of resignation; but when the subject cropped up, he fired up and did not know what he said. Ellen had to keep silence and let his mood work itself out.

One afternoon he sat working at the basement window. The librarian was sitting on the chair by the door, with a child on each knee, feeding them with dates. Pelle was taking no notice, but bent over his work with the expression of a madman who is afraid of being spoken to. His work did not interest him as it had formerly done, and progressed slowly; a disturbing element had entered, and whenever he could not instantly find a tool, he grew angry and threw the things about.

Brun sat watching him anxiously, though apparently taken up with the children. A pitying expression would have made Pelle furious. Brun guessed that there was some money trouble, but dared not offer his assistance; every time he tried to begin a conversation Pelle repelled him with a cunning look which said: “You’re seeking for an opportunity to come with your money, but you won’t get it!” Something or other had gone wrong with him, but it would all come right in the end.

A cab stopped outside the door, and three men stepped out and went into the house. A little while after Ellen burst into the workshop. “Pelle!” she cried, without noticing Brun, “they’ve come to take away our things!” She broke into a fit of weeping, and seeing their mother crying, the children began to cry too.

Pelle rose and seized a hammer. “I’ll soon get them out!” he said between his teeth in a low tone as he moved toward the door. He did not hurry, but went with lowered head, not looking at any one.

Brun seized him by the arm and stopped him.

“You forget that there’s something called Prison!” he said with peculiar emphasis.

Pelle gazed at him in astonishment, and for a moment it looked as if he were going to strike the old man; then the hammer dropped from his hand and he broke down.

IX

Now and then a comrade from the good old days would come up and want Pelle to go with him to a meeting. Old fighting memories wakened within him. Perhaps it was there the whole point lay. He threw off his leather apron and went. Ellen’s eyes followed him to the door, wondering that he could still wish to have anything to do with that after what he had got out of it.

But it was not there after all! He remembered the tremendous ferment in men’s minds during the Movement, and it seemed to him that the excitement had died down. People only came forward before the elections, otherwise they went about their own business as if there had never been any rallying idea. They were all organized, but there was nothing new and strong in that fact; they were born—so to speak—in organization, and connected nothing great and elevating with it. His old associates had cooled down remarkably; they must have discovered that success was neither so romantic nor so easy as they had thought. They had no longer simply to open the gate into the land of success and stream through it; there was a long and difficult road before that. So they each arranged his own matters, and disposed of the doubtful future for small present advantages which were immediately swallowed up by the existing conditions.

The Movement had not reached to the bottom. There was an accusation against himself in this fact; it had not been designed with sufficient breadth. Even at that time it had passed over the heads of the inhabitants of the “Ark,” and now a large proletariat was left with their own expectations of the future. The good old class of the common people had split up into a class of petty tradesmen—who seemed to be occupied solely in establishing themselves—and this proletariat.

But there was nothing new in this. One stratum moved up and revealed a new one below; it had always been thus in history. Was it then everlastingly determined that at the bottom of existence there should always be the same innumerable crowd of those who were thrust down, who bore the burden of the whole, the great hunger reserve? Was it only possible to be happy when one knew how to push the difficulties down, just as one might push the folds of a material until at last they were heaped up in one place? It was the old question over again. Formerly he had had his clear faith with which to beat down doubt, but now he could not be content with a blind hope; he required to be shown an expedient. If the Movement had failed through having been begun crookedly, the causes with which one had to do were practical causes, and it was possible to do the whole thing over again.

There were also others engaged in taking the whole thing up from the bottom, and through Peter Dreyer he came into contact with young men of an entirely new type. They had emerged from the Movement, shot up surprisingly out of its sediment, and now made new ambitious claims upon life. By unknown paths they had reached the same point as he himself had done, and demanded first and foremost to be human beings. The sacredness of the ego filled them, and made them rebel at all yokes; they began from within by shaking them off, did not smoke or drink, would be slaves to nothing. They kept out of the Movement and had their own places of meeting out about the South Boulevard, where they read and discussed new social forms. They were intelligent, well-paid working-men, who persistently shared the conditions of the proletariat; fanatics who gave away their week’s wages if they met a man who was poorer than themselves; hot-headed enthusiasts who awaited revolution. Several of them had been in prison for agitating against the social order. There were also country people among them—sons of the men who stood in the ditches and peat-pits out there. “The little man’s children,” Morten called them.

These were the offspring of those who had made the Movement; that was how it should go on. By being contented they kept themselves free from the ensnaring expedients of capitalism, they despised the petty tradesman’s inclination for comfort, and were always ready for action. In them the departure was at any rate a fact!

They wanted to get hold of Pelle. “Come over to us!” Peter Dreyer often said.

Pelle, however, was not easily enticed out; he had his home where he hid himself like a snail in its shell. He had the responsibility for this little world of five people, and he had not even succeeded in securing it. His strength and industry were not enough even to keep one little home above water; a benefactor was needed for that! It was not the time to tend jealously one’s own honor when wife and children would be the sufferers; and now that it was all arranged he felt deeply grateful to the old librarian. It was nevertheless a disgraceful fact which did not encourage him to have anything to do with the affairs of others.

The violent language used by the young men frightened him too. He had rebelled against the old conditions just as they had done, but he met with different experiences. From the time he could crawl he had struggled to accommodate himself to the great connection of things; even the life of the prison had not placed him outside it, but had only united him the more closely with the whole. He had no inclination to cut the knot, but demanded that it should be untied.

“You’re no good,” said Morten and the others when they tried to rouse him, “for you can’t hate.” No, the cold in his mind was like the night- frost; it melted at the first sunbeam. When he looked back there were redeeming ties that held the whole together in spite of all the evil; and now the old librarian had brought him close up to the good in the other side of the cleft too. He had settled down to his shoemaking again and refused to be roused by the others’ impatience; but he looked as if he had an eternity in which to unravel his affairs.

Sister was often down with him and filled the workshop with her chatter. At about eight, when it began to grow light, he heard her staggering step on the stair, and she remained with him until Ellen took her up in the evening by main force to put her to bed. She dragged all the tools together and piled them up in front of Pelle on the bench so that he could hardly move, and called it helping. Then she rested, standing with her hands upon the edge of the bench and talking to him. “Sister’s clever!” she said appreciatively, pointing with satisfaction to her work. “Big girl!” And if he did not answer she repeated it and did not leave off until he had praised her.

“Yes, you’re very clever!” he said, “but can you put the things back in their places?”

The child shook her head. “Sister’s tired,” she declared with decision, and immediately after brought another tool and pushed it slowly up onto the heap while she kept her eyes upon his face to see whether she might do it. “Sister’s helping!” she repeated in explanation; but Pelle pretended not to hear.

For a time she was quiet, but then came to him with her pinafore full of old boots and shoes that she had pulled out from behind the stove. He tried to look stern, but had to bend down over his work. It made the little girl feel uncertain. She emptied her pinafore onto the platform, and sitting on her heels with her hands on her little knees, she tried to see what his expression was. It was not satisfactory, so she got up and, putting her hands on his knee, said, with an ingratiating look into his face: “You’re so clever, father! You can do everything! You’re the cleverest in the whole world!” And after a little pause—“We’re both clever, aren’t we, father?”

“Oh, that’s it, is it!” exclaimed Pelle. “One of us is very conceited at any rate!”

“It’s not me!” answered the child confidently, shaking her head.

“You seem to be very happy together,” said Ellen when she came down with Boy Comfort on her arm to fetch Anna. The child did not want to go up with her, and pushed round into the corner behind Pelle’s chair; and Boy Comfort struggled to be put down onto the floor to play with the lasts. “Well, then,” said Ellen, sitting down, “we’ll all stay here together.”

She looked quiet and resigned; her defeat had told upon her. She no longer spoke of the future, but was glad that they had escaped from the clutches of the money-lender; the thought of it filled her with a quiet but not altogether unspoiled happiness. She no longer dreamed of anything better, but was grateful for what she possessed; and it seemed to Pelle that something had died within her together with the dissatisfaction. It was as though she had at last given everything she had; her resignation to the gray everyday life made her dull and ordinary. “She needs sunshine,” he thought.

And again his thoughts wandered in their search for a way out into the future—his one idea—in the same track that they had followed a hundred times before. He did not even enter it fully, but merely recognized that the problem was being worn threadbare. In his trade there was no compromise; there was only room for extortioners and extortionized, and he was not suited for either part. When he took up other possibilities, however, his thoughts returned of themselves to his work, like a roving dog that always comes back and snuffs at the same scent. There was something in him that with fatalistic obstinacy made him one with his trade, in spite of its hopelessness; he had staked everything there, and there the question should be solved. Behind the fatalism of the common people lies the recognition that there is plan and perspective in their life too; such and such a thing is so because it must be so. And this recognition Pelle had no reason to do away with.

He grew confused with the continual dwelling of his thoughts on the same subject, but it seemed to possess him, was with him while he slept, and seized him as soon as he awoke. There was an old dream that persistently haunted him at this time—a forgotten youthful idea from his earliest participation in the rising, the plan for a common workshop that would make the court shoemaker superfluous. The plan had been laid aside at the time as impossible, but now he took it up again and went over it step by step. He could easily find some capable, reliable fellow-workmen who would stand by him through thick and thin with regard to work and profits; and there would be no difficulty about discipline, for during the past years the workmen had learned to subordinate themselves to their own people. Here was a way for the small man to assert himself within his trade and join the development; what one was not able to do could be done by several joining together, namely, turn the modern technics to account and divide the work into sections. He arranged it all most carefully, and went over it again and again to make sure that every detail was correct. When he slept he dreamed of his system of profit-sharing, and then it was a fact. He stood working in a bright room among comrades; there was no master and no servant, the machinery whirred, and the workmen sang and whistled while they minded it. Their hours of labor were short, and they all had happy homes waiting for them.

It was hard to wake up and know the reality. Alas! all the cleverest and most industrious hands in the world had no influence in their several trades—could not so much as sew a single stitch—until capital started them. If that refused its support, they could do nothing at all, but were cut off, as it were, at once.

Machinery cost money. Pelle could get the latter from Brun, the old man having often enough offered him capital to start something or other; but he already owed him money, and capital might run his undertaking down. It was at its post, and allowed no activity of that kind beside it. He was seized with uncertainty; he dared not venture the stakes.

The old philosopher came almost daily. Pelle had become a part of his life, and he watched his young friend’s condition with anxiety. Was it the prison life—or was it perhaps the books—that had transformed this young man, who had once gone ahead with tempestuous recklessness, into a hesitating doubter who could not come to a decision? Personality was of doubtful value when it grew at the expense of energy. It had been the old man’s hope that it would have developed greater energy through being replanted in fresh, untouched soil, and he tried to rouse Pelle out of his lethargy.

Pelle gave an impatient jerk. They were poking him up on all sides, wanting him to come to a decision, and he could not see his way to it. Of course he was half asleep; he knew it himself. He felt that he wanted rest; his entity was working for him out there in the uncertainty.

“I don’t know anything,” he said, half irritated, “so what can be the use? I thought books would lead me to a place from which I could bring everything together; but now I’m all abroad. I know too much to dash on blindly, and too little to find the pivot on which the whole thing turns. It doesn’t matter what I touch, it resolves itself into something for and something against.” He laughed in desperation.

One day Brun brought him a book. “This book,” he said with a peculiar smile, “has satisfied many who were seeking for the truth. Let’s see whether it can satisfy you too!” It was Darwin’s “Origin of Species.”

Pelle read as in a mist. The point lay here—the whole thing powerfully put into one sentence! His brain was in a ferment, he could not lay the book down, but went on reading all night, bewitched and horrified at this merciless view. When Ellen in surprise came down with his morning coffee, he had finished the book. He made no reply to her gentle reproaches, but drank the coffee in silence, put on his hat and went out into the deserted streets to cool his burning brow.

It was very early and the working-men had not yet turned out; at the morning coffee-rooms the shutters were just being taken down; warmly- clad tram-men were tramping through the streets in their wooden-soled boots; slipshod, tired women ran stumbling along to their early jobs, shivering with cold and weary of life, weary before they had begun their day. Here and there a belated woman toiled along the street carrying a clothes-basket, a mother taking her baby to the crêche before she went to her work.

Suddenly the feeling of rebellion came over Pelle, hot, almost suffocating him. This cruelly cold doctrine of the right of the strong, which gave him the choice between becoming brutal or going to the dogs— this was the key to an understanding of life? It pronounced a sentence of death upon him and his fellows, upon the entire world of the poor. From this point of view, the existing conditions were the only ones possible—they were simply ideal; the sweater and the money-lender, whom he hated, were in the most harmonious agreement with the fundamental laws of life! And the terrible thing was that from this standpoint the social fabric was clearly illuminated: he could not deny it. He who best learned to accommodate himself to the existing state of things, conquered; no matter how vile the existing state of things might be.

The book threw at once a dazzling light upon society, but where was his own class in this doctrine—all the poor? They were not taken into account! Society was thus in reality only those in possession, and here he had their religion, the moral support for the uncompromising utilization. It had always been difficult to understand how men could misuse others; but here it was a sacred duty to give stones for bread. The greatest oppressor was in reality nearest to life’s holy, maternal heart; for he was appointed to carry on the development.

