Chapter III: The Great Struggle (10)

But the Almighty has created beings that live upon the earth and creatures that live under the earth; creatures of the air and creatures of the water; even in the fire live creatures that increase and multiply. And the cold, too, saw the growth of a whole swarm of creatures that live not by labor, but on it, as parasites. The good times are their bad times; then they grow thin, and there are not many of them about. But as soon as cold and destitution appear they come forth in their swarms; it is they who arouse beneficence—and get the best part of what is going. They scent the coming of a bad year and inundate the rich quarters of the city. “How many poor people come to the door this year!” people say, as they open their purses. “These are hard times for the poor!”

In the autumn Pelle had removed; he was now dwelling in a little two- roomed apartment on the Kapelvej. He had many points of contact with this part of the city now; besides, he wanted Ellen to be near her parents when she should be brought to bed. Lasse would not accompany him; he preferred to be faithful to the “Ark”; he had got to know the inmates now, and he could keep himself quite decently by occasional work in the neighboring parts of the city.

Pelle fought valiantly to keep the winter at bay. There was nothing to do at the workshop; and he had to be on the go from morning to night. Wherever work was to be had, there he applied, squeezing his way through hundreds of others. His customers needed footwear now more than ever; but they had no money to pay for it.

Ellen and he drew nearer at this season and learned to know one another on a new side. The hard times drew them together; and he had cause to marvel at the stoutness of her heart. She accepted conditions as they were with extraordinary willingness, and made a little go a very long way. Only with the stove she could do nothing. “It eats up everything we scrape together,” she said dejectedly; “it sends everything up the chimney and doesn’t give out any warmth. I’ve put a bushel of coal on it to-day, and it’s as cold as ever! Where I was in service we were able to warm two big rooms with one scuttle! I must be a fool, but won’t you look into it?” She was almost crying.

“You mustn’t take that to heart so!” said Pelle gloomily. “That’s the way with poor folks’ stoves. They are old articles that are past use, and the landlords buy them up as old iron and then fit them in their workmen’s dwellings! And it’s like that with everything! We poor people get the worst and pay the dearest—although we make the things! Poverty is a sieve.”

“Yes, it’s dreadful,” said Ellen, looking at him with mournful eyes. “And I can understand you so well now!”

Threatening Need had spread its pinions above them. They hardly dared to think now; they accepted all things at its hands.

One day, soon after Ellen had been brought to bed, she asked Pelle to go at once to see Father Lasse. “And mind you bring him with you!” she said. “We can very well have him here, if we squeeze together a little. I’m afraid he may be in want.”

Pelle was pleased by the offer, and immediately set out. It was good of Ellen to open her heart to the old man when they were by no means certain of being able to feed themselves.

The “Ark” had a devastated appearance. All the curtains had disappeared —except at Olsen’s; with the gilt mouldings they always fetched fifty öre. The flowers in the windows were frostbitten. One could see right into the rooms, and inside also all was empty. There was something shameless about the winter here; instead of clothing the “Ark” more warmly it stripped it bare—and first of all of its protecting veils. The privies in the court had lost their doors and covers, and it was all Pelle could do to climb up to the attics! Most of the balustrades had vanished, and every second step was lacking; the “Ark” was helping itself as well as it could! Over at Madam Johnsen’s the bucket of oak was gone that had always stood in the corner of the gallery when it was not lent to some one—the “Ark” possessed only the one. And now it was burned or sold. Pelle looked across, but had not the courage to call. Hanne, he knew, was out of work.

A woman came slinking out of the third story, and proceeded to break away a fragment of woodwork; she nodded to Pelle. “For a drop of coffee!” she said, “and God bless coffee! You can make it as weak as you like as long as it’s still nice and hot.”

The room was empty; Lasse was not there. Pelle asked news of him along the gangway. He learned that he was living in the cellar with the old clothes woman. Thin gray faces appeared for a moment in the doorways, gazed at him, and silently disappeared.

The cellar of the old clothes woman was overcrowded with all sorts of objects; hither, that winter, the possessions of the poor had drifted. Lasse was sitting in a corner, patching a mattress; he was alone down there. “She has gone out to see about something,” he said; “in these times her money finds plenty of use! No, I’m not going to come with you and eat your bread. I get food and drink here—I earn it by helping her —and how many others can say this winter that they’ve their living assured? And I’ve got a corner where I can lie. But can’t you tell me what’s become of Peter? He left the room before me one day, and since then I’ve never seen him again.”

“Perhaps he’s living with his sweetheart,” said Pelle. “I’ll see if I can’t find out.”

“Yes, if you will. They were good children, those three, it would be a pity if one of them were to come to any harm.”

Pelle would not take his father away from a regular situation where he was earning a steady living. “We don’t very well see what we could offer you in its place. But don’t forget that you will always be welcome— Ellen herself sent me here.”

“Yes, yes! Give her many thanks for that! And now you be off, before the old woman comes back,” said Lasse anxiously. “She doesn’t like any one to be here—she’s afraid for her money.”

