Chapter 18

Kornelius Brun felt it his duty to carry on the old business, and in order to keep on a level with his brothers as regarded rank, he married a lady of noble birth from Funen, of a very old family heavily burdened with debt. She bore him three children, all of whom—as he himself said —were failures. The first child was a deaf mute with very small intellectual powers. It fortunately died before it attained to man’s estate. Number two was very intelligent and endowed with every talent, but even as a boy exhibited perverse tendencies. He was very handsome, had soft, dark hair, and a delicate, womanish complexion. His mother dressed him in velvet, and idolized him. He never did anything useful, but went about in fine company and spent large sums of money. In his fortieth year he died suddenly, a physical and moral wreck. The announcement of the death gave a stroke as the cause; but the truth was that rumors had begun to circulate of a scandal in which he was implicated together with some persons of high standing. It was at the end of the seventies, at the time when the lower class movement began to gather way. An energetic investigation was demanded from below, and it was considered inadvisable to hush the story up altogether, for fear of giving support to the assertion of the rottenness and onesidedness of the existing conditions. When an investigation became imminent, and it was evident that Brun would be offered up upon the altar of the multitude in order to shield those who stood higher, Kornelius Brun put a pistol into his son’s hand—or shot him; the librarian was unable to say which.

“Those were two of the fruits upon the decaying family tree,” said Brun bitterly, “and it can’t be denied that they were rather worm-eaten. The third was myself. I came fifteen years after my youngest brother. By that time my parents had had enough of their progeny; at any rate, I was considered from the beginning to be a hopeless failure, even before I had had an opportunity of showing anything at all. Perhaps they felt instinctively that I should take a wrong direction too. In me too the disintegrating forces predominated; I was greatly deficient, for instance, in family feeling. I remember when still quite little hearing my mother complain of my plebeian tendencies; I always kept with the servants, and took their part against my parents. My family looked more askance at me for upholding the rights of our inferiors than they had done at the idiot who tore everything to pieces, or the spendthrift who made scandals and got into debt. And I dare say with good reason! Mother gave me plenty of money to amuse myself with, probably to counteract my plebeian tendencies; but I had soon done with the pleasures and devoted myself to study. Things of the day did not interest me, but even as a boy I had a remarkable desire to look back; I devoted myself especially to history and its philosophy. Father was right when he derided me and called it going into a monastery; at an age when other young men are lovers, I could not find any woman that interested me, while almost any book tempted me to a closer acquaintance. For a long time he hoped that I would think better of it and take over the business, and when I definitely chose study, it came to a quarrel between us. ‘When the business comes to an end, there’s an end of the family!’ he said, and sold the whole concern. He had been a widower then for several years, and had only me; but during the five years that he lived after selling the business we didn’t see one another. He hated me because I didn’t take it over, but what could I have done with it? I possessed none of the qualities necessary for the carrying on of business in our day, and should only have ruined the whole thing. From the time I was thirty, my time has been passed among bookshelves, and I’ve registered the lives and doings of others. It’s only now that I’ve come out into the daylight and am beginning to live my own life; and now it’ll soon be ended!”

“It’s only now that life’s beginning to be worth living,” said Pelle, “so you’ve come out just at the right time.”

“Ah, no!” said Brun despondently. “I’m not in the ascendant! I meet young men and my mind inclines to them; but it’s like evening and morning meeting in the same glow during the light nights. I’ve only got my share in the new because the old must bend to it, so that the ring may be completed. You go in where I go out.”

“It must have been a melancholy existence to be always among books, books, without a creature that cared for you,” put in Ellen. “Why didn’t you marry? Surely we women aren’t so terrible that there mightn’t have been _one_ that you liked?”

“No, you’d think not, but it’s true nevertheless,” answered Brun, with a smile. “The antipathy was mutual too; it’s always like that. I suppose it wasn’t intended that an old fellow like me should put children into the world! It’s not nice, though, to be the end of something.”

Ellen laughed. “Yes, but you haven’t always been old!”

“Yes, I have really; I was born old. I’m only now beginning to feel young. And who knows?” he exclaimed with grim humor. “I may play Providence a trick and make my appearance some day with a little wife on my arm.”

“Brun’s indulging in fancies,” said Pelle, as they went down to bed. “But I suppose they’ll go when he’s about again.”

“He’s not had much of a time, poor old soul!” said Ellen, going closer to Pelle. “It’s a shame that there are people who get no share in all the love there is—just as great a shame as what you’re working against, I think!”

“Yes, but we can’t put that straight!” exclaimed Pelle, laughing.

XXI

In the garden at “Daybreak” the snow was disappearing from day to day. First it went away nearest the house, and gave place to a little forest of snowdrops and crocuses. The hyacinths in the grass began to break through the earth, coming up like a row of knuckles that first knocked at the door.