The poor had no share in this doctrine. When a bad workman was in difficulties, the others did not press him until he had to go down, not even when he himself was to blame for his lack of means. The poor did not let the weak fall, but took him under their wing. They placed themselves outside the pale of the law and gave themselves no chance; the race could not be won with a wounded comrade on one’s back. But in this fact there lay the admission that they did not belong to the existing order of things, but had the right to demand their own time of happiness. A new age must come, in which all that was needed in order that they might share in it—kindness of heart, solidarity—was predominant. Thus even the great union he had helped to effect pointed in the right direction. It had been the opposite of one against all—it had built upon the law of reciprocity.

And the poor man was not a miserable wretch, condemned by the development to be ruined, a visionary, who, as a consequence of an empty stomach, dreamed of a Utopia. Pelle had passed his childhood in the country and gone about with the rest of creation in all kinds of weather. He had seen the small singing-birds throw themselves in whole clouds at the hawk when it had seized one of their number, and pursue it until it dropped its prey in confusion. When he caught an ant in a split straw, the other ants flocked to the straw and gnawed their comrade out: they could not be frightened away. If he touched them, they squirted their poison against his hand and went on working. Their courage amused him, the sprinklings of poison were so tiny that he could not see them; but if he quickly raised his hand to his nose, he detected a sharp acid smell. Why did they not leave their comrade in his dilemma, when there were so many of them and they were so busy? They did not even stop to have a meal until they had liberated him.

The poor man must stick to the union idea; he had got hold of the right thing this time! And now all at once Pelle knew which way they ought to go. If they were outside the existing conditions and their laws, why not arrange their own world upon the laws that were theirs? Through the organizations they had been educated in self-government; it was about time that they took charge of their own existence.

The young revolutionaries kept clear of the power of money by going without things, but that was not the way. Capital always preached contentment to the poor; he would go the other way, and conquer production by a great flanking movement.

He was not afraid now of using the librarian’s money. All doubt had been chased away. He was perfectly clear and saw in broad outlines a world- wide, peaceful revolution which was to subvert all existing values. Pelle knew that poverty is not confined to any country. He had once before brought forward an invincible idea. His system of profit-sharing must be the starting-point for a world-fight between Labor and Capital!

X

Two days later Pelle and the librarian went to Frederiksberg Street to look at a business that was to be disposed of. It was a small matter of half a score of workmen, with an electrical workshop in the basement and a shop above. The whole could be had by taking over the stock and machinery at a valuation. The rent was rather high, but with that exception the conditions were favorable.

“I think we’ll arrange that the purchase and working capital shall bear interest and be sunk like a four per cent. credit-association loan,” said Brun.

“It’s cheap money,” answered Pelle. “A good result won’t say much about the circumstances when we haven’t got the same conditions as other businesses.”

“Not so very cheap. At that price you can get as many as you want on good security; and I suppose the workman ought to be regarded as the best security in an undertaking that’s built upon labor,” said the old man, smiling. “There’ll be a big fall in discount when you come into power, Pelle! But the bare capital costs no more now either, when there are no parasites at it; and it’s just parasites that we’re going to fight.”

Pelle had no objection to the cheap money; there were still plenty of difficulties to overcome. If they got on, it would not be long before private speculation declared war on him.

They agreed that they would have nothing to do with agents and branches; the business was to rest entirely upon itself and communicate directly with the consumers. What was made in the workshop should merely cover the expenses of the shop above, the rest of the surplus being divided among the workmen.

“According to what rules?” asked Brun, with a searching glance at Pelle.

“Equal!” he answered without hesitation. “We won’t have anything to do with agreements. We made a great mistake, when we began the Movement, in giving in to the agreement system instead of doing away with it altogether. It has increased the inequality. Every one that works has a right to live.”

“Do you think the capable workman will submit to sharing equally with those that are less capable?” asked Brun doubtfully.

“He must learn to!” said Pelle firmly. “How could he otherwise maintain that all work is of equal value?”

“Is that your own opinion?”

“Most decidedly. I see no reason, for instance, for making any difference between a doctor and a sewer-cleaner. It’s impossible to say which of them is of the greater use in matters of health; the point is that each shall do what he can.”

“Capital!” exclaimed Brun. “Capital!” The old philosopher was in the best of spirits. Pelle had considered him awkward and unpractical, and was astonished to find that his views on many points were so practical.

“It’s because this is something new,” said the old man, rubbing his hands. “I’d done with the old before I came into the world; there was nothing that stimulated me; I was said to be degenerated. Yes, indeed! All the same, the old bookworm’s going to show his ancestors that there’s vigorous blood flowing in his veins too. We two have found the place from which the world can be rocked, my dear Pelle; I think we’ve found it! And now we’ll set to work.”

There was enough to do indeed, but they were realities now, and Pelle had a pleasant feeling of once more having his feet upon the ground. This was something different from riding alone through space upon his own thought, always in danger of falling down; here he opened up his road, so to speak, with his hands.

It had been arranged that the present owner of the business should carry it on a little longer, while Pelle made himself at home in it all, learned to understand the machinery, and took lessons in book-keeping. He was always busy, used his day and at night slept like a log. His brain was no longer in a perpetual ferment like a caldron, for sleep put out the fire beneath it.

The essential thing was that they should be a party that could entirely rely upon one another, and Pelle unhesitatingly discharged those of his comrades who were not suited for work under new forms, and admitted others.

The first man he applied to was Peter Dreyer. Ellen advised him not to do so. “You know he’s on bad terms with the police,” she said. “You may have difficulties enough without that.” But Pelle needed some one beside him who was able to look at things from a new point of view, and quite understood what was essential; egoists were of no good, and this must be the very thing for a man who had grown restive at the old state of things.

Pelle had come home from his book-keeping course to have his dinner. Ellen was out with Boy Comfort, but she had left the meal ready for him. It was more convenient to eat it in the kitchen, so he sat upon the kitchen table, reading a book on the keeping of accounts while he ate.

In the front room sat Lasse Frederik, learning his lessons with fingers in both ears in order to shut out the world completely. This was not so easy, however, for Sister had a loose tooth, and his fingers were itching to get at it. Every other minute he broke off his reading to offer her something or other for leave to pull it out; but the little girl always made the same answer: “No, father’s going to.”

He then gave up setting about it honorably, and tried to take her unawares; and at last he persuaded her to let him tie a piece of cotton round the tooth and fasten it to the doorhandle. “There! Now we’ve only got to burn through the cotton,” he said, lighting a piece of candle, “or else father’ll never be able to get the tooth out. It loosens it tremendously!” He talked on about all kinds of things to divert her attention, like a conjuror, and then suddenly brought the candle close to her nose, so that she quickly drew back. “Look, here’s the tooth!” he cried triumphantly, showing it to Sister, who, however, screamed at the top of her voice.

Pelle heard it all, but quietly went on eating. They would have to make it up by themselves. It was not long before Lasse Frederik was applying a plaster to his exploit; he talked to her and gave her her toys to put her into good humor again. When Pelle went in, they were both lying on the floor with their heads under the bed. They had thrown the tooth right into the wall, and were shouting together:

“Mouse, mouse! Give me a gold tooth Instead of a bone tooth!”

“Are you going to do anything now, father?” asked Sister, running up to him.

Yes, he had several things to do.

“You’re always so busy,” she said sulkily. “Are you going to keep on all your life?”

Pelle’s conscience smote him. “No, I’m not very busy,” he said quickly. “I can stay with you for a little. What shall we do?”

Little Anna brought her large rag doll, and began to drag chairs into position.

“No, that’s so stupid!” said Lasse Frederik. “Tell us about the time you minded the cows, father! About the big mad bull!” And Pelle told them stories of his childhood—about the bull and Father Lasse, the farmer of Stone Farm and Uncle Kalle with his thirteen children and his happy disposition. The big farm, the country life, the stone-quarry and the sea—they all made up a fairy-story for the two children of the pavement; the boy Pelle’s battle with the great oxen for the supremacy, his wonderful capture of the twenty-five-öre piece—each incident was more exciting than the one before it. Most exciting of all was the story of the giant Eric, who became an idiot from a blow. “That was in those days,” said Pelle, nodding; “it wouldn’t happen like that now.”

“What a lot you have seen!” said Ellen, who had come home while they were talking, and was sitting knitting. “I can hardly understand how you managed—a little fellow like that! How I should like to have seen you!”

“Father’s big!” exclaimed Sister appreciatively. Lasse Frederik was a little more reserved. It was so tiresome always to be outdone, and he would like to have found room for a parenthesis about his own exploits. “I say, there’s a big load of corn in the cabman’s gateway,” he said, to show that he too understood country life.

“That’s not corn,” said Pelle; “it’s hay—clover hay. Don’t you even know what corn’s like?”

“We call it corn,” answered the boy confidently, “and it is corn too, for it has those tassels at the ends.”

“The ears, you mean! But those are on coarse grass too, and, besides, corn is descended from grass. Haven’t you ever really been into the country?”

“We were once going, and meant to stay a whole week, but it went wrong with mother’s work. I’ve been right out to the Zoological Gardens, though.”

Pelle suddenly realized how much the children must lose by living their life in the city. “I wonder if we shouldn’t think about moving out of town,” he said that evening when he and Ellen were alone.

“If you think so,” Ellen answered. She herself had no desire to move into the country, indeed she had an instinctive horror of it as a place to live in. She did not understand it from the point of view of the children either; there were so many children who got on capitally in town, and he surely did not want them to become stupid peasants! If he thought so, however, she supposed it was right; he was generally right.

Then it was certainly time they gave notice; there was not much more than a month to April removing-day.

On Sundays they packed the perambulator and made excursions into the surrounding country, just as in the old days when Lasse Frederik was the only child and sat in his carriage like a little crown-prince. Now he wheeled the carriage in which Boy Comfort sat in state; and when Sister grew tired she was placed upon the apron with her legs hanging down. They went in a different direction each time, and came to places that even Lasse Frederik did not know. Close in to the back of the town lay nice old orchards, and in the midst of them a low straw-thatched building, which had evidently once been the dwelling-house on a farm. They came upon it quite by chance from a side-road, and discovered that the town was busy building barracks beyond this little idyll too, and shutting it in. When the sun shone they sat down on a bank and ate their dinner; Pelle and Lasse Frederik vied with one another in performing feats of strength on the withered grass; and Ellen hunted for winter boughs to decorate the house with.

On one of their excursions they crossed a boggy piece of ground on which grew willow copse; behind it rose cultivated land. They followed the field roads with no definite aim, and chanced upon an uninhabited, somewhat dilapidated house, which stood in the middle of the rising ground with a view over Copenhagen, and surrounded by a large, overgrown garden. On an old, rotten board stood the words “To let,” but nothing was said as to where application was to be made.

“That’s just the sort of house you’d like,” said Ellen, for Pelle had stopped.

“It would be nice to see the inside,” he said. “I expect the key’s to be got at the farm up there.”

Lasse Frederik ran up to the old farmhouse that lay a little farther in at the top of the hill, to ask. A little while after he came back accompanied by the farmer himself, a pale, languid, youngish man, who wore a stand-up collar and was smoking a cigar.

The house belonged to the hill farm, and had been built for the parents of the present owner. The old people had had the odd idea of calling it “Daybreak,” and the name was painted in large letters on the east gable. The house had stood empty since they died some years ago, and looked strangely lifeless; the window-panes were broken and looked like dead eyes, and the floors were covered with filth.

“No, I don’t like it!” said Ellen.

Pelle showed her, however, that the house was good enough, the doors and windows fitted well, and the whole needed only to be overhauled. There were four rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, and some rooms above, one of these being a large attic facing south. The garden was more than an acre in extent, and in the yard was an out-house fitted up for fowls and rabbits, the rent was four hundred krones (£22).

Pelle and Lasse Frederik went all over it again and again, and made the most wonderful discoveries; but when Pelle heard, the price, he grew serious. “Then we may as well give it up,” he said.

Ellen did not answer, but on the way home she reckoned it out to herself; she could see how disappointed he was. “It’ll be fifteen krones (17 s.) more a month than we now pay,” she suddenly exclaimed. “But supposing we could get something out of the garden, and kept fowls! Perhaps, too, we might let the upper floor furnished.”

Pelle looked gratefully at her. “I’ll undertake to get several hundred krones’ worth out of the garden,” he said.

They were tired out when they got home, for after all it was a long way out. “It’s far away from everything,” said Ellen. “You’d have to try to buy a second-hand bicycle.” Pelle suddenly understood from the tone of her voice that she herself would be lonely out there.

“We’d better put it out of our thoughts,” he said, “and look for a three-roomed flat in town. The other is unpractical after all.”

When he returned from his work the following evening, Ellen had a surprise for him. “I’ve been out and taken the house,” she said. “It’s not so far from the tram after all, and we get it for three hundred krones (£16 10s.) the first year. The man promised to put it all into good order by removing-day. Aren’t you glad?”

“Yes, if only you’ll be happy there,” said Pelle, putting his arms round her.

The children were delighted. They were to live out there in the bright world into which they had peeped, as a rule, only on very festive occasions—to wander about there every day, and always eat the food they brought with them in the open air.

