When Pelle, tired to death, made his way homeward in the evening, he
had lost the feeling of invincibility and his thoughts turned to Ellen.
In the daytime he felt neither hesitation nor certainty. When he set to
work it was always with thousands behind him. He felt the great body of
workers at his back, whether he was fighting in the open or waiting
with close-buttoned coat to deal with the leaders of the opposing camp.
But when he went home to Ellen he had only himself to rely on for
support. And he could not get near her. Strongly as he was drawn by the
life away from home, she still held the secret of his life in her
hands. She was strong and would not be swept aside. He was forced to
ponder over her nature and to search for a solution.
Pelle had to deal with countless numbers of families, and what he saw
was not always edifying. Home was a conception which was only now
forcing its way downward from the middle classes. Even in periods of
normal employment the workers earned little enough when it came to
providing a decent family life, and the women knew nothing of making a
comfortable home. The man might be tidy and well-dressed when one met
him out of doors, but if you went to his home it was always the same
thing; a dark, grimy den and a worn-out wife, who moved about scolding
amidst a swarm of children. Wages were enough for one only to live in
comfort. The man represented the household out of doors. He must take
sandwiches to his work, and he must have something decent too when he
got home. The others managed with a little bread and coffee; it was of
no use to talk of regular family meals. And the man must have clothes;
he was the visible portion of the household, and he supported it. It
was of no use to look for anything further in the way of ideas from
these women; they saw nothing but unemployment and the want at home,
and when the husband showed himself they drove him out of the house
with their scolding ways. “You go out and meddle with everything you
can think of that doesn’t concern us—politics and big talk—instead of
doing your work properly and leaving the fools to squabble among
themselves!” The result was that they did their work for the
organization in the taverns. Many of them held positions of confidence,
and Pelle went to the taverns to confer with them. They were dejected,
when they arrived, and had before all else to be thawed out.
There Pelle came to them, with his brilliant hopes. When they lamented
in their dejection, he promised great things of the future. “Our wives
will soon see that we are in the right. The day will soon come when we
shall be able to go home with a proper week’s wages, that will be
enough for the whole family.”
“And suppose it doesn’t come off?” they would say.
“It will come off—if only we hold out!” he cried, smiting the table.
Yes, he might well see the bright side of things. He had a wife who
came from a long-established home, who kept things clean and tidy for
him, and knew how to make much do the work of little; the daughter of
an old unionist who had grown up in the midst of the movement—a wife
who saw her husband’s doings with understanding eyes; yes, he might
well smile! As to the last, Pelle was silent.
In this particular she had accepted neither inheritance nor teaching;
she was as she was, and she would never be different, whatever might
pass over her head. Pelle was sacrificing wife and children to a fixed
idea, in order not to leave a few indifferent comrades in the lurch!
That, and the strike, and the severe condemnation of those who would
not keep step, was, and remained, for her, so much tavern nonsense. It
was something the workers had got into their heads as a result of
talking when they were not precisely sober.
That was what it was, and it filled her heart with pain and
mortification that she and hers should be set aside for people who were
nothing to them. And this pain made her beautiful, and justified her in
her own eyes.
She did not complain in words, and she was always careful to set before
Pelle whatever the house could provide. He always found everything in
order, and he understood what efforts it must cost her—considering the
smallness of the means which she had at her disposal. There was no weak
point in her defences; and this made the position still more
oppressive; he could not evoke an explosion, a ventilation of her
grievances; it was impossible to quarrel with her and make friends
again.
Often he wished that Ellen would become neglectful, like so many
others. But she was always attentive; the more the circumstances
enabled her to condemn him, the more correctly did she behave.
If only he could have explained her lack of comprehension by supposing
that her mind was barren and self-seeking! But in his eyes she had
always been quite simple and single-minded, and yet her nature was to
him a continual enigma! It was true she was not excessively benevolent
or sympathetic where others were concerned; but on the other hand she
asked nothing for herself—her thoughts were all for him and the
children. He must admit that she had, without a thought, sacrificed
everything to him—her home, her whole world—and that she had a right to
ask something in return.
