Chapter 60

“But I don’t believe He meant only individual cripples—no, He meant all of us in our misery, and all the temptations that lie in wait for us. That’s how Preacher Sort conceived it, and he was a godly, upright man. He believed the millennium would come for the poor, and that Christ was already on the earth making ready for its coming.”

The women sat quite bemused, listening with open mouths; they dared scarcely breathe. Paul was asleep on his mother’s lap.

“Can He really have thought about us poor vermin, and so long beforehand?” cried the men, looking from one to another. “Then why haven’t we long ago got a bit more forward than this?”

“Yes, I too don’t understand that,” said Pelle, hesitating. “Perhaps we ourselves have got to work our way in the right direction—and that takes time.”

“Yes, but—if He would only give us proper conditions of life. But if we have to win them for ourselves we don’t need any Christ for that!”

This was something that Pelle could not explain even to himself, although he felt it within him as a living conviction, A man must win what was due to him himself—that was clear as the day, and he couldn’t understand how they could be blind to the fact; but why he must do so he couldn’t—however he racked his brains—explain to another person. “But I can tell you a story,” he said.

“But a proper exciting story!” cried Earl, who was feeling bored. “Oh, if only Vinslev were here—he has such droll ideas!”

“Be quiet, boy!” said Marie crossly. “Pelle makes proper speeches— before whole meetings,” she said, nodding solemnly to the others. “What is the story called?”

“Howling Peter.”

“Oh, it’s a story with Peter in it—then it’s a fairy-tale! What is it about?”

“You’ll know that when you hear it, my child,” said the old night- watchman.

“Yes, but then one can’t enjoy it when it comes out right. Isn’t it a story about a boy who goes out into the world?”

“The story is about”—Pelle bethought himself a moment; “the story is about the birth of Christ,” he said quickly, and then blushed a deep red at his own audacity. But the others looked disappointed, and settled themselves decently and stared at the floor, as though they had been in church.

And then Pelle told them the story of Howling Peter; who was born and grew up in poverty and grief, until he was big and strong, and every man’s cur to kick. For it was the greatest pity to see this finely-made fellow, who was so full of fear and misery that if even a girl so much as touched him he must flood himself with tears; and the only way out of his misery was the rope. What a disgrace it was, that he should have earned his daily bread and yet have been kept in the workhouse, as though they did him a kindness in allowing him a hole to creep into there, when with his capacity for work he could have got on anywhere! And it became quite unendurable as he grew up and was still misused by all the world, and treated like a dog. But then, all of a sudden, he broke the magic spell, struck down his tormentors, and leaped out into the daylight as the boldest of them all!

They drew a deep breath when he had finished. Marie clapped her hands. “That was a real fairy-tale!” she cried. Karl threw himself upon Peter and pummeled away at him, although that serious-minded lad was anything but a tyrant!

They cheerfully talked the matter over. Everybody had something to say about Howling Peter. “That was damned well done,” said the men; “he thrashed the whole crew from beginning to end; a fine fellow that! And a strong one too! But why the devil did he take such a long time about it? And put up with all that?”

“Yes, it isn’t quite so easy for us to understand that—not for us, who boast such a lot about our rights!” said Pelle, smiling.

“Well, you’re a clever chap, and you’ve told it us properly!” cried the cheerful Jacob. “But if ever you need a fist, there’s mine!” He seized and shook Pelle’s hand.

The candles had long burned out, but they did not notice it.

Their eyes fastened on Pelle’s as though seeking something, with a peculiar expression in which a question plainly came and went. And suddenly they overwhelmed him with questions. They wanted to know enough, anyhow! He maintained that a whole world of splendors belonged to them, and now they were in a hurry to get possession of them. Even the old rag-picker let himself be carried away with the rest; it was too alluring, the idea of giving way to a little intoxication, even if the everyday world was to come after it.

Pelle stood among them all, strong and hearty, listening to all their questions with a confident smile. He knew all that was to be theirs— even if it couldn’t come just at once. It was a matter of patience and perseverance; but that they couldn’t understand just now. When they had at last entered into their glory they would know well enough how to protect it. He had no doubts; he stood there among them like their embodied consciousness, happily growing from deeply-buried roots.

XIII

From the foundations of the “Ark” rose a peculiar sound, a stumbling, countrified footstep, dragging itself in heavy footgear over the flagstones. All Pelle’s blood rushed to his heart; he threw down his work, and with a leap was on the gallery, quite convinced that this was only an empty dream…. But there below in the court stood Father Lasse in the flesh, staring up through the timbers, as though he couldn’t believe his own eyes. He had a sack filled with rubbish on his back.

“Hallo!” cried Pelle, taking the stairs in long leaps. “Hallo!”

“Good-day, my lad!” said Lasse, in a voice trembling with emotion, considering his son with his lashless eyes. “Yes, here you have Father Lasse—if you will have him. But where, really, did you come from? Seems to me you fell down from heaven?”

Pelle took his father’s sack. “You just come up with me,” he said. “You can trust the stairs all right; they are stronger than they look.”

“Then they are like Lasse,” answered the old man, trudging up close behind him; the straps of his half-Wellingtons were peeping out at the side, and he was quite the old man. At every landing he stood still and uttered his comments on his surroundings. Pelle had to admonish him to be silent.

“One doesn’t discuss everything aloud here. It might so easily be regarded as criticism,” he said.

