Pelle the Conqueror Part 82

"No, now the sun's going down, and I'll go home and get to bed. I'm old--but you go. I shall soon find my way back." Pelle strolled onward, but then turned aside toward the north--he would go and bid Marie Nielsen good-bye. He owed her a friendly word for all her goodness.

Also, as an exception, she should for once see him in respectable clothes. She had just come home from her work, and was on the point of preparing her supper.

"No, Pelle, is that you?" she cried delightedly, "and so grand, too--you look like a prince!" Pelle had to remain to supper.

"I have really only come to thank you for all your friendliness and to say good-bye. To-morrow I go to Copenhagen."

She looked at him earnestly. "And you are glad!"

Pelle had to tell her what he had been doing since he had last seen her.

He sat there looking gratefully about the poor, clean room, with the bed set so innocently against the wall, covered with a snow-white counterpane. He had never forgotten that fragrance of soap and cleanliness and her fresh, simple nature. She had taken him in the midst of all his misery and had not thought her own white bed too good for him while she scrubbed the mire from him. When he reached the capital he would have himself photographed and send her his portrait.

"And how are you doing now?" he asked gently.

"Just as when you last saw me--only a little more lonely," she answered earnestly.

And then he must go. "Good-bye, and may everything go well with you!" he said, and he shook her hand. "And many thanks for all your goodness!"

She stood before him silently, looking at him with an uncertain smile.

"Ah, no! I'm only a human being too!" she cried suddenly, and she flung her arms about him in a pa.s.sionate embrace.

And then the great day broke! Pelle awaked with the sun and had the green chest already packed before the others were up, and then he roamed about, not knowing what he should set his hand to, he was so restless and so excited. He answered at random, and his eyes were full of radiant dreams. In the morning he and La.s.se carried the chest to the steamer, in order to have the evening free. Then they went to the church, in order to attend Alfred's wedding. Pelle would gladly have stayed away; he had enough to do with his own affairs, and he had no sympathy for Alfred's doings.

But La.s.se pushed him along.

The sun stood high in heaven and blazed in the winding side-streets so that the tarred timberwork sweated and the gutters stank; from the harbor came the sound of the crier, with his drum, crying herrings, and announcing an auction. The people streamed to church in breathless conversation concerning this child of fortune, Alfred, who had climbed so far.

The church was full of people. It was gaily decorated, and up by the organ stood eight young women who were to sing "It is so lovely together to be!" La.s.se had never seen or heard of such a wedding. "I feel quite proud!" he said.

"He's a bladder full of wind!" said Pelle. "He's taking her simply on account of the honor."

And then the bridal pair stepped up to the altar. "It's tremendous the way Alfred has greased his head!" whispered La.s.se. "It looks like a newly-licked calf's head! But she is pretty. I'm only puzzled that she's not put on her myrtle-wreath--I suppose nothing has happened?"

"Yes, she's got a child," whispered Pelle. "Otherwise, he would never in this world have got her!"

"Oh, I see! Yes, but that's smart of him, to catch such a fine lady!"

Now the young women sang, and it sounded just as if they were angels from heaven who had come to seal the bond.

"We must take our places so that we can congratulate them," said La.s.se, and he wanted to push right through the crowd, but Pelle held him back.

"I'm afraid he won't know us to-day; but look now, there's Uncle Kalle."

Kalle stood squeezed among the hindmost chairs, and there he had to stay until everybody had pa.s.sed out. "Yes, I was very anxious to take part in this great day," he said, "and I wanted to bring mother with me, but she thought her clothes weren't respectable enough." Kalle wore a new gray linsey-woolsey suit; he had grown smaller and more bent with the years.

"Why do you stand right away in the corner here, where you can see nothing? As the bridegroom's father, you must have been given your place in the first row," said La.s.se.

"I have been sitting there, too--didn't you see me sitting next to Merchant Lau? We sang out of the same hymn-book. I only got pushed here in the crowd. Now I ought to go to the wedding-feast. I was properly invited, but I don't quite know...." He looked down at himself. Suddenly he made a movement, and laughed in his own reckless way. "Ugh--what am I doing standing here and telling lies to people who don't believe me! No, pigs don't belong in the counting-house! I might spread a bad smell, you know! People like us haven't learned to sweat scent!"

"Bah! He's too grand to know his own father! Devil take it! Then come with us so that you needn't go away hungry!" said La.s.se.

"No--I've been so overfed with roast meats and wine and cakes that I can't get any more down for the present. Now I must go home and tell mother about all the splendid things. I've eighteen miles to go."

"And you came here on foot--thirty-six miles! That's too much for your years!"

"I had really reckoned that I'd stay the night here. I didn't think ...

Well, an owl's been sitting there! Children can't very well climb higher than that--not to recognize their own fathers! Anna is now taking the best way to become a fine lady, too.... I shall be wondering how long I shall know myself! Devil take it, Kalle Karlsen, I'm of good family, too, look you! Well, then, ajoo!"

Wearily he set about tramping home. He looked quite pitiful in his disappointment. "He's never looked so miserable in his life!" said La.s.se, gazing after him, "and it takes something, too, to make Brother Kalle chuck his gun into the ditch!"

Toward evening they went through the town to the steamer. Pelle took long strides, and a strange feeling of solemnity kept him silent. La.s.se trotted along at his side; he stooped as he went. He was in a doleful mood. "Now you won't forget your old father?" he said, again and again.

