Chapter III: The Great Struggle (6)

Shortly before the twilight fell Pelle came home from the workshop. He saw the streets and the people with strange eyes that diffused a radiance over all things; it was the Christmas spirit in his heart. But why? he asked himself involuntarily. Nothing in particular was in store for him. To-day he would have to work longer than usual, and he would not be able to spend the evening with Ellen, for she had to be busy in her kitchen, making things jolly for others. Why, then, did this feeling possess him? It was not a memory; so far as he could look back he had never taken part in a genuine cheerful Christmas Eve, but had been forced to content himself with the current reports of such festivities. And all the other poor folks whom he met were in the same mood as he himself. The hard questioning look had gone from their faces; they were smiling to themselves as they went. To-day there was nothing of that wan, heavy depression which commonly broods over the lower classes like the foreboding of disaster; they could not have looked more cheerful had all their hopes been fulfilled! A woman with a feather-bed in her arms passed him and disappeared into the pawn-shop; and she looked extremely well pleased. Were they really so cheerful just because they were going to have a bit of a feast, while to do so they were making a succession of lean days yet leaner? No, they were going to keep festival because the Christmas spirit prevailed in their hearts, because they must keep holiday, however dearly it might cost them!

It was on this night to be sure that Christ was born. Were the people so kind and cheerful on that account?

Pelle still knew by heart most of the Bible texts of his school-days. They had remained stowed away somewhere in his mind, without burdening him or taking up any room, and now and again they reappeared and helped to build up his knowledge of mankind. But of Christ Himself he had formed his own private picture, from the day when as a boy he first stumbled upon the command given to the rich: to sell all that they had and to give to the starving. But they took precious good care not to do so; they took the great friend of the poor man and hanged him on high! He achieved no more than this, that He became a promise to the poor; but perhaps it was this promise that, after two thousand years, they were now so solemnly celebrating!

They had so long been silent, holding themselves in readiness, like the wise virgins in the Bible, and now at last it was coming! Now at last they were beginning to proclaim the great Gospel of the Poor—it was a goodly motive for all this Christmas joy! Why did they not assemble the multitudes on the night of Christ’s birth and announce the Gospel to them? Then they would all understand the Cause and would join it then and there! There was a whirl of new living thoughts in Pelle’s head. He had not hitherto known that that in which he was participating was so great a thing. He felt that he was serving the Highest.

He stood a while in the market-place, silently considering the Christmas-trees—they led his thoughts back to the pasture on which he had herded the cows, and the little wood of firs. It pleased him to buy a tree, and to take the children by surprise; the previous evening they had sat together cutting out Christmas-tree decorations, and Karl had fastened four fir-tree boughs together to make a Christmas-tree.

At the grocer’s he bought some sweets and Christmas candles. The grocer was going about on tip-toe in honor of the day, and was serving the dirty little urchins with ceremonious bows. He was “throwing things in,” and had quite forgotten his customary, “Here, you, don’t forget that you still owe for two lots of tea and a quarter of coffee!” But he was cheating with the scales as usual.

Marie was going about with rolled-up sleeves, and was very busy. But she dropped her work and came running when she saw the tree. “It won’t stand here yet, Pelle,” she cried, “it will have to be cut shorter. It will have to be cut still shorter even now! Oh, how pretty it is! No, at the end there—at the end! We had a Christmas-tree at home; father went out himself and cut it down on the cliffs; and we children went with him. But this one is much finer!” Then she ran out into the gangway, in order to tell the news, but it suddenly occurred to her that the boys had not come home yet, so she rushed in to Pelle once more.

Pelle sat down to his work. From time to time he lifted his head and looked out. The seamstress, who had just moved into Pipman’s old den, and who was working away at her snoring machine, looked longingly at him. Of course she must be lonely; perhaps there was nowhere where she could spend the evening.

Old Madam Frandsen came out on her platform and shuffled down the steep stairs in her cloth slippers. The rope slipped through her trembling hands. She had a little basket on her arm and a purse in her hand—she too looked so lonely, the poor old worm! She had now heard nothing of her son for three months. Madam Olsen called out to her and invited her in, but the old woman shook her head. On the way back she looked in on Pelle.

“He’s coming this evening,” she whispered delightedly. “I’ve been buying brandy and beefsteak for him, because he’s coming this evening!”

“Well, don’t be disappointed, Madam Frandsen,” said Pelle, “but he daren’t venture here any more. Come over to us instead and keep Christmas with us.”

She nodded confidently. “He’ll come tonight. On Christmas Eve he has always slept in mother’s bed, ever since he could crawl, and he can’t do without it, not if I know my Ferdinand!” She had already made up a bed for herself on the chairs, so certain was she.

The police evidently thought as she did, for down in the court strange footsteps were heard. It was just about twilight, when so many were coming and going unremarked. But at these steps a female head popped back over the balustrade, a sharp cry was heard, and at the same moment every gallery was filled with women and children. They hung over the rails and made an ear-splitting din, so that the whole deep, narrow shaft was filled with an unendurable uproar. It sounded as though a hurricane came raging down through the shaft, sweeping with it a hailstorm of roofing-slates. The policeman leaped back into the tunnel- entry, stupefied. He stood there a moment recovering himself before he withdrew. Upstairs, in the galleries, they leaned on the rails and recovered their breath, exhausted by the terrific eruption; and then fell to chattering like a flock of small birds that have been chasing a flying hawk.

