Pelle the Conqueror Part 130

The president nodded. "Yes, one would have to be a pretty sort of fool to forget that! No, as long as I live I shall never forget the effect your words had on us despised scavengers! It was you who gave us faith in ourselves, and an organization! And even if we aren't quite the most important people, still--"

"But that's just what you are--and now it's your turn to prove it! Could you suspend work this night?"

Lars Hansen sat gazing thoughtfully into the lamp while he chewed his food. "Our relations with the city are rather in the nature of a contract," he said slowly and at length. "They could punish us for it, and compel us to resume work. But if you want it, irrespective, why of course we'll do it. There can be only one view as to that among comrades! What you may gain by it you yourself know best."

"Thanks!" said Pelle, holding out his hand. "Then that is settled--no more carts go out. And we must bring the street-cleaners to a standstill too!"

"Then the authorities will put other men on--there are plenty to be found for that work."

"They won't do that--or we'll put a stop to it if they do!"

"That sounds all right! It'll be a nasty business for the swells! It's all the same to the poor, they haven't anything to eat. But suppose the soldiers are ordered to do it! Scavenging must be done if the city isn't to become pestilential!"

A flash of intelligence crossed Pelle's face. "Now listen, comrade! When you stop working, deliver up all the keys, so that the authorities can't touch you! Only put them all in a sack and give them a good shake-up!"

Lars Hansen broke into a resounding laugh. "That will be the deuce of a joke!" he groaned, smacking his thighs. "Then they'll have to come to us, for no one else will be able to sort them out again so quickly! I'll take them the keys myself--I'll go upstairs as innocent as anything!"

Pelle thanked him again. "You'll save the whole Cause," he said quietly.

"It's the bread and the future happiness of many thousands that you are now holding in your hands." He smiled brightly and took his leave.

As soon as he was alone his smile faded and an expression of deathly weariness took its place.

Pelle walked the streets, strolling hither and thither. Now all was settled. There was nothing more to strive for. Everything within him seemed broken; he had not even strength to decide what he should do with himself. He walked on and on, came out into the High Street, and turned off again into the side streets. Over the way, in the Colonial Stores, he saw Karl, smiling and active, behind the counter serving customers.

"You ought really to go in and ask him how he's getting on," he thought, but he strolled on. Once, before a tenement-house, he halted and involuntarily looked up. No, he had already done his business here--this was where the president of the Scavengers' Union lived. No, the day's work was over now--he would go home to Ellen and the children!

Home? No home for him now--he was forsaken and alone! And yet he went toward the north; which road he went by he did not know, but after a time he found himself standing before his own door and staring at the rusty little letter box. Within there was a sound of weeping; he could hear Ellen moving to and fro, preparing everything for the night. Then he turned and hastened away, and did not breathe easily until he had turned the corner of the street.

He turned again and again, from one side street into another. Inside his head everything seemed to be going round, and at every step he felt as if it would crack. Suddenly he seemed to hear hasty but familiar steps behind him. Ellen! He turned round; there was no one there. So it was an illusion! But the steps began again as soon as he went on. There was something about those steps--it was as though they wanted to say something to him; he could hear plainly that they wanted to catch up with him. He stopped suddenly--there was no one there, and no one emerged from the darkness of the side streets.

Were these strange footsteps in his own mind, then? Pelle found them incomprehensible; his heart began to thump; his terrible exhaustion had made him helpless. And Ellen--what was the matter with her? That reproachful weeping sounded in his ears! Understand--what was he to understand? She had done it out of love, she had said! Ugh--away with it all! He was too weary to justify her offence.

But what sort of wanderer was this? Now the footsteps were keeping time with his now; they had a double sound. And when he thought, another creature answered to him, from deep within him. There was something persistent about this, as there was in Morten's influence; an opinion that made its way through all obstacles, even when reduced to silence.

What was wanted of him now--hadn't he worked loyally enough? Was he not Pelle, who had conducted the great campaign? Pelle, to whom all looked up? But there was no joy in the thought now; he could not now hear the march of his fifty thousand comrades in his own footsteps! He was left in the lurch, left alone with this accursed Something here in the deserted streets--and loneliness had come upon him! "You are afraid!" he thought, with a bitter laugh.

But he did not wish to be alone; and he listened intently. The conflict had taken all that he possessed. So there was a community--mournful as it was--between him and the misery around him here. What had he to complain of?

The city of the poor lay about him, terrible, ravaged by the battle of unemployment--a city of weeping, and cold, and darkness, and want! From the back premises sounded the crying of children--they were crying for bread, he knew--while drunken men staggered round the corners, and the screaming of women sounded from the back rooms and the back yards.

Ugh--this was h.e.l.l already! Thank G.o.d, victory was near!

Somewhere he could plainly hear voices; children were crying, and a woman, who was moving to and fro in the room, was soothing them, and was lulling the youngest to sleep--no doubt she had it in her arms. It all came down to him so distinctly that he looked up. There were no windows in the apartment! They were to be driven out by the cold, he thought indignantly, and he ran up the stairs; he was accustomed to taking the unfortunate by surprise.

"The landlord has taken out the doors and windows; he wanted to turn us into the street, but we aren't going, for where should we go? So he wants to drive us out through the cold--like the bugs! They've driven my husband to death--" Suddenly she recognized Pelle. "So it's you, you accursed devil!" she cried. "It was you yourself who set him on! Perhaps you remember how he used to drink out of the bottle? Formerly he always used to behave himself properly. And you saw, too, how we were turned out of St. Hans Street--the tenants forced us to go--didn't you see that? Oh, you torturer! You've followed him everywhere, hunted him like a wild beast, taunted him and tormented him to death! When he went into a tavern the others would stand away from him, and the landlord had to ask him to go. But he had more sense of honor than you! 'I'm infected with the plague!' he said, and one morning he hanged himself. Ah, if I could pray the good G.o.d to smite you!" She was tearless; her voice was dry and hoa.r.s.e.