A week later they moved out. Pelle did not think they could afford to hire men to do the removing. He borrowed a four-wheeled hand-cart—the same that had carried Ellen’s furniture from Chapel Road—and in the course of Saturday evening and Sunday morning he and Lasse Frederik took out the things. “Queen Theresa” gave Ellen a helping hand with the packing. The last load was done very quickly, as they had to be out of the town before church-time. They half ran with it, Boy Comfort having been placed in a tub on the top of the load. Behind came Ellen with little Anna, and last of all fat “Queen Theresa” with some pot plants that had to be taken with special care. It was quite a procession.

They were in a tremendous bustle all day. The cleaning had been very badly done and Ellen and “Queen Theresa” had to do it all over again. Well, it was only what they might have expected! When you moved you always had to clean two flats, the one you left and the one you went into. There had not been much done in the way of repairs either, but that too was what one was accustomed to. Landlords were the same all the world over. There was little use in making a fuss; they were there, and the agreement was signed. Pelle would have to see to it by degrees.

By evening the house was so far in order that it could be slept in. “Now we’ll stop for to-day,” said Ellen. “We mustn’t forget that it’s Sunday.” They carried chairs out into the garden and had their supper there, Pelle having laid an old door upon a barrel for a table. Every time “Queen Theresa” leaned forward with her elbows on the table, the whole thing threatened to upset, and then she screamed. She was a pastor’s daughter, and her surroundings now made her melancholy. “I haven’t sat like this and had supper out of doors since I ran away from home as a fifteen-year-old girl,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“Poor soul!” said Ellen, when they had gone with her along the road to the tram. “She’s certainly gone through a good deal. She’s got no one to care about her except us.”

“Is she really a pastor’s daughter?” asked Pelle. “Women of that kind always pretend to be somebody of a better class who has been unfortunate.”

“Oh, yes, it’s true enough. She ran away from home because she couldn’t stand it. She wasn’t allowed to laugh, but had to be always praying and thinking about God. Her parents have cursed her.”

They went for a little walk behind the farm to see the evening sky. Ellen was very talkative, and already had a thousand plans in her head. She was going to plant a great many fruit-bushes and make a kitchen- garden; and they would keep a number of fowls and rabbits. Next summer she would have early vegetables that could be sold in town.

Pelle was only half attending as he walked beside her and gazed at the glowing evening sky, which, with its long fiery lines, resembled a distant prairie-fire. There was quiet happiness within him and around him. He was in a solemn mood, and felt as though, after an absence of many years, he had once more entered the land of his childhood. There was a familiar feeling in the soft pressure of the earth beneath his feet; it was like a caress that made him strong and gave him new life. Here, with his feet on the soil, he felt himself invincible.

“You’re so silent!” said Ellen, taking his arm so as to walk beside him upon the dike.

“I feel as if you had just become my bride,” he said, taking her into his arms.

XI

Brun came in every morning before he went to the library to see how the work was progressing; he was greatly interested in it, and began to look younger. He was always urging Pelle on, and suggesting plans for extensions. “If money’s wanted, just let me know,” he said. He longed to see the effect of this new system, and was always asking Pelle whether he noticed anything. When he heard that the boot and shoe manufacturers had held a meeting to decide what should be their attitude to the undertaking, he laughed and wanted to turn on more steam, quite indifferent to what it might cost. The old philosopher had become as impatient as a child; an interest had come into his old-man’s existence, and he was afraid of not getting the whole of it. “It’s all very well for you to take your time,” he said, “but remember that I’m old and sickly into the bargain.”

He treated Pelle as a son, and generally said “thou” to him.

Pelle held back. So much depended upon the success of this venture, and he watched it anxiously; it was as though he had been chosen to question the future. Within the Movement his undertaking was followed with attention; the working-men’s papers wrote about it, but awaited results. There were opinions for and against.

He wanted to give a good answer, and decided on his measures with much care; he immediately dismissed such workmen as were not suited to the plan. It made bad blood, but there was no help for that. He was busy everywhere, and where he could not go himself, Lasse Frederik went, for the boy had given up his other occupations and helped in the shop and ran errands. Ellen wanted to help too. “We can keep a servant, and then I’ll learn book-keeping and keep the accounts and mind the shop.”

Pelle would not agree to this, however. He was not going to have her working for their maintenance any more. A woman’s place was with her children!

“Nowadays the women take part in all kinds of work,” Ellen urged.

It did not matter; he had his own opinion on the subject. It was enough that the men should do the producing. Would she have them stand on the pavement and watch the women doing the work? It was very possible it did not sound liberal-minded, but he did not care. Women were like beautiful flowers, whatever people said about their being man’s equal. They wore their happiness off when they had to work for their living; he had seen enough to know that.

She did not like standing and looking on while the two men were so busy, so she attacked the garden, and sowed herbs and planted cabbage in the beds that lay like thick down quilts upon the earth; and when it happened that things came up, she was happy. She had bought a gardening book, and puzzled her head about the various kinds and their treatment. Pelle came to her assistance after working hours, and everything that he handled flourished. This made Ellen a little angry. She did exactly what he did, but it was just as if the plants made a difference between them. “I’ve got the countryman’s hand,” he said, laughing.

All Sunday they were busy. The whole family was in the garden, Lasse Frederik digging, Pelle pruning the espalier round the garden door, and Ellen tying it up. The children were trying to help everybody and were mostly a hindrance. One or other of them was always doing something wrong, treading on the beds or pulling up the plants. How extraordinarily stupid they were! Regular town children! They could not even understand when they were told! Pelle could not comprehend it, and sometimes nearly lost patience.

One day when little Anna came to him unsuspectingly to show him a flowering branch of an apple-tree which she had broken off, he was angry and took her roughly by the arm; but when he saw the frightened expression in her face, he remembered the man with the strange eyes, who had taught him in his childhood to manage the cattle without using anything but his hands, and he was ashamed of himself. He took the little ones by the hand, went round the garden with them and told them about the trees and bushes, which were alive just like themselves, and only wanted to do all they could for the two children. The branches were their arms and legs, so they could imagine how dreadful it was to pull them off. Sister turned pale and said nothing, but Boy Comfort, who at last had decided, to open his mouth and had become quite a chatterbox, jabbered away and stuck out his little stomach like a drummer. He was a sturdy little fellow, and Ellen’s eyes followed him proudly as he went round the garden.

The knowledge that everything was alive had a remarkable effect upon the two children. They always went about hand in hand, and kept carefully to the paths. All round them the earth was breaking and curious things coming up out of it. The beans had a bucket turned over them to protect them, and the lettuces put up folded hands as if they were praying for fine weather. Every morning when the children made their round of the garden, new things had come up. “’Oook, ’ook!” exclaimed Boy Comfort, pointing to the beds. They stood at a safe distance and talked to one another about the new wonders, bending over with their hands upon their backs as if afraid that the new thing would snatch at their fingers. Sometimes Boy Comfort’s chubby hand would come out involuntarily and want to take hold of things; but he withdrew it in alarm as if he had burnt himself, saying “Ow!” and then the two children would run as fast as they could up to the house.

For them the garden was a wonder-world full of delights—and full of terrors. They soon became familiar with the plants in their own way, and entered into a kind of mystic companionship with them, met them in a friendly way and exchanged opinions—like beings from different worlds, meeting on the threshold. There was always something mysterious about their new friends, which kept them at a distance; they did not give much information about themselves. When they were asked: “Who called you?” they answered quickly: “Mother Ellen!” But if they were asked what it looked like down in the earth, they made no answer whatever. The garden continued to be an inexhaustible world to the children, no matter how much they trotted about in it. Every day they went on new journeys of discovery in under elder and thorn bushes; there were even places which they had not yet got at, and others into which they did not venture at all. They went near to them many times in the course of the day, and peeped over the gooseberry bushes into the horrible darkness that sat in there like an evil being and had no name. Out in the brilliant sunshine on the path they stood and challenged it, Sister spitting until her chin and pinafore were wet, and Boy Comfort laboriously picking up stones and throwing them in. He was so fat that he could not bend down, but had to squat on his heels whenever he wanted to pick up anything. And then suddenly they would rush away to the house in a panic of fear.

It was not necessary to be a child to follow the life in the garden. A wonderful power of growing filled everything, and in the night it crackled and rustled out in the moonlight, branches stretched themselves in fresh growths, the sap broke through the old bark in the form of flowers and new “eyes.” It was as though Pelle and Ellen’s happy zeal had been infectious; the half-stifled fruit-trees that had not borne for many years revived and answered the gay voices by blossoming luxuriantly. It was a race between human beings and plants as to who should accomplish the most, and between the plants themselves as to which could make the best show. “The spring is lavishing its flowers and green things upon us,” said Pelle. He had never seen a nest that was so beautiful as his; he had at last made a home.

It was pleasant here. Virginia creeper and purple clematis covered the whole front of the house and hung down before the garden door, where Ellen liked to sit with her work, keeping an eye on the little ones playing on the grass, where she liked best to sit with Pelle on Sundays, when the Copenhagen families came wandering past on their little country excursions. They often stopped outside the hedge and exclaimed: “Oh, what a lovely home!”

The work in Pelle’s workshop began, as in all other places, at six in the morning; but it stopped at four, so that those who cared about it could easily make something of the day. Pelle had reduced the working hours to nine, and dared not venture any further for the present.

Some of the hands liked this arrangement, and employed the afternoon in going out with their wives and children; but others would rather have had an hour longer in bed in the morning. One day the latter came and declared that now they were in the majority and would have it changed.

“I can’t agree to that,” answered Pelle. “Being early up is the workman’s privilege, and I’m not going to give it up.”

“But we’ve taken the votes on it,” they said. “This is a democratic institution, isn’t it?”

“I’ve taken no oath to the vote,” Pelle answered quietly, “and in the meantime I should advise those who are dissatisfied with the conditions here to try somewhere else.”

There was always something like this going on, but he did not take it for more than it was worth. They had acquired consciousness of their power, but most of them had not yet discovered its aim. They used it blindly, in childish pleasure at seeing it unfold, like boys in unfurling their banner, tyrannized a little by way of a change, and took their revenge for the subjection of old times by systematically demanding the opposite to what they had. They reeled a little; the miracle of the voting-paper had gone to their heads. It was an intelligible transition; the feeling of responsibility would get hold of them in time.

Another day two of the most skilful workmen came and asked to have piece-work introduced again. “We won’t stand toiling to make money for our comrades,” they said.

“Are they idle?” asked Pelle.

“No, but we work quicker.”

“Then they’re more thorough on the whole. The one generally balances the other.”

“That’s all very well, but it doesn’t benefit us.”

“It benefits the consumers, and under the new conditions that’s the same thing. We must maintain the principle that all who do their duty are equally good; it’s in our own interests.”

They were satisfied for the time. They were two clever fellows, and it was only that they had not got hold of the new feature in the arrangement.

In this way there was considerable trouble. The workmen were short- sighted, and saw only from their hands to their own mouths. Impatience had also something to do with it. They had shorter hours and higher wages, but had not as much to do as in other places. It was new of course, and had to answer to their dreams; but there would be no fortunes to be made out of it as Pelle was working it. He was a little more precise than was necessary when you were pressed on all sides by vulgar competition.

There were, for instance, still a number of people who kept to the good old handsewn boots and shoes, and willingly paid half as much again for them. A good many small shoemakers availed themselves of this by advertising handsewn foot-wear, and then passed the measures on to a factory. It was a good business for both factory and shoemaker, but Pelle would have nothing to do with such transactions. He put his trade- mark on the sole of everything that went out of his workshop.

Pelle took all this with dignified calmness. What right had he to demand perspicuity of these people? It was his business to educate them to it. If only they were willing, he was satisfied. Some day he supposed he would take them so far that they would be able to take over the business jointly, or make it self-supporting; but until then they would have to fall in with his plans.

Part of a great, far-off dream was nevertheless being realized in his undertaking, modest though it was at present; and if it were successful, the way to a new age for the petty tradesmen was open. And what was of still more importance, his own home was growing through this work. He had found the point where the happiness of the many lay in the lengthening of his own; he had got the right way now! Sometimes in the evening after a troublesome day he felt a little tired of the difficulties; but when he bicycled down toward the town in the early morning, while the mists of night drifted across the fields and the lark sang above his head, he was always in good spirits. Then he could follow the consequences of his labor, and see the good principles victorious and the work growing. Kindred enterprises sprang up in other parts of the town, in other towns, still farther out. In the far distance he could see that all production was in the hands of the working-men themselves.

Peter Dreyer supported him like a good comrade, and took a good deal of the worry off his shoulders. He unselfishly put all his strength into it, but he did not share Pelle’s belief in the enormous results that would come from it. “But, dear me, this is capitalistic too!” he said— “socialist capitalism! Just look up to the pavement! there goes a man with no soles to his shoes, and his feet are wet, but all the same he doesn’t come down here and get new shoes, for we want money for them just like all the others, and those who need our work most simply have none. That thing”—he went on, giving a kick to one of the machines— “turns ten men into the street! There you have the whole thing!”