The children were always out watching the progress made. They could not understand how the delicate crocus could push straight up out of the frozen ground without freezing to death, but died when it came into the warm room. Every day they wrapped some snowdrops in paper and laid them on Brun’s table—they were “snowdrop-letters”—and then hovered about in ungovernable excitement until he came in from the fields, when they met him with an air of mystery, and did all they could to entice him upstairs.

Out in the fields they were nearly finished with the excavations, and were only waiting for the winter water to sink in order to cart up gravel and stone and begin the foundations; the ground was too soft as yet.

Old Brun was not so active now after his confinement to bed; although there was not much the matter with him, it had weakened him. He allowed Pelle a free hand with the works, and said Yea and Amen to everything he proposed. “I can’t keep it all in my head,” he would say when Pelle came to suggest some alteration; “but just do as you like, my son, and it’s sure to be right.” There were not enough palpable happenings down there to keep his mind aglow, and he was too old to hear it grow and draw strength from that. His faith, however, merely shifted from the Cause over to Pelle; he saw him alive before him, and could lean upon his youthful vigor.

He had given up his work on the plans. He could not keep at it, and contented himself with going the round of the fields two or three times a day and watching the men. The sudden flame of energy that Pelle’s youth had called to life within him had died down, leaving a pathetic old man, who had been out in the cold all his life, and was now luxuriating in a few late rays of evening sun. He no longer measured himself by Pelle, and was not jealous of his taking the lead in anything, but simply admired him and kept carefully within the circle of those for whom Pelle acted providence. Ellen treated him like a big child who needed a great deal of care, and the children of course looked upon him as their equal.

When he went his round of the fields, he generally had Boy Comfort by the hand; the two could both keep pace with one another and converse together. There was one thing that interested them both and kept them in great excitement. The stork was expected every day back at the Hill Farm, and when it came it would bring a baby to Mother Ellen. The expectation was not an unmixed pleasure. The stork always bit the mother in the leg when he came with a baby for her. Boy Comfort’s own mother died of the bite; he was wise enough to know that now. The little fellow looked upon Ellen as his mother, and went about in a serious, almost depressed, mood. He did not talk to the other children of his anxiety, for fear they would make fun of him; but when he and the old man walked together in the fields they discussed the matter, and Brun, as the older and wiser, came to the conclusion that there was no danger. All the same, they always kept near the house so as to be at hand.

One day Pelle stayed at home from work, and Ellen did not get up as usual. “I’m going to lie here and wait for the stork,” she said to Boy Comfort. “Go out and watch for it.” The little boy took a stick, and he and Brun tramped round the house; and when they heard Ellen cry out, they squeezed one another’s hands. It was such a disturbed day, it was impossible to keep anything going straight; now a carriage drove up to the door with a fat woman in it, now it was Lasse Frederik who leaped upon his bicycle and raced down the field-path, standing on the pedals. Before Boy Comfort had any idea of it, the stork had been there, and Ellen was lying with a baby boy on her arm. He and Brun went in together to congratulate her, and they were both equally astonished. The old man had to be allowed to touch the baby’s cheek.

“He’s still so ugly,” said Ellen, with a shy smile, as she lifted the corner of the shawl from the baby’s head. Then she had to be left quiet, and Brun took Boy Comfort upstairs with him.

Pelle sat on the edge of the bed, holding Ellen’s hand, which in a few hours had become white and thin. “Now we must send for ‘Queen Theresa,’” she said.

“Shan’t we send for your mother too?” asked Pelle, who had often proposed that they should take the matter into their own hands, and go and see the old people. He did not like keeping up old quarrels.

Ellen shook her head. “They must come of their own accord,” she said decidedly. She did not mind for herself, but they had looked down upon Pelle, so it was not more than fair that they should come and make it up.

“But I _have_ sent for them,” said Pelle. “That was what Lasse Frederik went about. You mustn’t have a baby without help from your mother.”

In less than a couple of hours Madam Stolpe had arrived. She was much moved, and to hide it she began turning the house inside out for clean cloths and binders, scolding all the time. A nice time, indeed, to send for anybody, when it was all over!

Father Stolpe was harder. He was not one to come directly he was whistled for! But two or three evenings after the baby had arrived, Pelle ran up against him hanging about a little below the house. Well, he was waiting for mother, to take her home, and it didn’t concern anybody else, he supposed. He pretended to be very determined, but it was comparatively easy to persuade him to come in; and once in, it was not long before Ellen had thawed him. She had, as usual, her own manner of procedure.

“Let me tell you, father, that it’s not me that sent for you, but Pelle; and if you don’t give him your hand and say you’ve done him an injustice, we shall never be good friends again!”

“Upon my word, she’s the same confounded way of taking the bull by the horns that she always had!” said Stolpe, without looking at her. “Well, I suppose I may as well give in at once, and own that I’ve played the fool. Shall we agree to let bygones be bygones, son-in-law?” extending his hand to Pelle.