The first thing that had to go was Pelle’s winter overcoat. He pawned it one day, without letting Ellen know, and on coming home surprised her with the money, which he delightedly threw on the table, krone by krone. “How it rings!” he said to Young Lasse. The child gave a jump, and wanted the money to play with.

“What do I want with a winter coat?” he retorted, to Ellen’s kindly reproaches. “I’m not cold, and it only hangs up indoors here. I’ve borne with it all the summer. Ah, that’s warm!” he cried, to the child, when Ellen had brought some fuel. “That was really a good winter coat, that of father’s! Mother and sister and Young Lasse can all warm themselves at it!”

The child put his hands on his knees and peeped into the fire after his father’s winter coat. The fire kindled flames in his big child’s eyes, and played on his red cheeks. “Pretty overcoat!” he said, laughing all over his face.

They did not see much of the tenants of the house; nor of the family. People were living quietly, each one fighting his own privations within his four walls. On Sundays they gave the children to one of the neighbors, went into the city, and stood for an hour outside some concert-hall, freezing and listening to the music. Then they went home again and sat vegetating in the firelight, without lighting the lamp.

One Sunday things looked bad. “The coals will hold out only till midday,” said Ellen; “we shall have to go out. And there’s no more food either. But perhaps we can go to the old folks; they’ll put up with us till evening.”

As they were about to start, Ellen’s brother Otto arrived, with his wife and two children, to call on them. Ellen exchanged a despairing glance with Pelle. Winter had left its stamp on them too; their faces were thin and serious. But they still had warm clothes. “You must keep your cloaks on,” said Ellen, “for I have no more coal. I forgot it yesterday, I had so much to do; I had to put off ordering it until to-day, and to-day, unfortunately, the coal dealer isn’t at home.”

“If only the children aren’t cold,” said Pelle, “we grown-ups can easily keep ourselves warm.”

“Well, as long as they haven’t icicles hanging from their noses they won’t come to any harm!” said Otto with a return of his old humor.

They moved restlessly about the room and spoke of the bad times and the increasing need. “Yes, it’s terrible that there isn’t enough for everybody,” said Otto’s wife.

“But the hard winter and the misery will come to an end and then things will be better again.”

“You mean we shall come to an end first?” said Otto, laughing despairingly.

“No, not we—this poverty, of course. Ach, you know well enough what I mean. But he’s always like that,” she said, turning to Pelle.

“Curious, how you women still go about in the pious belief that there’s not enough for all!” said Pelle. “Yet the harbor is full of stacks of coal, and there’s no lack of eatables in the shops. On the contrary— there is more than usual, because so many are having to do without—and you can see, too, that everything in the city is cheaper. But what good is that when there’s no money? It’s the distribution that’s all wrong.”

“Yes, you are quite right!” said Otto Stolpe. “It’s really damnable that no one has the courage to help himself!”

Pelle heard Ellen go out through the kitchen door, and presently she came back with firing in her apron. She had borrowed it. “I’ve scraped together just a last little bit of coal,” she said, going down on her knees before the stove. “In any case it’s enough to heat the water for a cup of coffee.”

Otto and his wife begged her urgently not to give herself any trouble; they had had some coffee before they left home—after a good solid breakfast. “On Sundays we always have a solid breakfast,” said young Madam Stolpe; “it does one such a lot of good!” While she was speaking her eyes involuntarily followed Ellen’s every moment, as though she could tell thereby how soon the coffee would be ready.

Ellen chatted as she lit the fire. But of course they must have a cup of coffee; they weren’t to go away with dry throats!

Pelle sat by listening in melancholy surprise; her innocent boasting only made their poverty more glaring. He could see that Ellen was desperately perplexed, and he followed her into the kitchen.

“Pelle, Pelle!” she said, in desperation. “They’ve counted on stopping here and eating until the evening. And I haven’t a scrap in the house. What’s to be done?”

“Tell them how it is, of course!”

“I can’t! And they’ve had nothing to eat to-day—can’t you see by looking at them?” She burst into tears.

“Now, now, let me see to the whole thing!” he said consolingly. “But what are you going to give us with our coffee?”

“I don’t know! I have nothing but black bread and a little butter.”

“Lord, what a little donkey!” he said, smiling, and he took her face between his hands. “And you stand there lamenting! Just you be cutting the bread-and-butter!”

Ellen set to work hesitatingly. But before she appeared with the refreshments they heard her bang the front door and go running down the steps. After a time she returned. “Oh, Lord! Now the baker has sold out of white bread,” she said, “so you must just have black bread-and-butter with your coffee.”

“But that’s capital,” they cried. “Black bread always goes best with coffee. Only it’s a shame we are giving you so much trouble!”

“Look here,” said Pelle, at last. “It may please you to play hide-and- seek with one another, but it doesn’t me—I am going to speak my mind. With us things are bad, and it can’t be any better with you. Now how is it, really, with the old folks?”

“They are struggling along,” said Otto. “They always have credit, and I think they have a little put by as well.”

“Then shan’t we go there to-night and have supper? Otherwise I’m afraid we shan’t get anything.”

“Yes, we will! It’s true we were there the day before yesterday—but what does that matter? We must go somewhere, and at least it’s sticking to the family!”

