Chapter I (2)

Pelle went with the stream over Queen Louise’s Bridge and farther into the city. Here the feeling was different, opinions were divided, people exchanged sharp words. Outside the newspaper-offices stood dense crowds impeding the wheel-traffic as they waited patiently for the results that were shown in the windows. Every time a contested district came in, a wave of movement passed through the crowd, followed by a mighty roar if a victory was recorded. All was comparatively quiet; people stood outside the offices of the papers that bore the color of their party. Only the quarrelsome men gathered about their opponents and had their hats bashed in. Within the offices the members of the staff were passing busily backward and forward, hanging up the results and correcting them.

All the _cafés_ and restaurants were full of customers. The telephone rang incessantly, and messengers kept coming with lists from the telegram bureaus; men fought over the results in front of the great blackboard and chances were discussed at the tables and much political nonsense was talked.

Pelle had never seen the city so excited, not even during the great lock-out. Class faced class with clenched fists, the workmen even more eager than the upper class: they had become out-and-out politicians. He could see that the Movement had shifted its center of gravity over this. What was necessary was to gain seats; to-day they expected to get the upper hand in the city and a firm footing out in the country. Several of the old leaders were already in parliament and brought forward their practical experience in the debate; their aim now was nothing less than to usurp the political power. This was bold enough: they must have been successful, after all. He still possessed his old quickness of hearing as regards the general feeling, and perceived a change in the public tone. It had become broader, more democratic. Even the upper classes submitted to the ballot now, and condescended to fight for a majority of votes.

Pelle could see no place for himself, however, in this conflict. “Hi, you there! I suppose you’ve voted?” men shouted to him as they passed. Voted! He had not even the right to vote! In the battle that was now being fought, their old leader was not even allowed to take part as an ordinary soldier.

Out of the road! They marched in small bands on their way to the polling-booths or the Assembly Rooms, taking up the whole pavement, and Pelle readily moved out of their way. This time he did not come like a king’s son for whom the whole world stood waiting.

He was of the scum of the earth, neither more nor less, one who had been thrown aside and forgotten. If he succeeded in recalling himself to their remembrance, it would only be the bringing up of the story of a criminal. There was the house where the Stolpes lived. Perhaps they knew where Ellen was. But what did it matter to him? He had not forgotten Lasse Frederik’s terror-stricken face. And there was the corner house where Morten had managed the business. Ah, it was long since their ways had parted! Morten had in reality always envied him; he had not been able to bear his tremendous success. Now he would be able to crow over him!

Anger and bitterness filled his heart, and his head was confused, and his thoughts, bred of malice, were like clumsy faultfinders. For years the need of associating with human beings had been accumulating within him; and now the whole thing gave way like an avalanche. He could easily pick a quarrel with some one, just to make himself less a matter of indifference to the rest of the world. Why shouldn’t he go to the “Cupping-Glass”? He would be expected there at any rate.

Outside Griffenfeldt Street there was a crowd. A number of people had gathered round a coal-heaver, who was belaboring a lamp-post with the toes of his wooden shoes, at the same time using abusive language. He had run against it and had a bruise on his forehead. People were amusing themselves at his expense.

As the light from the lamp fell upon the coal-blackened face of the drunken man, Pelle recognized him. It was Merry Jacob. He pushed his way angrily through the crowd and took him by the shoulder. “What’s the matter with you, Jacob? Have you become a drunkard?” he said hotly. “How’s that?”

“It’s got no business to get in the way of an organized workman,” Jacob said indistinctly, kicking the air to the great delight of the onlookers, who encouraged him to continue. “I’m a member of my organization, and don’t owe anything; you can see for yourselves!” He pulled out of his breast-pocket a little book in a black leather cover, and turned over its pages. “Just look for yourselves! Member’s subscription paid, isn’t it? Strike subscription paid, isn’t it? Shown on entrance, isn’t it? Just you shut up! Take it and pass it round; we must have our papers in order. You’re supporting the election fund, I suppose? Go up and vote, confound you! The man who won’t give his mite is a poor pal. Who says thief? There’s no one here that steals. I’m an honest, organized—” He suddenly began to weep, and the saliva dropped from the corners of his mouth onto his coat, while he made fearful grimaces.

Pelle managed to get him into a courtyard, and washed his wound at the pump. The cold water made him shiver, and his head lolled weakly. “Such a snotty blackleg!” he murmured. “I’ll get the chairman to give him a doing in the paper.”

Suddenly he recognized Pelle. He started, and consciousness struggled to obtain control over his dulled senses. “Why, is that you, master?” he asked shamefacedly, seizing Pelle’s hand. “So you’ve come back! I suppose you think me a beast, but what can I do?”

“Just come along!” said Pelle sharply, anxious to get away from the crowd of spectators.