Pelle defended his machines, but Peter would not give in. “The whole thing should have been altered first,” he said angrily. “As it is, they are inventions of the devil! The machines have come a day or two too early, and point their mouths at us, like captured cannons!”

“The machines make shoes for ten times as many people as we could make for with our hands,” said Pelle, “and that can hardly be called a misfortune. It’s only the distribution that’s all wrong.”

Peter Dreyer shrugged his shoulders; he would not discuss the question of distribution any more. If they meant to do anything to alter it he was willing to help. There had been enough nonsense talked about it. Those who had money could buy up all that they made, while the barefooted would be no better off than before. It was a deadlock. Did he think it would revolutionize the world if every man received the entire proceeds of his work? That only meant justice in the existing conditions, so long as diamonds continued to be more valuable than bread. “I don’t see that those who happen to have work should have a better right to live than those who can’t get any,” he said wrathfully. “Or perhaps you don’t know the curse of unemployment! Look at them wandering about in thousands, summer and winter, a whole army of shadows! The community provides for them so that they can just hang together. Good heavens, that isn’t helping the poor, with all respect to the honorable workman! Let him keep his vote, since it amuses him! It’s an innocent pleasure. Just think if he demanded proper food instead of it!”

Yes, Pelle was well enough acquainted with the great hunger reserve; he had very nearly been transferred into it himself. But here he nevertheless caught a glimpse of the bottom. There was a peaceable strength in what he was doing that might carry them on a long way. Peter Dreyer acknowledged it himself by working so faithfully with him. It was only that he would not admit it.

At first they had to stand a good deal, but by degrees Pelle learned to turn things off. Peter, who was generally so good and amenable, spoke in an angry, vexed tone when the conversation touched upon social conditions; it was as though he was at the end of his patience. Though he earned a very good amount, he was badly dressed and looked as if he did not get sufficient food; his breakfast, which he ate together with the others in the workshop, generally consisted of bread and margarine, and he quenched his thirst at the water-tap. At first the others made fun of his prison fare, but he soon taught them to mind their own business: it was not safe to offend him. Part of his earnings he used for agitation, and his comrades said that he lived with a humpbacked woman and her mother. He himself admitted no one into his confidence, but grew more and more reticent. Pelle knew that he lived in one of the Vesterbro back streets, but did not know his address. When he stood silent at his work, his expression was always gloomy, sometimes terribly sad. He seemed to be always in pain.

The police were always after him. Pelle had once or twice received a hint not to employ him, but firmly refused to submit to any interference in his affairs. It was then arbitrarily decided that Peter Dreyer should report himself to the authorities every week.

“I won’t do it!” he said. “It’s quite illegal. I’ve only been punished for political offences, and I’ve been so careful that they shouldn’t be able to get at me for any formal mistake, and here they’re having this triumph! I won’t!” He spoke quietly and without excitement, but his hands shook.

Pelle tried an appeal to his unselfishness. “Do it for my sake then,” he said. “If you don’t they’ll shut you up, and you know I can’t do without you.”

“Would you go and report yourself then if you were told to?” Peter asked.

“Yes. No one need be ashamed of submitting to superior brute force.”

So he went. But it cost him an enormous effort, and on that day in the week it was better to leave him alone.

XII

Marie’s fate lay no longer like a heavy burden upon Pelle; time had taken the bitterness out of it. He could recall without self-reproach his life with her and her two brothers in the “Ark,” and often wondered what had become of the latter. No one could give him any information about them.

One day, during the midday rest, he went on his bicycle out to Morten with a message from Ellen. In Morten’s sitting-room, a hunched-up figure was sitting with its back to the window, staring down at the floor. His clothes hung loosely upon him, and his thin hair was colorless. He slowly raised a wasted face as he looked toward the door. Pelle had already recognized him from his maimed right hand, which had only the thumb and one joint of the forefinger. He no longer hid it away, but let it lie upon his thin knee.

“Why, good-day, Peter!” exclaimed Pelle in surprise, holding out his hand to take the other’s left hand. Peter drew the hand out of his pocket and held it out. It was a dead, maimed lump with some small protuberances like rudiments of knuckles, that Pelle found in his hand. Peter looked into his face without moving a muscle of his own, and there was only a little gleam in his eyes when Pelle started.

“What in the world are you starting for?” he said dryly. “I should think any one might have known that a fellow couldn’t mind a shearing-machine with one hand. I knew it just as well as everybody else in the factory, and expected it every day; and at last I had to shut my eyes. Confound it, I often thought, won’t there soon be an end to it? And then one day there it was!”

Pelle shivered. “Didn’t you get any accident insurance?” he asked in order to say something.

“Of course I did! The whole council gathered on account of my humble self, and I was awarded three thousand krones (£170) as entirely invalided. Well, the master possessed nothing and had never insured me, so it never got beyond the paper. But anyhow it’s a great advance upon the last time, isn’t it? Our party has accomplished something!” He looked mockingly at Pelle. “You ought to give a cheer for paper reforms!”

Peter was a messenger and a kind of secretary in a revolutionary association for young men. He had taught himself to read and sat with other young men studying anarchistic literature. The others took care of him like brothers; but it was a marvel that he had not gone to the dogs. He was nothing but skin and bone, and resembled a fanatic that is almost consumed by his own fire. His intelligence had never been much to boast of, but there were not many difficulties in the problem that life had set him. He hated with a logic that was quite convincing. The strong community had passed a sham law, which was not even liable for the obligations that it admitted that it had with regard to him. He had done with it now and belonged to the destructionists.

He had come up to Morten to ask him to give a reading at the Club. “It’s not because we appreciate authors—you mustn’t imagine that,” he said with a gloomy look. “They live upon us and enjoy a meaningless respect for it. It’s only manual labor that deserves to be honored; everything else sponges on us. I’m only telling you so that you shan’t come imagining something different.”

“Thank you,” said Morten, smiling. “It’s always nice to know what you’re valued at. And still you think you can make use of me?”

“Yes, you’re one of the comparatively better ones among those who work to maintain the capitalists; but we’re agreed at the Club that you’re not a real proletariat writer, you’re far too much elaborated. There have never been proletariat writers; and it’s of no consequence either, for entertainment shouldn’t be made out of misery. It’s very likely you’ll hear all about that up there.”

“That’s all right. I’ll be sure to come,” answered Morten.

“And if you’ll write us a cantata for our anniversary festival—it’s the day of the great Russian massacre—I’ll see that it’s accepted. But it mustn’t be the usual hallelujah!”

“I’m glad I met you,” he said to Pelle with his unchanging expression of gloom. “Have you seen anything of Karl?”

“No, where is he?” asked Pelle eagerly.

“He’s a swell now. He’s got a business in Adel Street; but he won’t enjoy it long.”

“Why not? Is there anything wrong with his affairs?”

“Nothing more than that some day we’ll pull the whole thing down upon all your heads. There’ll soon be quite a number of us. I say, you might speak one evening in our association, and tell us something about your prison life. I think it would interest them. We don’t generally have outsiders, for we speak for ourselves; but I don’t think there’d be any difficulty in getting you introduced.”

Pelle promised.

“He’s a devil-may-care fellow, isn’t he?” exclaimed Morten when he had shut the door on Peter, “but he’s no fool. Did you notice that he never asked for anything? They never do. When they’re hungry they go up to the first person they meet and say: ‘Let me have something to eat!’ It’s all the same to them what’s put into their mouths so long as it’s satisfying, and they never thank gratefully. Nothing affects them. They’re men who put the thief above the beggar. I don’t dislike it really; there’s a new tone in it. Perhaps our well-behaved ruminant’s busy doing away with one stomach and making up the spare material into teeth and claws.”

“If only they’d come forward and do work!” said Pelle. “Strong words don’t accomplish much.”

“How’s it going with your peaceable revolution?” asked Morten with a twinkle in his eye. “Do you see any progress in the work?”

“Oh, yes, it’s slow but sure. Rome wasn’t built in a day. I didn’t think though that you were interested in it.”

“I think you’re on the right tack, Pelle,” answered Morten seriously. “But let the young ones light the fire underneath, and it’ll go all the quicker. That new eventualities crop up in this country is no disadvantage; the governing body may very well be made aware that there’s gunpowder under their seats. It’ll immensely strengthen their sense of responsibility! Would you like to see Johanna? She’s been wanting very much to see you. She’s ill again unfortunately.”

“Ellen sent me out to propose that she should come to stay with us in the country. She thinks the child must be a great trouble to you and cannot be properly looked after here either.”

“It’s very kind of your wife to think of it, but hasn’t she enough to do already?”

“Oh, Ellen can manage a great deal,” said Pelle heartily. “You would be giving her a pleasure.”

“Then I’ll say ‘Thank you’ for the offer,” exclaimed Morten. “It’ll be a great relief to me, if only she can stand the moving. It isn’t that she gives me any trouble now, for we get on capitally together. Johanna is good and manageable, really a splendid character in spite of her spoiling. You won’t have any difficulty with her. And I think it’ll be good for her to be away from me here, and be somewhere where there’s a woman to see to her—and children. She doesn’t get much attention here.”

They went in to her and found her asleep, her pale face covered with large drops of moisture. “It’s exhaustion,” whispered Morten. “She’s not got much strength yet.” Their presence made her sleep disturbed, and she tossed from side to side and then, suddenly opening her eyes, gazed about her with an expression of wild terror. In a moment she recognized them and smiled; and raising herself a little she held out both her hands to Pelle with a charming expression of childish coquetry.

“Tell me about the house out there and Boy Comfort,” she said, making room for him on the edge of the bed. “It’s so tiresome here, and Mr. Morten’s so serious.” And she threw a glance of defiance at him.

“Is he?” said Pelle. “That must be because he writes books.”

“No, but I must keep up a little dignity,” said Morten, assuming a funny, schoolmasterish expression. “This young lady’s beginning to be saucy!”

Johanna lay and laughed to herself, her eyes travelling from one to the other of them. “He ought to have a pair of spectacles, and then he’d be like a real one,” she said. She spoke hardly above a whisper, it was all she had strength for; but her voice was mischievous.

“You must come to us if he’s so bad,” said Pelle, “and then you can play with the children and lie in the sunshine out in the garden. You don’t know how lovely it is there now? Yes, I’m really in earnest,” he continued, as she still smiled. “Ellen asked me to come and say so.”

She suddenly became grave and looked from the one to the other; then looking down, and with her face turned away, she asked: “Will Morten be there too?”

“No, Johanna, I must stay here, of course; but I’ll come out to see you.”

“Every day?” Her face was turned to the wall, and she scratched the paper with her nails.

“I shall come and see my little sweetheart just as often as I can,” said Morten, stroking her hair.

The red blood suffused her neck in a sudden wave, and was imperceptibly absorbed in the paleness of her skin, like a dying ember. Hanne’s blood came and went in the same way for the merest trifle. Johanna had inherited her mother’s bashfulness and unspeakable charm, and also her capricious temper.

She lay with her back turned toward them and made no reply to their persuasions. It was not easy to say whether she even heard them, until suddenly she turned to Morten with an expression of hatred on her face. “You don’t need to trouble,” she said, with glowing eyes; “you can easily get rid of me!”

Morten only looked at her sorrowfully, but Pelle was angry. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for taking it like that,” he said. “Is that all the thanks Morten gets for what he’s done? I must say you’re a grateful child!”

Johanna took the scolding without moving a muscle of her face, but when he ceased she quietly took his hand and laid it over her delicate, thin face, which it quite covered. There she lay peeping out at him and Morten between the large fingers, with a strangely resigned expression that was meant to be roguish. “I know it was horrid of me,” she said dully, moving Pelle’s middle finger backward and forward in front of her eyes so that she squinted; “but I’ll do what you tell me. Elle-Pelle, Morten-Porten—I can talk the P-language!” And she laughed an embarrassed laugh.

“You don’t know how much better and happier you’ll be when you get out to Pelle’s,” said Morten.

“I could easily get up and do the work of the house, so that you didn’t need to have a woman,” she whispered, gazing at him passionately with her big eyes. “I’m well enough now.”

“My dear child, that’s not what I mean at all! It’s for your sake. Don’t you understand that?” said Morten earnestly, bending over her.

Johanna’s gaze wandered round hopelessly, as if she had given up all thought of being understood any more.

“I don’t think we’ll move her against her will,” said Morten, as he went down with Pelle. “She is so capricious in her moods. I think, too, I should miss her, for she’s a good little soul. When she’s up she goes creeping about and is often quite touching in her desire to make me comfortable. And suddenly recollections of her former life awaken in her and darken her mind; she’s still very mistrustful and afraid of being burdensome. But she needs the companionship of women, some one to whom she can talk confidentially. She has too much on her mind for a child.”

“Couldn’t you both move out to us? You can have the two upstairs rooms.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” exclaimed Morten. “May I have two or three days to think it over? And my love to Ellen and the children!”

XIII

When the workshop closed, Pelle often went on working for an hour or two in the shop, getting the accounts straight and arranging the work for the following day in the intervals of attending to customers. A little before six he closed the shop, mounted his bicycle and hastened home with longing for the nest in his heart.

