XX

Out in the street some one went by, and then another, and then another;

there was quite a trampling of feet. The young master knocked on the

wall. “What in the world is it, Pelle?” He did not mean to get up that

day.

Pelle ran out to seek information. “Jen’s father has got delirium— he’s

cleared the whole harbor and is threatening to kill them all!”

The master raised his head a little. “By God, I believe I shall get

up!” His eyes were glistening; presently he had got into his clothes,

and limped out of doors; they heard him coughing terribly in the cold.

Old Jeppe put his official cap in his pocket before he ran out; perhaps

the authorities would be needed. For a time the apprentices sat staring

at the door like sick birds; then they, too, ran out of the house.

Outside everything was in confusion. The wildest rumors were flying

about as to what Stonemason Jörgensen had done. The excitement could

not have been greater had a hostile squadron come to anchor and

commenced to bombard the town. Everybody dropped what he was holding

and rushed down to the harbor. The smaller side-streets were one

unbroken procession of children and old women and small employers in

their aprons. Old gouty seamen awoke from their decrepit slumber and

hobbled away, their hands dropped to the back of their loins and their

faces twisted with pain.

“Toot aroot aroot aroot,

All the pitchy snouts!”

A few street-urchins allowed themselves this little diversion, as Pelle

came running by with the other apprentices; otherwise all attention was

concentrated on the one fact that the “Great Power” had broken out

again! A certain festivity might have been noted on the faces of the

hurrying crowd; a vivid expectation. The stonemason had been quiet for

a long time now; he had labored like a giant beast of burden, to all

appearance extinguished, but toiling like an elephant, and quietly

taking home a couple of kroner in the evening. It was almost painful to

watch him, and a disappointed silence gathered about him. And now came

a sudden explosion, thrilling everybody through!

All had something to say of the “strong man” while they hastened down

to the harbor. Everybody had foreseen that it must come; he had for a

long time looked so strange, and had done nothing wrong, so that it was

only a wonder that it hadn’t come sooner! Such people ought not really

to be at large; they ought to be shut up for life! They went over the

events of his life for the hundredth time—from the day when he came

trudging into town, young and fearless in his rags, to find a market

for his energies, until the time when he drove his child into the sea

and settled down as a lunatic.

Down by the harbor the people were swarming; everybody who could creep

or crawl was stationed there. The crowd was good-humored, in spite of

the cold and the hard times; the people stamped their feet and cracked

jokes. The town had in a moment shaken off its winter sleep; the people

clambered up on the blocks of stone, or hung close-packed over the

rough timber frames that were to be sunk in building the breakwater.

They craned their necks and started nervously, as though some one might

come up suddenly and hit them over the head. Jens and Morten were

there, too; they stood quite apart and were speaking to one another.

They looked on mournfully, with shy, harrassed glances, and where the

great slip ran obliquely down to the floor of the basin the workmen

stood in crowds; they hitched up their trousers, for the sake of

something to do, exchanged embarrassed glances, and swore.

But down on the floor of the great basin the “Great Power” ruled

supreme. He was moving about alone, and he seemed to be as unconscious

of his surroundings as a child absorbed in play; he had some purpose of

his own to attend to. But what that was it was not easy to tell. In one

hand he held a bundle of dynamite cartridges; with the other he was

leaning on a heavy iron bar. His movements were slow and regular, not

unlike those of a clumsy bear. When he stood up, his comrades shouted

to him excitedly; they would come and tear him into little pieces; they

would slit his belly so that he could see his own bowels; they would

slash him with their knives and rub his wounds with vitriol if he

didn’t at once lay down his weapons and let them come down to their

work.

But the “Great Power” did not deign to answer. Perhaps he never heard

them. When he raised his head his glance swept the distance, laden with

a mysterious burden which was not human. That face, with its deadly

weariness, seemed in its sadness to be turned upon some distant place

whither none could follow him. “He is mad!” they whispered; “God has

taken away his wits!” Then he bent himself to his task again; he seemed

to be placing the cartridges under the great breakwater which he

himself had proposed. He was pulling cartridges out of every pocket;

that was why they had stuck out from his body curiously.

