Chapter 56

Outside the mouth of the tunnel-like entry he stopped by the window of the old clothes dealer’s cellar. Old Pipman’s tools lay spread out there in the window. So she had got her claws into them too! She was rummaging about down there, scurfy and repulsive to look at, chewing an unappetizing slice of bread-and-butter, and starting at every sound that came from above, so anxious was she about her filthy money! Pelle needed a new heel-iron, so he went in and purchased that of Pipman. He had to haggle with her over the price.

“Well, have you thought over my proposal?” she asked, when the deal was concluded.

“What proposal?” said Pelle, in all ignorance.

“That you should leave your cobbling alone and be my assistant in the business.”

So that was what she meant? No, Pelle hadn’t thought over it sufficiently.

“I should think there isn’t much to think over. I have offered you more than you could earn otherwise, and there’s not much to do. And I keep a man who fetches and carries things. It’s mostly that I have a fancy to have a male assistant. I am an old woman, going about alone here, and you are so reliable, I know that.”

She needed some one to protect all the thousands of kroner which she had concealed in these underground chambers. Pelle knew that well enough— she had approached him before on the subject.

“I should scarcely be the one for that—to make my living out of the poverty of others,” said Pelle, smiling. “Perhaps I might knock you over the head and distribute all your pennies to the poor!”

The old woman stared at him for a moment in alarm. “Ugh, what a horrible thing to say!” she cried, shuddering. “You libel your good heart, joking about such things. Now I shan’t like to stay here in the cellar any longer when you’ve gone. How can you jest so brutally about life and death? Day and night I go about here trembling for my life, and yet I’ve nothing at all, the living God knows I’ve nothing. That is just gossip! Everybody looks at me as much as to say, ‘I’d gladly strike you dead to get your money!’ And that’s why I’d like to have a trustworthy man in the business; for what good is it to me that I’ve got nothing when they all believe I have? And there are so many worthless fellows who might fall upon one at any moment.”

“If you have nothing, you can be easy,” said Pelle teasingly. “No need for an empty stomach to have the nightmare!”

“Have nothing! Of course one always has something! And Pelle”—she leaned confidentially over him with a smirk on her face—“now Mary will soon come home, perhaps no later than this summer. She has earned so much over there that she can live on it, and she’ll still be in the prime of her youth. What do you think of that? In her last letter she asked me to look out for a husband for her. He need only be handsome, for she has money enough for two. Then she’d rent a big house in the fine part of the city, and keep her own carriage, and live only for her handsome husband. What do you say to that, Pelle?”

“Well, that is certainly worth thinking over!” answered Pelle; he was in overflowing high spirits.

“Thinking over? Is that a thing to think over? Many a poor lord would accept such an offer and kiss my hand for it, if only he were here.”

“But I’m not a lord, and now I must be going.”

“Won’t you just see her pictures?” The old woman began to rummage in a drawer.

“No.” Pelle only wanted to be gone. He had seen these pictures often enough, grimed with the air of the cellar and the old woman’s filthy hands; pictures which represented Mary now as a slim figure, striped like a tiger-cat, as she sang in the fashionable variety theaters of St. Petersburg, now naked, with a mantle of white furs, alone in the midst of a crowd of Russian officers—princes, the old woman said. There was also a picture from the aquarium, in which she was swimming about in a great glass tank amid some curious-looking plants, with nothing on her body but golden scales and diamond ornaments. She had a magnificent body—that he could plainly see; but that she could turn the heads of fabulously wealthy princes and get thousands out of their pockets merely by undressing herself—that he could not understand. And he was to take her to wife, was he?—and to get all that she had hoarded up! That was tremendously funny! That beat everything!

He went along the High Street with a rapid step. It was raining a little; the light from the street lamps and shop-windows was reflected in the wet flagstones; the street wore a cheerful look. He went onward with a feeling that his mind was lifted above the things of everyday; the grimy old woman who lived as a parasite on the poverty of the “Ark” and who had a wonderful daughter who was absorbing riches like a leech. And on top of it all the little Pelle with the “lucky curl,” like the curly-haired apprentice in the story! Here at last was the much-longed- for fairy tale!

