People wondered, at the library, over the grave, silent working-man who
took hold of books as if they were bricks. They liked him and helped
him to find what he wanted.
Among the staff there was an old librarian who often came and asked
Pelle if there were anything he could help him with. He was a little
wizened man with gold spectacles and thin white hair and beard that
gave a smiling expression to his pale face. He had spent his time among
the stacks of books during the greater part of his life; the dust of
the books had attacked his chest, and every minute his dry cough
sounded through the room.
Librarian Brun was a bachelor and was said to be very rich. He was not
particularly neat or careful in his dress, but there was something
unspoiled about his person that made one think he could never have been
subjected to the world’s rough handling. In his writings he was a
fanatical worshipper of the ego, and held up the law of conscience as
the only one to which men should be subject. Personally he was reserved
and shy, but something drew him to Pelle, who, he knew, had once been
the soul in the raising of the masses; and he followed with wonder and
curiosity the development of the new working-man. Now and then he
brought one of his essays to Pelle and asked him to read it. It often
treated of the nature of personality, took as its starting-point the
ego of some philosopher or other, or of such and such a religion, and
attempted to get at the questions of the day. They conversed in
whispers on the subject. The old, easily-approached philosopher, who
was read by very few, cherished an unrequited affection for the general
public, and listened eagerly to what a working-man might be able to
make out of his ideas. Quiet and almost timid though his manner was,
his views were strong, and he did not flinch from the thought of
employing violent measures; but his attitude toward the raising of the
lower classes was sceptical. “They don’t know how to read,” he said.
“The common people never touch a real book.” He had lived so long among
books that he thought the truths of life were hidden away in them.
They gradually became well acquainted with one another. Brun was the
last descendant of an old, decayed family, which had been rich for many
generations. He despised money, and did not consider it to be one of
the valuable things of life. Never having known want, he had few
pretensions, and often denied himself to help others. It was said that
he lived in a very Spartan fashion, and used a large proportion of his
income for the relief of the poor. On many points he agreed with the
lower classes, not only theoretically but purely organically; and Pelle
saw, to his amazement, that the dissolution of existing conditions
could also take place from the upper grades of society. Perhaps the
future was preparing itself at both extremities!
One day Brun carefully led the conversation on to Pelle’s private
affairs: he seemed to know something about them. “Isn’t there anything
you want to start?” he asked. “I should be so glad if you would allow
me to help you.”
Pelle was not yet clear as to what was to be done about the future. “At
present,” he said, “the whole thing is just a chaos to me.”
“But you must live! Will you do me the favor of taking a loan from me
at any rate, while you’re looking about you? Money is necessary to make
one capable and free,” he continued, when Pelle refused it. “It’s a
pity, but so it is. You don’t _take_ what you want anyhow, so you must
either get the money in the way that offers, or do without.”
“Then I’ll do without,” said Pelle.
“It seems to me that’s what you and yours have always done, and have
you ever succeeded in heaping coals of fire on the head of society by
it? You set too high a value upon money; the common people have too
great respect for the property of others. And upon my word it’s true!
The good old poor man could scarcely find it in his heart to put
anything into his own miserable mouth; his wife was to have all the
good pieces. So he is mourned as lost to our side; he was so easy to
get wealth by. His progeny still go about with a good deal of it.”
“Money makes you dependent,” Pelle objected.
“Not always,” answered Brun, laughing. “In my world people borrow and
take on credit without a thought: the greater the debt, the better it
is; they never treat a man worse than when they owe him money. On that
point we are very much more emancipated than you are, indeed that’s
where the dividing line goes between the upper classes and the common
people. This fear of becoming indebted to any one, and carefulness to
do two services in return for one, is all very nice and profitable in
your own world; but it’s what you’ll be run down by in your relations
to us. We don’t know it at all; how otherwise would those people get on
who have to let themselves be helped from their cradle to their grave,
and live exclusively upon services received?”
Pelle looked at him in bewilderment. “Poor people have nothing but
their sense of honor, and so they watch over it,” he said.
“And you’ve really never halted at this sense of honor that works so
splendidly in our favor?” asked Brun in surprise. “Just examine the
existing morals, and you’ll discover that they must have been invented
by us—for your use. Yes, you’re surprised to hear me say that, but then
I’m a degenerate upper-class man, one of those who fall outside the
established order of things. I saw your amazement at my not having
patted you on the shoulder and said: ‘Poor but proud! Go on being so,
young man!’ But you mustn’t draw too far-reaching conclusions from
that; as I told you, I’m not that sort. Now mayn’t I give you a helping
hand?”