“Merry Christmas!” was now shouted from gallery to gallery. “Thanks, the same to you!” And the children shouted to one another, “A jolly feast and all the best!” “A dainty feast for man and beast!”

Christmas Eve was here! The men came shuffling home at a heavy trot, and the factory-girls came rushing in. Here and there a feeble wail filtered out of one of the long corridors, so that the milk-filled breast ached. Children incessantly ran in and out, fetching the last ingredients of the feast. Down by the exit into the street they had to push two tramps, who stood there shuddering in the cold. They were suspicious-looking people. “There are two men down there, but they aren’t genuine,” said Karl. “They look as if they came out of a music-hall.”

“Run over to old Madam Frandsen and tell her that,” said Pelle. But her only answer was, “God be thanked, then they haven’t caught him yet!”

Over at Olsen’s their daughter Elvira had come home. The blind was not drawn, and she was standing at the window with her huge hat with flowers in it, allowing herself to be admired. Marie came running in. “Have you seen how fine she is, Pelle?” she said, quite stupefied. “And she gets all that for nothing from the gentlemen, just because they think she’s so pretty. But at night she paints her naked back!”

The children were running about in the gangway, waiting until Pelle should have finished. They would not keep Christmas without him. But now he, too, had finished work; he pulled on a jacket, wrapped up his work, and ran off.

Out on the platform he stood still for a moment. He could see the light of the city glimmering in the deep, star-filled sky. The night was so solemnly beautiful. Below him the galleries were forsaken; they were creaking in the frost. All the doors were closed to keep the cold out and the joy in. “Down, down from the green fir-trees!”—it sounded from every corner. The light shone through the window and in all directions through the woodwork. Suddenly there was a dull booming sound on the stairs—it was the hearse-driver staggering home with a ham under either arm. Then all grew quiet—quiet as it never was at other times in the “Ark,” where night or day some one was always complaining. A child came out and lifted a pair of questioning eyes, in order to look at the Star of Bethlehem! There was a light at Madam Frandsen’s. She had hung a white sheet over the window today, and had drawn it tight; the lamp stood close to the window, so that any one moving within would cast no shadow across it.

The poor old worm! thought Pelle, as he ran past; she might have spared herself the trouble! When he had delivered his work he hurried over to Holberg Street, in order to wish Ellen a happy Christmas.

The table was finely decked out in his room when he got home; there was pork chops, rice boiled in milk, and Christmas beer. Marie was glowing with pride over her performance; she sat helping the others, but she herself took nothing.

“You ought to cook a dinner as good as this every day, lass!” said Karl, as he set to. “God knows, you might well get a situation in the King’s kitchen.”

“Why don’t you eat any of this nice food?” said Pelle.

“Oh, no, I can’t,” she replied, touching her cheeks; her eyes beamed upon him.

They laughed and chattered and clinked their glasses together. Karl came out with the latest puns and the newest street-songs; so he had gained something by his scouring of the city streets. Peter sat there looking impenetrably now at one, now at another; he never laughed, but from time to time he made a dry remark by which one knew that he was amusing himself. Now and again they looked over at old Madam Frandsen’s window— it was a pity that she wouldn’t be with them.

Five candles were now burning over there—they were apparently fixed on a little Christmas tree which stood in a flowerpot. They twinkled like distant stars through the white curtain, and Madam Frandsen’s voice sounded cracked and thin: “O thou joyful, O thou holy, mercy-bringing Christmas-tide!” Pelle opened his window and listened; he wondered that the old woman should be so cheerful.

Suddenly a warning voice sounded from below: “Madam Frandsen, there are visitors coming!”

Doors and windows flew open on the galleries round about. People tumbled out of doorways, their food in their hands, and leaned over the railings. “Who dares to disturb our Christmas rejoicings?” cried a deep, threatening voice.

“The officers of the law!” the reply came out of the darkness. “Keep quiet, all of you—in the name of the law!”

Over on Madam Frandsen’s side two figures became visible, noiselessly running up on all fours. Upstairs nothing was happening; apparently they had lost their heads. “Ferdinand, Ferdinand!” shrieked a girl’s voice wildly; “they’re coming now!”

At the same moment the door flew open, and with a leap Ferdinand stood on the platform. He flung a chair down at his pursuers, and violently swayed the hand-rope, in order to sweep them off the steps. Then he seized the gutter and swung himself up onto the roof. “Good-bye, mother!” he cried from above, and his leap resounded in the darkness. “Good-bye, mother, and a merry Christmas!” A howl like that of a wounded beast flung the alarm far out into the night, and they heard the stumbling pursuit of the policemen over the roofs. And then all was still.

They returned unsuccessful. “Well, then you haven’t got him!” cried Olsen, leaning out of his window down below.

“No; d’you think we are going to break our necks for the like of him?” retorted the policemen, as they scrambled down. “Any one going to stand a glass of Christmas beer?” As no response followed, they departed.

