Pelle the Conqueror Part 65

"Of the world?" says Pelle, in a contemptuous tone. "I want to go out into the world and see things--what's in the books is only lies. But go on."

And Morten goes on, good-natured as always. And in the midst of his narrative something suddenly occurs to him, and he pulls a paper packet from his breast-pocket: "That's chocolate from Bodil," he says, and breaks the stick in two.

"Where had she put it?" asks Pelle.

"Under the sheet--I felt something hard under my back when I lay down."

The boys laugh, while they nibble at the chocolate. Suddenly Pelle says: "Bodil, she's a child-seducer! She enticed Hans Peter away from Stone Farm--and he was only fifteen!"

Morten does not reply; but after a time his head sinks on Pelle's shoulder--his body is twitching.

"Well, you are seventeen," says Pelle, consoling. "But it's silly all the same; she might well be your mother--apart from her age." And they both laugh.

It can be still cozier on work-day evenings. Then the fire is burning openly in the stove, even after eight o'clock, and the lamp is shining, and Morten is there again. People come from all directions and look in for a moment's visit, and the cold, an impediment to everything else, awakens all sorts of notable reminiscences. It is as though the world itself comes creeping into the workshop. Jeppe conjures up his apprentice years in the capital, and tells of the great bankruptcy; he goes right back to the beginning of the century, to a wonderful old capital where the old people wore wigs, and the rope's-end was always at hand and the apprentices just kept body and soul together, begging on Sundays before the doors of the townsfolk. Ah, those were times! And he comes home and wants to settle down as master, but the guild won't accept him; he is too young. So he goes to sea as cook, and comes to places down south where the sun burns so fiercely that the pitch melts in the seams and the deck scorches one's feet. They are a merry band, and Jeppe, little as he is, by no means lags behind the rest. In Malaga they storm a tavern, throw all the Spaniards out of the window, and sport with the girls--until the whole town falls upon them and they have to fly to their boat. Jeppe cannot keep up with them, and the boat shoves off, so that he has to jump into the water and swim for it.

Knives fall splashing about him in the water, and one sticks shivering in his shoulder-blades. When Jeppe comes to this he always begins to strip his back to show the scar, and Master Andres holds him back. Pelle and Morten have heard the story many a time, but they are willing always to hear it again.

And Baker Jorgen, who for the greater part of his life has been a seaman on the big vessels sailing the northern and southern oceans, talks about capstans and icebergs and beautiful black women from the West Indies. He sets the capstan turning, so that the great three-master makes sail out of the Havana roadstead, and all his hearers feel their hearts grow light.

"Heave ho, the capstan, Waltz her well along!

Leave the girl a-weeping, Strike up the song!"

So they walk round and round, twelve men with their b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against the heavy capstan-bars; the anchor is weighed, and the sail fills with the wind--and behind and through his words gleam the features of a sweetheart in every port. Bjerregrav cannot help crossing himself--he who has never accomplished anything, except to feel for the poor; but in the young master's eyes everybody travels--round and round the world, round and round the world. And Wooden-leg La.r.s.en, who in winter is quite the well-to-do pensioner, in blue pilot-coat and fur cap, leaves his pretty, solidly-built cottage when the Spring comes, and sallies forth into the world as a poor organ-grinder--he tells them of the Zoological Gardens on the hill, and the adventurous Holm-Street, and of extraordinary beings who live upon the dustbins in the back-yards of the capital.

But Pelle's body creaks whenever he moves; his bones are growing and seeking to stretch themselves; he feels growth and restlessness in every part and corner of his being. He is the first to whom the Spring comes; one day it announces itself in him in the form of a curiosity as to what his appearance is like. Pelle has never asked himself this question before; and the sc.r.a.p of looking-gla.s.s which he begged from the glazier from whom he fetches the gla.s.s sc.r.a.pers tells him nothing truly. He has at bottom a feeling that he is an impossible person.

He begins to give heed to the opinions of others respecting his outward appearance; now and again a girl looks after him, and his cheeks are no longer so fat that people can chaff him about them. His fair hair is wavy; the lucky curl on his forehead is still visible as an obstinate little streak; but his ears are still terribly big, and it is of no use to pull his cap over them, in order to press them close to his head. But he is tall and well-grown for his age, and the air of the workshop has been powerless to spoil his ruddy complexion; and he is afraid of nothing in the world--particularly when he is angry. He thinks out a hundred different kinds of exercise in order to satisfy the demands of his body, but it is of no use. If he only bends over his hammer-work he feels it in every joint of his body.

And then one day the ice breaks and goes out to sea. Ships are fitted out again, and provisioned, and follow the ice, and the people of the town awake to the idea of a new life, and begin to think of green woods and summer clothing.