No, Pelle was quite determined he should not. Something had been
shattered within him, and the knowledge made him restive.
“You’re an obstinate plebeian,” said Brun, half vexed.
On his way home Pelle thought it all over. Of course he had always been
quite aware that the whole thing resembled a gentleman’s carriage, in
which he and others like him had to be the horses; the laws and general
arrangement were the reins and harness, which made them draw the
carriage well. The only thing was that it was always denied from the
other side; he was toiling at history and statistics in order to
furnish incontrovertible proof of this. But here was some one who sat
in the carriage himself, and gave evidence to the effect that it was
right enough; and this was not a book, but a living man with whom he
stood face to face. It gave an immense support to his belief.
There was need enough for it too, for at home things were going badly.
The letting of rooms was at a standstill, and Ellen was selling the
furniture as fast as she could. “It’s all the same to me what the law
is!” was her reply to Pelle’s warnings. “There surely can be no sense
in our having to make the furniture-dealer a present of all we’ve paid
upon it, just because he has a scrap of paper against us. When the
furniture’s sold, he shall have the rest of what we owe him.”
He did not get the whole, however, for in the first place they had to
live. The remainder of the debt hung like a threat over them; if he
discovered that the furniture was sold, it might end badly for them.
“Remember I’ve been in prison before,” said Pelle.
“They surely can’t punish you for what I’ve done?” said Ellen, looking
at him in terror. “Pelle, Pelle, what have I done! Why didn’t I do what
you told me!” For a time she collapsed, but then suddenly rose
energetically, saying: “Then we must get it paid at once. It’s surely
possible to find twenty krones (a guinea)!” And hastening up to their
flat, she quickly returned in her hat and jacket.
“What are you going to do?” asked Pelle in amazement.
“What am I going to do? I’m going to ‘Queen Theresa.’ She _can_ get it!
Don’t be afraid!” she said, bending down and kissing him. She soon
returned with the money. “I may pay it back by _washing_,” she said
cheerfully.
So that matter was settled, and they would have been glad if the loan
had been the same. It scarcely moved, however; the instalments ate
themselves up in some wonderful way. Two or three times they had had to
ask for a postponement, and each time the usurer added the amount of
the instalment to the sum still owing; he called it punishment
interest.
Pelle read seldom; he felt no wish to do so. He was out early and late
looking for a job. He fetched and took back furniture in the town for
the second-hand dealer, and did anything else that came to hand.
One evening Ellen came up with a newspaper cutting that “Queen Theresa”
had sent her, an advertisement of a good, well-paid situation for a
trustworthy man, who had been trained as a shoemaker. “It’s this
morning’s,” said Ellen anxiously, “so I only hope it isn’t too late.
You must go out there at once.” She took out Pelle’s Sunday clothes
quickly, and helped him to make himself tidy. It was for a boot-factory
in Borger Street. Pelle took the tram in order to get there quickly,
but he had no great hopes of getting the place. The manufacturer was
one of his most bitter opponents among the employers at the time when
he was organizing the trade—a young master-shoemaker who had had the
good sense to follow the development and take the leap over to
manufacturer.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “Well, well, old differences shan’t
stand between us if we can come to an agreement in other ways. What I
want is a man who’ll look a little after everything, a kind of right-
hand man who can take something off my shoulders in a general way, and
superintend the whole thing when I’m travelling. I think you’ll do
capitally for that, for you’ve got influence with the men; and I’d like
things to go nicely and smoothly with them, without giving in to them
too much, you understand. One may just as well do things pleasantly; it
doesn’t cost an atom more, according to my experience, and now one
belongs to the party one’s self.”
“Do you?” said Pelle, hardly able to believe his ears.
“Yes! Why shouldn’t an employer be a fellow-partisan? There’s nothing
to be afraid of when once you’ve peeped in behind the scenes; and it
has its advantages, of course. In ten years’ time every sensible man
will be a social democrat.”
“That’s not at all unlikely,” said Pelle, laughing.
