Pelle the Conqueror Part 141

"Now you can just come along with me," said the woman, when the things were piled upon the cart, "and I'll find you a place to sleep in. And then to-morrow Providence'll perhaps be at home himself!"

"She's a street-woman," whispered La.s.se Frederik again and again, pulling Ellen's dress; but Ellen did not care now, if only she could avoid having to accept poor relief. She no longer held her head so high.

It was "Queen Theresa" herself they had met, and in a sense this meeting had made their fortune. She helped Ellen to find her little flat, and got her washing to do for the girls of the neighborhood. It was not very much, though the girls of Vesterbro went in for fine clothes as far as they could; but it afforded her at any rate a livelihood.

Pelle did not like Ellen going on with all this dirty work; he wanted to be the one to provide for the family. Ellen moreover had had her turn, and she looked tired and as if she needed to live a more comfortable life. It was as though she fell away now that he was there and able once more to a.s.sume the responsibility; but she would not hear of giving up the washing. "It's never worth while to throw away the dirty water until you've got the clean!" she said.

Every morning he set out furnished with a brand-new trades-union book, and went from workshop to workshop. Times were bad for his branch of trade; many of his old fellow-workmen had been forced to take up other occupations--he met them again as conductors, lamplighters, etc.; machinery had made them unnecessary, they said. It was the effect of the great lock-out; it had killed the little independent businesses that had formerly worked with one or two men, and put wind into the sails of large industries. The few who could manage it had procured machines and become manufacturers; the rest were crowded out and sat in out-of-the-way bas.e.m.e.nts doing repairs. To set to work again, on the old conditions was what had been farthest from Pelle's thoughts; and he now went about and offered to become an apprentice again in order to serve his new master, the machinery, and was ready to be utilized to the utmost. But the manufacturers had no use for him; they still remembered him too well. "You've been too long away from the work," said one and another of them meaningly.

Well, that was only t.i.t for tat; but he felt bitterly how even his past rose up against him. He had fought and sacrificed everything to improve the conditions in his branch; and the machines were the discouraging answer that the development gave to him and his fellows.

He was not alone in his vain search in this bright springtime. A number of other branches had had the same fate as his own. Every new day that dawned brought him into a stream of men who seemed to be condemned to wear out the pavement in their hopeless search for work--people who had been pushed out by the machines and could not get in again. "There must be something wrong with them," Pelle thought while he stood and listened to always the same story of how they had suddenly been dropped, and saw the rest of the train steaming away. It must have been their own fault that they were not coupled on to a new one; perhaps they were lazy or drunkards. But after a time he saw good, tried men standing in the row, and offering their powers morning after morning without result; and he began to realize with a chill fear that times were changing.

He would certainly have managed to make both ends meet if there had been anything to be got. The prices were all right; their only defect was that they were not eatable. Altogether it seemed as if a change for the worse had overtaken the artisan; and to make it still more serious the large businesses stood in the way of his establishing himself and becoming independent. There was not even a back door left open now!

Pelle might just as well put that out of his head first as last; to become a master now required capital and credit. The best thing that the future held was an endless and aimless tramp to and from the factory.

At one stroke he was planted in the middle of the old question again; all the circ.u.mstances pa.s.sed before him, and it was useless to close his eyes. He was willing enough to mind his own affairs and did not seek for anything; but the one thing was a consequence of the other, and whether he wished it or not, it united in a general view of the conditions.

The union had stood the test outwardly. The workmen were well organized and had vindicated their right to negotiate; their corporations could no longer be disregarded. Wages were also to some extent higher, and the feeling for the home had grown in the workmen themselves, many of them having removed from their bas.e.m.e.nts into new two- or three-roomed flats, and bought good furniture. They demanded more from life, but everything had become dearer, and they still lived from hand to mouth. He could see that the social development had not kept pace with the mechanical; the machines wedged themselves quietly but inexorably in between the workmen and the work, and threw more and more men out of employment. The hours of labor were not greatly shortened. Society did not seem to care to protect the workers, but it interested itself more in disabled workmen than before, and provision for the poor was well organized. Pelle could not discover _any_ law that had a regulating effect, but found a whole number of laws that plastered up the existing conditions. A great deal of help was given, always just on the borders of starvation; and more and more men had to apply for it. It did not rob them of their rights as citizens, but made them a kind of politically _kept_ proletariat.