And she was still unchangeably the same. She was indifferent where she
herself was concerned, if only Pelle and the children had something she
was contented; she herself needed so little, yet she seemed to take
enough when he watched her eating. Pelle often wondered that she
retained her healthy appearance, although the food she ate was so
inferior. Perhaps she helped herself in secret—but he drove the thought
away, and was ashamed. She was always completely indifferent as to what
she ate; she did not notice what it was, but served him and the
children with the best of it—especially himself—yet she seemed to
thrive. Yes, even now she gave the best to him. It was as though she
was fulfilling some deep-rooted law of her nature, which was
independent of their relations to one another. In this nothing could
alter her habits. She might have been compared to a great beautiful
bitch that lies attentively marking the appetite of her young, although
none can tell, from her deliberate quiet, that her own bowels are
twisted with hunger. If they left anything, she noticed it. “I have
eaten,” she would say, so quietly that she succeeded as a rule in
deceiving them. Yes, it made him feel desperate to think about it; the
more he thought of it the more unendurable it was. She was sacrificing
herself for him, yet she must condemn all his doings! She knew how to
defy starvation far better than he—and she did not understand why they
must go hungry!
But from all these painful deliberations she emerged always more
prominently capable, incomprehensible, and beautiful in all her
strangeness! And he would hurry home, full of burning longing and
devotion, continually hoping that this time she would come to him
glowing with love, to hide her eyes, full of confusion, on his
shoulder. The disappointment only flung him yet more violently into the
struggle; the longing of his heart for a tender, careless hand made his
own hard.
He was always exerting himself to find some means of making money. At
first, of course, there was no way, and he became so completely
absorbed in the conflict that finally the question no longer occupied
his mind. It lurked in his consciousness, like a voluptuous wish that
merely tinged his daily existence; it was as though something within
his mind had taken possession of his talent for design, and was always
designing beautiful paper money and displaying it to his imagination.
One day when he reached home he found Widow Rasmussen tending the
children and working on a pair of canvas shoes. Drunken Valde had left
her again—had flown out into the spring! Ellen had gone out to work. A
sudden pain shot through him. Her way of doing this, without saying a
word to him, was like a blow in the face, and at first he was angry.
But disloyalty was foreign to his nature. He had to admit that she was
within her rights; and with that his anger evaporated, leaving him
bewildered; something within him seemed tottering; surely this was a
topsy-turvy world! “I might as well stay at home and look after the
children,” he thought bitterly.
“I’ll stay with the children now, Madam Rasmussen!” he said. The woman
put her work together.
“Yes, they’ve got a lot to go through,” she said, standing in the
doorway. “I don’t myself understand what it’s all about, but one must
always do something! That’s my motto. For things can’t be worse than
they are. ‘Widow’! Pooh! They won’t let us behave ourselves! A man can
scarcely look after himself, let alone a family, in this accursed world
—and one needn’t call one’s self Madam to get children! Here have I
been knocking about all my life, ruining my health and happiness, and
have I earned as much from all my blackguards as would pay for the rags
I’ve worn? No; I’ve had to beg them nicely of the fine folks for whom I
do washing! Yes, they are ready to skin one alive—Madam Rasmussen has
proved that. So I say, one must always try something! To-day the boy
comes home and says, ‘Mother, they’ve put up the price of firewood
again—an öre the two dozen!’ ‘What does that matter to us, boy? Can we
buy two dozen at once?’ I say. ‘Yes, mother, but then the one dozen
will cost an öre more.’ And eggs, they cost one krone twenty a score
where the rich folks buy them—but here! ‘No, my dear madam, if you take
two eggs you must pay fifteen öre!’ That makes eight öre for an egg,
for if one takes the smallest quantity the profits aren’t in
proportion. It’s hard to be poor. If it’s never going to be better, may
the devil take him that’s made it all! That was a fine swear!”
