Pelle the Conqueror Part 145

"Good-morning, shoemaker!" he cried. A yellow, oblique-eyed oriental in slippers and long black caftan was balancing himself carelessly on the steps of the bas.e.m.e.nt milk-shop with a bowl of cream in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other. Above on the pavement two boys were playing hopscotch, just below the large red lamp which all night long advertised its "corn-operator" right up to the main thoroughfare. Two girls in cycling costume came out of a gateway with their machines; they were going to the woods. "Good-day, Pelle! How is Ellen's business getting on?" they asked familiarly. They were girls for whom she had washed.

Pelle was fond of this busy part of the town where new shops with large plate-gla.s.s windows stood side by side with low-roofed cottages where retail business was carried on behind ordinary windows with wallflowers and dahlias in them as they might be in any provincial town. A string was stretched above the flower-pots, with a paper of safety-pins or a bundle of shoelaces hanging from it. There were poor people enough here, but life did not run in such hard grooves as out at Norrebro. People took existence more easily; he thought them less honorable, but also less self-righteous. They seemed to be endowed with a more cheerful temperament, did not go so steadily and methodically to and from their fixed work, but, on the other hand, had several ways of making a living.

There was everywhere a feeling of breaking up, which corresponded well with Pelle's own condition; the uncertainty of life enveloped everything in a peculiarly tense atmosphere. Poverty did not come marching in close columns of workmen; its clothing was plentiful and varied; it might appear in the last woollen material from the big houses of old Copenhagen, or in gold-rimmed spectacles and high hat. Pelle thought he knew all the trades, but here there were hundreds of businesses that could not be organized; every day he discovered new and remarkable trades. He remembered how difficult it had been to organize out here; life was too incalculable.

There was room here for everything; next door to one another lived people whom the Movement had not yet gathered in, and people who had been pushed up out of it in obstinate defiance. There was room here for him too; the shadow he had dreaded did not follow him. The people had seen too much of life to interfere in one another's affairs; respectable citizenship had not been able to take possession of the poor man. There was something of the "Ark" about this part of the town, only not its hopelessness; on the contrary, all possibilities were to be found here.

The poor man had conquered this ground from the rich citizens, and it seemed as if the development had got its direction from them. Here it was the proletariat whose varied nature forced its way upward, and leavened--so to speak--the whole. In the long side streets, which were full of second-hand dealers and p.a.w.nbrokers, existence had not resolved itself into its various const.i.tuents. Girls and gamblers were next-door neighbors to old, peaceable townsfolk, who lived soberly on the interest of their money, and went to church every Sunday with their hymn-books in their hands. The ironmonger had gold watches and antique articles among the lumber in his cellar.

Pelle went along Vesterbro Street. The summer holidays were just over, and the pavement on the Figaro side was crowded with sunburnt people--business-men, students and college girls--who were conspicuous in the throng by their high spirits. They had just returned to town, and still had the scent of fresh breeze and sh.o.r.e about them: it was almost as good as a walk in the country. And if he wanted to go farther out into the world, he could do that too; there were figures enough in the Vesterbro neighborhood to arrest his fancy and carry him forth. It was like a quay on which people from all parts of the world had agreed to meet--artists, seamen and international agents. Strange women came sailing through the crowd, large, exotic, like hot-house fruits; Pelle recognized them from the picture of the second-hand dealer's daughter in the "Ark," and knew that they belonged to the international nursing corps. They wore striped costumes, and their thick, fair hair emitted a perfume of foreign lands, of many ports and routes, like the interior of steamers; and their strong, placid faces were big with ma.s.sage. They floated majestically down the current like full-rigged vessels. In their wake followed some energetic little beings who also belonged to the show, and had decked themselves out to look like children, with puffed sleeves, short skirts, and hair tied up with ribbons. Feeble old men, whom the sun had enticed out, stood in silent wonder, following the lovely children with their eyes.

Pelle felt a peculiar pleasure in being carried along with this stream which flowed like life itself, broad and calm. The world was greater than he had thought, and he took no side for or against anything, but merely wondered over its variety.

He came home from the library at two, with a large volume of statistics under his arm. Ellen received him with red eyes.

"Have your lodgers been making things unpleasant for you again?" he asked, looking into her face. She turned her head away.

"Did you get the money for your work?" she asked instead of answering.

"No, the man wasn't in the shop himself. They're coming here to pay."

"Then we haven't got a farthing, and I've got no dinner for you!" She tried to smile as she spoke, but her heavy eyelids quivered.

"Is that all?" said Pelle, putting his arm round her. "Why didn't you make me some porridge? I should have liked a good plateful of that."

"I have made it, but you'll get hardly anything else, and that's no food for a man."

He took her round the waist with both hands, lifted her up and put her carefully down upon the kitchen table. "That's porridge, my dear!" he said merrily. "I can hardly walk, I'm so strong!"

But there was no smile to be coaxed out of Ellen; something had happened that she did not want to tell him. At last he got out of her that the two musical clowns had gone off without paying. They had spoiled her good bed-clothes by lying in them with their clothes on, and had made them so filthy that nothing could be done with them. She was unwilling to tell Pelle, because he had once advised her against it; but all at once she gave in completely. "You mustn't laugh at me!" she sobbed, hiding her face on his shoulder.