“What the devil is he going to do now? Blow up the breakwater?” they

asked, and tried to creep along behind the causeway, so as to come upon

him from behind. But he had eyes all round him; at the slightest

movement on their part he was there with his iron bar.

The whole works were at a standstill! Two hundred men stood idle hour

after hour, growling and swearing and threatening death and the devil,

but no one ventured forward. The overseer ran about irresolutely, and

even the engineer had lost his head; everything was in a state of

dissolution. The district judge was walking up and down in full

uniform, with an impenetrable expression of face; his mere presence had

a calming effect, but he did nothing.

Each proposal made was wilder than the last. Some wanted to make a

gigantic screen which might be pushed toward him; others suggested

capturing him with a huge pair of tongs made of long balks of timber;

but no one attempted to carry out these suggestions; they were only too

thankful that he allowed them to stand where they were. The “Great

Power” could throw a dynamite cartridge with such force that it would

explode where it struck and sweep away everything around it.

“The tip-wagons!” cried some one. Here at last was an idea! The wagons

were quickly filled with armed workmen. The catch was released, but the

wagons did not move. The “Great Power” with his devilish cunning, had

been before them; he had spiked the endless chain so that it could not

move. And now he struck away the under-pinning of a few of the

supports, so that the wagons could not be launched upon him by hand.

This was no delirium; no one had ever yet seen delirium manifest itself

in such a way! And he had touched no spirit since the day they had

carried his daughter home. No; it was the quietest resolution

imaginable; when they got up after the breakfast-hour and were

strolling down to the slip, he stood there with his iron bar and

quietly commanded them to keep away—the harbor belonged to him! They

had received more than one sharp blow before they understood that he

was in earnest; but there was no malice in him—one could see quite

plainly how it hurt him to strike them. It was certainly the devil

riding him—against his own will.

But where was it going to end? They had had enough of it now! For now

the great harbor bell was striking midday, and there was something

derisive in the sound, as though it was jeering at respectable people

who only wanted to resume their work. They didn’t want to waste the

whole day; neither did they want to risk life and limb against the

fool’s tricks of a lunatic. Even the mighty Bergendal had left his

contempt of death at home to-day, and was content to grumble like the

rest.

“We must knock a hole in the dam,” he said, “then the brute may perish

in the waves!”

They immediately picked up their tools, in order to set to work. The

engineer threatened them with the law and the authorities; it would

cost thousands of kroner to empty the harbor again. They would not

listen to him; what use was he if he couldn’t contrive for them to do

their work in peace?

They strolled toward the dam, with picks and iron crowbars, in order to

make the breach; the engineer and the police were thrust aside. Now it

was no longer a matter of work; it was a matter of showing that two

hundred men were not going to allow one crazy devil to make fools of

them. Beelzebub had got to be smoked out. Either the “Great Power”

would come up from the floor of the basin, or he would drown.

“You shall have a full day’s wages!” cried the engineer, to hold them

back. They did not listen; but when they reached the place of the

intended breach, the “Great Power” was standing at the foot of the dam,

swinging his pick so that the walls of the basin resounded. He beamed

with helpfulness at every blow; he had posted himself at the spot where

the water trickled in, and they saw with horror what an effect his

blows had. It was sheer madness to do what he was doing there.

“He’ll fill the harbor with water, the devil!” they cried, and they

hurled stones at his head. “And such a work as it was to empty it!”

The “Great Power” took cover behind a pile and worked away.

Then there was nothing for it but to shoot him down before he had

attained his object. A charge of shot in the legs, if nothing more, and

he would at least be rendered harmless. The district judge was at his

wits’ end; but Wooden-leg Larsen was already on the way home to fetch

his gun. Soon he came stumping back, surrounded by a swarm of boys.

