In his loneliness Pelle had often taken his way to the little house by
the cemetery, where Due lived in two little rooms. It was always a sort
of consolation to see familiar faces, but in other respects he did not
gain much by his visits; Due was pleasant enough, but Anna thought of
nothing but herself, and how she could best get on. Due had a situation
as coachman at a jobmaster’s, and they seemed to have a sufficiency.
“We have no intention of being satisfied with driving other people’s
horses,” Anna would say, “but you must crawl before you can walk.” She
had no desire to return to the country.
“Out there there’s no prospects for small people, who want something
more than groats in their belly and a few rags on their back. You are
respected about as much as the dirt you walk on, and there’s no talk of
any future. I shall never regret that we’ve come away from the
country.”
Due, on the contrary, was homesick. He was quite used to knowing that
there was a quarter of a mile between him and the nearest neighbor, and
here he could hear, through the flimsy walls, whether his neighbors
were kissing, fighting, or counting their money. “It is so close here,
and then I miss the earth; the pavements are so hard.”
“He misses the manure—he can’t come treading it into the room,” said
Anna, in a superior way; “for that was the only thing there was plenty
of in the country. Here in the town too the children can get on better;
in the country poor children can’t learn anything that’ll help them to
amount to something; they’ve got to work for their daily bread. It’s
bad to be poor in the country!”
“It’s worse here in town,” said Pelle bitterly, “for here only those
who dress finely amount to anything!”
“But there are all sorts of ways here by which a man can earn money,
and if one way doesn’t answer, he can try another. Many a man has come
into town with his naked rump sticking out of his trousers, and now
he’s looked up to! If a man’s only got the will and the energy —well,
I’ve thought both the children ought to go to the municipal school,
when they are older; knowledge is never to be despised.”
“Why not Marie as well?” asked Pelle.
“She? What? She’s not fitted to learn anything. Besides, she’s only a
girl.”
Anna, like her brother Alfred, had set herself a lofty goal. Her eyes
were quite bright when she spoke of it, and it was evidently her
intention to follow it regardless of consequences. She was a
loud-voiced, capable woman with an authoritative manner; Due simply sat
by and smiled and kept his temper. But in his inmost heart, according
to report, he knew well enough what he wanted. He never went to the
public-house, but came straight home after work; and in the evening he
was never happier than when all three children were scrambling over
him. He made no distinction between his own two youngsters and the
six-year-old Marie, whom Anna had borne before she married him.
Pelle was very fond of little Marie, who had thrived well enough so
long as her child-loving grandparents had had her, but now she was thin
and had stopped growing, and her eyes were too experienced. She gazed
at one like a poor housewife who is always fretted and distressed, and
Pelle was sorry for her. If her mother was harsh to her, he always
remembered that Christmastide evening when he first visited his Uncle
Kalle, and when Anna, weeping and abashed, had crept into the house,
soon to be a mother. Little Anna, with the mind of a merry child, whom
everybody liked. What had become of her now?
One evening, as Morten was not at liberty, he ran thither. Just as he
was on the point of knocking, he heard Anna storming about indoors;
suddenly the door flew open and little Marie was thrown out upon the
footpath. The child was crying terribly.
“What’s the matter, then?” asked Pelle, in his cheerful way.
“What’s the matter? The matter is that the brat is saucy and won’t eat
just because she doesn’t get exactly the same as the others. Here one
has to slave and reckon and contrive—and for a bad girl like that! Now
she’s punishing herself and won’t eat. Is it anything to her what the
others have? Can she compare herself with them? She’s a bastard brat
and always will be, however you like to dress it up!”
“She can’t help that!” said Pelle angrily.
“Can’t help it! Perhaps I can help it? Is it my fault that she didn’t
come into the world a farmer’s daughter, but has to put up with being a
bastard? Yes, you may believe me, the neighbors’ wives tell me to my
face she hasn’t her father’s eyes, and they look at me as friendly as a
lot of cats! Am I to be punished all my life, perhaps, because I looked
a bit higher, and let myself be led astray in a way that didn’t lead to
anything? Ah, the little monster!” And she clenched her fists and shook
them in the direction from which the child’s crying could still be
heard.
“Here one goes and wears oneself out to keep the house tidy and to be
respectable, and then no one will treat me as being as good as
themselves, just because once I was a bit careless!” She was quite
beside herself.
“If you aren’t kind to little Marie, I shall tell Uncle Kalle,” said
Pelle warningly.
She spat contemptuously. “Then you can tell him. Yes, I wish to God
you’d do it! Then he’d come and take her away, and delighted I should
be!”
But now Due was heard stamping on the flags outside the door, and they
could hear him too consoling the child. He came in holding her by the
hand, and gave his wife a warning look, but said nothing. “There,
there—now all that’s forgotten,” he repeated, in order to check the
child’s sobs, and he wiped away the grimy tears from her cheeks with
his great thumbs.
Anna brought him his food, sulkily enough, and out in the kitchen she
muttered to herself. Due, while he ate his supper of bacon and black
bread, stood the child between his knees and stared at her with round
eyes. “Rider!” she said, and smiled persuasively. “Rider!” Due laid a
cube of bacon on a piece of bread.
“There came a rider riding
On his white hoss, hoss, hoss, hoss!”
he sang, and he made the bread ride up to her mouth. “And then?”
“Then, _pop_ he rode in at the gate!” said the child, and swallowed
horse and rider.
While she ate she kept her eyes fixed upon him unwaveringly, with that
painful earnestness which was so sad to see. But sometimes it happened
that the rider rode right up to her mouth, and then, with a jerk,
turned about, and disappeared, at a frantic gallop, between Due’s white
teeth. Then she smiled for a moment.
