Pelle the Conqueror Part 137

He was now going to lay plans for his life, build it up again upon the deep foundation that had been laid in his solitude; and yet he knew absolutely nothing of the conditions down in the town! Well, he had friends in thousands; the town was simply lying waiting to receive him with open arms, more fond of him than ever because of all he had suffered. With all his ignorance he had been able to lead them on a little way; the development had chosen him as its blind instrument, and it had been successful; but now he was going to lead them right into the land, for now he felt the burden of life within him.

Hullo! if he wasn't building castles in the air just as in the old days, and forgetting all that the prison cell had taught him so bitterly!

The others' good indeed! He had been busily concerned for the homes of others, and had not even succeeded in building his own! What humbug!

Down there were three neglected beings who would bring accusations against him, and what was the use of his sheltering himself behind the welfare of the many? What was the good of receiving praise from tens of thousands and being called benefactor by the whole world, if those three whose welfare had been entrusted to him accused him of having failed them? He had often enough tried to stifle their accusing voices, but in there it was not possible to stifle anything into silence.

Pelle still had no doubt that he was chosen to accomplish something for the ma.s.ses, but it had become of such secondary importance when he recollected that he had neglected his share of that which was the duty of every one. He had mistaken small for great, and believed that when he accomplished something that no one else could do, he might in return pay less attention to ordinary every-day duties; but the fates ordained that the burden of life should be laid just where every one could help. And now he was coming back like a poor beggar, who had conquered everything except the actual, and therefore possessed nothing, and had to beg for mercy. Branded as a criminal, he must now begin at the beginning, and accomplish that which he had not been able to do in the days of his power. It would be difficult to build his home under these circ.u.mstances, and who was there to help him? Those three who could have spoken for him he had left to their own devices as punishment for an offence which in reality was his own.

He had never before set out in such a poverty-stricken state. He did not even come like one who had something to forgive: his prison-cell had left him nothing. He had had time enough there to go carefully over the whole matter, and everything about Ellen that he had before been too much occupied to notice or had felt like a silent opposition to his projects, now stood out clearly, and formed itself, against his will, into the picture of a woman who never thought of herself, but only of the care of her little world and how she could sacrifice herself. He could not afford to give up any of his right here, and marshalled all his accusations against her, bringing forward laws and morals; but it all failed completely to shake the image, and only emphasized yet more the strength of her nature. She had sacrificed _everything_ for him and the children, her one desire being to see them happy. Each of his attacks only washed away a fresh layer of obstructing mire, and made the sacrifice in her action stand out more clearly. It was because she was so unsensual and chaste that she could act as she had done. Alas! she had had to pay dearly for _his_ remissness; it was the mother who, in their extreme want, gave her own body to nourish her offspring.

Pelle would not yield, but fought fiercely against conviction. He had been robbed of freedom and the right to be a human being like others, and now solitude was about to take from him all that remained to sustain him. Even if everything joined together against him, he was not wrong, he _would_ not be wrong. It was he who had brought the great conflict to an end at the cost of his own--and he had found Ellen to be a prost.i.tute! His thoughts clung to this word, and shouted it hoa.r.s.ely, unceasingly--prost.i.tute! prost.i.tute! He did not connect it with anything, but only wanted to drown the clamor of accusations on all sides which were making him still more naked and miserable.

At first letters now and then came to him, probably from old companions-in-arms, perhaps too from Ellen: he did not know, for he refused to take them. He hated Ellen because she was the stronger, hated in impotent defiance everything and everybody. Neither she nor any one else should have the satisfaction of being any comfort to him; since he had been shut up as an unclean person, he had better keep himself quite apart from them. He would make his punishment still more hard, and purposely increased his forlornness, kept out of his thoughts everything that was near and dear to him, and dragged the painful things into the foreground. Ellen had of course forgotten him for some one else, and had perhaps turned the children's thoughts from him; they would certainly be forbidden to mention the word "father." He could distinctly see them all three sitting happily round the lamp; and when some turn in the conversation threatened to lead it to the subject of himself, a coldness and stillness as of death suddenly fell upon them. He mercilessly filled his existence with icy acknowledgment on all points, and believed he revenged himself by breathing in the deadly cold.

