Pelle the Conqueror Part 78

On the following morning he was up early, and applied for work down at the harbor. He did not see the necessity of work in the abstract, but he would not be indebted to a woman. On Sunday evening he would repay her outlay over him and his clothes.

XXIV

Pelle stood on the floor of the basin, loading broken stone into the tip-wagons. When a wagon was full he and his comrade pushed it up to the head of the track, and came gliding back hanging to the empty wagons.

Now and again the others let fall their tools, and looked across to where he stood; he was really working well for a cobbler! And he had a fine grip when it came to lifting the stone. When he had to load a great ma.s.s of rock into the wagon, he would lift it first to his knee, then he would let out an oath and put his whole body into it; he would wipe the sweat from his forehead and take a dram of brandy or a drop of beer. He was as good as any of the other men!

He did not bother himself with ideas; two and two might make five for all he cared; work and fatigue were enough for him. Hard work had made his body supple and filled him with a sense of sheer animal well-being.

"Will my beer last out the afternoon to-day?" he would wonder; beyond that nothing mattered. The future did not exist, nor yet the painful feeling that it did not exist; there was no remorse in him for what he had lost, or what he had neglected; hard work swallowed up everything else. There was only this stone that had to be removed--and then the next! This wagon which had to be filled--and then the next! If the stone would not move at the first heave he clenched his teeth; he was as though possessed by his work. "He's still fresh to harness," said the others; "he'll soon knock his horns off!" But Pelle wanted to show his strength; that was his only ambition. His mate let him work away in peace and did not fatigue himself. From time to time he praised Pelle, in order to keep his steam up.

This work down at the harbor was the hardest and lowest kind of labor; any one could get taken on for it without previous qualifications. Most of Pelle's comrades were men who had done with the world, who now let themselves go as the stream carried them, and he felt at ease among them. He stood on the solid ground, and no words had power to call the dead past to life; it had power to haunt only an empty brain. An iron curtain hung before the future; happiness lay here to his hand; the day's fatigue could straightway be banished by joyous drinking.

His free time he spent with his companions. They led an unsettled, roving life; the rumor that extensive works were to be carried out had enticed them hither. Most were unmarried; a few had wives and children somewhere, but held their tongues about them, or no longer remembered their existence, unless reminded by something outside themselves. They had no proper lodgings, but slept in Carrier Koller's forsaken barn, which was close to the harbor. They never undressed, but slept in the straw, and washed in a bucket of water that was seldom changed; their usual diet consisted of stale bread, and eggs, which they grilled over a fire made between two stones.

The life pleased Pelle, and he liked the society. On Sundays they ate and drank alternately, all day long, and lay in the smoke-filled barn; burrowing deep into the straw, they told stories, tragic stories of youngest sons who seized an axe and killed their father and mother, and all their brothers and sisters, because they thought they were being cheated of their share of their inheritance! Of children who attended confirmation cla.s.s, and gave way to love, and had children themselves, and were beheaded for what they did! And of wives who did not wish to bring into the world the children it was their duty to bear, and whose wombs were closed as punishment!

Since Pelle had begun to work here he had never been out to see Marie Nielsen. "She's making a fool of you," said the others, to whom he had spoken of Marie; "she's playing the respectable so that you shall bite.

Women have always got second thoughts--it's safest to be on the lookout.

They and these young widows would rather take two than one--they're the worst of all. A man must be a st.u.r.dy devil to be able to stand up against them."

But Pelle was a man, and would allow no woman to lead him by the nose.

Either you were good friends and no fuss about it, or nothing. He'd tell her that on Sat.u.r.day, and throw ten kroner on the table--then they would sure enough be quits! And if she made difficulties she'd get one over the mouth! He could not forgive her for using all her firing, and having to pa.s.s Sunday in the street; the remembrance would not leave him, and it burned like an angry spark. She wanted to make herself out a martyr.