Old Madam Frandsen went into her room and locked up; she was tired and worried and wanted to go to bed. But after a time she came shuffling down the long gangway. “Pelle,” she whispered, “he’s in bed in my room! While they were scrambling about on the roofs he slipped quietly back over the garrets and got into my bed! Good God, he hasn’t slept in a bed for four months! He’s snoring already!” And she slipped out again.

Yes, that was an annoying interruption! No one felt inclined to begin all over again excepting Karl, and Marie did not count him, as he was always hungry. So she cleared away, gossiping as she went in and out; she did not like to see Pelle so serious.

“But the secret!” she cried of a sudden, quite startled. The boys ran in to her; then they came back, close together, with Marie behind them, carrying something under her apron. The two boys flung themselves upon Pelle and closed his eyes, while Marie inserted something in his mouth. “Guess now!” she cried, “guess now!” It was a porcelain pipe with a green silken tassel. On the bowl of the pipe, which was Ellen’s Christmas gift, was a representation of a ten-kroner note. The children had inserted a screw of tobacco. “Now you’ll be able to smoke properly,” said Marie, pursing her lips together round the mouthpiece; “you are so clever in everything else.”

The children had invited guests for the Christmas-tree; the seamstress, the old night-watchman from the courtyard, the factory-hand with her little boy; all those who were sitting at home and keeping Christmas all alone. They didn’t know themselves, there were so many of them! Hanne and her mother were invited too, but they had gone to bed early—they were not inclined for sociability. One after another they were pulled into the room, and they came with cheerful faces. Marie turned the lamp out and went in to light up the Christmas tree.

They sat in silence and expectation. The light from the stove flickered cheerfully to and fro in the room, lighting up a face with closed eyelids and eager features, and dying away with a little crash. The factory hand’s little boy was the only one to chatter; he had sought a refuge on Pelle’s knee and felt quite safe in the darkness; his childish voice sounded strangely bright in the firelight. “Paul must be quite good and quiet,” repeated the mother admonishingly.

“Mus’n’t Paul ’peak?” asked the child, feeling for Pelle’s face.

“Yes, to-night Paul can do just as he likes,” replied Pelle. Then the youngster chattered on and kicked out at the darkness with his little legs.

“Now you can come!” cried Marie, and she opened the door leading to the gangway. In the children’s room everything had been cleared away. The Christmas-tree stood in the middle, on the floor, and was blazing with light. And how splendid it was—and how tall! Now they could have a proper good look! The lights were reflected in their eyes, and in the window-panes, and in the old mahogany-framed mirror, and the glass of the cheap pictures, so that they seemed suddenly to be moving about in the midst of myriads of stars, and forgot all their miseries. It was as though they had escaped from all their griefs and cares, and had entered straightway into glory, and all of a sudden a pure, clear voice arose, tremulous with embarrassment, and the voice sang:

“O little angel, make us glad!
Down from high Heaven’s halls
Through sunshine flown, in splendor clad,
Earth’s shadow on thee falls!”

It sounded like a greeting from the clouds. They closed their eyes and wandered, hand in hand, about the tree. Then the seamstress fell silent, blushing. “You aren’t singing with me!” she cried.

“We’ll sing the Yule Song—we all know that,” said Pelle.

“Down, down from the high green tree!”—It was Karl who struck up. And they just did sing that! It fitted in so admirably—even the name of Peter fitted in! And it was great fun, too, when all the presents cropped up in the song; every single person was remembered! Only, the lines about the purse, at the end, were all too true! There wasn’t much more to be said for that song! But suddenly the boys set the ring-dance going; they stamped like a couple of soldiers, and then they all went whirling round in frantic movement—a real witches’ dance!

“Hey dicker dick, My man fell smack; It was on Christmas Eve! I took a stick And broke it on his back, It was on Christmas Eve!”

How hot all the candles made it, and how it all went to one’s head! They had to open the door on to the gangway.

And there outside stood the inmates of the garrets, listening and craning their necks. “Come inside,” cried the boys. “There’s room enough if we make two rings!” So once again they moved round the tree, singing Christmas carols. Every time there was a pause somebody struck up a new carol, that had to be sung through. The doors opposite were open too, the old rag-picker sat at the head of his table singing on his own account. He had a loaf of black bread and a plate of bacon in front of him, and after every carol he took a mouthful. In the other doorway sat three coal-porters playing “sixty-six” for beer and brandy. They sat facing toward the Christmas-tree, and they joined in the singing as they played; but from time to time they broke off in the middle of a verse in order to say something or to cry “Trumped!” Now they suddenly threw down their cards and came into the room. “We don’t want to sit here idle and look on while others are working,” they said, and they joined the circle.

Finally they had all had enough of circling round the tree and singing. So chairs and stools were brought in from the other rooms; they had to squeeze close together, right under the sloping roof, and some sat up on the window-sill. There was a clear circle left round the Christmas-tree. And there they sat gossiping, crouching in all sorts of distorted postures, as though that was the only way in which their bodies could really find repose, their arms hanging loosely between their knees. But their faces were still eager and excited; and the smoke from the candles and the crackling fir-boughs of the tree veiled them in a bluish cloud, through which they loomed as round as so many moons. The burning turpentine gave the smoke a mysterious, alluring fragrance, and the devout and attentive faces were like so many murmuring spirits, hovering in the clouds, each above its outworn body.