The cold had no effect on Pelle; the blood ran swiftly through his veins. He was always warm. Privation he accepted as an admonition, and merely felt the stronger for it; and he made use of his involuntary holiday to work for the Cause.

It was no time for public meetings and sounding words—many had not even clothes with which to go to meetings. The movement had lost its impetus through the cold; people had their work cut out to keep the little they already had. Pelle made it his business to encourage the hopes of the rejected, and was always on the run; he came into contact with many people. Misery stripped them bare and developed his knowledge of humanity.

Wherever a trade was at a standstill, and want had made its appearance, he and others were at hand to prevent demoralization and to make the prevailing conditions the subject of agitation. He saw how want propagates itself like the plague, and gradually conquers all—a callous accomplice in the fate of the poor man. In a week to a fortnight unemployment would take all comfort from a home that represented the scraping and saving of many years—so crying was the disproportion. Here was enough to stamp a lasting comprehension upon the minds of all, and enough to challenge agitation. All but persons of feeble mind could see now what they were aiming at.

And there were people here like those at home. Want made them even more submissive. They could hardly believe that they were so favored as to be permitted to walk the earth and go hungry. With them there was nothing to be done. They were born slaves, born with slavery deep in their hearts, pitiful and cur-like.

They were people of a certain age—of an older generation than his. The younger folk were of another and a harder stuff; and he often was amazed to find how vigorously their minds echoed his ideas. They were ready to dare, ready to meet force with force. These must be held back lest they should prejudice the movement—for them its progress was never sufficiently rapid.

His mind was young and intact and worked well in the cold weather; he restlessly drew comparisons and formed conclusions in respect of everything he came into contact with. The individual did not seem to change. The agitation was especially directed to awakening what was actually existent. For the rest, they must live their day and be replaced by a younger generation in whom demands for compensation came more readily to the tongue. So far as he could survey the evolution of the movement, it did not proceed through the generations, but in some amazing fashion grew out of the empty space between them. So youth, even at the beginning, was further ahead than age had been where it left off.

The movements of the mind had an obscure and mystical effect upon him, as had the movement of his blood in childhood; sometimes he felt a mysterious shudder run through him, and he began to understand what Morten had meant when he said that humanity was sacred. It was terrible that human beings should suffer such need, and Pelle’s resentment grew deeper.

Through his contact with so many individuals he learned that Morten was not so exceptional; the minds of many betrayed the same impatience, and could not understand that a man who is hungry should control himself and be content with the fact of organization. There was a revolutionary feeling abroad; a sterner note was audible, and respectable people gave the unemployed a wide berth, while old people prophesied the end of the world. The poor had acquired a manner of thinking such as had never been known.

One day Pelle stood in a doorway with some other young people, discussing the aspect of affairs; it was a cold meeting-place, but they had not sufficient means to call a meeting in the usual public room. The discussion was conducted in a very subdued tune; their voices were bitter and sullen. A well-dressed citizen went by. “There’s a fine overcoat,” cried one; “I should like to have one like that! Shall we fetch him into the doorway and pull his coat off?” He spoke loudly, and was about to run out into the street.

“No stupidity!” said Pelle sadly, seizing him by the arm. “We should only do ourselves harm! Remember the authorities are keeping their eyes on us!”

“Well, what’s a few weeks in prison?” the man replied. “At least one would get board and lodging for so long.” There was a look that threatened mischief in his usually quiet and intelligent eyes.

XXIV

There were rumors that the city authorities intended to intervene in order to remedy the condition of the unemployed, and shortly before Christmas large numbers of navvies were given employment. Part of the old ramparts was cleared away, and the space converted into parks and boulevards. Pelle applied among a thousand others and had the good fortune to be accepted. The contractor gave the preference to youthful energy.

Every morning the workers appeared in a solid phalanx; the foreman of the works chose those he had need of, and the rest were free to depart. At home sat their wives and children, cheered by the possibility of work; the men felt no inclination to go home with bad news, so they loafed about in the vicinity.

They came there long before daybreak in order to be the first, although there was not much hope. There was at least an excuse to leave one’s bed; idleness was burning like hell fire in their loins. When the foreman came they thronged silently about him, with importunate eyes. One woman brought her husband; he walked modestly behind her, kept his eyes fixed upon her, and did precisely as she did. He was a great powerful fellow, but he did nothing of his own accord—did not even blow his nose unless she nudged him. “Come here, Thorvald!” she said, cuffing him so hard as to hurt him. “Keep close behind me!” She spoke in a harsh voice, into the empty air, as though to explain her behavior to the others; but no one looked at her. “He can’t speak for himself properly, you see,” she remarked at random. Her peevish voice made Pelle start; she was from Bornholm. Ah, those smart young girls at home, they were a man’s salvation! “And the children have got to live too!” she continued. “We have eight. Yes, eight.”

“Then he’s some use for something,” said a workman who looked to be perishing with the cold.

The woman worked her way through them, and actually succeeded in getting her man accepted. “And now you do whatever they tell you, nicely, and don’t let them tempt you to play the fool in any way!” she said, and she gave him a cuff which set him off working in his place. She raised her head defiantly as contemptuous laughter sounded about her.