They went down Meinung Street, Jacob staggering along in silence, and looking askance at his former leader. He walked a little awkwardly, but it came from his work; the meeting with Pelle had made him almost sober. “I’m sure you think I’m a beast,” he said again at last in a pitiful voice. “But you see there’s no one to keep me straight.”

“It’s the fault of the brandy,” said Pelle shortly.

“Well, you may be right, but a fellow needs a kind word now and then, and you have to take it where you can get it. Your pals look down upon you and chuck you out of their set.”

“What’s the matter, then?” asked Pelle.

“What’s the matter? Six times five’s the matter, because I wouldn’t let my old father starve during the lockout. We had a jolly good time then. I was a good son! Didn’t mind the fat purses of the bigwigs and a little bread and water—and the devil and his standpipe! But now they’re singing another tune: That man! Why, he’s been punished for theft! End of him. No one asks why; they’ve become big men, you see. In olden days I was always called Merry Jacob, and the fellows liked to be in my shift. Do you know what they call me now? Thieving Jacob. Well, they don’t say it right out, for if they did, some one ’ud crack their heads for them; but that is my name. Well, I say to myself, perhaps you saw everything topsy-turvy in those days; perhaps, after all, you’re nothing but a thief. And then I have to drink to become an honest man again.”

“And get in rages with the lamp-posts! Don’t you think you’d do better to hit out at those who wrong you?”

Jacob was silent and hung his head; the once strong, bold fellow had become like a dog that any one might kick. If it were so dreadful to bear six times five among one’s own people, what could Pelle say? “How is your brother?” he asked, in order to divert Jacob’s thoughts to something brighter. “He was a splendid fellow.”

“He hung himself,” answered Jacob gloomily. “He couldn’t stand it any longer. We broke into a house together, so as to be equal about it; and the grocer owed the old man money—he’d worked for it—and they meant to cheat him out of it. So the two old things were starving, and had no fire either; and we got them what they’d a right to, and it was so splendidly done too. But afterward when there was a row at the works, agitation and election fuss and all that kind of thing, they just went and left him and me out. We weren’t the right sort, you see; we hadn’t the right to vote. He couldn’t get even with the business in any other way than by putting a rope over the lamp-hook in the ceiling. I’ve looked at the matter myself all round, you see, but I can’t make anything of it.” He walked on a little without speaking, and then said: “Would you hit out properly now? There’s need of a kind word.”

Pelle did not answer; it was all too sad. He did not even hear the question.

“It was chiefly what you said that made me believe in a better time coming,” Jacob continued persistently, “or perhaps my brother and me would have done differently and things might have gone better with both of us. Well, I suppose you believed it yourself, but what do you think now? Do you still believe in that about the better time? For I should like to be an honest man again.”

Of course Pelle still believed in it.

“For there aren’t many who’d give a brass farthing for that story now; but if _you_ say so—I’ve got faith in you all the same. Others wouldn’t have the brains to think of anything for themselves, and it was like the cork going off, so to speak, for us poor people when you went away; everything went flat. If anything happens, it doesn’t do for a poor devil to look on; and every time any one wants to complain, he gets a voting-paper pushed into his hand and they say: Go and vote and things will be altered! But confound it, that can’t rouse a fellow who’s not learnt anything from the time he was small. They’d taken a lot of trouble about me now—whitewashing me so that I could use my right to vote; but they can’t make me so that no one looks down on me. And so I say, Thank you for nothing! But if you still believe in it, so will I, for I’ve got faith in you. Here’s my hand on it!”

Jacob was the same simple, good-hearted fellow that he had been in former days when he lived in the attic in the “Ark.” There might very well have been a little more evil in him. But his words warmed Pelle’s heart. Here was some one who needed him, and who still believed in him although he had been maimed in the fight. He was the first of the disabled ones, and Pelle was prepared to meet with more and to hear their accusations. Many of them would turn against him now that he was powerless, but he would have to put up with that. He felt as though he had the strength for it now.

Pelle went into the street again, letting his feet carry him where they would, while he thought of the past and the future. They had been so certain that a new age would dawn upon them at once! The new, great truth had been so self-evident that it seemed as if all the old conditions must fall before it as at a magic word; and now the everyday reality had worn the gloss off it. As far as he could see, nothing particular had happened, and what was there to happen? That was not the way to overturn systems. From Merry Jacob’s opinion he could draw his own, but he was no longer despondent, he did not mind what happened. He would have had no objection to challenge the opinion of his old comrades at once, and find out how he stood.

He had passed through several side streets when he suddenly found himself in front of a large, well-lighted building with a broad flight of steps, up which people were flocking. It was one of the working-men’s halls, and festivities were being held in it to celebrate the elections. Pelle went, by force of habit, with the stream.

He remained at the back of the hall, and used his eyes as though he had just dropped down from some other planet; strange feelings welled up within him when he found himself once more among the people. For a moment he felt a vehement desire to cry: Here I am! and stretch out his arms to them all; but he quickly controlled it, and his face regained its stony composure.