Pelle sat playing with Young Lasse. Madam Rasmussen’s words had aroused
something in him. That was the eternal complaint, the old, old cry!
Whenever he heard it, the world of the poor man became even more
plainly visible for what it was—and he ought to know it! It was a
frightful abyss that he looked down into; it was bottomless; and it
seemed forever to reveal fresh depths. And he was right—he was right.
He sat carelessly drawing something for the child on a scrap of paper,
thinking of things quite different; but involuntarily the drawing took
shape from within his hand. “That’s money, that’s money!” cried Young
Lasse, clapping his hands. Pelle waked up and examined his drawing;
sure enough, there was a rough sketch of a ten-kroner note! It
flattered his father’s heart that the child had recognized it; and he
was seized by the desire to see how like it was. But where in all the
world was he to get a “blue”? Pelle, who at this time superintended the
collection and distributing of millions, did not possess ten kroner!
The pipe! The pipe! That was what the boy got his idea from! His old
Christmas present, queerly enough, had a ten-kroner note on the
bowl—and that gave him an idea! He got it out and compared it; it was a
long time since he had smoked the pipe—he couldn’t afford it. He began
eagerly to fill in the drawing while Young Lasse stood by, amusing
himself by watching the rapid movements of the pencil. “Father is
clever—Father draw!” he said, and wanted to wake his sister so that she
could take part in the game.
No, the result was not good! The design would have to be cut in wood
and printed in color for the appearance really to be similar. But then
Ellen came home, and he hid it away.
“Won’t you give up going out to work?” he said. “I’ll provide what is
absolutely necessary.”
“Why?” she retorted resolutely. “I’m not too good to do anything!”
There was no tone in her voice from which he could elicit anything; so
he got ready to go to the meeting.
Now, when Ellen went out to work, he ran home as often as he had time
in order to look after the children. He had obtained a piece of hard
wood and a ten-kroner note. With great care he transferred the design
onto the wood, and began to engrave it while he sat there chattering to
the children. This task occupied unused faculties; it engrossed him as
an artistic exercise, which lingered at the back of his mind and
automatically continued to carry itself out, even when he was away from
home. This work filled his mind with a peculiar beauty so long as he
was engaged on it. A warm, blissful world was evoked by the sight of
this ten-kroner note, which shone ever more plainly out of the darkness
and swept all privations aside. When Pelle sat at this work his mind
soared above all oppression as though intoxicated; unhappy things no
longer existed for him. He became an optimist and mentally made Ellen
all sorts of costly presents.
It was all fundamentally so simple—it was only a misunderstanding—
nothing more! He must speak to her, and she would see at once what a
happy life they were going to live—if only they held out. Silence had
filled her with resentment. Fortune! Fortune! It was nearer than ever
now, greater and more splendid than on that other occasion when it had
knocked at their door! Why, he did not know—that did not seem very
clear!
But when he heard her step on the stairs his dream was shattered. He
was awake. He concealed his work, ashamed to think that she should come
home from work and find him at play.
At times he was oppressed by a feeling of the unattainable in his
relations with Ellen. Even to himself he could not explain the
contradiction between the constant longing for more ample and stable
conditions, for triumph and victory, and his impotency at home, where
his fortunes were declining. He wearied himself in trying to puzzle it
out, and he was seized by a desire that he might become indifferent to
the whole matter. He felt no inclination to drink, but none the less
something was working convulsively within him; a certain indifference
as to his own welfare, causing him to run risks, not caring whether he
might not commit some stupidity that would do him harm. And at such
times a voice cried loudly within him, especially when he was
confronted by the bitter utterances of want. “That is my old
complaint,” he thought, and he became observant. In his childhood it
had been a sort of seizure; now it had become a voice.