Chapter 12

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.