Pelle the Conqueror — Volume 03

A swarm of children was playing on the damp floor of the shaft. They hung from the lower portions of the timber-work, or ran in and out between the upright supports, humming tun...

“Good, comrade! There’s my hand on it—and good luck to you! We must work the cause up, and perhaps we shall succeed yet; I tell you, you’ve given me back my courage! Now you per...

Directly she had gone Pelle jumped into the trousers. Just as he was ready he heard a terrific creaking of timbers. The Pipman was coming up the stairs. He held the rope in one...

Madam Johnsen met an acquaintance who was selling “dying pigs.” She sat down beside her. “You go over there now and have a bit of a dance while I rest my tired legs,” she said.

Hitherto Fortune had always hovered before his eyes, obscurely, like a fairy-tale, as something that suddenly swooped down upon a man and lifted him to higher regions, while all...

In the evenings he and Morten went to meetings where the situation was passionately discussed. Those who attended these meetings were mostly young people like himself. They met...

“Not me, mate, that was only a little joke. A fellow is in such high spirits when he comes ashore again. But out at sea it’s—thrash the others, or they’ll thrash you! Well, that...

“If only she’s not bewitched. She doesn’t enter into anything I tell her; you might really come over just for once; perhaps that would cheer her up a little. You oughtn’t to tak...

“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 h...

He made his way northward. His heart was full of violent emotion. Indignation raged within him like a tempest, and by fits and starts found utterance on his lips. Meyer’s work w...

“Hanne has grown so peculiar. She never comes down into the courtyard now to dance with us. She used to. Then I used to watch out of the window, and run down. It was so jolly, p...

And there outside stood the inmates of the garrets, listening and craning their necks. “Come inside,” cried the boys. “There’s room enough if we make two rings!” So once again t...

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 Berlin...

The others laughed, and Lasse drew himself up and came out of his shell. “Splendid people, the Copenhageners!” he whispered to Pelle. “A ready hand for spending, and they’ve got...

He could have obtained plenty of journeyman work, but he preferred this arrangement, which laid the foundation of a certain independence; there was more chance of a future in it...

“Yes, you are right! And she lives on the Common, when the policeman doesn’t drive her away. He’s the landlord of the unfortunate, you know! There has been a census lately—well,...

He cheered up when he saw Pelle, made an involuntary movement with his right hand, and then, remembering, held out his left. “There—I must give you my left fist now,” he said, w...

Pelle raised his head with a start. Ellen’s eyes began to sparkle, and then became mysteriously dark; they rested on him compellingly, as though they would burn their purpose in...

It happened one day that he went over to call on Widow Johnsen. She looked very melancholy sitting there as she turned her old soldiers’ trousers and attended to Hanne’s child,...

“What do I want with a winter coat?” he retorted, to Ellen’s kindly reproaches. “I’m not cold, and it only hangs up indoors here. I’ve borne with it all the summer. Ah, that’s w...

The frost was harder than ever! It had swept all these things away and had locked them up as closely as might be. The hurdy-gurdy man lay down below in his cellar, and had as vi...

In order to help out his small earnings, he busied himself with repairs in the evenings. Ellen helped him, and they sat together and gossiped over their work. They ignored the l...

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 fu...

“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...

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 bu...

“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, a...

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 c...

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 sm...

“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...

“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 ha...

“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 v...