After a prolonged period of this he was attacked with frenzy, dashed himself blindly against the walls, and shouted that he wanted to get out. To quiet him he was put into a strait-waistcoat and removed to a pitch-dark cell. On the whole he was one of the so-called defiant prisoners, who meant to kick against the p.r.i.c.ks, and he was treated accordingly.

But one night when he lay groaning after a punishment, and saw the angry face of G.o.d in the darkness, he suddenly became silent. "Are you a human being?" it said, "and cannot even bear a little suffering?" Pelle was startled. He had never known that there was anything particularly human in suffering. But from that night he behaved quietly, with a listening expression, as if he heard something through the walls. "Now he's become quiet," said the gaoler, who was looking at him through the peep-hole.

"It won't be long before he's an idiot!"

But Pelle had only come out on the other side; he was staring bravely into the darkness to see G.o.d's face once more, but in a gentler guise.

The first thing he saw was Ellen again, sitting there beautiful, exculpated, made more desirable by all his accusations. How great and fateful all petty things became here! What was the good of defending himself? She was his fate, and he would have to surrender unconditionally. He still did not comprehend her, but he had a consciousness of greater laws for life, laws that raised _her_ and made him small. She and hers pa.s.sed undefiled through places where he stuck fast in the surface mire.

She seemed to him to grow in here, and led his thoughts behind the surface, where they had never been before. Her unfailing mother-love was like a beating pulse that rose from the invisible and revealed hidden mystical forces--the perceptible rhythm of a great heart which beat in concealment behind everything. Her care resembled that of G.o.d Himself; she was nearer to the springs of life than he.

The springs of life! Through her the expression for the first time acquired a meaning for him. It was on the whole as if she re-created him, and by occupying himself with her ever enigmatical nature, his thoughts were turned further and further inward. He suspected the presence of strong currents which bore the whole thing; and sometimes in the silence of his cell he seemed to hear his existence flowing, flowing like a broad stream, and emptying itself out there where his thoughts had never ventured to roam. What became of the days and the years with all that they had held? The ever present Ellen, who had never herself given a thought to the unseen, brought Pelle face to face with infinity.

While all this was going on within him, they sang one Sunday during the prison service Grundtvig's hymn, "The former days have pa.s.sed away." The hymn expressed all that he had himself vaguely thought, and touched him deeply; the verses came to him in his narrow pen like waves from a mighty ocean, which rolled ages in to the sh.o.r.e in monotonous power.

He suddenly and strongly realized the pa.s.sage of generations of human beings over the earth, and boldly grasped what he had until now only dimly suspected, namely, his own connection with them all, both those who were living then and all those who had gone before. How small his own idea of union had been when measured by this immense community of souls, and what a responsibility was connected with each one! He understood now how fatal it was to act recklessly, then break off and leave everything. In reality you could never leave anything; the very smallest thing you shirked would be waiting for you as your fate at the next milestone. And who, indeed, was able to overlook an action? You had to be lenient continually, and at last it would turn out that you had been lenient to yourself.

Pelle was taking in wisdom, and his own heart confirmed it. The thought of Ellen filled his mind more and more; he had lost her, and yet he could not get beyond her. Did she still love him? This question pursued him day and night with ever increasing vehemence, until even his life seemed to depend upon it. He felt, as he gazed questioningly into his solitude, that he would be worthless if he did not win her back. New worlds grew up before him; he could dimly discern the great connection between things, and thought he could see how deep down the roots of life stretched, drawing nourishment from the very darkness in which he dwelt.

But to this he received no answer.