“No, is it! So one evening I said to my wife: ‘I say, you know it won’t
do soon to own that you don’t belong to the party; in other countries
millionaires and counts and barons already belong to it.’ She didn’t
quite like it, but now she’s quite satisfied. They’re quite nice
people, as she said herself. There are even persons of rank among them.
Well, it wasn’t conviction that drove me at first, but now I agree
because what they say’s very sensible. And upon my word it’s the only
party that can thrash the anarchists properly, don’t you think so? In
my opinion all should unite in fighting against them, and that’ll be
the end of it, I suppose. I’ve reflected a good deal upon politics and
have come to the conclusion that we employers behaved like asses from
the beginning. We oughtn’t to have struggled against the Movement; it
only drove it to extremes. Just see how well-behaved it’s become since
we began to take off our hats to it! You _become_ what you’re _treated_
as, let me tell you. You wouldn’t have acted so harshly if we others
had been a little kinder to you. Don’t you allow that? You’re exactly
like every one else: you want to have good food and nice clothes—be
considered respectable people. So it was wise to cut off the lower end;
you can’t rise when you’ve too much lumber as ballast. Fellows who pull
up paving- stones and knock you down are no company for me. You must
have patience and wait until the turn comes to your party to come in
for a share: those are my politics. Well, what do you think about the
job?”
“I don’t understand the machines,” said Pelle.
“You’ll soon get into that! But it’s not that that matters, if only you
know how to treat the workmen, and that of course you do. I’ll pay you
thirty-five krones (£2) a week—that’s a good weekly wage—and in return
you’ll have an eye to my advantage of course. One doesn’t join the
party to be bled—you understand what I mean? Then you get a free
house—in the front building of course—so as to be a kind of
vice-landlord for the back building here; there are three stairs with
one-roomed flats. I can’t be bothered having anything to do with that;
there’s so much nonsense about the mob. They do damage and don’t pay if
they can help it, and when you’re a little firm with them they fly to
the papers and write spiteful letters. Of course I don’t run much risk
of that, but all the same I like things to go smoothly, partly because
I aspire to become a member of the management. So you get eighteen
hundred krones (£100) a year and a flat at four hundred (£22), which
makes two thousand two hundred krones (£l22)—a good wage, though
perhaps I oughtn’t to say so myself; but good pay makes good work.
Well, is it a bargain?”
Pelle wanted to have till the next day to think it over.
“What do you want to think over? One ought never to think over things
too much; our age requires action. As I said before, an expert
knowledge is not the main thing; it’s your authority that I chiefly
want. In other words, you’ll be my confidential man. Well, well, then
you’ll give me your answer to-morrow.”
Pelle went slowly homeward. He did not know why he had asked time to
think it over; the matter was settled. If you wanted to make a home,
you must take the consequences of it and not sneak away the first time
a prospect offered of making it a little comfortable for your wife and
children. So now he was the dog set to watch his companions.
He went down the King’s New Market and into the fashionable quarter. It
was bright and gay here, with the arc-lamps hanging like a row of
light- birds above the asphalt, now and then beating their wings to
keep themselves poised. They seemed to sweep down the darkness of
night, and great shadows flickered through the street and disappeared.
In the narrow side streets darkness lay, and insistent sounds forced
their way out of it—a girl’s laugh, the crying of a lonely child, the
ceaseless bickering of a cowed woman. But people strolled, quietly
conversing, along the pavement in couples and heard nothing. They had
got out their winter coats, and were luxuriating in the first cold
weather.
Music sounded from the large _cafés_, which were filled to overflowing.
People were sitting close together in small select companies, and
looked gay and happy. On the tables round which they sat, stood the
wine-cooler with the champagne bottle pointing obliquely upward as
though it were going to shoot down heaven itself to them. How secure
they appeared to feel! Had they no suspicion that they were sitting
upon a thin crust, with the hell of poverty right beneath them? Or was
that perhaps why they were enjoying themselves—to-day your turn,
to-morrow mine? Perhaps they had become reconciled to the idea, and
took what they could get without listening too carefully to the hoarse
protests of the back streets!
Under one of the electric lamp-posts on the Town Hall Square a man was
standing selling papers. He held one out to Pelle, saying: “A halfpenny
if you can afford it, if not you can have it for nothing!” He was pale,
with dark shadows under his eyes, and he had a dark beard. He looked as
if he were suffering from some internal complaint which was slowly
consuming him. Pelle looked at him, and saw to his surprise that it was
Peter Dreyer, his comrade of long ago!