Every one else seemed to feel as he did. There was a peculiar homeward current in the traffic of the streets. Cyclists overtook him in whole flocks, and raced in shoals in front of the trams, which looked as if they squirted them away from the lines as they worked their way along with incessant, deafening ringing, bounding up and down under the weight of the overfilled platforms.

Crowds of men and women were on their way out, and met other crowds whose homes were in the opposite quarter. On the outskirts of the town the factory whistles were crowing like a choir of giant cocks, a single one beginning, the others all joining in. Sooty workmen poured out of the gates, with beer-bottles sticking out of coat-pockets and dinner handkerchiefs dangling from a finger. Women who had been at work or out making purchases, stood with their baskets on their arms, waiting for their husbands at the corner of the street. Little children tripping along hand in hand suddenly caught sight of a man far off in the crowd, and set off at a run to throw themselves at his legs.

Sister often ran right across the fields to meet her father, and Ellen stood at the gate of “Daybreak” and waited. “Good-day, Mr. Manufacturer!” she cried as he approached. She was making up for so much now, and was glowing with health and happiness. It was no use for Pelle to protest, and declare that in his world there were only workmen; she would not give up the title. He was the one who directed the whole thing, and she did not mind about the fellowship. She was proud of him, and he might call himself an errand-boy if he liked; men must always have some crochet or other in their work, or else it would not satisfy them. The arrangement about the equal division she did not understand, but she was sure that her big, clever husband deserved to have twice as much as any of the others. She did not trouble her head about that, however; she lived her own life and was contented and happy.

Pelle had feared that she would tire of the country, and apparently she did not take to it. She weeded and worked in the garden with her customary energy, and by degrees acquired a fair knowledge of the work; but it did not seem to afford her any peculiar enjoyment. It was no pleasure to her to dig her fingers into the mould. Pelle and the children throve here, and that determined her relations to the place; but she did not strike root on her own account. She could thrive anywhere in the world if only they were there; and their welfare was hers. She grew out from them, and had her own wonderful growth inward.

Within her there were strange hidden forces that had nothing to do with theories or systems, but produced the warmth that bore up the whole. Pelle no longer desired to force his way in there. What did he care about logical understanding between man and woman? It was her heart with which he needed to be irradiated. He required to be understood by his friends. His great satisfaction in being with, for instance, Morten, was that in perfect unanimity they talked until they came to a stopping- place, and if they were then silent their thoughts ran on parallel lines and were side by side when they emerged once more. But even if he and Ellen started from the same point, the shortest pause would take their thoughts in different directions; he never knew where she would appear again. No matter how well he thought he knew her, she always came up just as surprisingly and unexpectedly behind him. And was it not just that he loved? Why then contend with it on the basis of the claims of a poor logic?

She continued to be just as unfathomable, no matter how much of her he thought he had mastered. She became greater and greater with it, and she brought him a new, strange world—the mysterious unknown with which he had always had to strive, allowed itself to be tenderly embraced. He no longer demanded the whole of her; in his inmost soul probably every human being was lonely. He guessed that she was going through her own development in concealment, and wondered where she would appear again.

It had formerly been a grief to him that she did not join the Movement; she was not interested in political questions and the suffrage. He now dimly realized that that was just her strength, and in any case he did not wish her otherwise. She seldom interfered definitely with what he did, and why should she? She exerted a silent influence upon everything he did, stamped each of his thoughts from the moment they began to shoot up. For the very reason that she did not know how to discuss, she could not be refuted; what to him was downright logic had no effect whatever upon her. He did not get his own thoughts again stale from her lips, and did not wish to either; her wonderful power over him lay in the fact that she rested so securely on her own, and answered the most crushing arguments with a smile. Pelle was beginning to doubt as to the value of superiority of intellect; it seemed to have undisputed rule over the age, but did not accomplish chiefly good. As compared with Ellen’s nature, it seemed to him poor. The warmth in a kiss convinced her better than a thousand sensible reasons, and yet she seldom made a mistake.

And she herself gave out warmth. They went to her, both he and the children, when there was anything wrong. She did not say much, but she warmed. She still always seemed to him like a pulse that beat, living and palpable, out from the invisible, with a strangely tranquil speech. When his head was hot and tired with adverse happenings, there was nothing more delightful than to rest it upon her bosom and listen, only half awake, to the dull, soothing murmur within like that of the earth’s springs when, in his childhood, he laid his ear to the grass.

The spring was beautiful, and they were much out in it; when no one could see them they walked hand-in-hand along the dikes like two young lovers. Then Pelle talked and showed her things. Look! there it grew in that way, and here in quite a different way. Was it not strange? He lived over again all his childhood’s excitement in spring. Ellen listened to him, smiling; she was not astonished at anything so natural as that things grew; she was merely transformed! The earth simply sent up its juices into her too.

The fresh air and the work in the garden tanned her bare arms, and gave strength and beauty to her figure, while her easy circumstances freed her from care. One day a new being showed in her eyes, and looked at Pelle with the inquisitiveness of a kid. “Shall we play?” it said. Was it he or the spring that set fire to her? No matter! The pleasure was his! The sunshine entered the innermost corners of his soul, the musty corners left by the darkness of his prison-cell, and cured him completely; her freedom from care infected him, and he was entirely happy. It was Ellen who had done it all; at last she had taken upon herself to be the messenger between joy and him!

She became gentler and more vigorous in disposition every day. The sun and the wind across the open country called forth something in her that had never been there before, an innocent pleasure in her own body and a physical appetite that made her teeth white and gleaming. She was radiant with delight when Pelle brought her little things to adorn herself with; she did not use them for the children now! “Look!” she said once, holding up a piece of dark velvet to her face which in the evening gave out again the warmth of the sun, as hay its scent. “You must give me a dress like this when we become rich.” And her eyes sparkled as she looked at him, full of promises of abundant returns. He thought he belonged to the soil, and yet it was through her that he first really came into contact with it! There was worship of nature in the appetite with which she crunched the first radishes of the year and delighted in their juicy freshness; and when in the evening he sprang from his bicycle and took her in his arms, she herself exhaled the fresh perfume of all that had passed through the spring day—the wind and the products of the soil. He could smell in her breath the perfume of wild honey, mixed with the pollen and nectar of wild flowers; and she would close her eyes as though she herself were intoxicated with it.

Their dawning affection became passionate first love out here. Ellen was always standing at the gate waiting for him. As soon as Pelle had had his supper, the children dragged him round the garden to show him what had taken place during the day. They held his hands and Ellen had to walk by herself. Pelle and she had an intense desire to be close together, but the little ones would not submit to be set aside. “He’s our father!” they said; and Pelle and Ellen were like two young people that are kept cruelly apart by a remorseless fate, and they looked at one another with eyes that were heavy with expression.

When the little ones had gone to bed they stole away from it all, leaving Lasse Frederik in charge of the house. He had seen an artist sitting outside the hedge and painting the smoky city in the spring light, and had procured himself a paintbox. He sat out there every evening now, daubing away busily. He did not mean to be a sailor now!

They went up past the farm and on toward the evening sun, walked hand- in-hand in the dewy grass, gazing silently in front of them. The ruddy evening light colored their faces and made their eyes glow. There was a little grove of trees not far off, to which they often went so as to be quite away from the world. With their arms round one another they passed into the deep twilight, whispering together. Now and then she bent her head back for him to kiss her, when an invisible ray would strike her eye and be refracted into a rainbow-colored star, in the darkness.

A high dike of turfs ran along the edge of the wood, and low over it hung hazel and young beech trees. In under the branches there were little bowers where they hid themselves; the dead leaves had drifted together in under the dike and made a soft couch. The birds above their heads gave little sleepy chirps, turned on the branch and twittered softly as though they dreamed the day’s melodies over again. Sometimes the moon peeped in at them with a broad smile. The heavy night- exhalations of the leaves lulled them to sleep, and sometimes they were only wakened by the tremor that passes through everything when the sun rises. Pelle would be cold then, but Ellen’s body was always warm although she had removed some of her clothing to make a pillow for their heads.

She still continued to be motherly; her devotion only called forth new sides of her desire for self-sacrifice. How rich she was in her motherliness! She demanded nothing but the hard ground, and could not make herself soft enough: everything was for him. And she could make herself so incomprehensibly soft! Providence had thrown all His riches and warmth into her lap; it was no wonder that both life and happiness had made their nesting-place there.

Their love increased with the sunshine, and made everything bright and good; there was no room for any darkness. Pelle met all troubles with a smile. He went about in a state of semi-stupor, and even his most serious business affairs could not efface Ellen’s picture from his mind. Her breath warmed the air around him throughout the day, and made him hasten home. At table at home they had secret signs that referred to their secret world. They were living in the first love of youth with all its sweet secrecy, and smiled at one another in youthful, stealthy comprehension, as though the whole world were watching them and must learn nothing. If their feet touched under the table, their eyes met and Ellen would blush like a young girl. Her affection was so great that she could not bear it to be known, even to themselves. A red flame passed over her face, and her eyes were veiled as though she hid in them the unspeakable sweetness of her tryst from time to time. She rarely spoke and generally answered with a smile; she sang softly to herself, filled with the happiness of youth.

One afternoon when he came cycling home Ellen did not meet him as usual. He became anxious, and hurried in. The sofa was made into a bed, and Ellen was standing by it, bending over Johanna, who lay shivering with fever. Ellen raised her head and said, “Hush!” The children were sitting in a corner gazing fearfully at the sick girl, who lay with closed eyes, moaning slightly.

“She came running out here this afternoon,” whispered Ellen, looking strangely at him; “I can’t think why. She’s terribly ill! I’ve sent Lasse Frederik in to Morten, so that he may know she’s with us.”

“Have you sent for the doctor?” asked Pelle, bending down over Johanna.

“Yes. Lasse Frederik will tell Morten to bring his doctor with him. He must know her best. I should think they’ll soon be here.”

A shivering fit came over Johanna. She lay working her tongue against the dry roof of her mouth, now and then uttering a number of disconnected words, and tossing to and fro upon the bed. Suddenly she raised herself in terror, her wide-open eyes fixed upon Pelle, but with no recognition in them. “Go away! I won’t!” she screamed, pushing him away. His deep voice calmed her, however, and she allowed herself to be laid down once more, and then lay still with closed eyes.

“Some one has been after her,” said Ellen, weeping. “What can it be?”

“It’s the old story,” Pelle whispered with emotion. “Morten says that it constantly reappears in her.—Take the children out into the garden, Ellen. I’ll stay here with her.”

Ellen went out with the little ones, who could hardly be persuaded to come out of their corner; but it was not long before their chattering voices could be heard out on the grass.

Pelle sat with his hand on Johanna’s forehead, staring straight before him. He had been rudely awakened to the horror of life once more. Convulsive tremors passed through her tortured brow. It was as if he held in his hand a fluttering soul that had been trodden in the mire beneath heavy heels—a poor crushed fledgeling that could neither fly nor die.

He was roused by the sound of a carriage driving quickly up to the garden gate, and went out to meet the men.

The doctor was very doubtful about Johanna’s condition. “I’m afraid that the fits will increase rather than decrease,” he said in a whisper. “It would be better if she were sent to the hospital as soon as she’s able to be moved.”

“Would it be better for her?” asked Ellen.

“No, not exactly for her, but—she’ll be a difficult patient, you know!”

“Then she shall remain here,” said Ellen; “she shall be well looked after.”

Lasse Frederik had to take his bicycle and ride to the chemist’s, and immediately after the doctor drove away.

They sat outside the garden door, so that they could hear any sound from the sick girl, and talked together in low tones. It was sad to see Morten; Johanna’s flight from him had wounded him deeply.

“I wonder why she did it?” said Pelle.

“She’s been strange ever since you came up and proposed that she should come out to you,” said Morten sadly. “She got it into her head that she was a burden to me and that I would like to get rid of her. Two or three days ago she got up while I was out, and began working in the house—I suppose as a return for my keeping her. She’s morbidly sensitive. When I distinctly forbade her she declared that she wouldn’t owe me anything and meant to go away. I knew that she might very likely do it in spite of her being ill, so I stayed at home. At midday to-day I just went down to fetch milk, and when I came up she was gone. It was a good thing she came out here; I think she’d do anything when once the idea’s taken her that she’s a burden.”

“She must be very fond of you,” said Ellen, looking at him.

“I don’t think so,” answered Morten, with a sad smile. “At any rate, she’s hidden it well. My impression is that she’s hated me ever since the day we spoke of her coming out here.—May I stay here for the night?”

“If you can put up with what we have,” answered Ellen. “It won’t be a luxurious bed, but it’ll be something to lie down on.”

Morten did not want a bed, however. “I’ll sit up and watch over Johanna,” he said.

XIV

The house was thus transformed into a nursing home. It was a hard hit at their careless happiness, but they took it as it came. Neither of them demanded more of life than it was capable of.

Ellen was with the sick girl day and night until the worst was over; she neglected both Pelle and the children to give all her care to Johanna.

“You’ve got far too much to do,” said Pelle anxiously. “It’ll end in your being ill too. Do let us have help!” And as Ellen would not hear of it, he took the matter into his own hands, and got “Queen Theresa” to be out there during the day.