Pelle sat there considering them till his heart bled for them—that was his Christmas devotion. Poor storm-beaten birds, what was this splendid experience which outweighed all their privations? Only a little light! And they looked as though they could fall down before it and give up their lives! He knew the life’s story of each one of them better than they knew. But their faces were still eager and excited; and they themselves; when they approached the light they always burned themselves in it, like the moths, they were so chilled!

“All the same, that’s a queer invention, when one thinks about it,” said one of the dockers, nodding toward the Christmas-tree. “But it’s fine. God knows what it really is supposed to mean!”

“It means that now the year is returning toward the light again,” said the old night-watchman.

“No; it stands for the joy of the shepherds over the birth of Christ,” said the rag-picker, stepping into the doorway.

“The shepherds were poor folks, like ourselves, who lived in the darkness. That’s why they rejoiced so over Him, because He came with the light.”

“Well, it don’t seem to me we’ve been granted such a terrible deal of light! Oh, yes, the Christmas-tree here, that’s splendid, Lord knows it is, and we should all of us like to thank the children for it—but one can’t have trees like that to set light to every day; and as for the sun—well, you see, the rich folks have got a monopoly of that!”

“Yes, you are right there, Jacob,” said Pelle, who was moving about round the tree, taking down the hearts and packages for the children, who distributed the sweets. “You are all three of you right—curiously enough. The Christmas-tree is to remind us of Christ’s birth, and also that the year is returning toward the sun—but that’s all the same thing. And then it’s to remind us, too, that we too ought to have a share in things; Christ was born especially to remind the poor of their rights! Yes, that is so! For the Lord God isn’t one to give long-winded directions as to how one should go ahead; He sends the sun rolling round the earth every day, and each of us must look out for himself, and see how best he himself can get into the sunshine. It’s just like the wife of a public-house keeper I remember at home, who used to tell travellers, ‘What would you like to eat? You can have ducks or pork chops or sweets—anything you’ve brought with you!’”

“That was a devilish funny statement!” said his hearers, laughing.

“Yes, it’s easy enough to invite one to all sorts of fine things when all the time one has to bring them along one’s self! You ought to have been a preacher.”

“He’d far better be the Devil’s advocate!” said the old rag-picker. “For there’s not much Christianity in what he says!”

“But you yourself said that Christ came bringing light for the poor,” said Pelle; “and He Himself said as much, quite plainly; what He wanted was to make the blind to see and the dead to walk, and to restore consideration to the despised and rejected. Also, He wanted men to have faith!”

“The blind shall see, the lame shall walk, the leper shall be clean, the deaf shall hear, and the dead shall arise, and the Word shall be preached to the poor,” said the rag-picker, correcting Pelle. “You are distorting the Scriptures, Pelle.”

“But I don’t believe He meant only individual cripples—no, He meant all of us in our misery, and all the temptations that lie in wait for us. That’s how Preacher Sort conceived it, and he was a godly, upright man. He believed the millennium would come for the poor, and that Christ was already on the earth making ready for its coming.”

The women sat quite bemused, listening with open mouths; they dared scarcely breathe. Paul was asleep on his mother’s lap.

“Can He really have thought about us poor vermin, and so long beforehand?” cried the men, looking from one to another. “Then why haven’t we long ago got a bit more forward than this?”

“Yes, I too don’t understand that,” said Pelle, hesitating. “Perhaps we ourselves have got to work our way in the right direction—and that takes time.”

“Yes, but—if He would only give us proper conditions of life. But if we have to win them for ourselves we don’t need any Christ for that!”

This was something that Pelle could not explain even to himself, although he felt it within him as a living conviction, A man must win what was due to him himself—that was clear as the day, and he couldn’t understand how they could be blind to the fact; but why he must do so he couldn’t—however he racked his brains—explain to another person. “But I can tell you a story,” he said.

“But a proper exciting story!” cried Earl, who was feeling bored. “Oh, if only Vinslev were here—he has such droll ideas!”

“Be quiet, boy!” said Marie crossly. “Pelle makes proper speeches— before whole meetings,” she said, nodding solemnly to the others. “What is the story called?”

“Howling Peter.”

“Oh, it’s a story with Peter in it—then it’s a fairy-tale! What is it about?”

“You’ll know that when you hear it, my child,” said the old night- watchman.

“Yes, but then one can’t enjoy it when it comes out right. Isn’t it a story about a boy who goes out into the world?”

“The story is about”—Pelle bethought himself a moment; “the story is about the birth of Christ,” he said quickly, and then blushed a deep red at his own audacity. But the others looked disappointed, and settled themselves decently and stared at the floor, as though they had been in church.

And then Pelle told them the story of Howling Peter; who was born and grew up in poverty and grief, until he was big and strong, and every man’s cur to kick. For it was the greatest pity to see this finely-made fellow, who was so full of fear and misery that if even a girl so much as touched him he must flood himself with tears; and the only way out of his misery was the rope. What a disgrace it was, that he should have earned his daily bread and yet have been kept in the workhouse, as though they did him a kindness in allowing him a hole to creep into there, when with his capacity for work he could have got on anywhere! And it became quite unendurable as he grew up and was still misused by all the world, and treated like a dog. But then, all of a sudden, he broke the magic spell, struck down his tormentors, and leaped out into the daylight as the boldest of them all!

