Pelle the Conqueror Part 77

Raging, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a bottle. "Will you hold your tongue with your jeering? Or you'll get this on the head!" Her greasy features seemed to run together in her excitement.

They let her be, and she sat there sobbing, her hands before her face. "Is your father still alive?" she asked. "Then give him my respects--just say the Sow sends her respects--you can safely call me the Sow!--and tell him he's the only person in the world I have to thank for anything. He thought well of me, and he brought me the news of mother's death."

Pelle sat there listening with constraint to her tearful speech, with an empty smile. He had knives in his bowels, he was so empty, and the beer was going to his head. He remembered all the details of Stone Farm, where he had first seen and heard the Sow, just as Father La.s.se had recalled her home and her childhood to her. But he did not connect any further ideas with that meeting; it was a long time ago, and--"isn't she going to give me anything to eat?" he thought, and listened unsympathetically to her heavy breathing.

The sailors sat looking at her constrainedly; a solemn silence lay on their mist-wreathed faces; they were like drunken men standing about a grave. "Give over washing the decks now--and get us something to drink!"

an old fellow said suddenly. "Each of us knows what it is to have times of childish innocence come back to him, and I say it's a jolly fine thing when they will peep through the door at old devils like us! But let the water stop overboard now, I say! The more one scours an old barge the more damage comes to light! So, give us something to drink now, and then the cards, ma'am!"

She stood up and gave them what they asked for; she had mastered her emotion, but her legs were still heavy.

"That's right--and then we've got a sort of idea that to-day is Sunday!

Show us your skill, ma'am, quick!"

"But that costs a krone, you know!" she said, laughing.

They collected the money and she went behind the bar and undressed. She reappeared in her chemise, with a burning candle in her hand....

Pelle slipped out. He was quite dizzy with hunger and a dull feeling of shame. He strolled on at random, not knowing what he did. He had only one feeling--that everything in the world was indifferent to him, whatever happened--whether he went on living in laborious honesty, or defiled himself with drinking, or perished--it was all one to him! What was the good of it all? No one cared what happened to him--not even he himself. Not a human soul would miss him if he went to the dogs--but yes, there was La.s.se, Father La.s.se! But as for going home now and allowing them to see him in all his wretchedness--when they had expected such unreasonable things of him--no, he could not do it! The last remnants of shame protested against it. And to work--what at? His dream was dead. He stood there with a vague feeling that he had come to the very edge of the abyss, which is so ominous to those in the depths.

Year in, year out, he had kept himself by his never-flagging exertions, and with the demented idea that he was mounting upward. And now he stood very near the lowest depth of life--the very bottom. And he was so tired. Why not let himself sink yet a little further; why not let destiny run its course? There would be a seductive repose in the acts, after his crazy struggle against the superior powers.

The sound of a hymn aroused him slightly. He had come down a side-street, and right in front of him stood a wide, lofty building, with the gable facing the street and a cross on the point of the gable.

Hundreds of voices had sought, in the course of the years, to entice him hither; but in his arrogance he had had no use for spiritual things.

What was there here for a smart youngster? And now he was stranded outside! And now he felt a longing for a little care, and he had a feeling that a hand had led him hither.

The hall was quite filled with poor families. They were packed amazingly close together on the benches, each family by itself; the men, as a rule, were asleep, and the women had all they could do to quiet their children, and to make them sit politely with their legs sticking out in front of them. These were people who had come to enjoy a little light and warmth, free of cost, in the midst of their desolate lives; on Sundays, at least, they thought, they could ask for a little of these things. They were the very poorest of the poor, and they sought refuge here, where they would not be persecuted, and where they were promised their part in the millennium. Pelle knew them all, both those whom he had seen before and those others, who wore the same expression, as of people drowned in the ocean of life. He soon found himself cozily settled among all these dishevelled nestlings, whom the pitiless wind had driven oversea, and who were now washed ash.o.r.e by the waves.

A tall man with a full beard and a pair of good child-like eyes stood up among the benches, beating the time of a hymn--he was Dam, the smith.

He led the singing, and as he stood there he bent his knees in time, and they all sang with him, with tremulous voices, each in his own key, of that which had pa.s.sed over them. The notes forced their way through the parched, worn throats, cowering, as though afraid, now that they had flown into the light. Hesitatingly they unfurled their fragile, gauzy wings, and floated out into the room, up from the quivering lips.

And under the roof they met with their hundreds of sisters, and their defilement fell from them. They became a jubilation, loud and splendid, over some unknown treasure, over the kingdom of happiness, that was close at hand. To Pelle it seemed that the air must be full of b.u.t.terflies winged with sunshine:

"O blessed, blessed shall we be When we, from care and mis'ry free, The splendor of Thy kingdom see, And with our Saviour come to Thee!"

"Mother, I'm hungry!" said a child's voice, as the hymn was followed by silence. The mother, herself emaciated, silenced the child with a shocked expression, and looked wonderingly about her. What a stupid idea of the child's! "You've just had your food!" she said loudly, as though she had been comfortably off. But the child went on crying: "Mother, I'm so hungry!"