“There’s really no sense shoving anything into her,” said Anna, who was
bringing coffee in honor of the visitor. “She gets as much as she can
eat, and she’s not hungry.”
“She’s hungry, all the same!” hummed Due.
“Then she’s dainty—our poor food isn’t good enough for her. She takes
after her father, I can tell you! And what’s more, if she isn’t naughty
now she soon will be when once she sees she’s backed up.”
Due did not reply. “Are you quite well again now?” he asked, turning to
Pelle.
“What have you been doing to-day?” asked Anna, filling her husband’s
long pipe.
“I had to drive a forest ranger from up yonder right across the whole
of the moor. I got a krone and a half for a tip.”
“Give it to me, right away!”
Due passed her the money, and she put it into an old coffeepot. “This
evening you must take the bucket to the inspector’s,” she said.
Due stretched himself wearily. “I’ve been on the go since half-past
four this morning,” he said.
“But I’ve promised it faithfully, so there’s nothing else to be done.
And then I thought you’d see to the digging for them this autumn; you
can see when we’ve got the moonlight, and then there’s Sundays. If we
don’t get it some one else will—and they are good payers.”
Due did not reply.
“In a year or two from now, I’m thinking, you’ll have your own horses
and won’t need to go scraping other people’s daily bread together,” she
said, laying her hand on his shoulder, “Won’t you go right away and
take the bucket? Then it’s done. And I must have some small firewood
cut before you go to bed.”
Due sat there wearily blinking. After eating, fatigue came over him. He
could hardly see out of his eyes, so sleepy was he. Marie handed him
his cap, and at last he got on his legs. He and Pelle went out
together.
The house in which Due lived lay far up the long street, which ran
steeply down to the sea. It was an old watercourse, and even now when
there was a violent shower the water ran down like a rushing torrent
between the poor cottages.
Down on the sea-road they met a group of men who were carrying lanterns
in their hands; they were armed with heavy sticks, and one of them wore
an old leather hat and carried a club studded with spikes. This was the
night-watch. They moved off, and behind them all went the new
policeman, Pihl, in his resplendent uniform. He kept well behind the
others, in order to show off his uniform, and also to ensure that none
of the watch took to their heels. They were half drunk, and were taking
their time; whenever they met any one they stood still and related with
much detail precisely why they had taken the field. The “Great Power”
was at his tricks again. He had been refractory all day, and the
provost had given the order to keep an eye on him. And quite rightly,
for in his cups he had met Ship- owner Monsen, on Church Hill, and had
fallen upon him with blows and words of abuse: “So you take the widow’s
bread out of her mouth, do you? You told her the _Three Sisters_ was
damaged at sea, and you took over her shares for next to nothing, did
you? Out of pure compassion, eh, you scoundrel? And there was nothing
the matter with the ship except that she had done only too well and
made a big profit, eh? So you did the poor widow a kindness, eh?” A
scoundrel, he called him and at every question he struck him a blow, so
that he rolled on the ground. “We are all witnesses, and now he must go
to prison. A poor stone-cutter oughtn’t to go about playing the judge.
Come and help us catch him, Due—you are pretty strong!”
“It’s nothing to do with me,” said Due.
“You do best to keep your fingers out of it,” said one of the men
derisively; “you might get to know the feel of his fist.” And they went
on, laughing contemptuously.
“They won’t be so pleased with their errand when they’ve done,” said
Due, laughing. “That’s why they’ve got a nice drop stowed away— under
their belts. To give them courage. The strong man’s a swine, but I’d
rather not be the one he goes for.”
“Suppose they don’t get him at all!” said Pelle eagerly.
Due laughed. “They’ll time it so that they are where he isn’t. But why
don’t he stick to his work and leave his fool’s tricks alone? He could
have a good drink and sleep it off at home—he’s only a poor devil, he
ought to leave it to the great people to drink themselves silly!”
But Pelle took another view of the affair. The poor man of course ought
to go quietly along the street and take his hat off to everybody; and
if anybody greeted him in return he’d be quite proud, and tell it to
his wife as quite an event, as they were going to bed. “The clerk
raised his hat to me to-day—yes, that he did!” But Stonecutter
Jörgensen looked neither to right nor to left when he was sober, and in
his cups he trampled everybody underfoot.
Pelle by no means agreed with the pitiful opinions of the town. In the
country, whence he came, strength was regarded as everything, and here
was a man who could have taken strong Erik himself and put him in his
pocket. He roamed about in secret, furtively measuring his wrists, and
lifted objects which were much too heavy for him; he would by no means
have objected to be like the “Great Power,” who, as a single
individual, kept the whole town in a state of breathless excitement,
whether he was in one of his raging moods or whether he lay like one
dead. The thought that he was the comrade of Jens and Morten made him
quite giddy, and he could not understand why they bowed themselves so
completely to the judgment of the town, as no one could cast it in
their teeth that they were on the parish, but only that their father
was a powerful fellow.
Jens shrank from continually hearing his father’s name on all lips, and
avoided looking people in the eyes, but in Morten’s open glance he saw
no trace of this nameless grief.
One evening, when matters were quite at their worst, they took Pelle
home with them. They lived in the east, by the great clay-pit, where
the refuse of the town was cast away. Their mother was busy warming the
supper in the oven, and in the chimney-corner sat a shrivelled old
grandmother, knitting. It was a poverty-stricken home.
“I really thought that was father,” said the woman, shivering. “Has any
of you heard of him?”
The boys related what they had heard; some one had seen him here,
another there. “People are only too glad to keep us informed,” said
Jens bitterly.
“Now it’s the fourth evening that I’ve warmed up his supper to no
purpose,” the mother continued. “Formerly he used to take care to look
in at home, however much they were after him—but he may come yet.”