The place was like a slave-market. The foreman, went to and fro, seeking out the strongest, eyeing them from head to foot and choosing them for their muscular development and breadth of back. The contractor too was moving about and giving orders. “One of them rich snobs!” said the laborers, grumbling; “all the laborers in town have to march out here so that he can pick himself the best. And he’s beaten down the day’s wages to fifty öre. He’s been a navvy himself, too; but now he’s a man who enjoys his hundred thousand a year. A regular bloodsucker, he is!”

The crowd continued to stand there and to loaf about all the day, in the hope that some one would give up, or fall ill—or go crazy—so that some one could take his place. They could not tear themselves away; the mere fact that work was being done chained them to the spot. They looked as though they might storm the works at any moment, and the police formed a ring about the place. They stood pressing forward, absorbed by their desire for work, with a sick longing in their faces. When the crowd had pressed forward too far it hesitatingly allowed itself to be pushed back again. Suddenly there was a break in the ranks; a man leaped over the rail and seized a pickaxe. A couple of policemen wrested the tool from his hand and led him away.

And as they stood there a feeling of defiance rose within them, a fierce contempt for their privations and the whole shameless situation. It expressed itself in an angry half-suppressed growl. They followed the contractor with curious eyes as though they were looking for something in him but could not conceive what it was.

In his arrogance at receiving such an excessive offer of labor, he decided to go further, and to lengthen the working day by an hour. The workers received an order to that effect one morning, just as they had commenced work. But at the same moment the four hundred men, all but two, threw down their implements and returned to their comrades. They stood there discussing the matter, purple with rage. So now their starving condition was to be made use of, in order to enrich the contractor by a further hundred thousand! “We must go to the city authorities,” they cried. “No, to the newspaper!” others replied. “The paper! The paper is better!”

“It’s no use going to the city council—not until we have elected members of our own party to it,” cried Pelle. “Remember that at the elections, comrades! We must elect men of our party everywhere, their encroachments will never be stopped until then. And now we must stand together and be firm! If it’s got to be, better starve to death at once than do it slowly!”

They did not reply, but pressed closely about him, heavily listening. There was something altogether too fierce and profound in their attention. These men had declared a strike in midwinter, as their only remedy. What were they thinking of doing now? Pelle looked about him and was daunted by their dumb rage. This threatening silence wouldn’t do; what would it lead to? It seemed as though something overwhelming, and uncontrollable, would spring from this stony taciturnity. Pelle sprang upon a heap of road-metal.

“Comrades!” he cried, in a powerful voice. “This is merely a change, as the fox said when they flayed his skin off. They have deprived us of clothes and food and drink, and comfort at home, and now they want to find a way of depriving us of our skins too! The question to-day is— forward or back? Perhaps this is the great time of trial, when we shall enter into possession of all we have desired! Hold together, comrades! Don’t scatter and don’t give way! Things are difficult enough now, but remember, we are well on in the winter, and it promises to break up early. The night is always darkest before daybreak! And shall we be afraid to suffer a little—we, who have suffered and been patient for hundreds of years? Our wives are sitting at home and fretting—perhaps they will be angry with us. We might at least have accepted what was offered us, they may say. But we can’t go on seeing our dear ones at home fading away in spite of our utmost exertions! Hitherto the poor man’s labor has been like an aimless prayer to Heaven: Deliver us from hunger and dirt, from misery, poverty, and cold, and give us bread, and again bread! Deliver our children from our lot—let not their limbs wither and their minds lapse into madness! That has been our prayer, but there is only one prayer that avails, and that is, to defy the wicked! We are the chosen people, and for that reason we must cry a halt! We will no longer do as we have done—for our wives’ sakes, and our children’s, and theirs again! Ay, but what is posterity to us? Of course it is something to us—precisely to us! Were your parents as you are? No, they were ground down into poverty and the dust, they crept submissively before the mighty. Then whence did we get all that makes us so strong and causes us to stand together? Time has stood still, comrades! It has placed its finger on our breast and he said, ‘Thus you shall do!’ Here where we stand, the old time ceases and the new time begins; and that is why we have thrown down our tools, with want staring us in the face—such a thing as has never been seen before! We want to revolutionize life—to make it sweet for the poor man! And for all time! You, who have so often staked your life and welfare for a florin—you now hold the whole future in your hands! You must endure, calmly and prudently! And you will never be forgotten, so long as there are workers on the earth! This winter will be the last through which we shall have to endure—for yonder lies the land toward which we have been wandering! Comrades! Through us the day shall come!”

Pelle himself did not know what words he uttered. He felt only that something was speaking through him—something supremely mighty, that never lies. There was a radiant, prophetic ring in his voice, which carried his hearers off their feet; and his eyes were blazing. Before their eyes a figure arose from the hopeless winter, towering in radiance, a figure that was their own, and yet that of a young god. He rose, new-born, out of misery itself, struck aside the old grievous idea of fate, and in its place gave them a new faith—the radiant faith in their own might! They cried up to him—first single voices, then all. He gathered up their cries into a mighty cheer, a paean in honor of the new age!