In the course of a few days Morten arranged his affairs, got rid of his flat, and moved out to them. “You won’t be able to run away from me, after all,” he said to Johanna, who was sitting up in bed listening to the carrying upstairs of his things. “When you’re well enough you shall be moved up into the big attic; and then we two shall live upstairs and be jolly again, won’t we?”

She made no answer, but flushed with pleasure.

Ellen now received from Morten the amount he usually spent in a month on food and house-rent. She was quite disconcerted. What was she to do with all that money? It was far too much! Well, they need no longer be anxious about their rent.

Johanna was soon so far recovered as to be able to get up for a little. The country air had a beneficial effect upon her nerves, and Ellen knew how to keep her in good spirits. Old Brun made her a present of a beautiful red and yellow reclining chair of basket work; and when the sun shone she was carried out onto the grass, where she lay and watched the children’s play, sometimes joining in the game from her chair, and ordering them hither and thither. Boy Comfort submitted to it good- naturedly, but Sister was a little more reserved. She did not like this stranger to call Pelle “father”; and when she was in a teasing mood she would stand a little way off and repeat again and again: “He’s not your father, for he’s mine!” until Ellen took her away.

Johanna mostly lay, however, gazing into space with an expression of the utmost weariness. For a moment her attention would be attracted by anything new, but then her eyes wandered away again. She was never well enough to walk about; even when she felt well, her legs would not support her. Brun came out to “Daybreak” every afternoon to see her. The old man was deeply affected by her sad fate, and had given up his usual holiday trip in order to keep himself acquainted with her condition. “We must do something for her,” he said to the doctor, who paid a daily visit at his request. “Is there nothing that can be done?”

The doctor shook his head. “She couldn’t be better off anywhere than she is here,” he said.

They were all fond of her, and did what they could to please her. Brun always brought something with him, expensive things, such as beautiful silk blankets that she could have over her when she lay out in the garden, and a splendid coral necklace. He got her everything that he could imagine she would like. Her eyes sparkled whenever she received anything new, and she put everything on. “Now I’m a princess in all her finery,” she whispered, smiling at him; but a moment after she had forgotten all about it. She was very fond of the old man, made him sit beside her, and called him “grandfather” with a mournful attempt at roguishness. She did not listen to what he told her, however, and when the little ones crept up and wanted him to come with them to play in the field, he could quite well go, for she did not notice it.

Alas! nothing could reconcile her child’s soul to her poor, maltreated body, neither love nor trinkets. It was as though it were weary of its covering and had soared as far out as possible, held captive by a thin thread that would easily wear through. She grew more transparent every day; it could be clearly seen now that she had the other children beside her. They ate and throve for her as well as themselves! When Ellen was not on the watch, Boy Comfort would come and eat up Johanna’s invalid food, though goodness knew he wasn’t starved! Johanna herself looked on calmly; it was all a matter of such indifference to her.

It was an unusually fine summer, dry and sunny, and they could nearly always be in the garden. They generally gathered there toward evening; Ellen and “Queen Theresa” had finished their house work, and sat by Johanna with their sewing, Brun kept them company with his cheerful talk, and Johanna lay and dozed with her face toward the garden gate. They laughed and joked with her to keep her in good spirits. Brun had promised her a trip to the South if she would make haste to use her legs, and told her about the sun down there and the delicious grapes and oranges that she would be allowed to pick herself. She answered everything with her sad smile, as though she knew all too well what awaited her. Her thick, dark hair overshadowed more and more her pale face; it was as if night were closing over her. She seemed to be dozing slowly out of existence, with her large eyes turned toward the garden gate.

Morten was often away on lecturing tours, sometimes for several days at a time. When at last he entered the gate, life flashed into her face. He was the only one who could recall her spirit to its surroundings; it was as though it only lingered on for him. She was no longer capricious with him. When she had the strength for it, she sat up and threw her arms round his neck; her tears flowed silently, and her longing found free vent. Ellen understood the child’s feelings, and signed to the others to leave the two together. Morten would then sit for hours beside her, telling her all that he had been doing; she never seemed to grow weary, but lay and listened to him with shining eyes, her transparent hand resting upon his arm. Every step he took interested her; sometimes a peculiar expression came into her eyes, and she fell suspiciously upon some detail or other. Her senses were morbidly keen; the very scent of strange people about him made her sullen and suspicious.

“The poor, poor child! She loves him!” said Ellen one day to Pelle, and suddenly burst into tears. “And there she lies dying!” Her own happiness made her so fully conscious of the child’s condition.

“But dearest Ellen!” exclaimed Pelle in protest. “Don’t you think I can see? That’s of course why she’s always been so strange to him. How sad it is!”

The child’s sad fate cast a shadow over the others, but the sun rose high in the heavens and became still stronger.

“Pelle,” said Ellen, stroking his hair, “the light nights will soon be over!”

Morten continued obstinately to believe that little Johanna would recover, but every one else could see distinctly what the end was to be. Her life oozed away with the departing summer. She became gentler and more manageable every day. The hatred in her was extinguished; she accepted all their kindness with a tired smile. Through her spoiled being there radiated a strange charm, bearing the stamp of death, which seemed to unfold itself the more as she drew nearer to the grave.

Later in the autumn her nature changed. Suddenly, when Pelle or Morten approached, her eyes would fill with horror and she would open her mouth to cry out; but when she recognized them, she nestled down in their arms, crying pitifully. She could no longer go into the garden, but always kept her bed. She could not bear the noise of the children; it tortured her and carried her thoughts back to the narrow streets: they had to keep out of doors all day. Delirious attacks became more frequent, and her thin, languid voice became once more rough and hoarse. She lay fighting with boys and roughs and high hats, defended herself with nicknames and abusive epithets, and snarled at every one, until she at last gave in and asked for brandy, and lay crying softly to herself. Old Brun never dared show himself at her bedside; she took him for an old chamberlain that the street-boys had set onto her, and received him with coarse demands.

This insight into the child’s terrible existence among the timber-stacks affected them all. It seemed as if the malignity of life would not relax its hold on this innocent victim, but would persecute her as long as life remained, and made all their love useless. Morten stayed with her during the days in which she fought her battle with death; he sat watching her from a corner, only venturing nearer when she dozed. Ellen was the only one who had the strength to meet it. She was with Johanna night and day, and tried to make death easier for her by her unwearying care; and when the fits came over the child, she held her in her arms and sought to calm her with a mother’s love.

She had never been in a death-chamber before, but did not quail; and the child died upon her breast.

Johanna’s death had completely paralyzed Morten. As long as he possibly could he had clung to the belief that her life might be saved; if not, it would be so unreasonably unjust; and when her hopeless condition became apparent to him, he collapsed. He did nothing, but wandered about dully, spoke to no one and ate very little. It was as though he had received a blow on the head from a heavy hand.

After the funeral he and Pelle walked home together while the others drove. Pelle talked of indifferent matters in order to draw Morten’s thoughts away from the child, but Morten did not listen to him.

“My dear fellow, you can’t go on like this,” said Pelle suddenly, putting his arm through Morten’s. “You’ve accompanied the poor child along the road as far as you could, and the living have some claim on you too.”

Morten raised his head. “What does it matter whether I write a few pages more or less?” he said wearily.

“Your pen was given you to defend the defenceless with; you mustn’t give up,” said Pelle.

Morten laughed bitterly. “And haven’t I pleaded the cause of the children as well as I could, and been innocent enough to believe that there, at any rate, it was only necessary to open people’s eyes in order to touch their hearts? And what has been gained? The addition, at the most, of one more volume to the so-called good literature. Men are practical beings; you can with the greatest ease get them to shed theater tears; they’re quite fond of sitting in the stalls and weeping with the unfortunate man; but woe to him if they meet him again in the street! The warmest words that have ever been spoken to me about my descriptions of children were from an old gentleman whom I afterward found to be trying to get hold of little children.”

“But what are you going to do?” said Pelle, looking at him with concern.

“Yes, what am I going to do—tell me that! You’re right in saying I’m indifferent, but can one go on taking part in a battle that doesn’t even spare the children? Do you remember my little sister Karen, who had to drown herself? How many thousand children are there not standing behind her and Johanna! They call this the children’s century, and the children’s blood is crying out from the earth! They’re happy when they can steal away. Fancy if Johanna had lived on with her burden! The shadows of childhood stretch over the whole of life.”

“Yes, and so does the sunshine of childhood!” exclaimed Pelle. “That’s why we mustn’t fail the poor little ones. We shall need a race with warm hearts.”

“That’s just what I’ve thought,” said Morten sadly. “Do you know, Pelle, I loved that child who came to me from the very lowest depth. She was everything to me; misery has never come so cruelly near to me before. It was a beautiful dream of mine—a foolish dream—that she would live. I was going to coax life and happiness into her again, and then I would have written a book about all that triumphs. I don’t know whether you understand me—about misery that becomes health and happiness beneath the sunshine of kindness. She was that; life could hardly be brought lower! But did you notice how much beauty and delicacy there was after all buried beneath the sewer-mud in her? I had looked forward to bringing it out, freed from all want and ugliness, and showing the world how beautiful we are down here when the mud is scraped off us. Perhaps it might have induced them to act justly. That’s what I dreamed, but it’s a bitter lot to have the unfortunates appointed to be one’s beloved. My only love is irretrievably dead, and now I cannot write about anything that triumphs. What have I to do with that?”

“I think it’s Victor Hugo who says that the heart is the only bird that carries its cage,” said Pelle, “but your heart refuses to take it when there is most use for it.”

“Oh, no!” said Morten with a little more energy. “I shan’t desert you; but this has been a hard blow for me. If only I had a little more of your clear faith! Well, I must be glad that I have you yourself,” he added, holding out his hand to Pelle with a bright smile.

The librarian came across the fields to meet them. “It’s taken you two Dioseuri a long time,” he said, looking at them attentively. “Ellen’s waiting with the dinner.”

The three men walked together up the bare stubblefield toward the house. “The best of the summer’s over now,” said Brun, looking about with a sigh. “The wheel has turned on one more cog!”

“Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to one,” answered Morten, who was still in a morbid mood.

“That’s the sort of thing one says while one’s young and prosperous—and doesn’t mean seriously. To-morrow life will have taken you and your sorrow into its service again. But I have never been young until now that I’ve learned to know you two, so I count every fleeting hour like a miser—and envy you who can walk so quickly,” he added with a smile.

They walked up more slowly, and as they followed the hedge up toward the house they heard a faint whimpering in the garden. In a hole in an empty bed, which the two children had dug with their spades, sat Boy Comfort, and Sister was busy covering him with earth; it was already up to his neck. He was making no resistance, but only whimpered a little when the mould began to get near his mouth.

Pelle gave the alarm and leaped the hedge, and Ellen at the same moment came running out. “You might have suffocated little brother!” she said with consternation, taking the boy in her arms.

“I was only planting him,” said Anna, offended at having her work destroyed. “He wanted to be, and of course he’d come up again in the spring!” The two children wanted a little brother, and had agreed that Boy Comfort should sacrifice himself.

“You mustn’t do such things,” said Ellen quietly. “You’ll get a little brother in the spring anyhow.” And she looked at Pelle with a loving glance.

XV

Work went on steadily in the cooperative works. It made no great stir; in the Movement they had almost forgotten that it existed at all. It was a long and difficult road that Pelle had set out on, but he did not for a moment doubt that it led to the end he had in view, and he set about it seriously. Never had his respiration been so slow.

At present he was gaining experience. He and Peter Dreyer had trained a staff of good workmen, who knew what was at stake, and did not allow themselves to be upset even if a foreign element entered. The business increased steadily and required new men; but Pelle had no difficulty with the new forces; the undertaking was so strong that it swallowed them and remodelled them.

The manufacturers at any rate remembered his existence, and tried to injure him at every opportunity. This pleased him, for it established the fact that he was a danger to them. Through their connections they closed credit, and when this did not lead to anything, because he had Brun’s fortune to back him up, they boycotted him with regard to materials by forcing the leather-merchants not to sell to him. He then had to import his materials from abroad. It gave him a little extra trouble, and now it was necessary to have everything in order, so that they should not come to a standstill for want of anything.

One day an article was lacking in a new consignment, and the whole thing was about to come to a standstill. He managed to obtain it by stratagem, but he was angry. “I should like to hit those leather-merchants back,” he said to Brun. “If we happen to be in want of anything, we’re obliged to get it by cunning. Don’t you think we might take the shop next door, and set up a leather business? It would be a blow to the others, and then we should always have what we want to use. We shouldn’t get rich on it, so I think the small masters in out-of-the-way corners would be glad to have us.”

Brun had no objection to making a little more war to the knife. There was too little happening for his taste!

The new business opened in October. Pelle would have had Peter Dreyer to be at the head of it, but he refused. “I’m sure I’m not suited for buying and selling,” he said gloomily, so Pelle took one of the young workmen from the workshop into the business, and kept an eye upon it himself.

It at once put a little more life into things; there was always plenty of material. They now produced much more than they were able to sell in the shop, and Pelle’s leather shop made the small masters independent of private capital. Many of them sold a little factory foot-wear in addition to doing repairs, and these now took their goods from him. Out in the provinces his boots and shoes had already gained a footing in many places; it had come about naturally, in the ordinary sequence of things. The manufacturers followed them up there too, wherever they could; but the consequence was that the workmen patronized them and forced them in again to the shops of which they themselves were the customers. A battle began to rage over Pelle’s boots and shoes.

