Pelle the Conqueror Part 48

But the funniest thing was that the tailor had forgotten to b.u.t.ton up the flap of his black mourning-breeches, so that it hung over his knees like an ap.r.o.n. Pelle was not quite sure that the journeyman had noticed this.

"Bjerregrav has forgotten--"

"Hold your jaw." Little Nikas made a movement backward, and Pelle ducked his head and pressed his hand tightly to his mouth.

Over in Staal Street there was a great uproar; an enormously fat woman was standing there quarrelling with two seamen. She was in her nightcap and petticoat, and Pelle knew her.

"That's the Sow!" he began. "She's a dreadful woman; up at Stone Farm----"

_Smack!_ Little Nikas gave him such a box on the ear that he had to sit down on the woodcarver's steps. "One, two, three, four--that's it; now come on!" He counted ten steps forward and set off again. "But G.o.d help you if you don't keep your distance!"

Pelle kept his distance religiously, but he instantly discovered that little Nikas, like old Jeppe, had too large a posterior. That certainly came of sitting too much--and it twisted one's loins. He protruded his own b.u.t.tocks as far as he could, smoothed down a crease in his jacket over his hips, raised himself elegantly upon the b.a.l.l.s of his feet and marched proudly forward, one hand thrust into the breast of his coat. If the journeyman scratched himself, Pelle did the same--and he swayed his body in the same buoyant manner; his cheeks were burning, but he was highly pleased with himself.

Directly he was his own master he went the round of the country butchers, questioning them, in the hope of hearing some news of La.s.se, but no one could tell him anything. He went from cart to cart, asking his questions. "La.s.se Karlson?" said one. "Ah, he was cowherd up at Stone Farm!" Then he called to another, asking him about La.s.se--the old cowherd at Stone Farm--and he again called to a third, and they all gathered about the carts, in order to talk the matter over. There were men here who travelled all over the island [Bornholm] in order to buy cattle; they knew everything and everybody, but they could tell him nothing of La.s.se. "Then he's not in the island," said one, very decidedly. "You must get another father, my lad!"

Pelle did not feel inclined for chaff, so he slipped away. Besides, he must go back and get to work; the young master, who was busily going from cart to cart, ordering meat, had called to him. They hung together like the halves of a pea-pod when it was a question of keeping the apprentices on the curb, although otherwise they were jealous enough of one another.

Bjerregrav's crutch stood behind the door, and he himself sat in stiff funereal state by the window; he held a folded white handkerchief in his folded hands, and was diligently mopping his eyes.

"Was he perhaps a relation of yours?" said the young master slyly.

"No; but it is so sad for those who are left--a wife and children. There is always some one to mourn and regret the dead. Man's life is a strange thing, Andres."

"Ah, and potatoes are bad this year, Bjerregrav!"

Neighbor Jorgen filled up the whole doorway. "Lord, here we have that blessed Bjerregrav!" he shouted; "and in state, too! What's on to-day then--going courting, are you?"

"I've been following!" answered Bjerregrav, in a hushed voice.

The big baker made an involuntary movement; he did not like being unexpectedly reminded of death. "You, Bjerregrav, you ought to be a hea.r.s.e-driver; then at least you wouldn't work to no purpose!"

"It isn't to no purpose when they are dead," stammered Bjerregrav. "I am not so poor that I need much, and there is no one who stands near to me.

No living person loses anything because I follow those who die. And then I know them all, and I've followed them all in thought since they were born," he added apologetically.

"If only you got invited to the funeral feast and got something of all the good things they have to eat," continued the baker, "I could understand it better."

"The poor widow, who sits there with her four little ones and doesn't know how she's to feed them--to take food from her--no, I couldn't do it! She's had to borrow three hundred kroner so that her man could have a respectable funeral party."

"That ought to be forbidden by law," said Master Andres; "any one with little children hasn't the right to throw away money on the dead."

"She is giving her husband the last honors," said Jeppe reprovingly.

"That is the duty of every good wife."

"Of course," rejoined Master Andres. "G.o.d knows, something must be done.