When once the reconciliation was effected, Stolpe became quite cheerful. “I never dreamt I should see you so soon, least of all with a baby!” he said contentedly, stroking Ellen’s face with his rough hand.

“No, she’s always been his darling, and father’s often been tired of it,” said Madam Stolpe. “But men make themselves so hard!”

“Rubbish, mother!” growled Stolpe. “Women will always talk nonsense!”

Time had left its mark upon them both. There had been a certain amount of unemployment in his trade, and Stolpe was getting on in years and had a difficulty in keeping up with the young men on the scaffolding. Their clothes showed that they were not so prosperous as formerly; but Stolpe was still chairman of his trade union and a highly respected man within the Movement.

“And now, my boy,” he said suddenly, placing his hands on Pelle’s shoulders, “you must explain to me what it is you’re doing this time. I hear you’ve begun to stir up men’s feelings again.”

Pelle told him about his great plan for coöperative works. The old man knew indeed a good deal about it; it appeared that he had followed Pelle’s movements from a distance.

“That’s perhaps not so out of the way,” he said. “We might squeeze capital out of existence just as quietly, if we all bestirred ourselves. But you must get the Movement to join you; and it must be made clear that every one who doesn’t support his own set is a black-leg.”

“_I have_ got a connection, but it goes rather slowly,” said Pelle.

“Then we must stir them up a little. I say, that queer fellow—Brun, I think you call him—doesn’t he live with you?”

“He isn’t a queer fellow,” said Pelle, laughing. “We can go up and see him.”

Brun and Stolpe very soon found something to talk about. They were of the same age, and had witnessed the first days of the Movement, each from his own side. Madam Stolpe came several times and pulled her husband by the coat: they ought to be going home.

“Well, it’s not worth while to quarrel with your own wife,” said Stolpe at last; “but I shall come again. I hear you’re building out here, and I should like to see what our own houses’ll be like.”

“We’ve not begun yet,” answered Pelle. “But come out on Sunday, and Brun and I will show it all to you.”

“I suppose it’s masters who’ll get it?” asked Stolpe.

“No, we thought of letting the unemployed have the work if they could undertake it, and have a man to put at the head,” said Brun. “Perhaps you could undertake it?”

“Why, of course I can!” answered Stolpe, with a feeling of his own importance. “I’m the man to build houses for workmen! I was member of the party when it numbered only one man.”

“Yes, Stolpe’s the veteran of the Movement,” said Pelle.

“Upon my word, it’d be awfully nice if it was me!” exclaimed Stolpe when Pelle accompanied the old couple down to the tram. “I’ll get together a set of workmen that have never been equalled. And what houses we shall put up! There won’t be much papier-mâché there!”

XXII

It still sometimes happened that Pelle awoke in the night not knowing where he was. He was oppressed with a stifling anxiety, dreaming that he was in prison, and fancying he could still smell the rank, mouldy odor of the cell. He gradually came to his senses and knew where he was; the sounds of breathing around him, and the warm influence of the darkness itself, brought him back to his home. He sat up joyfully, and struck a match to get a glimpse of Ellen and the little ones. He dared not go to sleep again, for sleep would instantly take him back to the prison; so he dressed quietly and stole out to see the day awaken.

It was strange with these dreams, for they turned everything upside down. In the prison he always dreamed he was free and living happily; nothing less would do there. There the day was bad and the night good, and here it was the reverse. It was as though something within one would always have everything. “That must be the soul!” he thought as he wandered eastward to meet the first gleam of day. In the country at home, the old people in his childhood believed that dreams were the soul wandering about by itself; some had seen it as a white mouse creeping out of the sleeper’s mouth to gather fresh experiences for him. It was true, too, that through dreams the poor man had hitherto had everything; they carried him out of his prison. Perhaps the _roles_ were exchanged during the darkness of night. Perhaps the rich man’s soul came during the night and slipped into the poor man’s body to gather suffering for his master.

There was spring in the air. As yet it was only perceptible to Pelle in a feeling of elation, a desire to expand and burst all boundaries. He walked with his face toward the opening day, and had a feeling of unconquerable power. Whence this feeling came he knew not, but it was there. He felt himself as something immense that was shut into a small space and would blow up the world if it were let loose. He walked on quickly. Above his head rose the first lark. Slowly the earth drew from its face the wonderful veil of rest and mystery that was night.