He threw back his head and laughed. Pelle, who formerly used to feel insults so bitterly, had achieved a sense of the divinity of life.

That evening his round included the Rabarber ward. Pelle had made himself a list, according to which he went forth to search each ward of the city separately, in order to save himself unnecessary running about. First of all, he took a journeyman cobbler in Smith Street; he was one of Meyer’s regular workers, and Pelle was prepared for a hard fight. The man was not at home. “But you can certainly put him down,” said his wife. “We’ve been talking it over lately, and we’ve come to see it’s really the best thing.” That was a wife after Pelle’s heart. Many would deny that their husbands were at home when they learned what Pelle wanted; or would slam the door in his face; they were tired of his running to and fro.

He visited various houses in Gardener Street, Castle Street, Norway Street, making his way through backyards and up dark, narrow stairs, up to the garrets or down to the cellars.

Over all was the same poverty; without exception the cobblers were lodged in the most miserable holes. He had not a single success to record. Some had gone away or were at fresh addresses; others wanted time to consider or gave him a direct refusal. He promised himself that he would presently give the wobblers another call; he would soon bring them round; the others he ticked off, keeping them for better times— their day too would come before long! It did not discourage him to meet with refusals; he rejoiced over the single sheep. This was a work of patience, and patience was the one thing in which he had always been rich.

He turned into Hunter Street and entered a barrack-like building, climbing until he was right under the roof, when he knocked on a door. It was opened by a tall thin man with a thin beard. This was Peter, his fellow-’prentice at home. They were speedily talking of the days of their apprenticeship, and the workshop at home with all the curious company there. There was not much that was good to be said of Master Jeppe. But the memory of the young master filled them with warmth. “I often think of him in the course of the year,” said Peter. “He was no ordinary man. That was why he died.”

There was something abstracted about Peter; and his den gave one an impression of loneliness. Nothing was left to remind one of the mischievous fellow who must always be running; but something hostile and obstinate glowed within his close-set eyes. Pelle sat there wondering what could really be the matter with him. He had a curious bleached look as though he had shed his skin; but he wasn’t one of the holy sort, to judge by his conversation.

“Peter, what’s the truth of it—are you one of us?” said Pelle suddenly.

A disagreeable smile spread over Peter’s features. “Am I one of you? That sounds just like when they ask you—have you found Jesus? Have you become a missionary?”

“You are welcome to call it that,” replied Pelle frankly, “if you’ll only join our organization. We want you.”

“You won’t miss me—nobody is missed, I believe, if he only does his work. I’ve tried the whole lot of them—churches and sects and all—and none of them has any use for a man. They want one more listener, one more to add to their list; it’s the same everywhere.” He sat lost in thought, looking into vacancy. Suddenly he made a gesture with his hands as though to wave something away. “I don’t believe in anything any longer, Pelle—there’s nothing worth believing in.”

“Don’t you believe in improving the lot of the poor, then? You haven’t tried joining the movement?” asked Pelle.

“What should I do there? They only want to get more to eat—and the little food I need I can easily get. But if they could manage to make me feel that I’m a man, and not merely a machine that wants a bit more greasing, I’d as soon be a thin dog as a fat one.”

“They’d soon do that!” said Pelle convincingly. “If we only hold together, they’ll have to respect the individual as well, and listen to his demands. The poor man must have his say with the rest.”

Peter made an impatient movement. “What good can it do me to club folks on the head till they look at me? It don’t matter a damn to me! But perhaps they’d look at me of their own accord—and say, of their own accord—‘Look, there goes a man made in God’s image, who thinks and feels in his heart just as I do!’ That’s what I want!”

“I honestly don’t understand what you mean with your ‘man,’” said Pelle irritably. “What’s the good of running your head against a wall when there are reasonable things in store for us? We want to organize ourselves and see if we can’t escape from slavery. Afterward every man can amuse himself as he likes.”