It's like the performances on the other side of the earth, where the widow throws herself on the funeral pyre when the husband dies, and has to be burned to death."

Baker Jorgen scratched his thighs and grimaced. "You are trying to get us to swallow one of your stinking lies, Andres. You'd never get a woman to do that, if I know anything of womankind."

But Bjerregrav knew that the shoemaker was not lying, and fluttered his thin hands in the air, as though he were trying to keep something invisible from touching his body. "G.o.d be thanked that we came into the world on this island here," he said, in a low voice. "Here only ordinary things happen, however wrongheaded they may be."

"What puzzles me is where she got all that money!" said the baker.

"She's borrowed it, of course," said Bjerregrav, in a tone of voice that made it clear that he wanted to terminate the conversation.

Jeppe retorted contemptuously, "Who's going to lend a poor mate's widow three hundred kroner? He might as well throw it into the sea right away."

But Baker Jorgen gave Bjerregrav a great smack on the back. "You've given her the money, it's you has done it; n.o.body else would be such a silly sheep!" he said threateningly.

"You let me be!" stammered Bjerregrav. "I've done nothing to you! And she has had one happy day in the midst of all her sorrow." His hands were trembling.

"You're a goat!" said Jeppe shortly.

"What is Bjerregrav really thinking about when he stands like this looking down into the grave?" asked the young master, in order to divert the conversation.

"I am thinking: Now you are lying there, where you are better off than here," said the old tailor simply.

"Yes, because Bjerregrav follows only poor people," said Jeppe, rather contemptuously.

"I can't help it, but I'm always thinking," continued Master Andres; "just supposing it were all a take-in! Suppose he follows them and enjoys the whole thing--and then there's nothing! That's why I never like to see a funeral."

"Ah, you see, that's the question--supposing there's nothing." Baker Jorgen turned his thick body. "Here we go about imagining a whole lot of things; but what if it's all just lies?"

"That's the mind of an unbeliever!" said Jeppe, and stamped violently on the floor.

"G.o.d preserve my mind from unbelief!" retorted brother Jorgen, and he stroked his face gravely. "But a man can't very well help thinking. And what does a man see round about him? Sickness and death and halleluiah!

We live, and we live, I tell you, Brother Jeppe--and we live in order to live! But, good heavens! all the poor things that aren't born yet!"

He sank into thought again, as was usual with him when he thought of Little Jorgen, who refused to come into the world and a.s.sume his name and likeness, and carry on after him.... There lay his belief; there was nothing to be done about it. And the others began to speak in hushed voices, in order not to disturb his memories.

Pelle, who concerned himself with everything in heaven and earth, had been absorbing every word that was spoken with his protruding ears, but when the conversation turned upon death he yawned. He himself had never been seriously ill, and since Mother Bengta died, death had never encroached upon his world. And that was lucky for him, as it would have been a case of all or nothing, for he had only Father La.s.se. For Pelle the cruel hands of death hardly existed, and he could not understand how people could lay themselves down with their noses in the air; there was so much to observe here below--the town alone kept one busy.

On the very first evening he had run out to look for the other boys, just where the crowd was thickest. There was no use in waiting; Pelle was accustomed to take the bull by the horns, and he longed to be taken into favor.

"What sort of brat is that?" they said, flocking round him.

"I'm Pelle," he said, standing confidently in the midst of the group, and looking at them all. "I have been at Stone Farm since I was eight, and that is the biggest farm in the north country." He had put his hands in his pockets, and spat coolly in front of him, for that was nothing to what he had in reserve.

"Oh, so you're a farmer chap, then!" said one, and the others laughed.

Rud was among them.

"Yes," said Pelle; "and I've done a bit of ploughing, and mowing fodder for the calves."

They winked at one another. "Are you really a farmer chap?"

"Yes, truly," replied Pelle, perplexed; they had spoken the word in a tone which he now remarked.

They all burst out laughing: "He confesses it himself. And he comes from the biggest farm in the country. Then he's the biggest farmer in the country!"

"No, the farmer was called Kongstrup," said Pelle emphatically. "I was only the herd-boy."