“Do you go about selling newspapers?” he exclaimed in astonishment,
holding out his hand.
Peter Dreyer quietly returned his greeting. He had the same heavy,
introspective look that he had had when Pelle met him in the garret in
Jager Street, but looked even more perplexed.
“Yes, I’ve become a newspaper man,” he said, “but only after working
hours. It’s a little paper that I write and print myself. It may
perhaps do you good to read it.”
“What’s it about?”
“About you and me.”
“It’s anarchistic, I suppose?” said Pelle, looking at the title of the
paper. “You were so strange last time I met you.”
“Well, you can read it. A halfpenny if you can afford it, if not
gratis!” he cried, holding out a copy to the passers-by. A policeman
was standing a little way off observing him. He gradually drew nearer.
“I see you’re under observation!” said Pelle, drawing his attention to
the policeman.
“I’m used to that. Once or twice they’ve seized my inoffensive little
paper.”
“Then it can’t have been altogether inoffensive?” said Pelle, smiling.
“I only advise people to think for themselves.”
“That advice may be dangerous enough too, if it’s followed.”
“Oh, yes. The mean thing is that the police pursue me financially. As
soon as I’ve got work with any master, a policeman appears and advises
him to discharge me. It’s their usual tactics! They aim at the stomach,
for that’s where they themselves have their heart.”
“Then it must be very hard for you to get on,” said Pelle
sympathetically.
“Oh, I get along somehow. Now and then they put me in prison for no
lawful reason, and when a certain time has passed they let me out again
—the one with just as little reason as the other. They’ve lost their
heads. It doesn’t say much for machinery that’s exclusively kept going
to look after us. I’ve a feeling that they’d like to put me out of the
way, if it could be done; but the country’s not large enough to let any
one disappear in. But I’m not going to play the hunted animal any
longer. Although I despise our laws, which are only a mask for brute
force, I’m very careful to be on the right side; and if they use
violence against me again, I’ll not submit to it.”
“The conditions are so unequal,” said Pelle, looking seriously at him.
“No one need put up with more than he himself likes. But there’s
something wanting in us here at home—our own extreme consequence, self-
respect; and so they treat us as ignominiously as they please.”
They went on together. On the pavement outside one of the large _cafés_
stood an anaemic woman with a child upon her arm, offering for sale
some miserable stalks which were supposed to represent flowers. Peter
Dreyer pointed silently from her to the people in the _café_. His face
was distorted.
“I’ve no objection to people enjoying life,” said Pelle; “on the
contrary, I’m glad to see that there are some who are happy. I hate the
system, but not the people, you see, unless it were those who grudge us
all anything, and are only really happy in the thought that others are
in want.”
“And do you believe there’s any one in there who seriously doesn’t
grudge others anything? Do you believe any of them would say: ‘I’m
fortunate enough to earn twenty-five thousand krones (£1,400) a year
and am not allowed to use more than five thousand (£300), so the rest
belongs to the poor’? No, they’re sitting there abusing the poor man
while they drink up the surplus of his existence. The men abuse the
workmen, and their wives the servant girls. Just go in among the tables
and listen! The poor are bestial, unreliable, ungrateful in spite of
everything that is done for them; they are themselves to blame for
their misery. It gives a spice to the feast to some of them, others
dull their uneasy conscience with it. And yet all they eat and drink
has been made by the poor man; even the choicest dainties have passed
through his dirty hands and have a piquant flavor of sweat and hunger.
They look upon it as a matter of course that it should be so; they are
not even surprised that nothing is ever done in gratitude for kind
treatment— something to disagree with them, a little poison, for
instance. Just think! There are millions of poor people daily occupied
in making dainties for the rich man, and it never occurs to any of them
to revenge themselves, they are so good-natured. Capital literally
sleeps with its head in our lap, and abuses us in its sleep; and yet we
don’t cut its throat!”
At Victoria Street they stopped. The policeman had followed them and
stopped on the other side of the street when they stopped. Pelle drew
the other’s attention to the fact.
Peter looked across carelessly. “He’s like an English bloodhound,” he
said quietly—“a ferocious mouth and no brain! What vexes me most is
that we ourselves produce the dogs that are to hunt us; but we shall
soon begin to agitate among the military.” He said good-night and
turned toward Enghave Road, where he lived.