“Well, well, if it’s so easy to escape from slavery! Why not? Put down my name for one!” said Peter, with a slightly ironical expression.

“Thanks, comrade!” cried Pelle, joyfully shaking his hand. “But you’ll do something for the cause?”

Peter looked about him forlornly. “Horrible weather for you to be out in,” he said, and he lighted Pelle down the stairs.

Pelle went northward along Chapel Street. He wanted to look up Morten. The wind was chasing the leaves along by the cemetery, driving the rain in his face. He kept close against the cemetery wall in order to get shelter, and charged against the wind, head down. He was in the best of humors. That was two new members he had won over; he was getting on by degrees! What an odd fish Peter had become; the word, “man, man,” sounded meaningless to Pelle’s ears. Well, anyhow, he had got him on the list.

Suddenly he heard light, running steps behind him. The figure of a man reached his side, and pushed a little packet under Pelle’s arm without stopping for a moment. At a short distance he disappeared. It seemed to Pelle as though he disappeared over the cemetery wall.

Under one of the street lamps he stopped and wonderingly examined the parcel; it was bound tightly with tape. “For mother” was written upon it in an awkward hand. Pelle was not long in doubt—in that word “mother” he seemed plainly to hear Ferdinand’s hoarse voice. “Now Madam Frandsen will be delighted,” he thought, and he put it in his pocket. During the past week she had had no news of Ferdinand. He dared no longer venture through Kristianshavn. Pelle could not understand how Ferdinand had lit upon him. Was he living out here in the Rabarber ward?

Morten was sitting down, writing in a thick copybook. He closed it hastily as Pelle entered.

“What is that?” asked Pelle, who wanted to open the book; “are you still writing in your copybook?”

Morten, confused, laid his hand on the book. “No. Besides—oh, as far as that goes,” he said, “you may as well know. I have written a poem. But you mustn’t speak of it.”

“Oh, do read it out to me!” Pelle begged.

“Yes; but you must promise me to be silent about it, or the others will just think I’ve gone crazy.”

He was quite embarrassed, and he stammered as he read. It was a poem about poor people, who bore the whole world on their upraised hands, and with resignation watched the enjoyment of those above them. It was called, “Let them die!” and the words were repeated as the refrain of every verse. And now that Morten was in the vein, he read also an unpretentious story of the struggle of the poor to win their bread.

“That’s damned fine!” cried Pelle enthusiastically. “Monstrously good, Morten! I don’t understand how you put it together, especially the verse. But you’re a real poet. But I’ve always thought that—that you had something particular in you. You’ve got your own way of looking at things, and they won’t clip your wings in a hurry. But why don’t you write about something big and thrilling that would repay reading— there’s nothing interesting about us!”

“But I find there is!”

“No, I don’t understand that. What can happen to poor fellows like us?”

“Then don’t you believe in greatness?”

To be sure Pelle did. “But why shouldn’t we have splendid things right away?”

“You want to read about counts and barons!” said Morten. “You are all like that. You regard yourself as one of the rabble, if it comes to that! Yes, you do! Only you don’t know it! That’s the slave-nature in you; the higher classes of society regard you as such and you involuntarily do the same. Yes, you may pull faces, but it’s true, all the same! You don’t like to hear about your own kind, for you don’t believe they can amount to anything! No, you must have fine folks— always rich folks! One would like to spit on one’s past and one’s parents and climb up among the fine folks, and because one can’t manage it one asks for it in books.” Morten was irritated.

“No, no,” said Pelle soothingly, “it isn’t as bad as all that!”

“Yes, it is as bad as all that!” cried Morten passionately. “And do you know why? Because you don’t yet understand that humanity is holy, and that it’s all one where a man is found!”

“Humanity is holy?” said Pelle, laughing. “But I’m not holy, and I didn’t really think you were!”

“For your sake, I hope you are,” said Morten earnestly, “for otherwise you are no more than a horse or a machine that can do so much work.” And then he was silent, with a look that seemed to say that the matter had been sufficiently discussed.