Then Baker Jorgen's Soren came by, and gave the child a roll. He had a whole basket full of bread. "Are there any more children who are hungry?" he asked aloud. He looked easily in people's faces, and was quite another creature to what he was at home; here no one laughed at him, and no one whispered that he was the brother of his own son.

An old white-bearded man mounted the pulpit at the back of the hall.

"That's him," was whispered in every direction, and they all hastened to clear their throats by coughing, and to induce the children to empty their mouths of food. He took the cry of the little one as his text: "Mother, I am so hungry!" That was the voice of the world--that great, terrible cry--put into the mouth of a child. He saw no one there who had not writhed at the sound of that cry on the lips of his own flesh and blood--no one who, lest he should hear it again, had not sought to secure bread during his lifetime--no one who had not been beaten back.

But they did not see G.o.d's hand when that hand, in its loving-kindness, changed that mere hunger for bread into a hunger for happiness. They were the poor, and the poor are G.o.d's chosen people. For that reason they must wander in the desert, and must blindly ask: "Where is the Promised Land?" But the gleam of which the faithful followed was not earthly happiness! G.o.d himself led them to and fro until their hunger was purged and became the true hunger--the hunger of the soul for eternal happiness!

They did not understand much of what he said; but his words set free something within them, so that they engaged in lively conversation over everyday things. But suddenly the buzz of conversation was silenced; a little hunchbacked man had clambered up on a bench and was looking them over with glittering eyes. This was Sort, the traveling shoemaker from the outer suburb.

"We want to be glad and merry," he said, a.s.suming a droll expression; "G.o.d's children are always glad, however much evil they have to fight against, and they can meet with no misfortune--G.o.d is Joy!" He began to laugh, as boisterously as a child, and they all laughed with him; one infected the next. They could not control themselves; it was as though an immense merriment had overwhelmed them all. The little children looked at the grown-ups and laughed, till their little throats began to cough with laughing. "He's a proper clown!" said the men to their wives, their own faces broad with laughter, "but he's got a good heart!"

On the bench next to Pelle sat a silent family, a man and wife and three children, who breathed politely through their raw little noses. The parents were little people, and there was a kind of inward deftness about them, as though they were continually striving to make themselves yet smaller. Pelle knew them a little, and entered into conversation with them. The man was a clay-worker, and they lived in one of the miserable huts near the "Great Power's" home.

"Yes, that is true--that about happiness," said the wife. "Once we too used to dream of getting on in the world a little, so that we might be sure of our livelihood; and we sc.r.a.ped a little money together, that some good people lent us, and we set up in a little shop, and I kept it while father went to work. But it wouldn't answer; no one supported us, and we got poorer goods because we were poor, and who cares about dealing with very poor people? We had to give it up, and we were deeply in debt, and we're still having to pay it off--fifty ore every week, and there we shall be as long as we live, for the interest is always mounting up. But we are honorable people, thank G.o.d!" she concluded. The man took no part in the conversation.

Her last remark was perhaps evoked by a man who had quietly entered the hall, and was now crouching on a bench in the background; for he was not an honorable man. He had lived on a convict's bread and water; he was "Thieving Jacob," who about ten years earlier had smashed in the window of Master Jeppe's best room and had stolen a pair of patent-leather shoes for his wife. He had heard of a rich man who had given his betrothed such a pair of shoes, and he wanted to see what it was like, just for once, to give a really fine present--a present worth as much as one would earn in two weeks. This he had explained before the court.

"Numbskull!" said Jeppe always, when the conversation touched upon Jacob; "for such a miserable louse suddenly to get a swollen head, to want to make big presents! And if it had been for his young woman even--but for his wife! No, he paid the penalty to the very last day--in spite of Andres."

Yes, he certainly had to pay the penalty! Even here no one would sit next to him! Pelle looked at him and wondered that his own offence should be so little regarded. The remembrance of it now only lay in people's eyes when they spoke to him. But at this moment Smith Dam went and sat next to Thieving Jacob, and they sat hand-in-hand and whispered.

And over yonder sat some one who nodded to Pelle--in such a friendly manner; it was the woman of the dancing-shoes; her young man had left her, and now she was stranded here--her dancing days were over. Yet she was grateful to Pelle; the sight of him had recalled delightful memories; one could see that by the expression of her eyes and mouth.

Pelle's own temper was softened as he sat there. Something melted within him; a quiet and humble feeling of happiness came over him. There was still one human being who believed herself in Pelle's debt, although everything had gone wrong for her.

As the meeting was breaking up, at half-past nine, she was standing in the street, in conversation with another woman. She came up to Pelle, giving him her hand. "Shall we walk a little way together?" she asked him. She evidently knew of his circ.u.mstances; he read compa.s.sion in her glance. "Come with me," she said, as their ways parted. "I have a sc.r.a.p of sausage that's got to be eaten. And we are both of us lonely."