This then was his army from the conflict. They were decidedly better clothed than on the day when he led them in triumph into the city as its true citizens; they carried their heads higher too, did not get behind one another, but claimed room for themselves. They had more to eat, he could see, for their faces shone more; and their eyes had become indolent in expression, and no longer looked hungrily out into uncertainty but moved quietly and unhesitatingly from place to place. They were prepared for another long march, and perhaps it was as well; great things did not happen in the twinkling of an eye.

He was aroused from his thoughts by discovering that the people nearest to him were turning and gazing at him. The number of faces looking round at him increased, and the words, “Pelle is here!” passed in a murmur through the crowd. Hundreds of eyes were directed toward him questioningly and searchingly, some of them in evident expectation of something unusual happening at once.

The movement became general—a wave that carried him resistlessly to the front of the hall and up onto the platform. A great roar like the breaking of surf arose on all sides of him and stupefied his sensitive brain in which silence sat always putting together a fine new world about which no one else knew. Suddenly everything was still, so still that the solitude was again audible to his ear.

Pelle spoke quietly and with confidence. His words were a greeting to them from a world they as yet did not know, the great solitude through which man must move alone—without loud-voiced companions to encourage him—and listen until he hears his own heart beat within it. He sits in a cell again, like the first original germ of life, alone and forsaken; and over him a spider skilfully spins its web. At first he is angry with the busy insect, and tears down the web; but the insect begins again patiently. And this suddenly becomes a consolatory lesson to him never to give up; he becomes fond of the little vigilant creature that makes its web as skilfully as if it had a great responsibility, and he asks himself whether it is at all conscious of his existence. Is it sorry for him in his forsaken condition, since it does not move to another place, but patiently builds its web up again, finer and finer, as if it had only been torn down because it was not made well enough? He bitterly regrets his conduct, and would give much for a sign that the little insect is not angry with him, for no one can afford to offend another; the smallest creature is of vital importance to you. In the loneliness of the prison cell you learn solidarity. And one day when he is sitting reading, the spider, in its busy efforts to carry its thread past him, drops down and uses his shoulder as a temporary attachment. Never before has such confidence been shown him notwithstanding everything; the little insect knew how a hardened criminal should be taken. It taught him that he had both a heart and a soul to take care of. A greeting to his comrades from the great silence that was waiting to speak to them one by one.

He spoke from the depths of his soul, and saw surprise in their faces. What in the world did he want? Did he want them all to go to prison only because he himself had been there? Was that all that was left of the old Pelle—Lightning, as he was then called? He was certainly rather weak in the legs; there wasn’t much of _his_ eloquence left! They quickly lost interest and began to talk together in undertones; there came only a little desultory applause here and there from the corners.

Pelle felt the disappointment and indifference, and smiled. He no longer had need of storms of approbation; he listened for it now within himself. This much he had learned by standing up there, namely, that he had not done with the men below; he was, in fact, only just beginning with them. His work had been swept away: well then he would build up a new one that was better. He had sat in his prison-cell and learned long- suffering.

He took a seat below the platform among the leaders of the meeting, and felt that he was really a stranger there. It was out of compassion they had drawn him into the meeting; he read in their eyes that the work that had been done was done without him, and that he came at an inopportune moment. Would they have to reckon with him, the hare-brained fellow, now again, or did he mean to emigrate? Alas, he did not give much impetus to the Movement! but if they only knew how much wisdom he had gained in his solitude!

He did not talk, but looked on absently, trying to listen through the noise for something lasting. They laughed and drank and made speeches— for him too; but all this was so unnecessary! They had gained confidence, they spoke quite openly, there was a certain emancipation in their general behavior; taken as a whole, they made a good impression. But the miracle? the incomprehensible? He missed a little anxiety behind the prosperity, the deep, silent pondering that would show that they had gazed into a new world. Did they not hear the undertone at all, since they were making such a noise—the unceasing, soft rhythm that was in his own ears continually and contained the whole thing? The stillness of the cell had made his hearing acute; the boisterous laughter, which expressed their pleasure in life, caused him suffering.

Beside a large blackboard on the platform stood one of the leaders, writing up the victories of the day, amid the rejoicing of the crowd. Pelle slipped out unnoticed, and was standing on the steps, breathing in the quiet night air, when a young man came up to him and held out his hand. It was his brother-in-law, Frederik Stolpe. “I just wanted to wish you welcome back,” he said, “and to thank you for what you said in there.”

“How is Ellen?” Pelle asked in a low voice.

“She’s only pretty well. She lives at 20, Victoria Street, and takes in washing. I think she would be glad to see you.” He looked searchingly at Pelle. “If you like, I can easily arrange for you to meet at my place.”

“Thank you!” Pelle answered, “but I’ll go out to her early to-morrow morning.” He no longer needed to go by circuitous routes.