"You have no need to do that," replied Pelle bitterly. "He has smitten me! But I never wished your husband any harm; both times, when I met him, I tried to help him. We have to suffer for the benefit of all--my own happiness is shattered into fragments." He suddenly found relief in tears.

"They just ought to see that--the working men--Pelle crying! Then they wouldn't shout 'Hurrah!' when he appears!" she cried scornfully.

"I have still ten kroner--will you take them?" said Pelle, handing her the money.

She took it hesitating. "You must need that for your wife and children--that must be your share of your strike pay!"

"I have no wife and children now. Take it!"

"Good G.o.d! Has your home gone to pieces too? Couldn't even Pelle keep it together? Well, well, it's only natural that he who sows should reap!"

Pelle went his way without replying. The unjust judgment of this woman depressed him more than the applause of thousands would have pleased him. But it aroused a violent mental protest. Where she had struck him he was invulnerable; he had not been looking after his own trivial affairs; but had justly and honorably served the great Cause, and had led the people to victory. The wounded and the fallen had no right to abuse him. He had lost more than any one--he had lost everything!

With care-laden heart, but curiously calm, he went toward the North Bridge and rented a room in a cheap lodging house.

x.x.xV

The final instructions issued to the workers aroused terrible indignation in the city. At one blow the entire public was set against them; the press was furious, and full of threats and warnings. Even the independent journals considered that the workers had infringed the laws of human civilization. But _The Working Man_ quietly called attention to the fact that the conflict was a matter of life or death for the lower cla.s.ses. They were ready to proceed to extremities; they still had it in their power to cut off the water and gas--the means of the capital's commercial and physical life!

Then the tide set in against the employers. Something had to give somewhere! And what was the real motive of the conflict? Merely a question of power! They wanted to have the sole voice--to have their workers bound hand and foot. The financiers, who stood at the back of the big employers, had had enough of the whole affair. It would be an expensive game first and last, and there would be little profit in destroying the cohesion of the workers if the various industries were ruined at the same time.

Pelle saw how the crisis was approaching while he wandered about the lesser streets in search of Father La.s.se. Now the Cause was progressing by its own momentum, and he could rest. An unending strain was at last lifted from his shoulders, and now he wanted time to gather together the remnants of his own happiness--and at last to do something for one who had always sacrificed himself for him. Now he and La.s.se would find a home together, and resume the old life in company together; he rejoiced at the thought. Father La.s.se's nature never clashed with his; he had always stood by him through everything; his love was like a mother's.

La.s.se was no longer living in his lair behind Baker Street. The old woman with whom he was living had died shortly before this, and La.s.se had then disappeared.

Pelle continued to ask after him, and, well known as he was among the poor, it was not difficult for him to follow the old man's traces, which gradually led him out to Kristianshavn. During his inquiries he encountered a great deal of misery, which delayed him. Now, when the battle was fighting itself to a conclusion, he was everywhere confronted by need, and his old compa.s.sion welled up in his heart. He helped where he could, finding remedies with his usual energy.

La.s.se had not been to the "Ark" itself, but some one there had seen him in the streets, in a deplorable condition; where he lived no one knew.

"Have you looked in the cellar of the Merchant's House over yonder?"

the old night watchman asked him. "Many live there in these hard times.

Every morning about six o'clock I lock the cellar up, and then I call down and warn them so that they shan't be pinched. If I happen to turn away, then they come slinking up. It seems to me I heard of an old man who was said to be lying down there, but I'm not sure, for I've wadding in my ears; I'm obliged to in my calling, in order not to hear too much!" He went to the place with Pelle.

The Merchant's House, which in the eighteenth century was the palace of one of the great mercantile families of Kristianshavn, was now used as a granary; it lay fronting on one of the ca.n.a.ls. The deep cellars, which were entirely below the level of the ca.n.a.l, were now empty. It was pitch dark down there, and impracticable; the damp air seemed to gnaw at one's vocal cords. They took a light and explored among the pillars, finding here and there places where people had lain on straw. "There is no one here," said the watchman. Pelle called, and heard a feeble sound as of one clearing his throat. Far back in the cellars, in one of the cavities in the wall, Father La.s.se was lying on a mattress. "Yes, here I lie, waiting for death," he whispered. "It won't last much longer now; the rats have begun to sniff about me already." The cold, damp air had taken his voice away.

He was altogether in a pitiful condition, but the sight of Pelle put life into him in so far as he was able to stand on his feet. They took him over to the "Ark," the old night watchman giving up his room and going up to Widow Johnsen;--there he slept in the daytime, and at night went about his duties; a possible arrangement, although there was only one bed.

When La.s.se was put into a warm bed he lay there shivering; and he was not quite clear in his mind. Pelle warmed some beer; the old man must go through a sweating cure; from time to time he sat on the bed and gazed anxiously at his father. La.s.se lay there with his teeth chattering; he had closed his eyes; now and again he tried to speak, but could not.

The warm drink helped him a little, and the blood flowed once more into his dead, icy hands, and his voice returned.

"Do you think we are going to have a hard winter?" he said suddenly, turning on his side.

"We are going on toward the summer now, dear father," Pelle replied.

"But you must not lie with your back uncovered."

"I'm so terribly cold--almost as cold as I was in winter; I wouldn't care to go through that again. It got into my spine so. Good G.o.d, the poor folks who are at sea!"

"You needn't worry about them--you just think about getting well again; to-day we've got the sunshine and it's fine weather at sea!"