She tried to smile hopefully, but suddenly threw her apron in front of
her eyes and burst into tears. Jens went about with hanging head, not
knowing what he ought to do; Morten put his arm behind the weary back
and spoke soothingly: “Come, come; it isn’t worse than it has often
been!” And he stroked the projecting shoulder-blades.
“No, but I did feel so glad that it was over. A whole year almost he
never broke out, but took his food quietly when he came home from work,
and then crawled into bed. All that time he broke nothing; he just
slept and slept; at last I believed he had become weak-minded, and I
was glad for him, for he had peace from those terrible ideas. I
believed he had quieted down after all his disgraces, and would take
life as it came; as the rest of his comrades do. And now he’s broken
out again as audacious as possible, and it’s all begun over again!” She
wept desolately.
The old woman sat by the stove, her shifting glance wandering from one
to another; she was like a crafty bird of prey sitting in a cage. Then
her voice began, passionless and uninflected:
“You’re a great donkey; now it’s the fourth evening you’ve made
pancakes for your vagabond; you’re always at him, kissing and petting
him! I wouldn’t sweeten my husband’s sleep if he had behaved so
scandalously to his wife and family; he could go to bed and get up
again hungry, and dry too, for all I cared; then he’d learn manners at
last. But there’s no grit in you—that’s the trouble; you put up with
all his sauciness.”
“If I were to lay a stone in his way—why, who would be good to him, if
his poor head wanted to lie soft? Grandmother ought to know how much he
needs some one who believes in him. And there’s nothing else I can do
for him.”
“Yes, yes; work away and wear yourself out, so that there’s always
something for the great fellow to smash if he has a mind to! But now
you go to bed and lie down; I’ll wait up for Peter and give him his
food, if he comes; you must be half dead with weariness, you poor
worm.”
“There’s an old proverb says, ‘A man’s mother is the devil’s pother,’
but it don’t apply to you, grandmother,” said the mother of the boys
mildly. “You always take my part, although there’s no need. But now you
go to bed! It’s far past your bed-time, and I’ll look after Peter. It’s
so easy to manage him if only he knows that you mean well by him.”
The old woman behaved as though she did not hear; she went on knitting.
The boys remembered that they had brought something with them; a bag of
coffee-beans, some sugar-candy, and a few rolls.
“You waste all your hard-earned shillings on me,” said the mother
reproachfully, and put the water to boil for the coffee, while her face
beamed with gratitude.
“They’ve no young women to waste it on,” said the old woman dryly.
“Grandmother’s out of humor this evening,” said Morten. He had taken
off the old woman’s glasses and looked smilingly into her gray eyes.
“Out of humor—yes, that I am! But time passes, I tell you, and here one
sits on the edge of the grave, waiting for her own flesh and blood to
get on and do something wonderful, but nothing ever happens! Energies
are wasted—they run away like brook-water into the sea— and the years
are wasted too—or is it lies I’m telling you? All want to be masters;
no one wants to carry the sack; and one man seizes hold of another and
clambers over him just to reach an inch higher. And there ought to be
plenty in the house—but there’s poverty and filth in every corner. I
should think the dear God will soon have had enough of it all! Not an
hour goes by but I curse the day when I let myself be wheedled away
from the country; there a poor man’s daily bread grows in the field, if
he’ll take it as it comes. But here he must go with a shilling in his
fist, if it’s only that he wants a scrap of cabbage for his soup. If
you’ve money you can have it; if you haven’t, you can leave it. Yes,
that’s how it is! But one must live in town in order to have the same
luck as Peter! Everything promised splendidly, and I, stupid old woman,
have always had a craving to see my own flesh and blood up at the top.
And now I sit here like a beggar-princess! Oh, it has been splendid—I’m
the mother of the biggest vagabond in town!”
“Grandmother shouldn’t talk like that,” said the mother of the boys.
“Yes, yes; but I’m sick of it all—and yet I can’t think about dying!
How can I go and lay me down—who would take a stick to Peter?—the
strong man!” she said contemptuously.
“Grandmother had better go quietly and lie down; I can manage Peter
best if I’m alone with him,” said the wife, but the old woman did not
move.
“Can’t you get her to go, Morten?” whispered the mother. “You are the
only one she will listen to.”
Morten lectured the old woman until he had enticed her away; he had to
promise to go with her and arrange the bedclothes over her feet.
“Now, thank goodness, we’ve got her out of the way!” said the mother,
relieved. “I’m always so afraid that father might forget what he’s
doing when he’s like he is now; and she doesn’t think of giving in to
him, so it’s flint against flint. But now I think you ought to go where
the rest of the young folks are, instead of sitting here and hanging
your heads.”
“We’ll stay and see whether father comes,” declared Morten.
“But what does it matter to you—you can say good-day to father at any
time. Go now—listen—father prefers to find me alone when he’s like this
and comes home merry. Perhaps he takes me in his arms and swings me
round—he’s so strong—so that I feel as giddy as a young girl. ‘Ho,
heigh, wench, here’s the “Great Power”!’ he says, and he laughs as loud
as he used to in his rowdy young days. Yes, when he’s got just enough
in him he gets as strong and jolly as ever he was in his very best
days. I’m glad it’s soon over. But that’s not for you —you had better
go.” She looked at them appealingly, and shrank back as some one
fumbled at the door. Out-of-doors it was terrible weather.
It was only the youngest, who had come home from her day’s work. She
might have been ten or twelve years old and was small for her age,
although she looked older; her voice was harsh and strident, and her
little body seemed coarsened and worn with work. There was not a spot
about her that shed or reflected a single ray of light; she was like
some subterranean creature that has strayed to the surface. She went
silently across the room and let herself drop into her grandmother’s
chair; she leaned over to one side as she sat, and now and again her
features contracted.