Morten’s reserved expression made Pelle serious. He might jestingly pretend that this was nonsense, but Morten was one of those who looked into things—perhaps there was something here that he didn’t understand.

“I know well enough that I’m a clown compared with you,” he said good- naturedly, “but you needn’t be so angry on that account. By the way, do you still remember Peter, who was at Jeppe’s with your brother Jens and me? He’s here, too—I—I came across him a little while ago. He’s always looking into things too, but he can’t find any foundation to anything, as you can. He believes in nothing in the whole world. Things are in a bad way with him. It would do him good if he could talk with you.”

“But I’m no prophet—you are that rather than I,” said Morten ironically.

“But you might perhaps say something of use to him. No, I’m only a trades unionist, and that’s no good.”

On his way home Pelle pondered honestly over Morten’s words, but he had to admit that he couldn’t take them in. No, he had no occasion to surround his person with any sort of holiness or halo; he was only a healthy body, and he just wanted to do things.

IX

Pelle came rushing home from Master Beck’s workshop, threw off his coat and waistcoat, and thrust his head into a bucket of water. While he was scrubbing himself dry, he ran over to the “Family.” “Would you care to come out with me? I have some tickets for an evening entertainment—only you must hurry up.”

The three children were sitting round the table, doing tricks with cards. The fire was crackling in the stove, and there was a delicious smell of coffee. They were tired after the day’s work and they didn’t feel inclined to dress themselves to go out. One could see how they enjoyed feeling that they were at home. “You should give Hanne and her mother the tickets,” said Marie, “they never go out.”

Pelle thought the matter over while he was dressing. Well, why not? After all, it was stupid to rake up an old story.

Hanne did not want to go with him. She sat with downcast eyes, like a lady in her boudoir, and did not look at him. But Madam Johnsen was quite ready to go—the poor old woman quickly got into her best clothes.

“It’s a long time since we two have been out together, Pelle,” she said gaily, as they walked through the city. “You’ve been so frightfully busy lately. They say you go about to meetings. That is all right for a young man. Do you gain anything by it?”

“Yes, one could certainly gain something by it—if only one used one’s strength!”

“What can you gain by it, then? Are you going to eat up the Germans again, as in my young days, or what is it you are after?”

“We want to make life just a little happier,” said Pelle quietly.

“Oh, you don’t want to gain anything more than happiness? That’s easy enough, of course!” said Madam Johnsen, laughing loudly. “Why, to be sure, in my pretty young days too the men wanted to go to the capital to make their fortunes. I was just sixteen when I came here for purposes of my own—where was a pretty girl to find everything splendid, if not here? One easily made friends—there were plenty to go walking with a nice girl in thin shoes, and they wanted to give her all sorts of fine things, and every day brought its happiness with it. But then I met a man who wanted to do the best thing by me, and who believed in himself, too. He got me to believe that the two of us together might manage something lasting. And he was just such a poor bird as I was, with empty hands—but he set to valiantly. Clever in his work he was, too, and he thought we could make ourselves a quiet, happy life, cozy between our four walls, if only we’d work. Happiness—pooh! He wanted to be a master, at all costs—for what can a journeyman earn! And more than once we had scraped a little together, and thought things would be easier now; but misfortune always fell on us and took it all away. It’s always hovering like a great bird over the poor man’s home; and you must have a long stick if you want to drive it away! It was always the same story whenever we managed to get on a little. A whole winter he was ill. We only kept alive by pawning all we’d got, stick by stick. And when the last thing had gone to the devil we borrowed a bit on the pawn-ticket.” The old woman had to pause to recover her breath.

“Why are we hurrying like this?” she said, panting. “Any one would think the world was trying to run away from us!”