“No, really? Well, one must learn as long as one lives. But just look how they stand about chattering up here! There must be a whole courtyard-full! Well, well. I won’t say any more. I knew they lived one on top of another, but I didn’t think there’d be so little room here. To hang the backyard out in front of the kitchen door, one on top of another, that’s just like the birds that build all on one bough. Lord God, suppose it was all to come tumbling down one fine day!”

“And do you live here?” he cried, gazing in a disillusioned manner round the room with its sloping ceiling. “I’ve often wondered how you were fixed up over here. A few days ago I met a man at home who said they were talking about you already; but one wouldn’t think so from your lodgings. However, it isn’t far to heaven, anyhow!”

Pelle was silent. He had come to love his den, and his whole life here; but Father Lasse continued to enlarge upon his hopes of his son’s respectability and prosperity, and he felt ashamed. “Did you imagine I was living in one of the royal palaces?” he said, rather bitterly.

Lasse looked at him kindly and laid both hands on his shoulders. “So big and strong as you’ve grown, lad,” he said, wondering. “Well, and now you have me here too! But I won’t be a burden to you. No, but at home it had grown so dismal after what happened at Due’s, that I got ready without sending you word. And then I was able to come over with one of the skippers for nothing.”

“But what’s this about Due?” asked Pelle. “I hope nothing bad?”

“Good God, haven’t you heard? He revenged himself on his wife because he discovered her with the Consul. He had been absolutely blind, and had only believed the best of her, until he surprised her in her sin. Then he killed her, her and the children they had together, and went to the authorities and gave himself up. But the youngest, whom any one could see was the Consul’s, he didn’t touch. Oh, it was a dreadful misfortune! Before he gave himself up to the police he came to me; he wanted just one last time to be with some one who would talk it over with him without hypocrisy. ‘I’ve strangled Anna,’ he said, as soon as he had sat down. ‘It had to be, and I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry. The children that were mine, too. I’ve dealt honestly with them.’ Yes, yes, he had dealt honestly with the poor things! ‘I just wanted to say goodbye to you, Lasse, for my life’s over now, happy as I might have been, with my contented nature. But Anna always wanted to be climbing, and if I got on it was her shame I had to thank for it. I never wanted anything further than the simple happiness of the poor man—a good wife and a few children—and now I must go to prison! God be thanked that Anna hasn’t lived to see that! She was finer in her feelings than the rest, and she had to deceive in order to get on in the world.’ So he sat there, talking of the dead, and one couldn’t notice any feeling in him. I wouldn’t let him see how sick at heart he made me feel. For him it was the best thing, so long as his conscience could sleep easy. ‘Your eyes are watering, Lasse,’ he said quietly; ‘you should bathe them a bit; they say urine is good.’ Yes, God knows, my eyes did water! God of my life, yes! Then he stood up. ‘You, too, Lasse, you haven’t much longer life granted you,’ he said, and he gave me his hand. ‘You are growing old now. But you must give Pelle my greetings—he’s safe to get on!’”

Pelle sat mournfully listening to the dismal story. But he shuddered at the last words. He had so often heard the expression of that anticipation of his good fortune, which they all seemed to feel, and had rejoiced to hear it; it was, after all, only an echo of his own self- confidence. But now it weighed upon him like a burden. It was always those who were sinking who believed in his luck; and as they sank they flung their hopes upward toward him. A grievous fashion was this in which his good fortune was prophesied! A terrible and grievous blessing it was that was spoken over him and his success in life by this man dedicated to death, even as he stepped upon the scaffold. Pelle sat staring at the floor without a sign of life, a brooding expression on his face; his very soul was shuddering at the foreboding of a superhuman burden; and suddenly a light was flashed before his eyes; there could never be happiness for him alone—the fairy-tale was dead! He was bound up with all the others—he must partake of happiness or misfortune with them; that was why the unfortunate Due gave him his blessing. In his soul he was conscious of Due’s difficult journey, as though he himself had to endure the horror of it. And Fine Anna, who must clamber up over his own family and tread them in the dust! Never again could he wrench himself quite free as before! He had already encountered much unhappiness and had learned to hate its cause. But this was something more—this was very affliction itself!

“Yes,” sighed Lasse, “a lucky thing that Brother Kalle did not live to see all this. He worked himself to skin and bone for his children, and now, for all thanks, he lied buried in the poorhouse burying-ground. Albinus, who travels about the country as a conjurer, was the only one who had a thought for him; but the money came too late, although it was sent by telegraph. Have you ever heard of a conjuring-trick like that— to send money from England to Bornholm over the telegraph cable? A devilish clever acrobat! Well, Brother Kalle, he knew all sorts of conjuring-tricks too, but he didn’t learn them abroad. They had heard nothing at all of Alfred at the funeral. He belongs to the fine folks now and has cut off all connection with his poor relations. He has been appointed to various posts of honor, and they say he’s a regular bloodhound toward the poor—a man’s always worst toward his own kind. But the fine folks, they say, they think great things of him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What now?” inquired Pelle. “You don’t want to go out all alone?”

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

“You had better wait until I can come with you—you’ll only lose yourself.”

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

“I can go with the old man!” said Marie.

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

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

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

“Well—but I must get something to do, or I shall go back home again. I’m not going to go idling about here while you work.”

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

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

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

XIV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I believe it’s because you are so old and yet want to get work,” said Marie.

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

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

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

Marie nodded.

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

“Pelle says it will soon come,” said Marie consolingly.

“Yes, Pelle—he can well talk. He is young and healthy and has the time before him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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