“She’s got that mischief in her back,” said the mother, stroking her
thin, unlovely hair. “She got it always carrying the doctor’s little
boy—he’s so tall and so heavy. But as long as the doctor says nothing,
it can’t be anything dangerous. Yes, you did really leave home too
early, my child; but, after all, you get good food and you learn to be
smart. And capable, that she is; she looks after the doctor’s three
children all by herself! The eldest is her own age, but she has to
dress and undress her. Such grand children, they don’t even learn how
to do things for themselves!”
Pelle stared at her curiously. He himself had put up with a good deal,
but to cripple himself by dragging children about, who were perhaps
stronger than himself—no, no one need expect that of him! “Why do you
carry the over-fed brat?” he asked.
“They must have some one to look after them,” said the mother, “and
their mother, who’s the nearest to them, she doesn’t feel inclined to
do it. And they pay her for it.”
“If it was me, I’d let the brat fall,” said Pelle boldly.
The little girl just glanced at him with her dull eyes, and a feeble
interest glimmered in them. But her face retained its frozen
indifference, and it was impossible to say what she was thinking, so
hard and experienced was her expression.
“You mustn’t teach her anything naughty,” said the mother; “she has
enough to struggle against already; she’s got an obstinate nature. And
now you must go to bed, Karen”—she caressed her once more— “Father
can’t bear to see you when he’s had too much. He’s so fond of her,” she
added helplessly.
Karen drew away from the caress without the slightest change of
expression; silently she went up to the garret where she slept. Pelle
had not heard her utter a sound.
“That’s how she is,” said the mother, shivering. “Never a word to say
‘good night’! Nothing makes any impression on her nowadays— neither
good nor bad; she’s grown up too soon. And I have to manage so that
father doesn’t see her when he’s merry. He goes on like a wild beast
against himself and everybody else when it comes across his mind how
she’s been put upon.” She looked nervously at the clock. “But go now—do
listen! You’ll do me a great favor if you’ll go!” She was almost
crying.
Morten stood up, hesitating, and the others followed his example. “Pull
your collars up and run,” said the mother, and buttoned up their coats.
The October gale was beating in gusts against the house, and the rain
was lashing violently against the window-panes.
As they were saying good night a fresh noise was heard outside. The
outer door banged against the wall, and they heard the storm burst in
and fill the entry. “Ah, now it’s too late!” lamented the mother
reproachfully. “Why didn’t you go sooner?” A monstrous breathing
sounded outside, like the breathing of a gigantic beast, sniffing up
and down at the crack of the door, and fumbling after the latch with
its dripping paws. Jens wanted to run and open the door. “No, you
mustn’t do that!” cried his mother despairingly, and she pushed the
bolt. She stood there, rigid, her whole body trembling. Pelle too began
to shiver; he had a feeling that the storm itself was lying there in
the entry like a great unwieldy being, puffing and snorting in a kind
of gross content, and licking itself dry while it waited for them.
The woman bent her ear to the door, listening in frantic suspense.
“What is he up to now?” she murmured; “he is so fond of teasing!” She
was crying again. The boys had for the moment forgotten her.
Then the outer door was beaten in, and the monster got up on all four
dripping paws, and began to call them with familiar growls. The woman
turned about in her distress; waving her hands helplessly before her,
and then clapping them to her face. But now the great beast became
impatient; it struck the door sharply, and snarled warningly. The woman
shrank back as though she herself were about to drop on all fours and
answered him. “No, no!” she cried, and considered a moment. Then the
door was burst in with one tremendous blow, and Master Bruin rolled
over the threshold and leaped toward them in clumsy jumps, his head
thrown somewhat backward as though wondering why his little comrade had
not rushed to meet him, with an eager growl. “Peter, Peter, the boy!”
she whispered, bending over him; but he pushed her to the floor with a
snarl, and laid one heavy paw upon her. She tore herself away from him
and escaped to a chair.
“Who am I?” he asked, in a stumbling, ghostly voice, confronting her.
“The great strong man!” She could not help smiling; he was ramping
about in such a clumsy, comical way.
“And you?”
“The luckiest woman in all the world!” But now her voice died away in a
sob.
“And where is the strong man to rest to-night?” He snatched at her
breast.
She sprang up with blazing eyes. “You beast—oh, you beast!” she cried,
red with shame, and she struck him in the face.
The “Great Power” wiped his face wonderingly after each blow. “We’re
only playing,” he said. Then, in a flash, he caught sight of the boys,
who had shrunk into a corner. “There you are!” he said, and he laughed
crazily; “yes, mother and I, we’re having a bit of a game! Aren’t we,
mother?”
But the woman had run out of doors, and now stood under the eaves,
sobbing.
Jörgensen moved restlessly to and fro. “She’s crying,” he muttered.
“There’s no grit in her—she ought to have married some farmer’s lad,
devil take it, if the truth must be told! It catches me here and
presses as though some one were shoving an iron ferrule into my brain.
Come on, ‘Great Power’! Come on! so that you can get some peace from
it! I say every day. No, let be, I say then—you must keep a hold on
yourself, or she just goes about crying! And she’s never been anything
but good to you! But deuce take it, if it would only come out! And then
one goes to bed and says, Praise God, the day is done—and another day,
and another. And they stand there and stare—and wait; but let them
wait; nothing happens, for now the ‘Great Power’ has got control of
himself! And then all at once it’s there behind! Hit away! Eight in the
thick of the heap! Send them all to hell, the scoundrels! ’Cause a man
must drink, in order to keep his energies in check…. Well, and there
she sits! Can one of you lend me a krone?”