It was thus that the world of adventure which Pelle had helped to conquer appeared now when he returned and looked at it with new eyes.

The world had not been created anew, and the Movement did not seem to have produced anything strong and humanly supporting. It seemed as if the workmen would quietly allow themselves to be left out of the game, if only they received money for doing nothing! What had become of their former pride? They must have acquired the morals of citizens, since they willingly agreed to accept a pension for rights surrendered. They were not deficient in power; they could make the whole world wither and die without shedding a drop of blood, only by holding together. It was a sense of responsibility that they lacked; they had lost the fundamental idea of the Movement.

Pelle looked at the question from all sides while he trudged up and down in his vain search. The prospect obtruded itself upon him, and there were forces at work, both within and without, trying to push him into the Movement and into the front rank among the leaders, but he repelled the idea: he was going to work for his home now.

He managed to obtain some repairs for the neighbors, and also helped Ellen to hang up clothes and turn the mangle. One must pocket one's pride and be glad _she_ had something. She was glad of his help, but did not want any one to see him doing this woman's work.

"It's not work for a man," she said, looking at him with eyes which said how pleased she was to have his company.

They liked being together, enjoyed it in their own quiet way without many words. Much had happened, but neither Pelle nor Ellen were in a hurry. Neither of them had a facility in speaking, but they found their way to an understanding through the pauses, and drew nearer to one another in the silences. Each knew what the other had suffered without requiring to have it told: time had been at work on them both.

There was no storm in their new companionship. The days pa.s.sed quietly, made sad by the years that had gone by. In Ellen's mind was neither jubilation nor reproach. She was cautious with regard to him--almost as shy as the first time they met; behind all her goodness and care lay the same touch of maidenly reserve as at that time. She received his caresses silently, she herself giving chiefly by being something for him. He noticed how every little homely action she did for him grew out of her like a motherly caress and took him into her heart. He was grateful for it, but it was not that of which he stood most in need.

When they sat together in the twilight and the children played upon the floor, she was generally silent, stealing glances at him now and then; but as soon as he noticed these, the depth of her expression vanished.

Was she again searching for his inner being as she had done in their earliest time together? It was as though she were calling to something within him, but would not reveal herself. It was thus that mother might sit and gaze searchingly into her child's future. Did she not love him then? She had given him all that she possessed, borne him children, and had faithfully waited for him when all the rest of the world had cast him off; and yet he was not sure that she had ever loved him.

Pelle had never met with love in the form of something unmanageable; the Movement had absorbed the surplus of his youth. But now he had been born anew together with the spring, and felt it suddenly as an inward power.

He and Ellen would begin now, for now she was everything! Life had taught him seriousness, and it was well. He was horrified at the thoughtless way in which he had taken Ellen and made her a mother without first making her a bride. Her woman's heart must be immeasurably large since she had not gone to pieces in consequence, but still stood as unmoved as ever, waiting for him to win her. She had got through it by being a mother.

Would he ever win her? Was she really waiting still, or was she contented with things as they were?

His love for her was so strong that everything about her was transfigured, and he was happy in the knowledge that she was his fate.

Merely a ribbon or a worn check cotton ap.r.o.n--any little thing that belonged to her--acquired a wonderfully warm hue, and filled his mind with sweetness. A glance or a touch made him dizzy with happiness, and his heart went out to her in waves of ardent longing. It awoke no response; she smiled gently and pressed his hand. She was fond of him and refused him nothing, but he nevertheless felt that she kept her innermost self hidden from him. When he tried to see in, he found it closed by a barrier of kindness.