They drew a deep breath when he had finished. Marie clapped her hands. “That was a real fairy-tale!” she cried. Karl threw himself upon Peter and pummeled away at him, although that serious-minded lad was anything but a tyrant!

They cheerfully talked the matter over. Everybody had something to say about Howling Peter. “That was damned well done,” said the men; “he thrashed the whole crew from beginning to end; a fine fellow that! And a strong one too! But why the devil did he take such a long time about it? And put up with all that?”

“Yes, it isn’t quite so easy for us to understand that—not for us, who boast such a lot about our rights!” said Pelle, smiling.

“Well, you’re a clever chap, and you’ve told it us properly!” cried the cheerful Jacob. “But if ever you need a fist, there’s mine!” He seized and shook Pelle’s hand.

The candles had long burned out, but they did not notice it.

Their eyes fastened on Pelle’s as though seeking something, with a peculiar expression in which a question plainly came and went. And suddenly they overwhelmed him with questions. They wanted to know enough, anyhow! He maintained that a whole world of splendors belonged to them, and now they were in a hurry to get possession of them. Even the old rag-picker let himself be carried away with the rest; it was too alluring, the idea of giving way to a little intoxication, even if the everyday world was to come after it.

Pelle stood among them all, strong and hearty, listening to all their questions with a confident smile. He knew all that was to be theirs— even if it couldn’t come just at once. It was a matter of patience and perseverance; but that they couldn’t understand just now. When they had at last entered into their glory they would know well enough how to protect it. He had no doubts; he stood there among them like their embodied consciousness, happily growing from deeply-buried roots.

XIII

From the foundations of the “Ark” rose a peculiar sound, a stumbling, countrified footstep, dragging itself in heavy footgear over the flagstones. All Pelle’s blood rushed to his heart; he threw down his work, and with a leap was on the gallery, quite convinced that this was only an empty dream…. But there below in the court stood Father Lasse in the flesh, staring up through the timbers, as though he couldn’t believe his own eyes. He had a sack filled with rubbish on his back.

“Hallo!” cried Pelle, taking the stairs in long leaps. “Hallo!”

“Good-day, my lad!” said Lasse, in a voice trembling with emotion, considering his son with his lashless eyes. “Yes, here you have Father Lasse—if you will have him. But where, really, did you come from? Seems to me you fell down from heaven?”

Pelle took his father’s sack. “You just come up with me,” he said. “You can trust the stairs all right; they are stronger than they look.”

“Then they are like Lasse,” answered the old man, trudging up close behind him; the straps of his half-Wellingtons were peeping out at the side, and he was quite the old man. At every landing he stood still and uttered his comments on his surroundings. Pelle had to admonish him to be silent.

“One doesn’t discuss everything aloud here. It might so easily be regarded as criticism,” he said.

“No, really? Well, one must learn as long as one lives. But just look how they stand about chattering up here! There must be a whole courtyard-full! Well, well. I won’t say any more. I knew they lived one on top of another, but I didn’t think there’d be so little room here. To hang the backyard out in front of the kitchen door, one on top of another, that’s just like the birds that build all on one bough. Lord God, suppose it was all to come tumbling down one fine day!”

“And do you live here?” he cried, gazing in a disillusioned manner round the room with its sloping ceiling. “I’ve often wondered how you were fixed up over here. A few days ago I met a man at home who said they were talking about you already; but one wouldn’t think so from your lodgings. However, it isn’t far to heaven, anyhow!”

Pelle was silent. He had come to love his den, and his whole life here; but Father Lasse continued to enlarge upon his hopes of his son’s respectability and prosperity, and he felt ashamed. “Did you imagine I was living in one of the royal palaces?” he said, rather bitterly.

Lasse looked at him kindly and laid both hands on his shoulders. “So big and strong as you’ve grown, lad,” he said, wondering. “Well, and now you have me here too! But I won’t be a burden to you. No, but at home it had grown so dismal after what happened at Due’s, that I got ready without sending you word. And then I was able to come over with one of the skippers for nothing.”

“But what’s this about Due?” asked Pelle. “I hope nothing bad?”