“Not I!” said Jens.
“No, not you—he’d be a pretty duffer who’d expect anything from you!
Haven’t I always said ‘he takes after the wrong side’? He’s like his
mother. He’s got a heart, but he’s incapable. What can you really do,
Jens? Do you get fine clothes from your master, and does he treat you
like a son, and will you finish up by taking over the business as his
son-in-law? And why not? if I may ask the question. Your father is as
much respected as Morten’s.”
“Morten won’t be a son-in-law, either, if his master has no daughter,”
Jens muttered.
“No. But he might have had a daughter, hey? But there we’ve got an
answer. You don’t reflect. Morten, he’s got something there!” He
touched his forehead.
“Then you shouldn’t have hit me on the head,” retorted Jens sulkily.
“On the head—well! But the understanding has its seat in the head.
That’s where one ought to hammer it in. For what use would it be, I ask
you, supposing you commit some stupidity with your head and I smack you
on the behind? You don’t need any understanding there? But it has
helped—you’ve grown much smarter. That was no fool’s answer you gave me
just now: ‘Then you shouldn’t have hit me on the head!’” He nodded in
acknowledgment. “No, but here is a head that can give them some
trouble—there are knots of sense in this wood, hey?” And the three boys
had to feel the top of his head.
He stood there like a swaying tree, and listened with a changing
expression to the less frequent sobs of his wife; she was now sitting
by the fire, just facing the door. “She does nothing but cry,” he said
compassionately; “that’s a way the women have of amusing themselves
nowadays. Life has been hard on us, and she couldn’t stand hardships,
poor thing! For example, if I were to say now that I’d like to smash
the stove”—and here he seized a heavy chair and waved it about in the
air—“then she begins to cry. She cries about everything. But if I get
on I shall take another wife —one who can make a bit of a show. Because
this is nonsense. Can she receive her guests and make fine
conversation? Pah! What the devil is the use of my working and pulling
us all out of the mud? But now I’m going out again—God knows, it ain’t
amusing here!”
His wife hurried across to him. “Ah, don’t go out, Peter—stay here,
do!” she begged.
“Am I to hang about here listening to you maundering on?” he asked
sulkily, shrugging his shoulders. He was like a great, good-natured boy
who gives himself airs.
“I won’t maunder—I’m ever so jolly—if only you’ll stay!” she cried, and
she smiled through her tears. “Look at me—don’t you see how glad I am?
Stay with me, do, ‘Great Power!’” She breathed warmly into his ear; she
had shaken off her cares and pulled herself together, and was now
really pretty with her glowing face.
The “Great Power” looked at her affectionately; he laughed stupidly, as
though he was tickled, and allowed himself to be pulled about; he
imitated her whisper to the empty air, and was overflowing with good
humor. Then he slyly approached his mouth to her ear, and as she
listened he trumpeted loudly, so that she started back with a little
cry. “Do stay, you great baby!” she said, laughing. “I won’t let you
go; I can hold you!” But he shook her off, laughing, and ran out
bareheaded.
For a moment it looked as though she would run after him, but then her
hands fell, and she drooped her head. “Let him run off,” she said
wearily; “now things must go as they will. There’s nothing to be done;
I’ve never seen him so drunk. Yes, you look at me, but you must
remember that he carries his drink differently to every one else—he is
quite by himself in everything!” She said this with a certain air of
pride. “And he has punished the shipowner—and even the judge daren’t
touch him. The good God Himself can’t be more upright than he is.”
X
Now the dark evenings had come when the lamp had to be lit early for
the workers. The journeyman left while it was still twilight; there was
little for him to do. In November the eldest apprentice had served his
time. He was made to sit all alone in the master’s room, and there he
stayed for a whole week, working on his journeyman’s task—a pair of
sea-boots. No one was allowed to go in to him, and the whole affair was
extremely exciting. When the boots were ready and had been inspected by
some of the master-shoemakers, they were filled to the top with water
and suspended in the garret; there they hung for a few days, in order
to show that they were water-tight. Then Emil was solemnly appointed a
journeyman, and had to treat the whole workshop. He drank brotherhood
with little Nikas, and in the evening he went out and treated the other
journeymen—and came home drunk as a lord. Everything passed off just as
it should.
On the following day Jeppe came into the workshop. “Well, Emil, now
you’re a journeyman. What do you think of it? Do you mean to travel? It
does a freshly baked journeyman good to go out into the world and move
about and learn something.”
Emil did not reply, but began to bundle his things together. “No, no;
it’s not a matter of life and death to turn you out. You can come to
the workshop here and share the light and the warmth until you’ve got
something better—those are good conditions, it seems to me. Now, when I
was learning, things were very different—a kick behind, and out you
went! And that’s for young men—it’s good for them!”
He could sit in the workshop and enumerate all the masters in the whole
island who had a journeyman. But that was really only a joke —it never
happened that a new journeyman was engaged. On the other hand, he and
the others knew well enough how many freshly-baked journeymen had been
thrown on to the streets that autumn.
Emil was by no means dejected. Two evenings later they saw him off on
the Copenhagen steamer. “There is work enough,” he said, beaming with
delight. “You must promise me that you’ll write to me in a year,” said
Peter, who had finished his apprenticeship at the same time. “That I
will!” said Emil.
But before a month had passed they heard that Emil was home again. He
was ashamed to let himself be seen. And then one morning he came, much
embarrassed, slinking into the workshop. Yes, he had got work —in
several places, but had soon been sent away again. “I have learned
nothing,” he said dejectedly. He loitered about for a time, to enjoy
the light and warmth of the workshop, and would sit there doing some
jobs of cobbling which he had got hold of. He kept himself above water
until nearly Christmas-time, but then he gave in, and disgraced his
handicraft by working at the harbor as an ordinary stevedore.