Every day they stationed themselves there, not to work, but to stand there in dumb protest. When the foreman called for workers they stood about in silent groups, threatening as a gloomy rock. Now and again they shouted a curse at those who had left them in the lurch. The city did nothing. They had held out a helping hand to the needy, and the latter had struck it away—now they must accept the consequences. The contractor had received permission to suspend the work entirely, but he kept it going with a few dozen strike-breakers, in order to irritate the workers.

All over the great terrace a silence as of death prevailed, except in that corner where the little gang was at work, a policeman beside it, as though the men had been convicts. The wheelbarrows lay with their legs in the air; it was as though the pest had swept over the works.

The strike-breakers were men of all callings; a few of the unemployed wrote down their names and addresses, in order to insert them in _The Working Man_. One of Stolpe’s fellow-unionists was among them; he was a capable pater-familias, and had taken part in the movement from its earliest days. “It’s a pity about him,” said Stolpe; “he’s an old mate of mine, and he’s always been a good comrade till now. Now they’ll give it him hard in the paper—we are compelled to. It does the trade no good when one of its representatives goes and turns traitor.”

Madame Stolpe was unhappy. “It’s such a nice family,” she said; “we have always been on friendly terms with them; and I know they were hungry a long time. He has a young wife, father; it’s not easy to stand out.”

“It hurts me myself,” replied Stolpe. “But one is compelled to do it, otherwise one would be guilty of partisanship. And no one shall come to me and say that I’m a respecter of persons.”

“I should like to go and have a talk with them,” said Pelle. “Perhaps they’d give it up then.”

He got the address and went there after working hours. The home had been stripped bare. There were four little children. The atmosphere was oppressive. The man, who was already well on in years, but was still powerful, sat at the table with a careworn expression eating his supper, while the children stood round with their chins on the edge of the table, attentively following every bite he took. The young wife was going to and fro; she brought him his simple food with a peculiarly loving gesture.

Pelle broached the question at issue. It was not pleasant to attack this old veteran. But it must be done.

“I know that well enough,” said the man, nodding to himself. “You needn’t begin your lecture—I myself have been in the movement since the first days, and until now I’ve kept my oath. But now it’s done with, for me. What do you want here, lad? Have you a wife and children crying for bread? Then think of your own!”

“We don’t cry, Hans,” said the woman quietly.

“No, you don’t, and that makes it even worse! Can I sit here and look on, while you get thinner day by day, and perish with the cold? To hell with the comrades and their big words—what have they led to? Formerly we used to go hungry just for a little while, and now we starve outright—that’s the difference! Leave me alone, I tell you! Curse it, why don’t they leave me in peace?”

He took a mouthful of brandy from the bottle. His wife pushed a glass toward him, but he pushed it violently away.

“You’ll be put in the paper to-morrow,” said Pelle, hesitating. “I only wanted to tell you that.”

“Yes, and to write of me that I’m a swine and a bad comrade, and perhaps that I beat my wife as well. You know yourself it’s all lies; but what is that to me? Will you have a drink?”

No, Pelle wouldn’t take anything. “Then I will myself,” said the man, and he laughed angrily. “Now you can certify that I’m a hog—I drink out of the bottle! And another evening you can come and listen at the keyhole—perhaps then you’ll hear me beating my wife!”

The woman began to cry.

“Oh, damn it all, they might leave me in peace!” said the man defiantly.

Pelle had to go with nothing effected.

XXV

The “Ark” was now freezing in the north wind; all outward signs of life were stripped from it. The sounds that in summer bubbled up from its deep well-like shaft were silent now; the indistinguishable dripping of a hundred waste-pipes, that turned the court into a little well with green slimy walls, was silent too. The frost had fitted them all with stoppers; and where the toads had sat gorging themselves in the cavities of the walls—fantastic caverns of green moss and slimy filaments—a crust of ice hung over all; a grimy glacier, which extended from the attics right down to the floor of the court.

Where were they now, the grimy, joyful children? And what of the evening carouse of the hearse-driver, for which his wife would soundly thrash him? And the quarrelsome women’s voices, which would suddenly break out over this or that railing, criticizing the whole court, sharp as so many razors?

The frost was harder than ever! It had swept all these things away and had locked them up as closely as might be. The hurdy-gurdy man lay down below in his cellar, and had as visitor that good friend of the north wind, the gout; and down in the deserted court the draught went shuffling along the dripping walls. Whenever any one entered the tunnel- entry the draught clutched at his knees with icy fingers, so that the pain penetrated to the very heart.

There stood the old barrack, staring emptily out of its black windows. The cold had stripped away the last shred of figured curtain, and sent it packing to the pawn-shop. It had exchanged the canary for a score of firewood, and had put a stop to the day-long, lonely crying of the little children behind the locked doors—that hymn of labor, which had ceased only in the evening, when the mothers returned from the factories. Now the mothers sat with their children all day long, and no one but the cold grudged them this delight. But the cold and its sister, hunger, came every day to look in upon them.