Hesitatingly he went with her, a little hostile, for the occasion was new and unfamiliar. But once he was seated in her little room he felt thoroughly at ease. Her white, dainty bed stood against the wall. She went to and fro about the room, cooking the sausage at the stove, while she opened her heart to him, unabashed.

It isn't everybody would take things so easily! thought Pelle, and he watched her moving figure quite happily.

They had a cheerful meal, and Pelle wanted to embrace her in his grat.i.tude, but she pushed his hands away. "You can keep that for another time!" she said, laughing. "I'm a poor old widow, and you are nothing but a child. If you want to give me pleasure, why, just settle down and come to yourself again. It isn't right that you should be just loafing about and idling, and you so young and such a nice boy. And now go home, for I must get up early to-morrow and go to my work."

Pelle visited her almost every evening. She had a disagreeable habit of shaking him out of his slumber, but her simple and unchanging manner of accepting and enduring everything was invigorating. Now and again she found a little work for him, and was always delighted when she could share her poor meal with him. "Any one like myself feels a need of seeing a man-body at the table-end once in a while," she said. "But hands off--you don't owe me anything!"

She criticized his clothes. "They'll all fall off your body soon--why don't you put on something else and let me see to them?"

"I have nothing but these," said Pelle, ashamed.

On Sat.u.r.day evening he had to take off his rags, and creep, mother-naked, into her bed. She would take no refusal, and she took shirt and all, and put them into a bucket of water. It took her half the night to clean everything. Pelle lay in bed watching her, the coverlet up to his chin. He felt very strange. As for her, she hung the whole wash to dry over the stove, and made herself a bed on a couple of chairs. When he woke up in the middle of the morning she was sitting by the window mending his clothes.

"But what sort of a night did you have?" asked Pelle, a trifle concerned.

"Excellent! Do you know what I've thought of this morning? You ought to give up your room and stay here until you are on your feet again--you've had a good rest--for once," she smiled teasingly. "That room is an unnecessary expense. As you see, there's room here for two."

But Pelle would not agree. He would not hear of being supported by a woman. "Then people will believe that there's something wrong between us--and make a scandal of it," he said.

"Let them then!" she answered, with her gay laugh. "If I've a good conscience it's indifferent to me what others think." While she was talking she was working diligently at his linen, and she threw one article after another at his head. Then she ironed his suit. "Now you're quite a swell again!" she said, when he stood up dressed once more, and she looked at him affectionately. "It's as though you had become a new creature. If I were only ten or fifteen years younger I'd be glad to go down the street on your arm. But you shall give me a kiss--I've put you to rights again, as if you were my own child." She kissed him heartily and turned about to the stove.

"And now I've got no better advice than that we have some cold dinner together and then go our ways," she said, with her back still turned.

"All my firing has been used overnight to dry your things, and you can't stay here in the cold. I think I can pay a visit somewhere or other, and so the day will pa.s.s; and you can find some corner to put yourself in.'

"It's all the same to me where I am," said Pelle indifferently.

She looked at him with a peculiar smile. "Are you really always going to be a loafer?" she said. "You men are extraordinary creatures! If anything at all goes wrong with you, you must start drinking right away, or plunge yourself into unhappiness in some other way--you are no better than babies! We must work quietly on, however things go with us!" She stood there hesitating in her hat and cloak. "Here's five-and-twenty ore," she said; "that's just for a cup of coffee to warm you!"

Pelle would not accept it. "What do I want with your money?" he said.

"Keep it yourself!"

"Take it, do! I know it's only a little, but I have no more, and there's no need for us to be ashamed of being helped by one another." She put the coin in his jacket pocket and hurried off.

Pelle strolled out to the woods. He did not feel inclined to go home, to resume the aimless battle with Strom. He wandered along the deserted paths, and experienced a feeble sense of well-being when he noticed that the spring was really coming. The snow was still lying beneath the old moss-gray pinetrees, but the toadstools were already thrusting their heads up through the pine-needles, and one had a feeling, when walking over the ground, as though one trod upon rising dough.

He found himself pondering over his own affairs, and all of a sudden he awoke out of his half-slumber. Something had just occurred to him, something cozy and intimate--why, yes, it was the thought that he might go to Marie and set up for himself, like Jens and his girl. He could get hold of a few lasts and sit at home and work ... he could sc.r.a.pe along for a bit, until better times came. She earned something too, and she was generous.

But when he thought over the matter seriously it a.s.sumed a less pleasant aspect. He had already sufficiently abused her poverty and her goodness of heart. He had taken her last sc.r.a.p of firing, so that she was now forced to go out in order to get a little warmth and some supper. The idea oppressed him. Now that his eyes were opened he could not escape this feeling of shame. It went home and to bed with him, and behind all her goodness he felt her contempt for him, because he did not overcome his misery by means of work, like a respectable fellow.