“I have wasted five years of my life,” he used to say when they met
him; “Run away while there’s time! Or it’ll be the same with you as it
was with me.” He did not come to the workshop any longer out of fear of
Jeppe, who was extremely wroth with him for dishonoring his trade.
It was cozy in the workshop when the fire crackled in the stove and the
darkness looked in at the black, uncovered window-panes. The table was
moved away from the window so that all four could find place about it,
the master with his book and the three apprentices each with his
repairing job. The lamp hung over the table, and smoked; it managed to
lessen the darkness a little. The little light it gave was gathered up
by the great glass balls which focussed it and cast it upon the work.
The lamp swayed slightly, and the specks of light wriggled hither and
thither like tadpoles, so that the work was continually left in
darkness. Then the master would curse and stare miserably at the lamp.
The others suffered with their eyes, but the master sickened in the
darkness. Every moment he would stand up with a shudder. “Damn and
blast it, how dark it is here; it’s as dark as though one lay in the
grave! Won’t it give any light to-night?” Then Pelle would twist the
regulator, but it was no better.
When old Jeppe came tripping in, Master Andres looked up without trying
to hide his book; he was in a fighting mood.
“Who is there?” he asked, staring into the darkness. “Ah, it’s father!”
“Have you got bad eyes?” asked the old man derisively. “Will you have
some eye-water?”
“Father’s eye-water—no thanks! But this damned light—one can’t see
one’s hand before one’s face!”
“Open your mouth, then, and your teeth will shine!” Jeppe spat the
words out. This lighting was always a source of strike between them.
“No one else in the whole island works by so wretched a light, you take
my word, father.”
“In my time I never heard complaints about the light,” retorted Jeppe.
“And better work has been done under the glass ball than any one can do
now with all their artificial discoveries. But it’s disappearing now;
the young people to-day know no greater pleasure than throwing their
money out of the window after such modern trash.”
“Yes, in father’s time—then everything was so splendid!” said Master
Andres. “That was when the angels ran about with white sticks in their
mouths!”
In the course of the evening now one and another would drop in to hear
and tell the news. And if the young master was in a good temper they
would stay. He was the fire and soul of the party, as old Bjerregrav
said; he could, thanks to his reading, give explanations of so many
things.
When Pelle lifted his eyes from his work he was blind. Yonder, in the
workshop, where Baker Jörgen and the rest sat and gossiped, he could
see nothing but dancing specks of light, and his work swam round in the
midst of them; and of his comrades he saw nothing but their aprons. But
in the glass ball the light was like a living fire, in whose streams a
world was laboring.
“Well, this evening there’s a capital light,” said Jeppe, if one of
them looked to the lamp.
“You mean there’s no light at all!” retorted Master Andres, twisting
the regulator.
But one day the ironmonger’s man brought something in a big basket —a
hanging lamp with a round burner; and when it was dark the ironmonger
himself came in order to light it for the first time, and to initiate
Pelle into the management of the wonderful contrivance. He went to work
very circumstantially and with much caution. “It can explode, I needn’t
tell you,” he said, “but you’d have to treat the mechanism very badly
first. If you only set to work with care and reason there is no danger
whatever.”
Pelle stood close to him, holding the cylinder, but the others turned
their heads away from the table, while the young master stood right at
the back, and shuffled to and fro. “Devil knows I don’t want to go to
heaven in my living body!” he said, with a comical expression; “but
deuce take it, where did you get the courage, Pelle? You’re a saucy
young spark!” And he looked at him with his wide, wondering gaze, which
held in it both jest and earnest.
At last the lamp shone out; and even on the furthest shelf, high up
under the ceiling, one could count every single last. “That’s a regular
sun!” said the young master, and he put his hand to his face; “why,
good Lord, I believe it warms the room!” He was quite flushed, and his
eyes were sparkling.
The old master kept well away from the lamp until the ironmonger had
gone; then he came rushing over to it. “Well, aren’t you blown
sky-high?” he asked, in great astonishment. “It gives an ugly light
—oh, a horrible light! Poof, I say! And it doesn’t shine properly; it
catches you in the eyes. Well, well, you can spoil your sight as far as
I’m concerned!”
But for the others the lamp was a renewal of life. Master Andres sunned
himself in its rays. He was like a sun-intoxicated bird; as he sat
there, quite at peace, a wave of joy would suddenly come over him. And
to the neighbors who gathered round the lamp in order to discover its
qualities he held forth in great style, so that the light was doubled.
They came often and stayed readily; the master beamed and the lamp
shone; they were like insects attracted by the light—the glorious
light!
Twenty times a day the master would go out to the front door, but he
always came in again and sat by the window to read, his boot with the
wooden heel sticking out behind him. He spat so much that Pelle had to
put fresh sand every day under his place.
“Is there some sort of beast that sits in your chest and gnaws?” said
Uncle Jörgen, when Andres’ cough troubled him badly. “You look so well
otherwise. You’ll recover before we know where we are!”
“Yes, thank God!” The master laughed gaily between two attacks.
“If you only go at the beast hard enough, it’ll surely die. Now, where
you are, in your thirtieth year, you ought to be able to get at it.
Suppose you were to give it cognac?”
Jörgen Kofod, as a rule, came clumping in with great wooden shoes, and
Jeppe used to scold him. “One wouldn’t believe you’ve got a shoemaker
for a brother!” he would say crossly; “and yet we all get our black
bread from you.”
“But what if I can’t keep my feet warm now in those damned leather
shoes? And I’m full through and through of gout—it’s a real misery!”