One day, about noon, Pelle was standing among the miners on the floor of the basin; Emil and he had just come from the shed, where they had swallowed a few mouthfuls of dinner. They had given up their midday sleep in order to witness the firing of a big blast during the midday pause when the harbor would be empty. The whole s.p.a.ce was cleared, and the people in the adjacent houses had opened their windows so that they should not be shattered by the force of the explosion.

The fuse was lit, and the men took shelter behind the caissons, and stood there chatting while they waited for the explosion. The "Great Power" was there too. He was always in the neighborhood; he would stand and stare at the workers with his apathetic expression, without taking part in anything. They took no notice of him, but let him move about as he pleased. "Take better cover, Pelle," said Emil; "it's going off directly!"

"Where are Olsen and Strom?" said some one suddenly. The men looked at one another bewildered.

"They'll be taking their midday sleep," said Emil. "They've been drinking something chronic this morning."

"Where are they sleeping?" roared the foreman, and he sprang from his cover. They all had a foreboding, but no one wanted to say. It flashed across them that they must do something. But no one stirred. "Lord Jesus!" said Bergendal, and he struck his fist against the stone wall.

"Lord Jesus!"

The "Great Power" sprang from his shelter and ran along the side of the basin, taking long leaps from one ma.s.s of rock to the next, his mighty wooden shoes clattering as he went. "He's going to tear the fuse away!"

cried Bergendal. "He'll never reach it--it must be burnt in!" There was a sound as of a cry of distress, far above the heads of those who heard it. They breathlessly followed the movements of the "Great Power"; they had come completely out of shelter. In Pelle an irrational impulse sprang into being. He made a leap forward, but was seized by the scruff of the neck. "One is enough," said Bergendal, and he threw him back.

Now the "Great Power" had reached the goal. His hand was stretched out to seize the fuse. Suddenly he was hurled away from the fuse, as though by an invisible hand, and was swept upward and backward through the air, gently, like a human balloon, and fell on his back. Then the roar of the explosion drowned everything.

When the last fragments had fallen the men ran forward. The "Great Power" lay stretched upon his back, looking quietly up at the sky. The corners of his mouth were a little b.l.o.o.d.y and the blood trickled from a hole behind the ear. The two drunken men were scathless. They rose to their feet, bewildered, a few paces beyond the site of the explosion.

The "Great Power" was borne into the shed, and while the doctor was sent for Emil tore a strip from his blouse, and soaked it in brandy, and laid it behind the ear.

The "Great Power" opened his eyes and looked about him. His glance was so intelligent that every one knew that he had not long to live.

"It smells of brandy here," he said. "Who will stand me a drop?" Emil reached him the bottle, and he emptied it. "It tastes good," he said easily. "Now I haven't touched brandy for I don't know how long, but what was the good? The poor man must drink brandy, or he's good for nothing; it is no joke being a poor man! There is no other salvation for him; that you have seen by Strom and Olsen--drunken men never come to any harm. Have they come to any harm?" He tried to raise his head. Strom stepped forward. "Here we are," he said, his voice stifled with emotion.

"But I'd give a good dead to have had us both blown to h.e.l.l instead of this happening. None of us has wished you any good!" He held out his hand.

But the "Great Power" could not raise his; he lay there, staring up through the holes in the thatched roof. "It has been hard enough, certainly, to belong to the poor," he said, "and it's a good thing it's all over. But you owe me no thanks. Why should I leave you in the lurch and take everything for myself--would that be like the 'Great Power'?

Of course, the plan was mine! But could I have carried it out alone?

No, money does everything. You've fairly deserved it! The 'Great Power'

doesn't want to have more than any one else--where we have all done an equal amount of work." He raised his hand, painfully, and made a magnanimous gesture.

"There--he believes he's the engineer of the harbor works!" said Strom.