Perhaps the feeling of strength came from his having taken possession of his spirit and commanding a view of the world. The world had no limits, but neither had his powers; the force that could throw him out of his course did not exist. In his own footfall he heard the whole future; the Movement would soon be concluded when it had taken in the fact that the whole thing must be included. There was still a little difficulty; from that side they still made it a condition for their cooperation that Pelle should demand a public recognition of his good character. Pelle laughed and raised his face to the morning breeze which came like a cold shiver before the sunrise. Outsider! Yes, there was some truth in it. He did not belong to the existing state of things; he desired no civil rights there. That he was outside was his stamp of nobility; his relations to the future were contained in that fact. He had begun the fight as one of the lowest of the people, and as such he would triumph. When he rose there should no longer be a pariah caste.

As he walked along with the night behind him and his face to the light, he seemed to have just entered into youth with everything before him— everything to look forward to! And yet he seemed to have existed since the morning of time, so thoroughly did he know the world of darkness that he left. Was not man a wonderful being, both in his power to shrink up and become nothing, and in his power to expand and fill everything? He now understood Uncle Kalle’s smile on all occasions; he had armed himself with it in order that life should not draw too deep furrows in his gentle nature. The poor man had been obliged to dull himself; he would simply bleed to death if he gave himself up to stern reality. The dullness had been like a hard shell that protected the poor; and now they came with their heart quite safe in spite of everything. They could very well lead when times were good.

Pelle had always a vague feeling of being chosen. Even as a child it made him look with courage in the face of a hard world, and filled his bare limbs with elasticity. Poor and naked he came into the world, apparently without a gift of any kind; and yet he came as a bright promise to the elderly, work-bowed Father Lasse. Light radiated from him, insignificant and ordinary though he was; God had given him the spark, the old man always said, and he always looked upon the boy as a little miracle of heaven. The boy Pelle wondered a little at it, but was happy in his father’s pleasure. He himself knew some very different miracles at that time, for instance the calf of the fair with two heads, and the lamb with eight legs. He had his own demands to make of life’s wonderful riches, and was not struck with surprise at a very ordinary, big-eared urchin such as one might see any day.

And now he was just showing that Father Lasse had been right. The greatest miracles were in himself—Pelle, who resembled hundreds of millions of other workmen, and had never yet had more than just enough for his food. Man was really the most wonderful of all. Was he not himself, in all his commonplace naturalness, like a luminous spark, sprung from the huge anvil of divine thought? He could send out his inquiring thought to the uttermost borders of space, and back to the dawn of time. And this all-embracing power seemed to have proceeded from nothing, like God Himself! The mere fact that he, who made so much noise, had to go to prison in order to comprehend the great object of things, was a marvel! There must have been far-reaching plans deposited in him, since he shut himself in.

When he looked out over the rising, he felt himself to be facing a world-thought with extraordinarily long sight. The common people, without knowing it, had been for centuries preparing themselves for an entry into a new world; the migration of the masses would not be stopped until they had reached their goal. A law which they did not even know themselves, and could not enter into, led them the right way; and Pelle was not afraid. At the back of his unwearied labor with the great problem of the age was the recognition that he was one of those on whom the nation laid the responsibility for the future; but he was never in doubt as to the aim, nor the means. During the great lock-out the foreseeing had feared the impossibility of leading all these crowds into the fire. And then the whole thing had opened out of itself quite naturally, from an apparently tiny cause to a steadily ordered battle all along the line. The world had never before heard a call so great as that which he and his followers brought forward! It meant nothing less than the triumph of goodness! He was not fond of using great words, but at the bottom of his heart he was convinced that everything bad originated in want and misery. Distrust and selfishness came from misusage; they were man’s defence against extortion. And the extortion came from insecure conditions, from reminders of want or unconscious fear of it. Most crimes could easily be traced back to the distressing conditions, and even where the connection was not perceptible he was sure that it nevertheless existed. It was his experience that every one in reality was good: the evil in them could nearly always be traced back to something definite, while the goodness often existed in spite of everything. It would triumph altogether when the conditions became secure for everybody. He was sure that even the crimes that were due to abnormity would cease of themselves when there were no longer hidden reminders of misery in the community.

It was his firm belief that he and his followers should renew the world; the common people should turn it into a paradise for the multitude, just as it had already made it a paradise for the few. It would require a great and courageous mind for this, but his army had been well tested. Those who, from time immemorial, had patiently borne the pressure of existence for others, must be well fitted to take upon themselves the leadership into the new age.

Pelle at last found himself in Strand Road, and it was too late to return home. He was ravenously hungry and bought a couple of rolls at a baker’s, and ate them on his way to work.

At midday Brun came into the works to sign some papers and go through accounts with Pelle. They were sitting up in the office behind the shop. Pelle read out the items and made remarks on them, while the old man gave his half attention and merely nodded. He was longing to get back to “Daybreak.”

“You won’t mind making it as short as possible?” he said, “for I don’t feel quite well.” The harsh spring winds were bad for him and made his breathing difficult. The doctor had advised a couple of months in the Riviera—until the spring was over; but the old man could not make up his mind. He had not the courage to set out alone.