The big baker twisted himself dolefully.
“It must be dreadful with gout like that,” said Bjerregrav. “I myself
have never had it.”
“Tailors don’t get gout,” rejoined Baker Jörgen scornfully. “A tailor’s
body has no room to harbor it. So much I do know—twelve tailors go to a
pound.”
Bjerregrav did not reply.
“The tailors have their own topsy-turvy world,” continued the baker. “I
can’t compare myself with them. A crippled tailor—well, even he has got
his full strength of body.”
“A tailor is as fine a fellow as a black-bread baker!” stammered
Bjerregrav nervously. “To bake black bread—why, every farmer’s wife can
do that!”
“Fine! I believe you! Hell and blazes! If the tailor makes a cap he has
enough cloth left over to make himself a pair of breeches. That’s why
tailors are always dressed so fine!” The baker was talking to the empty
air.
“Millers and bakers are always rogues, everybody says.” Old Bjerregrav
turned to Master Andres, trembling with excitement. But the young
master stood there looking gaily from one to the other, his lame leg
dangling in the air.
“For the tailor nothing comes amiss—there’s too much room in me!” said
the baker, as though something were choking him. “Or, as another
proverb says—it’s of no more consequence than a tailor in hell. They
are the fellows! We all know the story of the woman who brought a
full-grown tailor into the world without even knowing she was with
child.”
Jeppe laughed. “Now, that’s enough, really; God knows neither of you
will give in to the other.”
“Well, and I’ve no intention of trampling a tailor to death, if it can
anyhow be avoided—but one can’t always see them.” Baker Jörgen
carefully lifted his great wooden shoes. “But they are not men. Now is
there even one tailor in the town who has been overseas? No, and there
were no men about while the tailor was being made. A woman stood in a
draught at the front door, and there she brought forth the tailor.” The
baker could not stop himself when once he began to quiz anybody; now
that Sören was married, he had recovered all his good spirits.
Bjerregrav could not beat this. “You can say what you like about
tailors,” he succeeded in saying at last. “But people who bake black
bread are not respected as handicraftsmen—no more than the washerwoman!
Tailoring and shoemaking, they are proper crafts, with craftman’s
tests, and all the rest.”
“Yes, shoemaking of course is another thing,” said Jeppe.
“But as many proverbs and sayings are as true of you as of us,” said
Bjerregrav, desperately blinking.
“Well, it’s no longer ago than last year that Master Klausen married a
cabinet-maker’s daughter. But whom must a tailor marry? His own
serving-maid?”
“Now how can you, father!” sighed Master Andres. “One man’s as good as
another.”
“Yes, you turn everything upside down! But I’ll have my handicraft
respected. To-day all sorts of agents and wool-merchants and other
trash settle in the town and talk big. But in the old days the
handicraftsmen were the marrow of the land. Even the king himself had
to learn a handicraft. I myself served my apprenticeship in the
capital, and in the workshop where I was a prince had learned the
trade. But, hang it all, I never heard of a king who learned
tailoring!”
They were capable of going on forever in this way, but, as the dispute
was at its worst, the door opened, and Wooden-leg Larsen stumped in,
filling the workshop with fresh air. He was wearing a storm-cap and a
blue pilot-coat. “Good evening, children!” he said gaily, and threw
down a heap of leather ferrules and single boots on the window-bench.
His entrance put life into all. “Here’s a playboy for us! Welcome home!
Has it been a good summer?”
Jeppe picked up the five boots for the right foot, one after another,
turned back the uppers, and held heels and soles in a straight line
before his eyes. “A bungler has had these in hand,” he growled, and
then he set to work on the casing for the wooden leg. “Well, did the
layer of felt answer?” Larsen suffered from cold in his amputated foot.
“Yes; I’ve not had cold feet any more.”
“Cold feet!” The baker struck himself on the loins and laughed.
“Yes, you can say what you like, but every time my wooden leg gets wet
I get a cold in the head!”
“That’s the very deuce!” cried Jörgen, and his great body rolled like a
hippopotamus. “A funny thing, that!”
“There are many funny things in the world,” stammered Bjerregrav. “When
my brother died, my watch stopped at that very moment—it was he who
gave it me.”
Wooden-leg Larsen had been through the whole kingdom with his
barrel-organ, and had to tell them all about it; of the railway- trains
which travelled so fast that the landscape turned round on its own
axis, and of the great shops and places of amusement in the capital.
“It must be as it will,” said Master Andres. “But in the summer I shall
go to the capital and work there!”
“In Jutland—that’s where they have so many wrecks!” said the baker.
“They say everything is sand there! I’ve heard that the country is
shifting under their feet—moving away toward the east. Is it true that
they have a post there that a man must scratch himself against before
he can sit down?”
“My sister has a son who has married a Jutland woman and settled down
there,” said Bjerregrav. “Have you seen anything of them?”
The baker laughed. “Tailors are so big—they’ve got the whole world in
their waistcoat pocket. Well, and Funen? Have you been there, too?
That’s where the women have such a pleasant disposition. I’ve lain
before Svendborg and taken in water, but there was no time to go
ashore.” This remark sounded like a sigh.
“Can you stand it, wandering so much?” asked Bjerregrav anxiously.
Wooden-leg Larsen looked contemptuously at Bjerregrav’s congenital
club-foot—he had received his own injury at Heligoland, at the hands of
an honorable bullet. “If one’s sound of limb,” he said, spitting on the
floor by the window.
Then the others had to relate what had happened in town during the
course of the summer; of the Finnish barque which had stranded in the
north, and how the “Great Power” had broken out again. “Now he’s
sitting in the dumps under lock and key.”