IV

Pelle was like a man returning home after years of exile, and trying to bring himself into personal relations with everything; the act of oblivion was in force only up to the threshold; the real thing he had to see to himself. The land he had tilled was in other hands, he no longer had any right to it; but it was he who had planted, and he must know how it had been tended and how it had thriven.

The great advance had taken on a political character. The Movement had in the meantime let the demand of the poorest of the people for bread drop, and thrown them over as one would throw over ballast in order to rise more quickly. The inst.i.tutions themselves would be won, and then they would of course come back to the starting-point and begin again quite differently. It might be rather convenient to turn out those who most hindered the advance, but would it lead to victory? It was upon them indeed that everything turned! Pelle had thoroughly learned the lesson, that he who thinks he will outwit others is outwitted himself.

He had no faith in those who would climb the fence where it was lowest.

The new tactics dated from the victorious result of the great conflict.

He had himself led the crowds in triumph through the capital, and if he had not been taken he would probably now be sitting in parliament as one of the labor members and symbolizing his promotion to citizenship. But now he was out of it all, and had to choose his att.i.tude toward the existing state of things; he had belonged to the world of outcasts and had stood face to face with the irreconcilable. He was not sure that the poor man was to be raised by an extension of the existing social ethics.

He himself was still an outlaw, and would probably never be anything else. It was hard to stoop to enter the doorway through which you had once been thrown out, and it was hard to get in. He did not intend to take any steps toward gaining admission to the company of respectable men; he was strong enough to stand alone now.

Perhaps Ellen expected something in that way as reparation for all the wrong she had suffered. She must have patience! Pelle had promised himself that he would make her and the children happy, and he persuaded himself that this would be best attained by following his own impulses.

He was not exactly happy. Pecuniarily things were in a bad way, and notwithstanding all his planning, the future continued to look uncertain. He needed to be the man, the breadwinner, so that Ellen could come to him for safety and shelter, take her food with an untroubled mind from his hand, and yield herself to him unresistingly.

He was not their G.o.d; that was where the defect lay. This was noticeable at any rate in La.s.se Frederik. There was good stuff in the boy, although it had a tang of the street. He was an energetic fellow, bright and pushing, keenly alert with regard to everything in the way of business.

Pelle saw in him the image of himself, and was only proud of him; but the boy did not look upon him with unconditional reliance in return. He was quick and willing, but nothing more; his att.i.tude was one of trial, as if he wanted to see how things would turn out before he recognized the paternal relationship.

Pelle suffered under this impalpable distrust, which cla.s.sed him with the "new fathers" of certain children; and he had a feeling that was at the same time painful and ridiculous, that he was on trial. In olden days the matter might have been settled by a good thrashing, but now things had to be arranged so that they would be lasting; he could no longer buy cheaply. When helping La.s.se Frederik in organizing the milk-boys, he pocketed his pride and introduced features from the great conflict in order to show that he was good for something too. He could see from the boy's expression that he did not believe much of it, and intended to investigate the matter more closely. It wounded his sensitive mind and drove him into himself.

One day, however, when he was sitting at his work, La.s.se Frederik rushed in. "Father, tell me what you did to get the men that were locked into the factory out!" he cried breathlessly.

"You wouldn't believe it if I did," said Pelle reproachfully.

"Yes, I would; for they called you the 'Lightning!'" exclaimed the boy in tones of admiration. "And they had to put you in prison so as to get rid of you. The milk-driver told me all about it!"

From that day they were friends. At one stroke Pelle had become the hero of the boy's existence. He had shaved off his beard, had blackened his face, and had gone right into the camp of his opponents, and nothing could have been finer. He positively had to defend himself from being turned into a regular robber-captain with a wide-awake hat and top-boots! La.s.se Frederik had a lively imagination!