On the third floor, away from the court, Widow Johnsen sat in the corner by the stove. Hanne’s little girl lay cowering on the floor, on a tattered patchwork counterpane. Through the naked window one saw only ice, as though the atmosphere were frozen down to the ground. Transparent spots had formed on the window-panes every time the child had breathed on them in order to look out, but they had soon closed up again. The old woman sat staring straight into the stove with big, round eyes; her little head quivered continually; she was like a bird of ill omen, that knew a great deal more than any one could bear to hear.

“Now I’m cold again, grandmother,” said the child quietly.

“Don’t keep from shivering, then you’ll be warm,” said the old woman.

“Are you shivering?”

“No, I’m too old and stiff for it—I can’t shiver any more. But the cold numbs my limbs, so that I can’t feel them. I could manage well enough if it wasn’t for my back.”

“You lean your back against the cold stove too!”

“Yes, the cold grips my poor back so.”

“But that’s stupid, when the stove isn’t going.”

“But if only my back would get numb too!” said the old woman piteously.

The child was silent, and turned her head away.

Over the whole of the wall were tiny glittering crystals. Now and again there was a rustling sound under the wall-paper.

“Grandmother, what’s that funny noise?” asked the child.

“That’s the bugs—they are coming down,” said the old woman. “It’s too cold for them up there in the attics, and they don’t like it here. You should see them; they go to Olsen’s with the warm wall; they stay there in the cold.”

“Is the wall at Olsen’s always warm, then?”

“Yes, when there’s fire in the boiler of the steam mill.”

Then the child was silent a while, wearily turning her head from side to side. A dreadful weariness was stamped on her face. “I’m cold,” she complained after a time.

“See if you can’t shiver!”

“Hadn’t I better jump a bit?”

“No, then you’d just swallow down the cold—the air is like ice. Just keep still, and soon mother will be here, and she’ll bring something!”

“She never gets anything,” said the child. “When she gets there it’s always all over.”

“That’s not true,” said Madam Johnsen severely. “There’s food enough in the soup kitchens for all; it’s just a matter of understanding how to go about it. The poor must get shame out of their heads. She’ll bring something to-day!”

The child stood up and breathed a hole in the ice on the window-pane.

“Look now, whether it isn’t going to snow a little so that the poor man can get yet another day’s employment,” said the old woman.

No, the wind was still blowing from the north, although it commonly shuffled along the canal; but now, week after week, it blew from the Nicolai tower, and played the flute on the hollow bones of poverty. The canals were covered with ice, and the ground looked horribly hard. The naked frost chased the people across it like withered leaves. With a thin rustling sound they were swept across the bridges and disappeared.

A great yellow van came driving by. The huge gates of the prison opened slowly and swallowed it. It was the van containing the meat for the prisoners. The child followed it with a desolate expression.

“Mother isn’t coming,” she said. “I am so hungry.”

“She will soon come—you just wait! And don’t stand in the light there; come here in the corner! The light strikes the cold right through one.”

“But I feel colder in the dark.”

“That’s just because you don’t understand. I only long now for the pitch darkness.”

“I long for the sun!” retorted the child defiantly.

There was a creaking of timber out in the yard. The child ran out and opened the door leading to the gallery. It was only the people opposite, who were tearing a step away.

But then came mother, with a tin pail in her hand, and a bundle under her arm; and there was something in the pail—it looked heavy. Tra-la- la! And the bundle, the bundle! What was in that? “Mother, mother!” she cried shrilly, leaning far over the rickety rail.

Hanne came swiftly up the stairs, with open mouth and red cheeks; and a face peeped out of every little nest.

“Now Widow Hanne has taken the plunge,” they said. They knew what a point of honor it had been with her to look after her mother and her child unaided. She was a good girl.

And Widow Hanne nodded to them all, as much as to say, “Now it’s done, thank God!”

She stood leaning over the table, and lifted the cover off the pail. “Look!” she said, as she stirred the soup with a ladle: “there’s pearl barley and pot-herbs. If only we had something we could warm it up with!”

“We can tear away a bit of the woodwork like other people,” said the mother.

“Yes,” replied Hanne breathlessly, “yes, why not? If one can beg one can do that!”

She ran out onto the gallery and tore away a few bits of trellis, so that the sound re-echoed through the court. People watched her out of all the dark windows. Widow Hanne had knocked off the head of her pride!

Then they sat down to their soup, the old woman and the child. “Eat!” said Hanne, standing over them and looking on with glowing eyes. Her cheeks were burning. “You look like a flower in the cold!” said her mother. “But eat, yourself, or you’ll starve to death.”

No, Hanne would not eat. “I feel so light,” she said, “I don’t need any food.” She stood there fingering her bundle; all her features were quivering, and her mouth was like that of a person sick of a fever.

“What have you there?” asked Madam Johnsen.

“Clothes for you and little Marie. You were so cold. I got them downstairs from the old clothes woman—they were so cheap.”

“Do you say you bought them?”

“Yes—I got them on credit.”

“Well, well, if you haven’t given too much for them! But it will do one good to have something warm on one’s back!”

Hanne undid the bundle, while the others looked on in suspense. A light summer dress made its appearance, pleated and low-necked, blue as little Marie’s eyes, and a pair of thin kid shoes. The child and the old woman gazed wonderingly at the dress. “How fine!” they said. They had forgotten everything, and were all admiration. But Hanne stood staring with horror, and suddenly burst into sobs.