He never dreamt of writing to her. G.o.d had His own way of dealing with the soul, a way with which one did not interfere. It would have to come like all the rest, and he lulled himself with the foolish hope that Ellen would come and visit him, for he was now in the right mood to receive her. On Sundays he listened eagerly to the heavy clang of the gate. It meant visitors to the prisoners; and when the gaoler came along the corridor rattling his keys, Pelle's heart beat suffocatingly.

This repeated itself Sunday after Sunday, and then he gave up hope and resigned himself to his fate.

After a long time, however, fortune favored him and brought him a greeting.

Pelle took no personal part in the knocking that every evening after the lights were out sounded through the immense building as if a thousand death-ticks were at work. He had enough of his own to think about, and only knocked those messages on that had to pa.s.s through his cell. One day, however, a new prisoner was placed in the cell next to his, and woke him. He was a regular frequenter of the establishment, and immediately set about proclaiming his arrival in all directions. It was Druk-Valde, "Widow" Rasmussen's idler of a sweetheart, who used to stand all the winter through in the gateway in Chapel Road, and spit over the toes of his well-polished shoes.

Yes, Valde knew Pelle's family well; his sweetheart had looked after the children when Ellen, during the great conflict, began to go out to work.

Ellen had been very successful, and still held her head high. She sewed uppers and had a couple of apprentices to help her, and she was really doing pretty well. She did not a.s.sociate with any one, not even with her relatives, for she never left her children.

Druk-Valde had to go to the wall every evening; the most insignificant detail was of the greatest importance. Pelle could see Ellen as if she were standing in the darkness before him, pale, always clad in black, always serious. She had broken with her parents; she had sacrificed everything for his sake! She even talked about him so that the children should not have forgotten him by the time he came back. "The little beggars think you're travelling," said Valde.

So everything was all right! It was like sunshine in his heart to know that she was waiting faithfully for him although he had cast her off.

All the ice must melt and disappear; he was a rich man in spite of everything.

Did she bear his name? he asked eagerly. It would be like her--intrepid as she was--defiantly to write "Pelle" in large letters on the door-plate.

Yes, of course! There was no such thing as hiding there! La.s.se Frederik and his sister were big now, and little Boy Comfort was a huge fellow for his age--a regular little fatty. To see him sitting in his perambulator, when they wheeled him out on Sundays, was a sight for G.o.ds!

Pelle stood in the darkness as though stunned. Boy Comfort, a little fellow sitting in a perambulator! And it was not an adopted child either; Druk-Valde so evidently took it to be his. Ellen! Ellen!

He went no more to the wall. Druk-Valde knocked in vain, and his six months came to an end without Pelle noticing it. This time he made no disturbance, but shrank under a feeling of being accursed. Providence must be hostile to him, since the same blow had been aimed at him twice.

In the daytime he sought relief in hard work and reading; at night he lay on his dirty, mouldy-smelling mattress and wept. He no longer tried to overthrow his conception of Ellen, for he knew it was hopeless: she still tragically overshadowed everything. She was his fate and still filled his thoughts, but not brightly; there was indeed nothing bright or great about it now, only imperative necessity.

And then his work! For a man there was always work to fall back upon, when happiness failed him. Pelle set to work in earnest, and the man who was at the head of the prison shoemaking department liked to have him, for he did much more than was required of him. In his leisure hours he read diligently, and entered with zest into the prison school-work, taking up especially history and languages. The prison chaplain and the teachers took an interest in him, and procured books for him which were generally un.o.btainable by the prisoners.

When he was thoroughly tired out he allowed his mind to seek rest in thoughts of his home. His weariness cast a conciliatory light over everything, and he would lie upon his pallet and in imagination spend happy hours with his children, including that young cuckoo who always looked at him with such a strangely mocking expression. To Ellen alone he did not get near. She had never been so beautiful as now in her unapproachableness, but she received all his a.s.surances in mysterious silence, only gazing at him with her unfathomable eyes. He had forsaken her and the home; he knew that; but had he not also made reparation? It was _her_ child he held on his knee, and he meant to build the home up again. He had had enough of an outlaw's life, and needed a heart upon which to rest his weary head.