And one day the fishing-boats arrive! They come gliding across from h.e.l.lavik and Nogesund on the Swedish coast. They cut swiftly through the water, heeling far over under their queer lateen sails, like hungry sea-birds that sweep the waves with one wing-tip in their search for booty. A mile to seaward the fishermen of the town receive them with gunshots; they have no permission to anchor in the fishing port, but have to rent moorings for themselves in the old ship's harbor, and to spread out the gear to dry toward the north. The craftsmen of the town come flocking down to the harbor, discussing the foreign thieves who have come from a poorer country in order to take the bread out of the mouths of the townsfolk; for they are inured to all weathers, and full of courage, and are successful in their fishing. They say the same things every Spring, but when they want to buy herrings they deal with the Swedes, who sell more cheaply than the Bornholmers. "Perhaps our fishermen wear leather boots?" inquires Jeppe. "No, they wear wooden shoes week-days and Sunday alike. Let the wooden-shoe makers deal with them--I buy where the fish is cheapest!"

It is as though the Spring in person has arrived with these thin, sinewy figures, who go singing through the streets, challenging the petty envy of the town. There are women, too, on every boat, to mend and clean the gear, and they pa.s.s the workshop in crowds, searching for their old lodgings in the poor part of the town near the "Great Power's" home.

Pelle's heart leaps at the sight of these young women, with pretty slippers on their feet, black shawls round their oval faces, and many fine colors in their dress. His mind is full of shadowy memories of his childhood, which have lain as quiet as though they were indeed extinguished; vague traditions of a time that he has experienced but can no longer remember; it is like a warm breath of air from another and unknown existence.

If it happens that one or another of these girls has a little child on her arm, then the town has something to talk about. Is it Merchant Lund again, as it was last year? Lund, who since then had been known only as "the Herring Merchant"? Or is it some sixteen-year-old apprentice, a scandal to his pastor and schoolmaster, whose hands he has only just left?

Then Jens goes forth with his concertina, and Pelle makes haste with his tidying up, and he and Morten hurry up to Gallows Hill, hand-in-hand, for Morten finds it difficult to run so quickly. All that the town possesses of reckless youth is there; but the Swedish girls take the lead. They dance and whirl until their slippers fly off, and little battles are fought over them. But on Sat.u.r.days the boats do not go to sea; then the men turn up, with smouldering brows, and claim their women, and then there is great slaughter.

Pelle enters into it all eagerly; here he finds an opportunity of that exercise of which his handicraft deprives his body. He hungers for heroic deeds, and presses so close to the fighters that now and again he gets a blow himself. He dances with Morten, and plucks up courage to ask one of the girls to dance with him; he is shy, and dances like a leaping kid in order to banish his shyness; and in the midst of the dance he takes to his heels and leaves the girl standing there. "d.a.m.ned silly!"

say the onlookers, and he hears them laughing behind him. He has a peculiar manner of entering into all this recklessness which lets the body claim its due without thought for the following day and the following year. If some man-hunting young woman tries to capture his youth he lashes out behind, and with a few wanton leaps he is off and away. But he loves to join in the singing when the men and women go homeward with closely-twined arms, and he and Morten follow them, they too with their arms about each other. Then the moon builds her bridge of light across the sea, and in the pinewood, where a white mist lies over the tree-tops, a song rises from every path, heard as a lulling music in the haunts of the wandering couples; insistently melancholy in its meaning, but issuing from the lightest hearts. It is just the kind of song to express their happiness.

"Put up, put up thy golden hair; A son thou'lt have before a year-- No help in thy clamor and crying!

In forty weeks may'st look for me.

I come to ask how it fares with thee.

The forty weeks were left behind.

And sad she was and sick of mind, And fell to her clamor and crying--"

And the song continues as they go through the town, couple after couple, wandering as they list. The quiet winding closes ring with songs of love and death, so that the old townsfolk lift their heads from their pillows, and, their nightcaps pushed to one side, wag gravely at all this frivolity. But youth knows nothing of this; it plunges reveling onward, with its surging blood. And one day the old people have the best of it; the blood surges no longer, but there they are, and there are the consequences, and the consequences demand paternity and maintenance.

"Didn't we say so?" cry the old folk; but the young ones hang their heads, and foresee a long, crippled existence, with a hasty marriage or continual payments to a strange woman, while all through their lives a shadow of degradation and ridicule clings to them; both their wives and their company must be taken from beneath them. They talk no longer of going out into the world and making their way; they used to strut arrogantly before the old folk and demand free play for their youth, but now they go meekly in harness with hanging heads, and blink shamefacedly at the mention of their one heroic deed. And those who cannot endure their fate must leave the country secretly and by night, or swear themselves free.

The young master has his own way of enjoying himself. He takes no part in the chase after the girls; but when the sunlight is really warm, he sits before the workshop window and lets it warm his back. "Ah, that's glorious!" he says, shaking himself. Pelle has to feel his fur jacket to see how powerful the sun is. "Thank G.o.d, now we have the spring here!"