Bjerregrav took exception to the name they gave him; he called it
blasphemy, on the ground that the Bible said that power and might
belonged to God alone.
Wooden-leg Larsen said that the word, as they had used it, had nothing
to do with God; it was an earthly thing; across the water people used
it to drive machinery, instead of horses.
“I should think woman is the greatest power,” said Baker Jörgen, “for
women rule the world, God knows they do! And God protect us if they are
once let loose on us! But what do you think, Andres, you who are so
book-learned?”
“The sun is the greatest power,” said Master Andres. “It rules over all
life, and science has discovered that all strength and force come from
the sun. When it falls into the sea and cools, then the whole world
will become a lump of ice.”
“Then the sea is the greatest power!” cried Jeppe triumphantly. “Or do
you know of anything else that tears everything down and washes it
away? And from the sea we get everything back again. Once when I went
to Malaga——”
“Yes, that really is true,” said Bjerregrav, “for most people get their
living from the sea, and many their death. And the rich people we have
get all their money from the sea.”
Jeppe drew himself up proudly and his glasses began to glitter. “The
sea can bear what it likes, stone or iron, although it is soft itself!
The heaviest loads can travel on its back. And then all at once it
swallows everything down. I have seen ships which sailed right into the
weather and disappeared when their time came.”
“I should very much like to know whether the different countries float
on the water, or whether they stand firm on the bottom of the sea.
Don’t you know that, Andres?” asked Bjerregrav.
Master Andres thought they stood on the bottom of the sea, far below
the surface; but Uncle Jörgen said: “Nay! Big as the sea is!”
“Yes, it’s big, for I’ve been over the whole island,” said Bjerregrav
self-consciously; “but I never got anywhere where I couldn’t see the
sea. Every parish in all Bornholm borders on the sea. But it has no
power over the farmers and peasants—they belong to the land, don’t
they?”
“The sea has power over all of us,” said Larsen. “Some it refuses; they
go to sea for years and years, but then in their old age they suffer
from sea-sickness, and then they are warned. That is why Skipper
Andersen came on shore. And others it attracts, from right away up in
the country! I have been to sea with such people—they had spent their
whole lives up on the island, and had seen the sea, but had never been
down to the shore. And then one day the devil collared them and they
left the plough and ran down to the sea and hired themselves out. And
they weren’t the worse seamen.”
“Yes,” said Baker Jörgen, “and all of us here have been to sea, and
Bornholmers sail on all the seas, as far as a ship can go. And I have
met people who had never been on the sea, and yet they were as though
it was their home. When I sailed the brig _Clara_ for Skipper Andersen,
I had such a lad on board as ordinary seaman. He had never bathed in
the sea; but one day, as we were lying at anchor, and the others were
swimming around, he jumped into the water too—now this is God’s
truth—as though he were tumbling into his mother’s arms; he thought
that swimming came of its own accord. He went straight to the bottom,
and was half dead before we fished him up again.”
“The devil may understand the sea!” cried Master Andres breathlessly.
“It is curved like an arch everywhere, and it can get up on its hind
legs and stand like a wall, although it’s a fluid! And I have read in a
book that there is so much silver in the sea that every man in the
whole world might be rich.”
“Thou righteous God!” cried Bjerregrav, “such a thing I have never
heard. Now does that come from all the ships that have gone down? Yes,
the sea—that, curse it, is the greatest power!”
“It’s ten o’clock,” said Jeppe. “And the lamp is going out—that devil’s
contrivance!” They broke up hastily, and Pelle turned the lamp out.
But long after he had laid his head on his pillow everything was going
round inside it. He had swallowed everything, and imaginary pictures
thronged in his brain like young birds in an over-full nest, pushing
and wriggling to find a place wherein to rest. The sea was strong; now
in the wintertime the surging of the billows against the cliffs was
continually in his ear. Pelle was not sure whether it would stand aside
for him! He had an unconscious reluctance to set himself limits, and as
for the power about which they had all been disputing, it certainly had
its seat in Pelle himself, like a vague consciousness that he was,
despite all his defeats, invincible.
At times this feeling manifested itself visibly and helped him through
the day. One afternoon they were sitting and working, after having
swallowed their food in five minutes, as their custom was; the
journeyman was the only one who did not grudge himself a brief mid-day
rest, and he sat reading the newspaper. Suddenly he raised his head and
looked wonderingly at Pelle. “Now what’s this? Lasse Karlson—isn’t that
your father?”
“Yes,” answered Pelle, with a paralyzed tongue, and the blood rushed to
his cheeks. Was Father Lasse in the news? Not among the accidents? He
must have made himself remarkable in one way or another through his
farming! Pelle was nearly choking with excitement, but he did not
venture to ask, and Little Nikas simply sat there and looked secretive.
He had assumed the expression peculiar to the young master.
But then he read aloud: “Lost! A louse with three tails has escaped,
and may be left, in return for a good tip, with the landowner Lasse
Karlson, Heath Farm. Broken black bread may also be brought there.”
The others burst into a shout of laughter, but Pelle turned an ashen
gray. With a leap he was across the table and had pulled little Nikas
to the ground underneath him; there he lay, squeezing the man’s throat
with his fingers, trying to throttle him, until he was overpowered.
Emil and Peter had to hold him while the knee-strap put in its work.
And yet he was proud of the occurrence; what did a miserable thrashing
signify as against the feat of throwing the journeyman to the ground
and overcoming the slavish respect he had felt for him! Let them dare
to get at him again with their lying allusions, or to make sport of
Father Lasse! Pelle was not inclined to adopt circuitous methods.
And the circumstances justified him. After this he received more
consideration; no one felt anxious to bring Pelle and his cobbler’s
tools on top of him, even although the boy could be thrashed afterward.