“Good God, haven’t you heard? He revenged himself on his wife because he discovered her with the Consul. He had been absolutely blind, and had only believed the best of her, until he surprised her in her sin. Then he killed her, her and the children they had together, and went to the authorities and gave himself up. But the youngest, whom any one could see was the Consul’s, he didn’t touch. Oh, it was a dreadful misfortune! Before he gave himself up to the police he came to me; he wanted just one last time to be with some one who would talk it over with him without hypocrisy. ‘I’ve strangled Anna,’ he said, as soon as he had sat down. ‘It had to be, and I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry. The children that were mine, too. I’ve dealt honestly with them.’ Yes, yes, he had dealt honestly with the poor things! ‘I just wanted to say goodbye to you, Lasse, for my life’s over now, happy as I might have been, with my contented nature. But Anna always wanted to be climbing, and if I got on it was her shame I had to thank for it. I never wanted anything further than the simple happiness of the poor man—a good wife and a few children—and now I must go to prison! God be thanked that Anna hasn’t lived to see that! She was finer in her feelings than the rest, and she had to deceive in order to get on in the world.’ So he sat there, talking of the dead, and one couldn’t notice any feeling in him. I wouldn’t let him see how sick at heart he made me feel. For him it was the best thing, so long as his conscience could sleep easy. ‘Your eyes are watering, Lasse,’ he said quietly; ‘you should bathe them a bit; they say urine is good.’ Yes, God knows, my eyes did water! God of my life, yes! Then he stood up. ‘You, too, Lasse, you haven’t much longer life granted you,’ he said, and he gave me his hand. ‘You are growing old now. But you must give Pelle my greetings—he’s safe to get on!’”

Pelle sat mournfully listening to the dismal story. But he shuddered at the last words. He had so often heard the expression of that anticipation of his good fortune, which they all seemed to feel, and had rejoiced to hear it; it was, after all, only an echo of his own self- confidence. But now it weighed upon him like a burden. It was always those who were sinking who believed in his luck; and as they sank they flung their hopes upward toward him. A grievous fashion was this in which his good fortune was prophesied! A terrible and grievous blessing it was that was spoken over him and his success in life by this man dedicated to death, even as he stepped upon the scaffold. Pelle sat staring at the floor without a sign of life, a brooding expression on his face; his very soul was shuddering at the foreboding of a superhuman burden; and suddenly a light was flashed before his eyes; there could never be happiness for him alone—the fairy-tale was dead! He was bound up with all the others—he must partake of happiness or misfortune with them; that was why the unfortunate Due gave him his blessing. In his soul he was conscious of Due’s difficult journey, as though he himself had to endure the horror of it. And Fine Anna, who must clamber up over his own family and tread them in the dust! Never again could he wrench himself quite free as before! He had already encountered much unhappiness and had learned to hate its cause. But this was something more—this was very affliction itself!

“Yes,” sighed Lasse, “a lucky thing that Brother Kalle did not live to see all this. He worked himself to skin and bone for his children, and now, for all thanks, he lied buried in the poorhouse burying-ground. Albinus, who travels about the country as a conjurer, was the only one who had a thought for him; but the money came too late, although it was sent by telegraph. Have you ever heard of a conjuring-trick like that— to send money from England to Bornholm over the telegraph cable? A devilish clever acrobat! Well, Brother Kalle, he knew all sorts of conjuring-tricks too, but he didn’t learn them abroad. They had heard nothing at all of Alfred at the funeral. He belongs to the fine folks now and has cut off all connection with his poor relations. He has been appointed to various posts of honor, and they say he’s a regular bloodhound toward the poor—a man’s always worst toward his own kind. But the fine folks, they say, they think great things of him.”

Pelle heard the old man’s speech only as a monotonous trickle of sound.

Due, Due, the best, the most good-natured man he knew, who championed Anna’s illegitimate child against her own mother, and loved her like his own, because she was defenceless and needed his love—Due was now to lay his head on the scaffold! So dearly bought was the fulfilment of his wish, to obtain a pair of horses and become a coachman! He had obtained the horses and a carriage on credit, and had himself made up for the instalments and the interest—the Consul had merely stood security for him. And for this humble success he was now treading the path of shame! His steps echoed in Pelle’s soul; Pelle did not know how he was going to bear it. He longed for his former obtuseness.

Lasse continued to chatter. For him it was fate—grievous and heavy, but it could not be otherwise. And the meeting with Pelle had stirred up so many memories; he was quite excited. Everything he saw amused him. However did anybody hit on the idea of packing folks away like this, one on top of another, like herrings in a barrel? And at home on Bornholm there were whole stretches of country where no one lived at all! He did not venture to approach the window, but prudently stood a little way back in the room, looking out over the roofs. There, too, was a crazy arrangement! One could count the ears in a cornfield as easily as the houses over here!

Pelle called Marie, who had discreetly remained in her own room. “This is my foster-mother,” he said, with his arm round her shoulders. “And that is Father Lasse, whom you are fond of already, so you always say. Now can you get us some breakfast?” He gave her money.

“She’s a good girl, that she is,” said Lasse, feeling in his sack. “She shall have a present. There’s a red apple,” he said to Marie, when she returned; “you must eat it, and then you’ll be my sweetheart.” Marie smiled gravely and looked at Pelle.

They borrowed the old clothes dealer’s handcart and went across to the apple barges to fetch Lasse’s belongings. He had sold most of them in order not to bring too great a load to the city. But he had retained a bedstead with bedding, and all sorts of other things. “And then I have still to give you greetings from Sort and Marie Nielsen,” he said.

Pelle blushed. “I owe her a few words, but over here I quite forgot it somehow! And I have half promised her my portrait. I must see now about sending it.”

“Yes, do,” said Father Lasse. “I don’t know how close you two stand to each other, but she was a good woman. And those who stay behind, they’re sad when they’re forgotten. Remember that.”