He knew, however, that it was only the beginning. It would soon come to a great conflict, and were his foundations sufficiently strong for that? The manufacturers were establishing a shop opposite his, where the goods were to be sold cheap in order to ruin his sales, and one day they put the prices very much down on everything, so as to extinguish him altogether.

“Let them!” said Brun. “People will be able to get shoes cheap!” Pelle was troubled, however, at this fresh attack. Even if they held out, it might well exhaust their economic strength.

The misfortune was that they were too isolated; they were as yet like men washed up onto an open shore; they had nothing to fall back upon. The employers had long since discovered that they were just as international as the workmen, and had adopted Pelle’s old organization idea. It was not always easy, either, to get materials from abroad; he noticed the connection. Until he had got the tanners to start a cooperative business, he ran the risk of having his feet knocked away from under him at any moment. And in the first place he must have the great army of workmen on his side; that was whither everything pointed.

One day he found himself once more after many years on the lecturer’s platform, giving his first lecture on cooperation. It was very strange to stand once more before his own people and feel their faces turned toward him. At present they looked upon him as one who had come from abroad with new ideas, or perhaps only a new invention; but he meant to win them! Their very slowness promised well when once it was overcome. He knew them again; they were difficult to get started, but once started could hardly be stopped again. If his idea got proper hold of these men with their huge organizations and firm discipline, it would be insuperable. He entered with heart and soul into the agitation, and gave a lecture every week in a political or trade association.

“Pelle, how busy you are!” said Ellen, when he came home. Her condition filled him with happiness; it was like a seal upon their new union. She had withdrawn a little more into herself, and over her face and figure there was thrown a touch of dreamy gentleness. She met him at the gate now a little helpless and remote—a young mother, to be touched with careful hands. He saw her thriving from day to day, and had a happy feeling that things were growing for him on all sides.

They did not see much of Morten. He was passing through a crisis, and preferred to be by himself. He was always complaining that he could not get on with his work. Everything he began, no matter how small, stuck fast.

“That’s because you don’t believe in it any longer,” said Pelle. “He who doubts in his work cuts through the branch upon which he is himself sitting.”

Morten listened to him with an expression of weariness. “It’s much more than that,” he said, “for it’s the men themselves I doubt, Pelle. I feel cold and haven’t been able to find out why; but now I know. It’s because men have no heart. Everything growing is dependent upon warmth, but the whole of our culture is built upon coldness, and that’s why it’s so cold here.”

“The poor people have a heart though,” said Pelle. “It’s that and not common sense that keeps them up. If they hadn’t they’d have gone to ruin long ago—simply become animals. Why haven’t they, with all their misery? Why does the very sewer give birth to bright beings?”

“Yes, the poor people warm one another, but they’re blue with cold all the same! And shouldn’t one rather wish that they had no heart to be burdened with in a community that’s frozen to the very bottom? I envy those who can look at misery from a historical point of view and comfort themselves with the future. I think myself that the good will some day conquer, but it’s nevertheless fearfully unreasonable that millions shall first go joyless to the grave in the battle to overcome a folly. I’m an irreconcilable, that’s what it is! My mind has arranged itself for other conditions, and therefore I suffer under those that exist. Even so ordinary a thing as to receive money causes me suffering. It’s mine, but I can’t help following it back in my thoughts. What want has been caused by its passing into my hands? How much distress and weeping may be associated with it? And when I pay it out again I’m always troubled to think that those who’ve helped me get too little—my washerwoman and the others. They can scarcely live, and the fault is mine among others! Then my thoughts set about finding out the others’ wants and I get no peace; every time I put a bit of bread into my mouth, or see the stores in the shops, I can’t help thinking of those who are starving. I suffer terribly through not being able to alter conditions of which the folly is so apparent. It’s of no use for me to put it down to morbidness, for it’s not that; it’s a forestalling in myself. We must all go that way some day, if the oppressed do not rise before then and turn the point upward. You see I’m condemned to live in all the others’ miseries, and my own life has not been exactly rich in sunshine. Think of my childhood, how joyless it was! I haven’t your fund to draw from, Pelle, remember that!”

No, there had not been much sunshine on Morten’s path, and now he cowered and shivered with cold.

One evening, however, he rushed into the sitting-room, waving a sheet of paper. “I’ve received a legacy,” he cried. “Tomorrow morning I shall start for the South.”

“But you’ll have to arrange your affairs first,” said Pelle.

“Arrange?” Morten laughed. “Oh, no! You’re always ready to start on a journey. All my life I’ve been ready for a tour round the world at an hour’s notice!” He walked to and fro, rubbing his hands. “Ah, now I shall drink the sunshine—let myself be baked through and through! I think it’ll be good for my chest to hop over a winter.”

“How far are you going?” asked Ellen, with shining eyes.

“To Southern Italy and Spain. I want to go to a place where the cold doesn’t pull off the coats of thousands while it helps you on with your furs. And then I want to see people who haven’t had a share in the blessings of mechanical culture, but upon whom the sun has shone to make up for it—sunshine-beings like little Johanna and her mother and grandmother, but who’ve been allowed to live. Oh, how nice it’ll be to see for once poor people who aren’t cold!”

“Just let him get off as quickly as possible,” said Ellen, when Morten had gone up to pack; “for if he once gets the poor into his mind, it’ll all come to nothing. I expect I shall put a few of your socks and a little underclothing into his trunk; he’s got no change. If only he’ll see that his things go to the wash, and that they don’t ruin them with chlorine!”

“Don’t you think you’d better look after him a little while he’s packing?” asked Pelle. “Or else I’m afraid he’ll not take what he’ll really want. Morten would sometimes forget his own head.”

Ellen went upstairs with the things she had looked out. It was fortunate that she did so, for Morten had packed his trunk quite full of books, and laid the necessary things aside. When she took everything out and began all over again, he fidgeted about and was quite unhappy; it had been arranged so nicely, the fiction all together in one place, the proletariat writings in another; he could have put his hand in and taken out anything he wanted. But Ellen had no mercy. Everything had to be emptied onto the floor, and he had to bring every stitch of clothing he possessed and lay them on chairs, whence she selected the necessary garments. At each one that was placed in the trunk, Morten protested meekly: it really could not be worth while to take socks with him, nor yet several changes of linen; you simply bought them as you required them. Indeed? Could it not? But it was worth while lugging about a big trunk full of useless books like any colporteur, was it?

Ellen was on her knees before the trunk, and was getting on with her task. Pelle came up and stood leaning against the door-jamb, looking at them. “That’s right! Just give him a coating of paint that will last till he gets home again!” he said, laughing. “He may need it badly.”

Morten sat upon a chair looking crestfallen. “Thank goodness, I’m not married!” he said. “I really begin to be sorry for you, Pelle.” It was evident that he was enjoying being looked after.

“Yes, now you can see what a domestic affliction I have to bear,” Pelle answered gravely.

Ellen let them talk. The trunk was now cram full, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that he would not be going about like a tramp. There were only his toilet articles left now; even those he had forgotten. She drew a huge volume out of the pocket for these articles inside the lid of the trunk to make room for his washing things; but at that Morten sprang forward. “I must have that with me, whatever else is left out,” he said with determination. It was Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables,” Morten’s Bible.

Ellen opened it at the title-page to see if it really was so necessary to travel about with such a monster; it was as big as a loaf.

“There’s no room for it,” she declared, and quietly laid it on one side, “that’s to say if you want things to wash yourself with; and you’re sure to meet plenty of unhappy people wherever you go, for there’s always enough of them everywhere.”

“Then perhaps Madam will not permit me to take my writing things with me?” questioned Morten, in a tone of supplication.

“Oh, yes!” answered Ellen, laughing, “and you may use them too, to do something beautiful—that’s to say if it’s us poor people you’re writing for. There’s sorrow and misery enough!”

“When the sun’s shone properly upon me, I’ll come home and write you a book about it,” said Morten seriously.

The following day was Sunday. Morten was up early and went out to the churchyard. He was gone a long time, and they waited breakfast for him. “He’s coming now!” cried Lasse Frederik, who had been up to the hill farm for milk. “I saw him down in the field.”

“Then we can put the eggs on,” said Ellen to Sister, who helped her a little in the kitchen.

Morten was in a solemn mood. “The roses on Johanna’s grave have been picked again,” he said. “I can’t imagine how any one can have the heart to rob the dead; they are really the poorest of us all.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that!” exclaimed Pelle. “A month ago you thought the dead were the only ones who were well off.”

“You’re a rock!” said Morten, smiling and putting his hands on the other’s shoulders. “If everything else were to change, we should always know where you were to be found.”

“Come to table!” cried Ellen, “but at once, or the surprise will be cold.” She stood waiting with a covered dish in her hand.

“Why, I believe you’ve got new-laid eggs there!” exclaimed Pelle, in astonishment.

“Yes, the hens have begun to lay again the last few days. It must be in Morten’s honor.”

“No, it’s in honor of the fine weather, and because they’re allowed to run about anywhere now,” said Lasse Frederik.

Morten laughed. “Lasse Frederik’s an incorrigible realist,” he said. “Life needs no adornment for him.”

Ellen looked well after Morten. “Now you must make a good breakfast,” she said. “You can’t be sure you’ll get proper food out there in foreign countries.” She was thinking with horror of the messes her lodgers in the “Palace” had put together.

The carriage was at the door, the trunk was put up beside the driver, and Morten and Pelle got into the carriage, not before it was time either. They started at a good pace, Lasse Frederik and Sister each standing on a step all the way down to the main road. Up at the gable window Ellen stood and waved, holding Boy Comfort by the hand.

“It must be strange to go away from everything,” said Pelle.

“Yes, it might be strange for you,” answered Morten, taking a last look at Pelle’s home. “But I’m not going away from anything; on the contrary, I’m going to meet things.”

“It’ll be strange at any rate not having you walking about overhead any more, especially for Ellen and the children. But I suppose we shall hear from you?”

“Oh, yes! and you’ll let me hear how your business gets on, won’t you?”

The train started. Pelle felt his heart contract as he stood and gazed after it, feeling as though it were taking part of him with it. It had always been a dream of his to go out and see a little of the world; ever since “Garibaldi” had appeared in the little workshop at home in the provincial town he had looked forward to it. Now Morten was going, but he himself would never get away; he must be content with the “journey abroad” he had had. For a moment Pelle stood looking along the lines where the train had disappeared, with his thoughts far away in melancholy dreams; then he woke up and discovered that without intending it he had been feeling his home a clog upon his feet. And there were Ellen and the children at home watching for his coming, while he stood here and dreamed himself away from them! They would do nothing until he came, for Sunday was his day, the only day they really had him. He hurried out and jumped onto a tram.

As he leaped over the ditch into the field at the tramway terminus, he caught sight of Brun a little farther along the path. The old librarian was toiling up the hill, his asthma making him pause every now and then. “He’s on his way to us!” said Pelle to himself, touched at the thought; it had not struck him before how toilsome this walk over ploughed fields and along bad roads must be for the old man; and yet he did it several times in the week to come out and see them.

“Well, here I am again!” said Brun. “I only hope you’re not getting tired of me.”

“There’s no danger of that!” answered Pelle, taking his arm to help him up the hill. “The children are quite silly about you!”

“Yes, the children—I’m safe enough with them, and with you too, Pelle; but your wife makes me a little uncertain.”

“Ellen’s rather reserved, but it’s only her manner; she’s very fond of you,” said Pelle warmly. “Any one who takes the children on his knee wins Ellen’s heart.”

“Do you really think so? I’ve always despised woman because she lacks personality—until I got to know your wife. She’s an exceptional wife you’ve got, Pelle; hers is a strong nature, so strong that she makes me uncertain. Couldn’t you get her to leave off calling me Mr. Brun?”

“I’ll tell her,” said Pelle, laughing; “but I’m not sure it’ll be of any use.”

“This Mr. Brun is beginning to be an intolerable person, let me tell you; and in your house I should like to get away from him. Just imagine what it means to be burdened all your life with a gentleman like that, who doesn’t stand in close relationship to anybody at all. Others are called ‘Father,’ ‘Grandfather’—something or other human; but all conditions of life dispose of me with a ‘Mr. Brun’! ‘Thank you, Mr. Brun!’ ‘Many thanks, Mr. Brun!’” The old man had worked himself up, and made the name a caricature.

“These are bad roads out here,” he said suddenly, stopping to take breath. “It’s incomprehensible that these fields should be allowed to lie here just outside the town—that speculation hasn’t got hold of them.”

“I suppose it’s because of the boggy ground down there,” said Pelle. “They’ve begun to fill it in, however, at the north end, I see.”

Brun peered in that direction with some interest, but gave it up, shaking his head.

“No, I can’t see so far without glasses; that’s another of the blessings bestowed by books. Yes, it is! Old people in the country only make use of spectacles when they want to look at a book, but I have to resort to them when I want to find my way about the world: that makes a great difference. It’s the fault of the streets and those stupid books that I’m shortsighted; you don’t get any outlook if you don’t live in the country. The town shuts up all your senses, and the books take you away from life; so I’m thinking of moving out too.”