“I’ve loaded it with coarse salt!” he cried, so that the judge might

hear.

“Now you’ll be shot dead!” they called down to him. In reply, the

“Great Power” struck his pick into the foot of the dam, so that the

trampled clay sighed and the moisture rose underfoot. A long crackling

sound told them that the first plank was shattered.

The final resolve had been formed quite of itself; everybody was

speaking of shooting him down as though the man had been long ago

sentenced, and now everybody was longing for the execution. They hated

the man below there with a secret hatred which needed no explanation;

his defiance and unruliness affected them like a slap in the face; they

would gladly have trampled him underfoot if they could.

They shouted down insults; they reminded him how in his presumption he

had ruined his family, and driven his daughter to suicide; and they

cast in his face his brutal attack on the rich shipowner Monsen, the

benefactor of the town. For a time they roused themselves from their

apathy in order to take a hand in striking him down. And now it must be

done thoroughly; they must have peace from this fellow, who couldn’t

wear his chains quietly, but must make them grate like the voice of

hatred that lay behind poverty and oppression.

The judge leaned out over the quay, in order to read his sentence over

the “Great Power”—three times must it be read, so the man might have

opportunity to repent. He was deathly pale, and at the second

announcement he started convulsively; but the “Great Power” threw no

dynamite cartridges at him; he merely lifted his hand to his head, as

though in greeting, and made a few thrusting motions in the air with

two of his fingers, which stood out from his forehead like a pair of

horns. From where the apothecary stood in a circle of fine ladies a

stifled laugh was heard. All faces were turned to where the

burgomaster’s wife stood tall and stately on a block of stone. But she

gazed down unflinchingly at the “Great Power” as though she had never

seen him before.

On the burgomaster the gesture had an effect like that of an explosion.

“Shoot him down!” he roared, with purple face, stumbling excitedly

along the breakwater. “Shoot him down, Larsen!”

But no one heeded his command. All were streaming toward the

wagon-slip, where an old, faded little woman was in the act of groping

her way along the track toward the floor of the basin. “It’s the ‘Great

Power’s’ mother!” The word passed from mouth to mouth. “No! How little

and old she is! One can hardly believe she could have brought such a

giant into the world!”

Excitedly they followed her, while she tottered over the broken stone

of the floor of the basin, which was littered with the _debris_ of

explosions until it resembled an ice-floe under pressure. She made her

way but slowly, and it looked continually as though she must break her

legs. But the old lady persevered, bent and withered though she was,

with her shortsighted eyes fixed on the rocks before her feet.

Then she perceived her son, who stood with his iron bar poised in his

hand. “Throw the stick away, Peter!” she cried sharply, and

mechanically he let the iron rod fall. He gave way before her, slowly,

until she had pinned him in a corner and attempted to seize him; then

he pushed her carefully aside, as though she was something that

inconvenienced him.

A sigh went through the crowd, and crept round the harbor like a

wandering shudder. “He strikes his own mother—he must be mad!” they

repeated, shuddering.

But the old woman was on her legs again. “Do you strike your own

mother, Peter?” she cried, with sheer amazement in her voice, and

reached up after his ear; she could not reach so far; but the “Great

Power” bent down as though something heavy pressed upon him, and

allowed her to seize his ear. Then she drew him away, over stock and

stone, in a slanting path to the slipway, where the people stood like a

wall. And he went, bowed, across the floor of the basin, like a great

beast in the little woman’s hands.

Up on the quay the police stood ready to fall upon the “Great Power”

with ropes; but the old woman was like pepper and salt when she saw

their intention. “Get out of the way, or I’ll let him loose on you!”

she hissed. “Don’t you see he has lost his intellect? Would you attack

a man whom God has smitten?”

“Yes, he is mad!” said the people, in a conciliatory tone; “let his

mother punish him—she is the nearest to him!”