It was after working hours when Pelle went homeward; but he did not
feel inclined to run down to the harbor or to bathe. The image of the
drowned child continued to follow him, and for the first time Death had
met him with its mysterious “Why?” He found no answer, and gradually he
forgot it for other things. But the mystery itself continued to brood
within him, and made him afraid without any sort of reason, so that he
encountered the twilight even with a foreboding of evil. The secret
powers which exhale from heaven and earth when light and darkness meet
clutched at him with their enigmatical unrest, and he turned unquietly
from one thing to another, although he must be everywhere in order to
cope with this inconceivable Something that stood, threatening, behind
everything. For the first time he felt, rid of all disguise, the
unmercifulness which was imminent in this or that transgression of his.
Never before had Life itself pressed upon him with its heavy burden.
It seemed to Pelle that something called him, but he could not clearly
discover whence the call came. He crept from his window on to the roof
and thence to the gable-end; perhaps it was the world that called. The
hundreds of tile-covered roofs of the town lay before him, absorbing
the crimson of the evening sky, and a blue smoke was rising. And voices
rose out of the warm darkness that lay between the houses. He heard,
too, the crazy Anker’s cry; and this eternal prophecy of things
irrational sounded like the complaint of a wild beast. The sea down
yonder and the heavy pine-woods that lay to the north and the
south—these had long been familiar to him.
But there was a singing in his ears, and out of the far distance, and
something or some one stood behind him, whose warm breath struck upon
his neck. He turned slowly about. He was no longer afraid in the
darkness, and he knew beforehand that nothing was there. But his lucid
mind had been invaded by the twilight, with its mysterious train of
beings which none of the senses can confirm.
He went down into the courtyard and strolled about. Everywhere
prevailed the same profound repose. Peers, the cat, was sitting on the
rain-water butt, mewing peevishly at a sparrow which had perched upon
the clothes-line. The young master was in his room, coughing; he had
already gone to bed. Pelle bent over the edge of the well and gazed
vacantly over the gardens. He was hot and dizzy, but a cool draught
rose from the well and soothingly caressed his head. The bats were
gliding through the air like spirits, passing so close to his face that
he felt the wind of their flight, and turning about with a tiny
clapping sound. He felt a most painful desire to cry.
Among the tall currant-bushes yonder something moved, and Sjermanna’s
head made its appearance. She was moving cautiously and peering before
her. When she saw Pelle she came quickly forward.
“Good evening!” she whispered.
“Good evening!” he answered aloud, delighted to return to human
society.
“Hush! You mustn’t shout!” she said peremptorily.
“Why not?” Pelle himself was whispering now. He was feeling quite
concerned. “Because you mustn’t! Donkey! Come, I’ll show you something.
No, nearer still!”
Pelle pushed his head forward through the tall elder-bush, and suddenly
she put her two hands about his head and kissed him violently and
pushed him back. He tried gropingly to take hold of her, but she stood
there laughing at him. Her face glowed in the darkness. “You haven’t
heard anything about it!” she whispered. “Come, I’ll tell you!”
Now he was smiling all over his face. He pushed his way eagerly into
the elder-bush. But at the same moment he felt her clenched fist strike
his face. She laughed crazily, but he stood fixed in the same position,
as though stunned, his mouth held forward as if still awaiting a kiss.
“Why do you hit me?” he asked, gazing at her brokenly.
“Because I can’t endure you! You’re a perfect oaf, and so ugly and so
common!”
“I have never done anything to you!”
“No? Anyhow, you richly deserved it! What did you want to kiss me for?”
Pelle stood there helplessly stammering. The whole world of his
experience collapsed under him. “But I didn’t!” he at last brought out;
he looked extraordinarily foolish. Manna aped his expression. “Ugh!
Bugh! Take care, or you’ll freeze to the ground and turn into a
lamp-post! There’s nothing on the hedge here that will throw light on
your understanding!”
With a leap Pelle was over the hedge. Manna took him hastily by the
hand and drew him through the bushes. “Aina and Dolores will be here
directly. Then we’ll play,” she declared.