At midday Lasse had tidied himself a trifle and began to brush his hat.

“What now?” inquired Pelle. “You don’t want to go out all alone?”

“I want to go out and look at the city a bit,” replied Lasse, as though it were quite a matter of course. “I want to find some work, and perhaps I’ll go and have a peep at the king for once. You need only explain in which direction I must go.”

“You had better wait until I can come with you—you’ll only lose yourself.”

“Shall I do that?” replied Lasse, offended. “But I found my way here alone, I seem to remember!”

“I can go with the old man!” said Marie.

“Yes, you come with the old man, then no one can say he has lost his youth!” cried Lasse jestingly, as he took her hand. “I think we two shall be good friends.”

Toward evening they returned. “There are folks enough here,” said Lasse, panting, “but there doesn’t seem to be a superfluity of work. I’ve been asking first this one and then that, but no one will have me. Well, that’s all right! If they won’t, I can just put a spike on my stick and set to work collecting the bits of paper in the streets, like the other old men; I can at least do that still.”

“But I can’t give my consent to that,” replied Pelle forcibly. “My father shan’t become a scavenger!”

“Well—but I must get something to do, or I shall go back home again. I’m not going to go idling about here while you work.”

“But you can surely rest and enjoy a little comfort in your old days, father. However, we shall soon see.”

“I can rest, can I? I had better lie on my back and let myself be fed like a long-clothes child! Only I don’t believe my back would stand it!”

They had placed Lasse’s bed with the footboard under the sloping ceiling; there was just room enough for it. Pelle felt like a little boy when he went to bed that night; it was so many years since he had slept in the same room as Father Lasse. But in the night he was oppressed by evil dreams; Due’s dreadful fate pursued him in his sleep. His energetic, good-humored face went drifting through the endless grayness, the head bowed low, the hands chained behind him, a heavy iron chain was about his neck, and his eyes were fixed on the ground as though he were searching the very abyss. When Pelle awoke it was because Father Lasse stood bending over his bed, feeling his face, as in the days of his childhood.

XIV

Lasse would not sit idle, and was busily employed in running about the city in search of work. When he spoke to Pelle he put a cheerful face on a bad business; and looked hopeful; but the capital had already disillusioned him. He could not understand all this hubbub, and felt that he was too old to enter into it and fathom its meaning—besides, perhaps it had none! It really looked as though everybody was just running to and fro and following his own nose, without troubling in the least about all the rest. And there were no greetings when you passed folks in the street; the whole thing was more than Lasse could understand. “I ought to have stayed at home,” he would often think.

And as for Pelle—well, Pelle was taken up with his own affairs! That was only to be expected in a man. He ran about going to meetings and agitating, and had a great deal to do; his thoughts were continually occupied, so that there was no time for familiar gossip as in the old days. He was engaged, moreover, so that what time was not devoted to the Labor movement was given to his sweetheart. How the boy had grown, and how he had altered, bodily and in every way! Lasse had a feeling that he only reached up to Pelle’s belt nowadays. He had grown terribly serious, and was quite the man; he looked as though he was ready to grasp the reins of something or other; you would never, to look at him, have thought that he was only a journeyman cobbler. There was an air of responsibility about him—just a little too much may be!

Marie got into the way of accompanying the old man. They had become good friends, and there was plenty for them to gossip over. She would take him to the courtyard of the Berlingske Tidende, where the people in search of work eddied about the advertisement board, filling up the gateway and forming a crowd in the street outside.

“We shall never get in there!” said Lasse dejectedly. But Marie worked herself forward; when people scolded her she scolded them back. Lasse was quite horrified by the language the child used; but it was a great help!

Marie read out the different notices, and Lasse made his comments on every one, and when the bystanders laughed Lasse gazed at them uncomprehendingly, then laughed with them, and nodded his head merrily. He entered into everything.

“What do you say? Gentleman’s coachman? Yes, I can drive a pair of horses well enough, but perhaps I’m not fine enough for the gentry—I’m afraid my nose would drip!”

He looked about him importantly, like a child that is under observation. “But errand boy—that isn’t so bad. We’ll make a note of that. There’s no great skill needed to be everybody’s dog! House porter! Deuce take it—there one need only sit downstairs and make angry faces out of a basement window! We’ll look in there and try our luck.”

They impressed the addresses on their minds until they knew them by heart, and then squeezed their way out through the crowd. “Damn funny old codger!” said the people, looking after him with a smile—Lasse was quite high-spirited. They went from house to house, but no one had any use for him. The people only laughed at the broken old figure with the wide-toed boots.

“They laugh at me,” said Lasse, quite cast down; “perhaps because I still look a bit countrified. But that after all can soon be overcome.

“I believe it’s because you are so old and yet want to get work,” said Marie.

“Do you think it can be on that account? Yet I’m only just seventy, and on both my father’s and mother’s side we have almost all lived to ninety. Do you really think that’s it? If they’d only let me set to work they’d soon see there’s still strength in old Lasse! Many a younger fellow would sit on his backside for sheer astonishment. But what are those people there, who stand there and look so dismal and keep their hands in their pockets?”

“Those are the unemployed; it’s a slack time for work, and they say it will get still worse.”