“Well, there was nothing left!” she continued, shuffling on again. “And he was too tired to begin all over again, so we moved into the ‘Ark.’ And when he’d got a few shillings he sought consolation—but it was a poor consolation for me, who was carrying Hanne, that you may believe! She was like a gift after all that misfortune; but he couldn’t bear her, because our fancy for a little magnificence was born again in her. She had inherited that from us—poor little thing!—with rags and dirt to set it off. You should just have seen her, as quite a little child, making up the fine folks’ world out of the rags she got together out of the dustbins. ‘What’s that?’ Johnsen he said once—he was a little less full than usual. ‘Oh, that’s the best room with the carpet on the floor, and there by the stove is your room, father. But you mustn’t spit on the floor, because we are rich people.’”

Madam Johnsen began to cry. “And then he struck her on the head. ‘Hold your tongue!’ he cried, and he cursed and swore at the child something frightful. ‘I don’t want to hear your infernal chatter!’ That’s the sort he was. Life began to be a bit easier when he had drowned himself in the sewer. The times when I might have amused myself he’d stolen from me with his talk of the future, and now I sit there turning old soldiers’ trousers that fill the room with filth, and when I do two a day I can earn a mark. And Hanne goes about like a sleep-walker. Happiness! Is there a soul in the ‘Ark’ that didn’t begin with a firm belief in something better? One doesn’t move from one’s own choice into such a mixed louse’s nest, but one ends up there all the same. And is there anybody here who is really sure of his daily bread? Yes, Olsens with the warm wall, but they’ve got their daughter’s shame to thank for that.”

“All the more reason to set to work,” said Pelle.

“Yes, you may well say that! But any one who fights against the unconquerable will soon be tired out. No, let things be and amuse yourself while you are still young. But don’t you take any notice of my complaining—me—an old whimperer, I am—walking with you and being in the dumps like this—now we’ll go and amuse ourselves!” And now she looked quite contented again.

“Then take my arm—it’s only proper with a pair of sweethearts,” said Pelle, joking. The old woman took his arm and went tripping youthfully along. “Yes, if it had been in my young days, I would soon have known how to dissuade you from your silly tricks,” she said gaily. “I should have been taking you to the dance.”

“But you didn’t manage to get Johnsen to give them up,” said Pelle in reply.

“No, because then I was too credulous. But no one would succeed in robbing me of my youth now!”

The meeting was held in a big hall in one of the side streets by the North Bridge. The entertainment, which was got up by some of the agitators, was designed principally for young people; but many women and young girls were present. Among other things a poem was read which dealt with an old respectable blacksmith who was ruined by a strike. “That may be very fine and touching,” whispered Madam Johnsen, polishing her nose in her emotion, “but they really ought to have something one can laugh over. We see misfortune every day.”

Then a small choir of artisans sang some songs, and one of the older leaders mounted the platform and told them about the early years of the movement. When he had finished, he asked if there was no one else who had something to tell them. It was evidently not easy to fill out the evening.

There was no spirit in the gathering. The women were not finding it amusing, and the men sat watching for anything they could carp at. Pelle knew most of those present; even the young men had hard faces, on which could be read an obstinate questioning. This homely, innocent entertainment did not appease the burning impatience which filled their hearts, listening for a promise of better things.

Pelle sat there pained by the proceedings; the passion for progress and agitation was in his very blood. Here was such an opportunity to strike a blow for unification, and it was passing unused. The women only needed a little rousing, the factory-girls and the married women too, who held back their husbands. And they stood up there, frittering away the time with their singing and their poetry-twaddle! With one leap he stood on the platform.

“All these fine words may be very nice,” he cried passionately, “but they are very little use to all those who can’t live on them! The clergyman and the dog earn their living with their mouths, but the rest of us are thrown on our own resources when we want to get anything. Why do we slink round the point like cats on hot bricks, why all this palaver and preaching? Perhaps we don’t yet know what we want? They say we’ve been slaves for a thousand years! Then we ought to have had time enough to think it out! Why does so little happen, although we are all waiting for something, and are ready? Is there no one anywhere who has the courage to lead us?”

Loud applause followed, especially from the young men; they stamped and shouted. Pelle staggered down from the platform; he was covered with sweat.