Ellen met Pelle at the top of the street. “How did you get on?” she
asked eagerly. “Did you get the place?”
He quietly explained matters to her. She had put her arm round him.
“You great big man,” she said, looking up at him with a happy face. “If
you only knew how proud I am of you! Why, we’re rich now,
Pelle—thirty-five krones (2 Pounds) a week! Aren’t you glad yourself?”
“Yes, I’m glad that you and the children will be a little comfortable
for once.”
“Yes, but you yourself—you don’t seem to be very delighted, and yet
it’s a good place you’re getting.”
“It won’t be an easy place for me, but I must make the best of it,” he
answered.
“I don’t see why not. You’re to be on the side of the manufacturer, but
that’s always the way with that kind of position; and he’s got a right
too to have his interests looked after.”
When they got in Ellen brought him his supper, which had been standing
on the stove to keep warm. Now and then she looked at him in wonder;
there was something about him to-day that she did not understand. He
had on the whole become a little peculiar in his views about things in
the prison, and it was not to be wondered at. She went to him and
stroked his hair.
“You’ll be satisfied on your own account too, soon,” she said. “It’s
fortunate for us that he can’t be bothered to look after things
himself.”
“He’s taken up with politics,” answered Pelle absently. “At present
he’s thinking of getting into the Town Council by the help of the
working- men’s votes.”
“Then it’s very wise of him to take you,” Ellen exclaimed vivaciously.
“You understand these matters and can help him. If we save, we may
perhaps have so much over that we could buy the business from him some
day.”
She looked happy, and treated him to a little petting, now in one way
and now in another. Her joy increased her beauty, and when he looked at
her it was impossible for him to regret anything. She had sacrificed
everything for him, and he could do nothing without considering her. He
must see her perfectly happy once more, let it cost what it might, for
he owed her everything. How beautiful she was in her unaffectedness!
She still had a fondness for dressing in black, and with her dark hair
about her pale face, she resembled one of those Sisters who have
suffered much and do everything out of compassion.
It struck him that he had never heard her really laugh; she only
smiled. He had not awakened the strongest feeling in her yet, he had
not succeeded in making her happy; and therefore, though she had shared
his bed and board, she had kept the most beautiful part to herself,
like an unapproachable virgin. But now her cheeks glowed with happy
expectation, and her eyes rested upon him eagerly; he no longer
represented for her the everyday dullness, he was the fairy-story that
might take her by surprise when the need was greatest. He felt he could
hardly pay too dearly for this change. Women were not made for
adversity and solitude; they were flowers that only opened fully when
happiness kissed them. Ellen might shift the responsibility over onto
his shoulders.
The next day he dressed himself carefully to go out and make the final
agreement with the manufacturer. Ellen helped him to button his collar,
and brushed his coat, talking, as she did so, with the lightheartedness
of a bird, of the future. “What are we going to do now? We must try and
get rid of this flat and move out to that end of the town,” she said,
“or else you’ll have too far to walk.”
“I forgot to tell you that we shall live out there,” said Pelle. “He
has three stairs with one-roomed apartments, and we’re to be the vice-
landlord of them. He can’t manage the tenants himself.” Pelle had not
forgotten it, but had not been able to bring himself to tell her that
he was to be watch-dog.
Ellen looked at him in petrified astonishment. “Does that go with the
post?” she gasped.
Pelle nodded.
“You mustn’t do it!” she cried, suddenly seizing him by the arms. “Do
you hear, Pelle? You mustn’t do it!” She was greatly disturbed and
gazed beseechingly at him. “I don’t understand you at all.”
He looked at her in bewilderment and murmured something in
self-defence.
“Don’t you see that he only wants to make use of you?” she continued
excitedly. “It’s a Judas post he’s offered you, but we won’t earn our
bread by turning poor people into the street. I’ve seen my own bits of
furniture lying in the gutter. Oh, if you’d gone there!” She gazed
shudderingly straight before her.
“I can’t understand what you can have been thinking about—you who are
generally so sensible,” she said when she had once more calmed down,
looking reproachfully at him; but the next instant she understood it
all, and sank down weeping.
“Oh, Pelle, Pelle!” she exclaimed, and hid her face.