Pelle had needed this victory. He must have his own people safely at his back first of all, and then have a thorough settlement of the past. But this was not easy, for little Boy Comfort staggered about everywhere, warped himself toward him from one piece of furniture to another with his serious eyes fixed steadily upon him, and crawled the last part of the way. Whenever he was set down, he instantly steered for Pelle; he would come crawling in right from the kitchen, and would not stop until he stood on his feet by Pelle's leg, looking up at him. "See how fond he is of you already!" said Ellen tenderly, as she put him down in the middle of the floor to try him. "Take him up!" Pelle obeyed mechanically; he had no personal feeling for this child; it was indeed no child, but the accusation of a grown-up person that came crawling toward him. And there stood Ellen with as tender an expression as if it were her own baby! Pelle could not understand how it was that she did not despise him; he was ashamed whenever he thought of his struggle to reconcile himself to this "little cuckoo." It was a good thing he had said so little!

His inability to be as naturally kind to the child as she was tormented him; and when, on Sat.u.r.day evening, she had bathed Boy Comfort and then sat with him on her lap, putting on his clean clothes, Pelle was overwhelmed with self-accusation. He had thoughtlessly trodden little Marie of the "Ark" underfoot, and she whom he had cast off when she most needed him, in return pa.s.sed her beneficent hand over his wrong-doing.

As though she were aware of his gloomy thoughts, she went to him and placed the warm, naked child in his arms, saying with a gentle smile: "Isn't he a darling?" Her heart was so large that he was almost afraid; she really took more interest in this child than in her own.

"I'm his mother, of course!" she said naturally. "You don't suppose he can do without a real mother, do you?"

Marie's fate lay like a shadow over Pelle's mind. He had to talk to Ellen about it in order to try to dispel it, but she did not see the fateful connection; she looked upon it as something that had to be. "You were so hunted and persecuted," she said quietly, "and you had no one to look to. So it had to happen like that. Marie told me all about it. It was no one's fault that she was not strong enough to bear children.

The doctor said there was a defect in her frame; she had an internal deformity." Alas! Ellen did not know how much a human being should be able to help, and she herself took much more upon her than she need.

There was, nevertheless, something soothing in these sober facts, although they told him nothing about the real thing. It is impossible to bear for long the burden of the irreparable, and Pelle was glad that Ellen dwelt so constantly and naturally on Marie's fate; it brought it within the range of ordinary things for him too. Marie had come to her when she could no longer hide her condition, and Ellen had taken her in and kept her until she went to the lying-in hospital. Marie knew quite well that she was going to die--she could feel it, as it were--and would sit and talk about it while she helped Ellen with her boot-sewing. She arranged everything as sensibly as an experienced mother.

"How old-fashioned she was, and yet so child-like!" Ellen would exclaim with emotion.

Pelle could not help thinking of his life in the "Ark" when little Marie kept house for him and her two brothers--a careful housekeeper of eleven years! She was deformed and yet had abundant possibilities within her; she resembled poverty itself. Infected by his young strength, she had shot up and unfolded into a fair maiden, at whom the young dandies turned to look when she went along the street to make her purchases. He had been anxious about her, alone and unprotected as she was; and yet it was he himself who had become the plunderer of the poor, defenceless girl. Why had he not carried his cross alone, instead of accepting the love of a being who gave herself to him in grat.i.tude for his gift to her of the joy of life? Why had he been obliged, in a difficult moment, to take his gift back? Boy Comfort she had called her boy in her innocent goodness of heart, in order that Pelle should be really fond of him; but it was a dearly-bought Comfort that cost the life of another! For Pelle the child was almost an accusation.

There was much to settle up and some things that could not be arranged!

Pelle sometimes found it burdensome enough to be responsible for himself.

About this time Morten was often in his thoughts. "Morten has disappointed me at any rate," he thought; "he could not bear my prosperity!" This was a point on which Pelle had right upon his side!

Morten must come to him if they were to have anything more to do with one another. Pelle bore no malice, but it was reasonable and just that the one who was on the top should first hold out his hand.