"There's no danger of that," rejoined Sort. Pelle heard nothing of this; his thoughts were all set on his journey. The blue smoke of kitchen fires was drifting down among the narrow lanes. The old people were sitting out of doors on their front steps, and were gossiping over the news of the day. The evening sun fell upon round spectacles, so that great fiery eyes seemed to be staring out of their wrinkled faces. The profound peace of evening lay over the streets. But in the narrow lanes there was the breathing of that eternal, dull unrest, as of a great beast that tosses and turns and cannot sleep. Now and again it blazed up into a shout, or the crying of a child, and then began anew--like heavy, labored breathing. Pelle knew it well, that ghostly breathing, which rises always from the lair of the poor man. The cares of poverty had shepherded the evil dreams home for the night. But he was leaving this world of poverty, where life was bleeding away unnoted in the silence; in his thoughts it was fading away like a mournful song; and he gazed out over the sea, which lay glowing redly at the end of the street. Now he was going out into the world!

The crazy Anker was standing at the top of his high steps. "Good-bye!"

cried Pelle, but Anker did not understand. He turned his face up to the sky and sent forth his demented cry.

Pelle threw a last glance at the workshop. "There have I spent many a good hour!" he thought; and he thought, too, of the young master. Old Jorgen was standing before his window, playing with the little Jorgen, who sat inside on the windowseat. "Peep, peep, little one!" he cried, in his shrill voice, and he hid, and bobbed up into sight again. The young wife was holding the child; she was rosy with maternal delight.

"You'll be sure to let us hear from you," said La.s.se yet again, as Pelle stood leaning over the steamer's rail. "Don't forget your old father!"

He was quite helpless in his anxiety.

"I will write to you as soon as I'm getting on," said Pelle, for the twentieth time at least. "Only don't worry!" Sure of victory, he laughed down at the old man. For the rest they stood silent and gazed at one another.

At last the steamer moved. "Good luck--take care of yourself!" he cried for the last time, as they turned the pier-head; and as long as he could see he waved his cap. Then he went right forward and sat on a coil of rope.

He had forgotten all that lay behind him. He gazed ahead as though at any moment the great world itself might rise in front of the vessel's bow. He pictured nothing to himself of what was to come and how he would meet it--he was only longing--longing!

THE END.

III. THE GREAT STRUGGLE

I

A swarm of children was playing on the damp floor of the shaft. They hung from the lower portions of the timber-work, or ran in and out between the upright supports, humming tunes, with bread-and-dripping in their hands; or they sat on the ground and pushed themselves forward across the sticky flagstones. The air hung clammy and raw, as it does in an old well, and already it had made the little voices husky, and had marked their faces with the scars of scrofula. Yet out of the tunnel-like pa.s.sage which led to the street there blew now and again a warm breath of air and the fragrance of budding trees--from the world that lay behind those surrounding walls.

They had finished playing "Bro-bro-brille," for the last rider had entered the black cauldron; and Hansel and Gretel had crept safely out of the dwarf Vinslev's den, across the sewer-grating, and had reached the pancake-house, which, marvelously enough, had also a grating in front of the door, through which one could thrust a stick or a cabbage-stalk, in order to stab the witch. Sticks of wood and cabbage-stalks were to be found in plenty in the dustbins near the pancake-house, and they knew very well who the witch was! Now and again she would pop up out of the cellar and scatter the whole crowd with her kitchen tongs! It was almost a little too lifelike; even the smell of pancakes came drifting down from where the well-to-do Olsens lived, so that one could hardly call it a real fairy tale. But then perhaps the dwarf Vinslev would come out of his den, and would once again tell them the story of how he had sailed off with the King's gold and sunk it out yonder, in the King's Deep, when the Germans were in the land. A whole ship's crew took out the King's treasure, but not one save Vinslev knew where it was sunk, and even he did not know now. A terrible secret that, such as well might make a man a bit queer in the head. He would explain the whole chart on his double-breasted waistcoat; he had only to steer from this b.u.t.ton to that, and then down yonder, and he was close above the treasure. But now some of the b.u.t.tons had fallen off, and he could no longer make out the chart. Day by day the children helped him to trace it; this was an exciting bit of work, for the King was getting impatient!

There were other wonderful things to do; for instance, one could lie flat down on the slippery flagstones and play Hanne's game--the "Glory"

game. You turned your eyes from the darkness down below, looking up through the gloomy shaft at the sky overhead, which floated there blazing with light, and then you suddenly looked down again, so that everything was quite dark. And in the darkness floated blue and yellow rings of color, where formerly there had been nothing but dustbins and privies. This dizzy flux of colors before the eyes was the journey far out to the land of happiness, in search of all the things that cannot be told. "I can see something myself, and I know quite well what it is, but I'm just not going to tell," they murmured, blinking mysteriously up into the blue.

However, one could have too much of a good thing.... But the round grating under the timbers yonder, where Hanne's father drowned himself, was a thing one never grew weary of. The depths were forever bubbling upward, filling the little children with a secret horror; and the half-grown girls would stand a-straddle over the grating, shuddering at the cold breath that came murmuring up from below. The grating was sure enough the way down to h.e.l.l, and if you gazed long enough you could see the faintest glimmer of the inky stream that was flowing down below.