“I thought they couldn’t come out in the evenings any more,” said
Pelle, obediently allowing her to lead him. She made no reply, but
looked about her as though she wanted to treat him to something as in
the old days. In her need she stripped a handful of leaves off the
currant-boughs, and stuffed them into his mouth. “There, take that and
hold your mouth!” She was quite the old Manna once more, and Pelle
laughed.
They had come to the summer-house. Manna cooled his swollen cheeks with
wet earth while they waited.
“Did it hurt you much?” she asked sympathetically, putting her arm
about his shoulder.
“It’s nothing. What’s a box on the ear?” he said manfully.
“I didn’t mean it—you know that. Did _that_ hurt you very much?”
Pelle gazed at her sadly. She looked at him inquisitively. “Was it
here?” she said, letting her hand slide down his back. He rose
silently, in order to go, but she seized him by the wrist. “Forgive
me,” she whispered.
“Aren’t the others coming soon?” asked Pelle harshly. He proposed to be
angry with her, as in the old days.
“No! They aren’t coming at all! I’ve deceived you. I wanted to talk to
you!” Manna was gasping for breath.
“I thought you didn’t want to have anything more to do with me?”
“Well, I don’t! I only want—” She could not find words, and stamped
angrily on the ground. Then she said slowly and solemnly, with the
earnestness of a child: “Do you know what I believe? I believe—I love
you!”
“Then we can get married when we are old enough!” said Pelle joyfully.
She looked at him for a moment with a measuring glance. The town-hall
and the flogging! thought Pelle. He was quite resolved that he would do
the beating now; but here she laughed at him. “What a glorious booby
you are!” she said, and as though deep in thought, she let a handful of
wet earth run down his neck.
Pelle thought for a moment of revenge; then, as though in sport, he
thrust his hand into her bosom. She fell back weakly, groping
submissively with her hands; a new knowledge arose in him, and impelled
him to embrace her violently.
She looked at him in amazement, and tried gently to push his hand away.
But it was too late. The boy had broken down her defences.
As Pelle went back into the house he was overwhelmed, but not happy.
His heart hammered wildly, and a chaos reigned in his brain. Quite
instinctively he trod very softly. For a long time he lay tossing to
and fro without being able to sleep. His mind had resolved the enigma,
and now he discovered the living blood in himself. It sang its
sufferings in his ear; it welled into his cheeks and his heart; it
murmured everywhere in numberless pulses, so that his whole body
thrilled. Mighty and full of mystery, it surged through him like an
inundation, filling him with a warm, deep astonishment. Never before
had he known all this!
In the time that followed his blood was his secret confidant in
everything; he felt it like a caress when it filled his limbs, causing
a feeling of distension in wrists and throat. He had his secret now,
and his face never betrayed the fact that he had ever known Sjermanna.
His radiant days had all at once changed into radiant nights. He was
still enough of a child to long for the old days, with their games in
the broad light of day; but something impelled him to look forward,
listening, and his questing soul bowed itself before the mysteries of
life. The night had made him accomplice in her mysteries. With Manna he
never spoke again. She never came into the garden, and if he met her
she turned into another street. A rosy flame lay continually over her
face, as though it had burned its way in. Soon afterward she went to a
farm in Ostland, where an uncle of hers lived.
But Pelle felt nothing and was in no way dejected. He went about as
though in a half-slumber; everything was blurred and veiled before his
spiritual vision. He was quite bewildered by all that was going on
within him. Something was hammering and laboring in every part and
corner of him. Ideas which were too fragile were broken down and built
up more strongly, so that they should bear the weight of the man in
him. His limbs grew harder; his muscles became like steel, and he was
conscious of a general feeling of breadth across his back, and of
unapplied strength. At times he awakened out of his half-slumber into a
brief amazement, when he felt himself, in one particular or another, to
have become a man; as when one day he heard his own voice. It had
gained a deep resonance, which was quite foreign to his ear, and forced
him to listen as though it had been another that spoke.