“Come, come, Hanne!” said her mother, clapping her on the back. “You have bought a dress for yourself—that’s not so dreadful! Youth will have its rights.”

“No, mother, no, I didn’t buy it at all! I knew you both needed something to keep you warm, so I went into a fine house and asked if they hadn’t any cast-off things, and there was a young lady—she gave me this—and she was so kind. No, I didn’t know at all what was in the bundle—I really didn’t know, dear mother!”

“Well, well, they are fine enough!” said the old woman, spreading the dress out in front of her. “They are fine things!” But Hanne put the things together and threw them into the corner by the stove.

“You are ill!” said her mother, gazing at her searchingly; “your eyes are blazing like fire.”

The darkness descended, and they went to bed. People burned no useless lights in those days, and it was certainly best to be in bed. They had laid the feather-bed over themselves cross-wise, when it comfortably covered all three; their daytime clothes they laid over their feet. Little Marie lay in the middle. No harm could come to her there. They talked at random about indifferent matters. Hanne’s voice sounded loud and cheerful in the darkness as though it came from a radiant countryside.

“You are so restless,” said the mother. “Won’t you try to sleep a little? I can feel the burning in you from here!”

“I feel so light,” replied Hanne; “I can’t lie still.” But she did lie still, gazing into space and humming inaudibly to herself, while the fever raged in her veins.

After a time the old woman awoke; she was cold. Hanne was standing in the middle of the room, with open mouth; and was engaged in putting on her fine linen underclothing by the light of a candle-end.

Her breath came in short gasps and hung white on the air.

“Are you standing there naked in the cold?” said Madam Johnsen reproachfully. “You ought to take a little care of yourself.”

“Why, mother, I’m so warm! Why, it’s summer now!”

“What are you doing, child?”

“I am only making myself a little bit smart, mother dear!”

“Yes, yes—dance, my baby. You’ve still got the best of your youth before you, poor child! Why didn’t you get a husband where you got the child from?”

Hanne only hummed a tune to herself, and proceeded to don the bright blue summer costume. It was a little full across the chest, but the decolletage sat snugly over her uncovered bosom. A faint cloud of vapor surrounded her person like a summer haze.

Her mother had to hook up the dress at the back. “If only we don’t wake Marie!” she whispered, entirely absorbed by the dress. “And the fine lace on the chemise—you can always let that peep out of the dress a little—it looks so pretty like that. Now you really look like a summer girl!”

“I’ll just run down and show it to Madam Olsen,” said Hanne, pressing her hand to her glowing cheeks.

“Yes, do—poor folks’ joys must have their due,” replied the old woman, turning over to the wall.

Hanne ran down the steps and across the yard and out into the street. The ground was hard and ringing in the frost, the cold was angry and biting, but the road seemed to burn Hanne through her thin shoes. She ran through the market, across the bridge, and into the less crowded quarter of the city—right into Pelle’s arms. He was just going to see Father Lasse.

Pelle was wearied and stupefied with the continual battle with hard reality. The bottomless depths of misery were beginning to waste his courage. Was it really of any use to hold the many together? It only made the torture yet harder for them to bear. But in a moment everything looked as bright as though he had fallen into a state of ecstasy, as had often happened lately. In the midst of the sternest realities it would suddenly happen that his soul would leap within him and conjure up the new age of happiness before his eyes, and the terrible dearth filled his arms to overflowing with abundance! He did not feel the cold; the great dearth had no existence; violent spiritual excitement and insufficient nourishment made the blood sing continually in his ears. He accepted it as a happy music from a contented world. It did not surprise him that he should meet Hanne in summer clothing and attired as for a ball.

“Pelle, my protector!” she said, grasping his hand. “Will you go to the dance with me?”

“That’s really the old Hanne,” thought Pelle delightedly—“the careless Princess of the ‘Ark,’ and she is feverish, just as she used to be then.” He himself was in a fever. When their eyes met they emitted a curious, cold, sparkling light. He had quite forgotten Father Lasse and his errand, and went with Hanne.

The entrance of “The Seventh Heaven” was flooded with light, which exposed the merciless cold of the street. Outside, in the sea of light, thronged the children of the terrible winter, dishevelled and perishing with the cold. They stood there shuddering, or felt in their pockets for a five-öre piece, and if they found it they slipped through the blood- red tunnel into the dancing-hall.

But it was cold in there too; their breath hung like white powder on the air; and crystals of ice glittered on the polished floor. Who would dream of heating a room where the joy of life was burning? and a thousand candles? Here carelessness was wont to give of its abundance, so that the lofty room lay in a cloud and the musicians were bathed in sweat.

But now the cold had put an end to that. Unemployed workers lounged about the tables, disinclined for movement. Winter had not left the poor fellows an ounce of frivolity. Cerberus Olsen might spare himself the trouble of going round with his giant arms outspread, driving the two or three couples of dancers with their five-öre pieces indoors toward the music, as though they had been a whole crowd. People only toiled across the floor in order to have the right to remain there. Good Lord! Some of them had rings and watches, and Cerberus had ready cash—what sort of dearth was that? The men sat under the painted ceiling and the gilded mirrors, over a glass of beer, leaving the girls to freeze—even Elvira had to sit still. “Mazurka!” bellowed Cerberus, going threateningly from table to table. They slunk into the hall like beaten curs, dejectedly danced once round the floor, and paid.