"He's wandering. Wouldn't a cold application do him good?" Emil took the bucket in order to fetch fresh water. The "Great Power" lay with closed eyes and a faint smile on his face; he was like a blind man who is listening. "Do you understand," he said, without opening his eyes, "how we have labored and labored, and yet have been barely able to earn our daily bread? The big people sat there and ate up everything that we could produce; when we laid down our tools and wanted to still our hunger there was nothing. They stole our thoughts, and if we had a pretty sweetheart or a young daughter they could do with her too--they didn't disdain our cripple even. But now that's done with, and we will rejoice that we have lived to see it; it might have gone on for a long time. Mother wouldn't believe what I told her at all--that the bad days would soon be over. But now just see! Don't I get just as much for my work as the doctor for his? Can't I keep my wife and daughter neat and have books and get myself a piano, just as he can? Isn't it a great thing to perform manual labor too? Karen has piano lessons now, just as I've always wished, for she's weakly and can't stand any hard work. You should just come home with me and hear her play--she does it so easily too! Poor people's children have talent too, it's just that no one notices it."

"G.o.d, how he talks!" said Strom, crying. "It's almost as if he had the delirium."

Pelle bent down over the "Great Power." "Now you must be good and be quiet," he said, and laid something wet on his forehead. The blood was trickling rapidly from behind his ear.

"Let him talk," said Olsen. "He hasn't spoken a word for months now; he must feel the need to clear his mind this once. It'll be long before he speaks again, too!"

Now the "Great Power" was only weakly moving his lips. His life was slowly bleeding away. "Have you got wet, little Karen?" he murmured.

"Ah, well, it'll dry again! And now it's all well with you, now you can't complain. Is it fine to be a young lady? Only tell me everything you want. Why be modest? We've been that long enough! Gloves for the work-worn fingers, yes, yes. But you must play something for me too.

Play that lovely song: 'On the joyful journey through the lands of earth....' That about the Eternal Kingdom!"

Gently he began to hum it; he could no longer keep time by moving his head, but he blinked his eyes in time; and now his humming broke out into words.

Something irresistibly impelled the others to sing in concert with him; perhaps the fact that it was a religious song. Pelle led them with his clear young voice; and it was he who best knew the words by heart.

"Fair, fair is earth, And glorious Heaven; Fair is the spirit's journey long; Through all the lovely earthly kingdoms, Go we to Paradise with song."

The "Great Power" sang with increasing strength, as though he would outsing Pelle. One of his feet was moving now, beating the time of the song. He lay with closed eyes, blindly rocking his head in time with the voices, like one who, at a drunken orgy, must put in his last word before he slips under the table. The saliva was running from the corners of his mouth.

"The years they come, The years they go And down the road to death we throng, But ever sound the strains from heaven-- The spirit's joyful pilgrim song!"

The "Great Power" ceased; his head drooped to one side, and at the same moment the others ceased to sing.

They sat in the straw and gazed at him--his last words still rang in their ears, like a crazy dream, which mingled oddly with the victorious notes of the hymn.

They were all sensible of the silent accusation of the dead, and in the solemnity of the moment they judged and condemned themselves.

"Yes, who knows what we might come to!" said one ragged fellow, thoughtfully chewing a length of straw.

"I shall never do any good," said Emil dejectedly. "With me it's always been from bad to worse. I was apprenticed, and when I became a journeyman they gave me the sack; I had wasted five years of my life and couldn't do a thing. Pelle--he'll get on all right."

Astonished, Pelle raised his head and gazed at Emil uncomprehendingly.

"What use is it if a poor devil tries to make his way up? He'll always be pushed down again!" said Olsen. "Just look at the 'Great Power'; could any one have had a better claim than he? No, the big folks don't allow us others to make our way up!"

"And have we allowed it ourselves?" muttered Strom. "We are always uneasy if one of our own people wants to fly over our heads!"

"I don't understand why all the poor folk don't make a stand together against the others," said Bergendal. "We suffer the same wrongs. If we all acted together, and had nothing to do with them that mean us harm, for instance, then it would soon be seen that collective poverty is what makes the wealth of the others. And I've heard that that's what they're doing elsewhere."

"But we shall never in this life be unanimous about anything whatever,"

said an old stonemason sadly. "If one of the gentlemen only scratches our neck a bit, then we all grovel at his feet, and let ourselves be set on to one of our own chaps. If we were all like the 'Great Power,' then things might have turned out different."