“And all those who were crowding round the notice-board—were they idle hands too?”

Marie nodded.

“But then it’s worse here than at home—there at least we always have the stone-cutting when there is nothing else. And I had really believed that the good time had already begun over here!”

“Pelle says it will soon come,” said Marie consolingly.

“Yes, Pelle—he can well talk. He is young and healthy and has the time before him.”

Lasse was in a bad temper; nothing seemed right to him. In order to give him pleasure, Marie took him to see the guard changed, which cheered him a little.

“Those are smart fellows truly,” he said. “Hey, hey, how they hold themselves! And fine clothes too. But that they know well enough themselves! Yes—I’ve never been a king’s soldier. I went up for it when I was young and felt I’d like it; I was a smart fellow then, you can take my word for it! But they wouldn’t have me; my figure wouldn’t do, they said; I had worked too hard, from the time I was quite a child. They’d got it into their heads in those days that a man ought to be made just so and so. I think it’s to please the fine ladies. Otherwise I, too, might have defended my country.”

Down by the Exchange the roadway was broken up; a crowd of navvies were at work digging out the foundation for a conduit. Lasse grew quite excited, and hurried up to them.

“That would be the sort of thing for me,” he said, and he stood there and fell into a dream at the sight of the work. Every time the workers swung their picks he followed the movement with his old head. He drew closer and closer. “Hi,” he said to one of the workers, who was taking a breath, “can a man get taken on here?”

The man took a long look at him. “Get taken on here?” he cried, turning more to his comrades than to Lasse. “Ah, you’d like to, would you? Here you foreigners come running, from Funen and Middlefart, and want to take the bread out of the mouths of us natives. Get away with you, you Jutland carrion!” Laughing, he swung his pick over his head.

Lasse drew slowly hack. “But he was angry!” he said dejectedly to Marie.

In the evening Pelle had to go to all his various meetings, whatever they might be. He had a great deal to do, and, hard as he worked, the situation still remained unfavorable. It was by no means so easy a thing, to break the back of poverty!

“You just look after your own affairs,” said Lasse. “I sit here and chat a little with the children—and then I go to bed. I don’t know why, but my body gets fonder and fonder of bed, although I’ve never been considered lazy exactly. It must be the grave that’s calling me. But I can’t go about idle any longer—I’m quite stiff in my body from doing it.”

Formerly Lasse never used to speak of the grave; but now he had seemingly reconciled himself to the idea. “And the city is so big and so confusing,” he told the children. “And the little one has put by soon runs through one’s fingers.”

He found it much easier to confide his troubles to them. Pelle had grown so big and so serious that he absolutely inspired respect. One could take no real pleasure in worrying him with trivialities.

But with the children he found himself in tune. They had to contend with little obstacles and difficulties, just as he did, and could grasp all his troubles. They gave him good, practical advice, and in return he gave them his senile words of wisdom.

“I don’t exactly know why it is so,” he said, “but this great city makes me quite confused and queer in the head. To mention nothing else, no one here knows me and looks after me when I go by. That takes all the courage out of my knees. At home there was always one or another who would turn his head and say to himself, ‘Look, there goes old Lasse, he’ll be going down to the harbor to break stone; devil take me, but how he holds himself! Many a man would nod to me too, and I myself knew every second man. Here they all go running by as if they were crazy! I don’t understand how you manage to find employment here, Karl?”

“Oh, that’s quite easy,” replied the boy. “About six in the morning I get to the vegetable market; there is always something to be delivered for the small dealers who can’t keep a man. When the vegetable market is over I deliver flowers for the gardeners. That’s a very uncertain business, for I get nothing more than the tips. And besides that I run wherever I think there’s anything going. To the East Bridge and out to Frederiksburg. And I have a few regular places too, where I go every afternoon for an hour and deliver goods. There’s always something if one runs about properly.”

“And does that provide you with an average good employment every day?” said Lasse wonderingly. “The arrangement looks to me a little uncertain. In the morning you can’t be sure you will have earned anything when the night comes.”

“Ah, Karl is so quick,” said Marie knowingly. “When the times are ordinarily good he can earn a krone a day regularly.”

“And that could really be made a regular calling?” No, Lasse couldn’t understand it.

“Very often it’s evening before I have earned anything at all, but one just has to stir one’s stumps; there’s always something or other if one knows where to look for it.”

“What do you think—suppose I were to go with you?” said Lasse thoughtfully.

“You can’t do that, because I run the whole time. Really you’d do much better to hide one of your arms.”

“Hide one of my arms?” said Lasse wonderingly.

“Yes—stick one arm under your coat and then go up to people and ask them for something. That wouldn’t be any trouble to you, you look like an invalid.”

“Do I, indeed?” asked Lasse, blinking his eyes. “I never knew that before. But even if that were so I shouldn’t like to beg at people’s doors. I don’t think any one will get old Lasse to do that.”

“Then go along to the lime works—they are looking for stone-breakers these days,” said the omniscient youngster.

“Now you are talking!” said Lasse; “so they have stone here? Yes, I brought my stone-cutter’s tools with me, and if there’s one thing on earth I long to do it is to be able to bang away at a stone again!”

XV