Pelle attempted to comfort her, but it was not so easily done. It was not the one misfortune but the whole fiasco that had upset her so; she had promised herself so much from her great plan. "It isn't all lost yet," he said to comfort her. "We'll just keep on and you'll see it'll be all right."

Ellen was not to be hoodwinked, however. "You know you don't mean it,"

she said angrily. "You only say it because of me! And the second-hand dealer sent up word this morning that if he didn't soon get the rest of his money, he'd take all the furniture back again."

"Then let him take it, and that'll be an end of the matter."

"But then we shall lose all that we've paid!" she exclaimed quickly, drying her eyes.

Pelle shrugged his shoulders. "That can't be helped."

"Wouldn't it be better to get the things sold little by little? We only owe a third on them."

"We can't do that; it's punishable. We've got a contract for the hire of the furniture, and as long as we owe a farthing on it, it's his. But we're well and strong all of us; what does it matter?"

"That's true enough," answered Ellen, trying to smile, "but the stronger we are, the more food we need."

A girl came running up with a pair of boots that were to be soled as quickly as possible. They were "Queen Theresa's," and she was going to wear them in the evening. "That'll bring us in a few pence!" said Ellen, brightening. "I'll help you to get them done quickly."

They seated themselves one on each side of the counter, and set to work.

It reminded them of the early days of their married life. Now and then they stopped to laugh, when Ellen had forgotten some knack. In an hour and a half the boots were ready, and Pelle went himself with them to make sure of the money.

"You'll most likely find her in the tavern," said Ellen. "The artistes generally have their dinner at this hour, and she's probably there."

It was a busy time in the artistes' restaurant. At the small tables sat bony, close-cropped men of a peculiar rubicund type, having dinner with some girl or other from the neighborhood. They were acrobats, clowns, and wrestlers, people of a h.o.m.ogeneous type, dressed in loud checks, with enormous cuffs and boots with almost armor-plated toes. They chewed well and looked up stupidly at the call of the girls; they wore a hard, brutal mask for a face, and big diamond rings on their fingers. Some of them had such a powerful lower jaw that they looked as if they had developed it for the purpose of taking blows in a boxing-match. In the adjoining room some elegant young men were playing billiards while they secretly kept an eye on what was going on at the tables. They had curls on their forehead, and patent leather shoes.

"Queen Theresa" was not there, so Pelle went to Dannebrog Street, where she lived, but found she was not at home. He had to hand in the boots to a neighbor, and go back empty-handed.

Well, it was no more than might have been expected. When you needed a thing most, chance played with you as a cat played with a mouse. Pelle was not nearly so cheerful as he appeared to be when he faced Ellen. The reality was beginning to affect him. He went out to Morten, but without any faith in the result; Morten had many uses for what he earned.

"You've just come at the right moment!" said Morten, waving two notes in the air. "I've just had twenty krones (a guinea) sent me from _The Working Man_, and we can divide them. It's the first money I've got from that quarter, so of course I've spat upon it three times."

"Then they've found their way to you, after all!" exclaimed Pelle joyfully.

Morten laughed. "I got tired of seeing my work repeated in their paper,"

he said, "when they'll have nothing to do with me up there; and I went up to them and drew their attention to the paragraph about piracy. You should have seen their expression! Goodness knows it's not pleasant to have to earn your bread on wretchedness, so to speak, but it's still more painful when afterward you have to beg for your hard-earned pence.

You mustn't think I should do it either under other circ.u.mstances; I'd sooner starve; but at any rate I won't be sweated, by my own side! It's a long time since you were here."

"I've been so busy. How's Johanna?" The last words were spoken in a whisper.

"Not well just now; she's keeping her bed. She's always asking after you."

"I've been very busy lately, and unfortunately I can't find out anything about her. Is she just as cross?"

"When she's in a bad temper she lets me understand that she could easily help to put us on the right track if she wanted to. I think it amuses her to see us fooled."

"A child can't be so knowing!"

"Don't be so sure of that! Remember she's not a child; her experiences have been too terrible. I have an idea that she hates me and only meditates on the mischief she can do me. You can't imagine how spiteful she can be; it's as though the exhalations from down there had turned to poison in her. If any one comes here that she notices I like, she reviles them as soon as they're gone, says some poisonous thing about them in order to wound me. You're the only one she spares, so I think there must be some secret link between you. Try to press her on the subject once more."

They went in to her. As the door opened she slipped hastily down beneath the clothes--she had been listening at the door--and pretended to be asleep. Morten went back to his work and closed the door after him.

"Well, Johanna," said Pelle, seating himself on the edge of the bed.

"I've got a message for you. Can you guess who it's from?"

"From grandmother!" she exclaimed, sitting up eagerly; but the next moment she was ashamed at having been outwitted, and crept down under the clothes, where she lay with compressed lips, and stole distrustful glances at Pelle. There was something in the glance and the carriage of her head that awakened dormant memories in him, but he could not fix them.

"No, not grandmother," he said. "By-the-bye, where is she now? I should like to speak to her. Couldn't you go out to her with me when you get well?"

She looked at him with sparkling eyes and a mocking expression. "Don't you wish you may get it!" she answered.

"Tell me where she lives, Johanna," Pelle went on, taking her thin hand in his, "there's a good girl!"

"Oh, yes, at night!"

Pelle frowned. "You must be very heartless, when you can leave your old grandmother and not even like others to help her. I'm certain she's in want somewhere or other."