“Is that wise now just before the winter? It wouldn’t do for you to go in and out in all kinds of weather.”

“Then I’ll give up the library,” answered Brun. “I shan’t miss it much; I’ve spent enough of my life there. Fancy, Pelle! it occurred to me last night that I’d helped to catalogue most of the literature of the world, but haven’t even seen a baby dressed! What right have people like me to have an opinion?”

“I can’t understand that,” said Pelle. “Books have given me so much help.”

“Yes, because you had the real thing. If I were young, I would go out and set to work with my hands. I’ve missed more through never having worked with my body till I was hot and tired, than you have through not knowing the great classic writers. I’m discovering my own poverty, Pelle; and I would willingly exchange everything for a place as grandfather by a cozy fireside.”

The children came running across the field. “Have you got anything for us to-day?” they cried from a long distance.

“Yes, but not until we get into the warmth. I daren’t unbutton my coat out here because of my cough.”

“Well, but you walk so slowly,” said Boy Comfort. “Is it because you’re so old?”

“Yes, that’s it,” answered the old man, laughing. “You must exercise a little patience.”

Patience, however, was a thing of which the children possessed little, and they seized hold of his coat and pulled him along. He was quite out of breath when they reached the house.

Ellen looked severely at the children, but said nothing. She helped Brun off with his coat and neckerchief, and after seeing him comfortably seated in the sitting-room, went out into the kitchen. Pelle guessed there was something she wanted to say to him, and followed her.

“Pelle,” she said gravely, “the children are much too free with Mr. Brun. I can’t think how you can let them do it.”

“Well, but he likes it, Ellen, or of course I should stop them. It’s just what he likes. And do you know what I think he would like still better? If you would ask him to live with us.”

“That I’ll never do!” declared Ellen decidedly. “It would look so extraordinary of me.”

“But if he wants a home, and likes us? He’s got no friends but us.”

No—no, Ellen could not understand that all the same, with the little they had to offer. And Brun, who could afford to pay for all the comforts that could be had for money! “If he came, I should have to have new table-linen at any rate, and good carpets on the floors, and lots of other things.”

“You can have them too,” said Pelle. “Of course we’ll have everything as nice as we can, though Brun’s quite as easily pleased as we are.”

That might be so, but Ellen was the mistress of the house, and there were things she could not let go. “If Mr. Brun would like to live with us, he shall be made comfortable,” she said; “but it’s funny he doesn’t propose it himself, for he can do it much better than we can.”

“No, it must come from us—from you, Ellen. He’s a little afraid of you.”

“Of me?” exclaimed Ellen, in dismay. “And I who would—why, there’s no one I’d sooner be kind to! Then I’ll say it, Pelle, but not just now.” She put up her hands to her face, which was glowing with pleasure and confusion at the thought that her little home was worth so much.

Pelle went back to the sitting-room. Brun was sitting on the sofa with Boy Comfort on his knee. “He’s a regular little urchin!” he said. “But he’s not at all like his mother. He’s got your features all through.”

“Ellen isn’t his mother,” said Pelle, in a low voice.

“Oh, isn’t she! It’s funny that he should have those three wrinkles in his forehead like you; they’re like the wave-lines in the countenance of Denmark. You both look as if you were always angry.”

“So we were at that time,” said Pelle.

“Talking of anger”—Brun went on—“I applied to the police authorities yesterday, and got them to promise to give up their persecution of Peter Dreyer, on condition that he ceases his agitation among the soldiers.”

“We shall never get him to agree to that; it would be the same thing as requiring him to swear away his rights as a man. He has taught himself, by a great effort, to use parliamentary expressions, and nobody’ll ever get him to do more. In the matter of the Cause itself he’ll never yield, and there I agree with him. If you mayn’t even fight the existing conditions with spiritual weapons, there’ll be an end of everything.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Brun, “only I’m sorry for him. The police keep him in a perpetual state of inflammation. He can’t have any pleasure in life.”

XVI

Pelle was always hoping that Peter Dreyer would acquire a calmer view of life. It was his intention to start a cooperative business in the course of the spring at Aarhus too, and Peter was appointed to start it. But his spirit seemed incurable; every time he calmed down a little, conditions roused him to antagonism again. This time it was the increase of unemployment that touched him.

The senseless persecution, moreover, kept him in a state of perpetual irritation. Even when he was left alone, as now, he had the feeling that they were wondering how they could get him to blunder—apparently closed their eyes in order to come down upon him with all the more force. He never knew whether he was bought or sold.

The business was now so large that they had to move the actual factory into the back building, and take the whole of the basement for the repairing workshop. Peter Dreyer managed this workshop, and there was no fault to find with his management; he was energetic and vigilant. He was not capable, however, of managing work on a large scale, for his mind was in constant oscillation. In spite of his abilities he was burning to no purpose.

“He might drop his agitation and take up something more useful,” said Brun, one evening when he and Pelle sat discussing the matter. “Nothing’s accomplished by violence anyhow! And he’s only running his head against a brick wall himself!”

“You didn’t think so some time ago,” said Pelle. It was Brun’s pamphlets on the rights of the individual that had first roused Peter Dreyer’s attention.

“No, I know that. I once thought that the whole thing must be smashed to pieces in order that a new world might arise out of chaos. I didn’t know you, and I didn’t think my own class too good to be tossed aside; they were only hindering the development. But you’ve converted me. I was a little too quick to condemn your slowness; you have more connectedness in you than I. Our little business in there has proved to me that the common people are wise to admit their heritage from and debt to the upper class. I’m sorry to see Peter running off the track; he’s one of your more talented men. Couldn’t we get him out here? He could have one of my rooms. I think he needs a few more comforts.”

“You’d better propose it to him yourself,” said Pelle.

The next day Brun went into town with Pelle and proposed it, but Peter Dreyer declined with thanks. “I’ve no right to your comforts as long as there are twenty thousand men that have neither food nor firing,” he said, dismissing the subject. “But you’re an anarchist, of course,” he added scornfully, “and a millionaire, from what I hear; so the unemployed have nothing to fear!” He had been disappointed on becoming personally acquainted with the old philosopher, and never disguised his ill-will.

“I think you know that I have already placed my fortune at the disposal of the poor,” said Brun, in an offended tone, “and my manner of doing so will, I hope, some day justify itself. If I were to divide what I possess to-day among the unemployed, it would have evaporated like dew by to-morrow, so tremendous, unfortunately, is the want now.”

Peter Dreyer shrugged his shoulders. The more reason was there, he thought, to help.

“Would you have us sacrifice our great plan of making all want unnecessary, for one meal of food to the needy?” asked Pelle.

Yes, Peter saw only the want of to-day; it was such a terrible reality to him that the future must take care of itself.

A change had taken place in him, and he seemed quite to have given up the development.

“He sees too much,” said Pelle to Brun, “and now his heart has dominated his reason. We’d better leave him alone; we shan’t in any case get him to admit anything, and we only irritate him. It’s impossible to live with all that he always has before his eyes, and yet keep your head clear; you must either shut your eyes and harden yourself, or let yourself be broken to pieces.”

Peter Dreyer’s heart was the obstruction. He often had to stop in the middle of his work and gasp for breath. “I’m suffocated!” he would say.

There were many like him. The ever-increasing unemployment began to spread panic in men’s minds. It was no longer only the young, hot-headed men who lost patience. Out of the great compact mass of organization, in which it had hitherto been impossible to distinguish the individual beings, simple-minded men suddenly emerged and made themselves ridiculous by bearing the truth of the age upon their lips. Poor people, who understood nothing of the laws of life, nevertheless awakened, disappointed, out of the drowsiness into which the rhythm had lulled them, and stirred impatiently. Nothing happened except that one picked trade after another left them to become middle-class.

The Movement had hitherto been the fixed point of departure; from it came everything that was of any importance, and the light fell from it over the day. But now suddenly a germ was developed in the simplest of them, and they put a note of interrogation after the party-cry. To everything the answer was: When the Movement is victorious, things will be otherwise. But how could they be otherwise when no change had taken place even now when they had the power? A little improvement, perhaps, but no change. It had become the regular refrain, whenever a woman gave birth to a child in secret, or a man stole, or beat his wife:—It is a consequence of the system! Up and vote, comrades! But now it was beginning to sound idiotic in their ears. They were voting, confound it, with all their might, but all the same everything was becoming dearer! Goodness knows they were law-abiding enough. They were positively perspiring with parliamentarianism, and would soon be doing nothing but getting mandates. And what then? Did any one doubt that the poor man was in the majority—an overwhelming majority? What was all this nonsense then that the majority were to gain? No, those who had the power would take good care to keep it; so they might win whatever stupid mandates they liked!

Men had too much respect for the existing conditions, and so they were always being fooled by them. It was all very well with all this lawfulness, but you didn’t only go gradually from the one to the other! How else was it that nothing of the new happened? The fact was that every single step toward the new was instantly swallowed up by the existing condition of things, and turned to fat on its ribs. Capital grew fat, confound it, no matter what you did with it; it was like a cat, which always falls upon its feet. Each time the workmen obtained by force a small rise in their wages, the employers multiplied it by two and put it onto the goods; that was why they were beginning to be so accommodating with regard to certain wage-demands. Those who were rather well off, capital enticed over to its side, leaving the others behind as a shabby proletariat. It might be that the Movement had done a good piece of work, but you wanted confounded good eyes to see it.

Thus voices were raised. At first it was only whiners about whom nobody needed to trouble—frequenters of public-houses, who sat and grumbled in their cups; but gradually it became talk that passed from mouth to mouth; the specter of unemployment haunted every home and made men think over matters once more on their own account; no one could know when his turn would come to sweep the pavement.

Pelle had no difficulty in catching the tone of all this; it was his own settlement with the advance on coming out of prison that was now about to become every one’s. But now he was another man! He was no longer sure that the Movement had been so useless. It had not done anything that marked a boundary, but it had kept the apparatus going and strengthened it. It had carried the masses over a dead period, even if only by letting them go in a circle. And now the idea was ready to take them again. Perhaps it was a good thing that there had not been too great progress, or they would probably never have wakened again. They might very well starve a little longer, until they could establish themselves in their own world; fat slaves soon lost sight of liberty.

Behind the discontented fussing Pelle could hear the new. It expressed itself in remarkable ways. A party of workmen—more than two hundred— who were employed on a large excavation work, were thrown out of work by the bankruptcy of the contractor. A new contractor took over the work, but the men made it a condition for beginning work again that he should pay them the wages that were due to them, and also for the time they were unemployed. “We have no share in the cake,” they said, “so you must take the risk too!” They made the one employer responsible for the other! And capriciously refused good work at a time when thousands were unemployed! Public opinion almost lost its head, and even their own press held aloof from them; but they obstinately kept to their determination, and joined the crowd of unemployed until their unreasonable demand was submitted to.

Pelle heard a new tone here. For the first time the lower class made capital responsible for its sins, without any petty distinction between Tom, Dick, and Harry. There was beginning to be perspective in the feeling of solidarity.

The great weariness occasioned by wandering in a spiritual desert came once more to the surface. He had experienced the same thing once before, when the Movement was raised; but oddly enough the breaking out came that time from the bottom of everything. It began with blind attacks on parliamentarianism, the suffrage, and the paroles; there was in it an unconscious rebellion against restraint and treatment in the mass. By an incomprehensible process of renewal, the mass began to resolve itself into individuals, who, in the midst of the bad times, set about an inquiry after the ego and the laws for its satisfaction. They came from the very bottom, and demanded that their shabby, ragged person should be respected.

Where did they come from? It was a complete mystery! Did it not sound foolish that the poor man, after a century’s life in rags and discomfort, which ended in his entire effacement in collectivism, should now make his appearance with the strongest claim of all, and demand his soul back?

Pelle recognized the impatience of the young men in this commotion. It was not for nothing that Peter Dreyer was the moving spirit at the meetings of the unemployed. Peter wanted him to come and speak, and he went with him two or three times, as he wanted to find out the relation of these people to his idea; but he remained in the background and could not be persuaded to mount the platform. He had nothing to do with these confused crowds, who turned all his ideas upside down. In any case he could not give them food to-day, and he had grown out of the use of strong language.

“Go up and say something nice to them! Don’t you see how starved they are?” said Peter Dreyer, one evening. “They still have confidence in you from old days. But don’t preach coöperation; you don’t feed hungry men with music of the future.”

“Do you give them food then?” asked Pelle.

“No, I can’t do that, but I give them a vent for their grievances, and get them to rise and protest. It’s something at any rate, that they no longer keep silence and submit.”

“And if to-morrow they get something to eat, the whole turmoil’s forgotten; but they’re no further on than they were. Isn’t it a matter of indifference whether they suffer want today, as compared with the question whether they will do so eternally?”

“If you can put the responsibility upon those poor creatures, you must be a hard-hearted brute!” said Peter angrily.

Well, it was necessary now to harden one’s heart, for nothing would be accomplished with sympathy only! The man with eyes that watered would not do for a driver through the darkness.

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