But what is this? Is it not Summer herself stepping into the hall? All glowing and lightly clad in the blue of forget-me-nots, with a rose in her fair hair? Warmth lies like fleeting summer upon her bare shoulders, although she has come straight out of the terrible winter, and she steps with boldly moving limbs, like a daughter of joy. How proudly she carries her bosom, as though she were the bride of fortune—and how she burns! Who is she? Can no one say?

Oh, that is Widow Hanne, a respectable girl, who for seven long years faithfully trod her way to and from the factory, in order to keep her old mother and her child!

But how comes it then that she has the discreet Pelle on her arm? He who has sold his own youth to the devil, in order to alleviate poverty? What does he want here on the dancing-floor? And Hanne, whence did she get her finery? She is still out of employment! And how in all the world has she grown so beautiful?

They whisper behind her, following her as she advances; and in the midst of the hall she stands still and smiles. Her eyes burn with a volcanic fire. A young man rushes forward and encircles her with his arm. A dance with Hanne! A dance with Hanne!

Hanne dances with a peculiar hesitation, as though her joy had brought her from far away. Heavily, softly, she weighs on the arms of her partners, and the warmth rises from her bare bosom and dispels the cold of the terrible winter. It is as though she were on fire! Who could fail to be warmed by her?

Now the room is warm once more. Hanne is like a blazing meteor that kindles all as it circles round; where she glides past the fire springs up and the blood runs warmly in the veins. They overturn the chairs in their eagerness to dance with her. “Hi, steward! Five kroner on my watch—only be quick!” “Ach, Hanne, a dance with me!”—“Do you remember we were at the factory together?”—“We used to go to school together!”

Hanne does not reply, but she leaves Pelle and lays her naked arm upon their shoulders, and if they touch it with their cheeks the fire streams through them. They do not want to let her go again; they hold her fast embraced, gliding along with her to where the musicians are sitting, where all have to pay. No word passes her lips, but the fire within her is a promise to each of them, a promise of things most precious. “May I see you home to-night?” they whisper, hanging on her silent lips.

But to Pelle she speaks as they glide along. “Pelle, how strong you are! Why have you never taken me? Do you love me?” Her hand is clasping his shoulder as she whirls along beside him. Her breath burns in his ear.

“I don’t know!” he says uneasily. “But stop now—you are ill.”

“Hold me like that! Why have you never been stronger than I? Do you want me, Pelle? I’ll be yours!”

Pelle shakes his head. “No, I love you only like a sister now.”

“And now I love you! Look—you are so distant to me—I don’t understand you—and your hand is as hard as if you came from another world! You are heavy, Pelle! Have you brought me happiness from a foreign land with you?”

“Hanne, you are ill! Stop now and let me take you home!”

“Pelle, you were not the right one. What is there strange about you? Nothing! So let me alone—I am going to dance with the others as well!”

Hitherto Hanne has been dancing without intermission. The men stand waiting for her; when one releases her ten spring forward, and this evening Hanne wants to dance with them all. Every one of them should be permitted to warm himself by her! Her eyes are like sparks in the darkness; her silent demeanor excites them; they swing her round more and more wildly. Those who cannot dance with her must slake the fire within them with drink. The terrible winter is put to flight, and it is warm as in Hell itself. The blood is seething in their brains; it injects the whites of their eyes, and expresses itself in wanton frolic, in a need to dance till they drop, or to fight.

“Hanne is wild to-night—she has got her second youth,” says Elvira and the other girls maliciously.

Hold your tongues. No one shall criticize Hanne’s behavior! It is wonderful to touch her; the touch of her skin hurts one, as though she was not flesh and blood, but fire from Heaven! They say she has not had a bite of food for a week. The old woman and the child have had all there was. And yet she is burning! And see, she has now been dancing without a break for two whole hours! Can one understand such a thing? Hanne dances like a messenger from another world, where fire, not cold, is the condition of life. Every dancer leaves his partner in the lurch as soon as she is free! How lightly she dances! Dancing with her, one soars upward, far away from the cold. One forgets all misery in her eyes.

But she has grown paler and paler; she is dancing the fire out of her body while others are dancing it in! Now she is quite white, and Olsen’s Elvira comes up and tugs at her dress, with anxiety in her glance. “Hanne, Hanne!” But Hanne does not see her; she is only longing for the next pair of arms—her eyes are closed. She has so much to make up for! And who so innocent as she? She does not once realize that she is robbing others of their pleasure. Is she suffering from vertigo or St. Vitus’s dance, in her widowhood?

Hold your tongue! How beautiful she is! Now she is growing rosy again, and opening her eyes. Fire darts from them; she has brought Pelle out of his corner and is whispering something to him, blushing as she does so; perhaps that precious promise that hitherto no one has been able to draw from her. Pelle must always be the lucky man!