All this was dreaming, but now he was on his way down to begin from the beginning. He did not feel very courageous; the uncertainty held so many possibilities. Were the children and Ellen well, and was she still waiting for him? And his comrades? How would his fate shape itself?

Pelle was so little accustomed to being in the fresh air that it affected him powerfully, and, much against his will, he fell asleep as he leaned back upon the bank. The longing to reach the end of his journey made him dream that he was still walking on and making his entry into the city; but he did not recognize it, everything was so changed.

People were walking about in their best clothes, either going to the wood or to hear lectures. "Who is doing the work, then?" he asked of a man whom he met.

"Work!" exclaimed the man in surprise. "Why, the machines, of course! We each have three hours at them in the day, but it'll soon be changed to two, for the machines are getting more and more clever. It's splendid to live and to know that there are no slaves but those inanimate machines; and for that we have to thank a man called Pelle."

"Why, that's me!" exclaimed Pelle, laughing with pleasure.

"You! What absurdity! Why, you're a young man, and all this happened many years ago."

"It is me, all the same! Don't you see that my hair is gray and my forehead lined? I got like that in fighting for you. Don't you recognize me?" But people only laughed at him, and he had to go on.

"I'll go to Ellen!" he thought, disheartened. "She'll speak up for me!"

And while the thought was in his mind, he found himself in her parlor.

"Sit down!" she said kindly. "My husband'll be here directly."

"Why, I'm your husband!" he exclaimed, hardly able to keep back his tears; but she looked at him coldly and without recognition, and moved toward the door.

"I'm Pelle!" he said, holding out his hand beseechingly. "Don't you know me?"

Ellen opened her lips to cry out, and at that moment the husband appeared threateningly in the doorway. From behind him La.s.se Frederik and Sister peeped out in alarm, and Pelle saw with a certain amount of satisfaction that there were only the two. The terrible thing, however, was that the man was himself, the true Pelle with the good, fair moustache, the lock of hair on his forehead and the go-ahead expression.

When he discovered this, it all collapsed and he sank down in despair.

Pelle awoke with a start, bathed in perspiration, and saw with thankfulness the fields and the bright atmosphere: he was at any rate still alive! He rose and walked on with heavy steps while the spring breeze cooled his brow.

His road led him to Norrebro. The sun was setting behind him; it must be about the time for leaving off work, and yet no hooter sounded from the numerous factories, no stream of begrimed human beings poured out of the side streets. In the little tea-gardens in the Frederikssund Road sat workmen's families with perambulator and provision-basket; they were dressed in their best and were enjoying the spring day. Was there after all something in his dream? If so, it would be splendid to come back! He asked people what was going on, and was told that it was the elections.

"We're going to take the city to-day!" they said, laughing triumphantly.

From the square he turned into the churchyard, and went down the somber avenue of poplars to Chapel Road. Opposite the end of the avenue he saw the two little windows in the second floor; and in his pa.s.sionate longing he seemed to see Ellen standing there and beckoning. He ran now, and took the stairs three or four at a time.

Just as he was about to pull the bell-cord, he heard strange voices within, and paused as though paralyzed. The door looked cold and as if it had nothing to do with him; and there was no door-plate. He went slowly down the stairs and asked in the greengrocer's cellar below whether a woman who sewed uppers did not live on the second floor to the left. She had been forsaken by her husband and had two children--_three_, he corrected himself humbly; What had become of them?

The deputy-landlord was a new man and could give him no information; so he went up into the house again, and asked from door to door but without any result. Poor people do not generally live long in one place.

Pelle wandered about the streets at haphazard. He could think of no way of getting Ellen's address, and gave it up disheartened; in his forlorn condition he had the impression that people avoided him, and it discouraged him. His soul was sick with longing for a kind word and a caress, and there was no one to give them. No eyes brightened at seeing him out again, and he hunted in vain in house after house for some one who would sympathize with him. A sudden feeling of hatred arose in him, an evil desire to hit out at everything and go recklessly on.