Inside the workshop they whistle and sing to the hammer-strokes; there are times when the dark room sounds like a bird-shop. "Thank G.o.d, now we have the spring!" says Master Andres over and over again, "but the messenger of spring doesn't seem to be coming this year."

"Perhaps he is dead," says little Nikas.

"Garibaldi dead? Good Lord! he won't die just yet. All the years I can remember he has looked just as he does now and has drunk just as hard.

Lord of my body! but how he has boozed in his time, the rascal! But you won't find his equal as a shoemaker all the world over."

One morning, soon after the arrival of the steamer, a thin, tall, sharp-shouldered man comes ducking through the workshop door. His hands and face are blue with the cold of the morning and his cheeks are rather baggy, but in his eyes burns an undying fire. "Morning, comrades!" he says, with a genial wave of the hand. "Well, how's life treating us?

Master well?" He dances into the workshop, his hat pressed flat under his left arm. His coat and trousers flap against his body, revealing the fact that he is wearing nothing beneath them; his feet are thrust bare into his shoes, and he wears a thick kerchief round his neck. But such a manner and a carriage in a craftsman Pelle has never seen in all his days; and Garibaldi's voice alone is like a bell.

"Now, my son," he says, and strikes Pelle lightly on the shoulder, "can you fetch me something to drink? Just a little, now at once, for I'm murderously thirsty. The master has credit! Pst! We'll have the bottleful--then you needn't go twice."

Pelle runs. In half a minute he is back again. Garibaldi knows how to do things quickly; he has already tied his ap.r.o.n, and is on the point of pa.s.sing his opinion on the work in the workshop. He takes the bottle from Pelle, throws it over his shoulder, catches it with the other hand, sets his thumb against the middle of the bottle, and drinks. Then he shows the bottle to the others. "Just to the thumbnail, eh?"

"I call that smart drinking!" says little Nikas.

"It can be done though the night is black as a crow"; Garibaldi waves his hand in a superior manner. "And old Jeppe is alive still? A smart fellow!"

Master Andres strikes on the wall. "He has come in--he is there!" he says, with his wide-opened eyes. After a time he slips into his clothes and comes out into the workshop; he hangs about gossiping, but Garibaldi is sparing of his words; he is still rusty after the night voyage.

A certain feverishness has affected them all; an anxiety lest anything should escape them. No one regards his daily work with aversion to-day; everybody exerts his capacities to the utmost. Garibaldi comes from the great world, and the spirit of adventure and the wandering life exhales from his flimsy clothes.

"If he'll only begin to tell us about it," whispers Pelle to Jens; he cannot sit still. They hang upon his lips, gazing at him; if he is silent it is the will of Providence. Even the master does not bother him, but endures his taciturnity and little Nikas submits to being treated like an apprentice.

Garibaldi raises his head. "Well, one didn't come here to sit about and idle!" he cries gaily. "Plenty to do, master?"

"There's not much doing here, but we've always work for you," replies Master Andres. "Besides, we've had an order for a pair of wedding-shoes, white satin with yellow st.i.tching; but we haven't properly tackled it."

He gives little Nikas a meaning glance.

"No yellow st.i.tching with white satin, master; white silk, of course, and white edges."

"Is that the Paris fashion?" asks Master Andres eagerly. Garibaldi shrugs his shoulders. "Don't let us speak of Paris, Master Andres; here we have neither the leather nor the tools to make Parisian shoes; and we haven't the legs to put into them, either."

"The deuce! Are they so fashionable?"

"Fashionable! I should say so! I can hold the foot of a well-grown Parisian woman in the hollow of my hand. And when they walk they don't touch the pavement! You could make shoes for a Parisian girl out of whipped cream, and they'd hold together! If you were to fit her with a pair of ordinary woman's beetle-crushers she'd jump straight into the sewer!"

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned!" The master is hastily cutting some leather to shape.

"The devil she would!"

Never did any one make himself at home more easily; Garibaldi draws a seat up to the table and is at once in full swing. No rummaging about after tools; his hand finds his way to the exact spot where the thing required lies, as though an invisible track lay between them. These hands do everything of themselves, quietly, with gentle movements, while the eyes are elsewhere; gazing out into the garden, or examining the young master, or the work of the apprentices. To Pelle and the others, who always have to look at everything from every side in turn, this is absolutely marvelous. And before they have had time to look round Garibaldi has put everything in order, and is sitting there working and looking across the room at the master, who is himself sewing to-day.

And then Jeppe comes tumbling in, annoyed that no one has told him of Garibaldi's arrival. "'Day, master--'day, craft-master!" says Garibaldi, who stands up and bows.

"Yes," says Jeppe self-consciously, "if there were craft-masters still, I should be one. But manual work is in a wretched case to-day; there's no respect for it, and where shall a man look for respect if he doesn't respect himself?"

"That's meant for the young master, eh?" says Garibaldi laughing. "But times have altered, Master Jeppe; knee-straps and respect have given out; yes, those days are over! Begin at seven, and at six off and away!