Brun came in every morning before he went to the library to see how the
work was progressing; he was greatly interested in it, and began to
look younger. He was always urging Pelle on, and suggesting plans for
extensions. “If money’s wanted, just let me know,” he said. He longed
to see the effect of this new system, and was always asking Pelle
whether he noticed anything. When he heard that the boot and shoe
manufacturers had held a meeting to decide what should be their
attitude to the undertaking, he laughed and wanted to turn on more
steam, quite indifferent to what it might cost. The old philosopher had
become as impatient as a child; an interest had come into his old-man’s
existence, and he was afraid of not getting the whole of it. “It’s all
very well for you to take your time,” he said, “but remember that I’m
old and sickly into the bargain.”
He treated Pelle as a son, and generally said “thou” to him.
Pelle held back. So much depended upon the success of this venture, and
he watched it anxiously; it was as though he had been chosen to
question the future. Within the Movement his undertaking was followed
with attention; the working-men’s papers wrote about it, but awaited
results. There were opinions for and against.
He wanted to give a good answer, and decided on his measures with much
care; he immediately dismissed such workmen as were not suited to the
plan. It made bad blood, but there was no help for that. He was busy
everywhere, and where he could not go himself, Lasse Frederik went, for
the boy had given up his other occupations and helped in the shop and
ran errands. Ellen wanted to help too. “We can keep a servant, and then
I’ll learn book-keeping and keep the accounts and mind the shop.”
Pelle would not agree to this, however. He was not going to have her
working for their maintenance any more. A woman’s place was with her
children!
“Nowadays the women take part in all kinds of work,” Ellen urged.
It did not matter; he had his own opinion on the subject. It was enough
that the men should do the producing. Would she have them stand on the
pavement and watch the women doing the work? It was very possible it
did not sound liberal-minded, but he did not care. Women were like
beautiful flowers, whatever people said about their being man’s equal.
They wore their happiness off when they had to work for their living;
he had seen enough to know that.
She did not like standing and looking on while the two men were so
busy, so she attacked the garden, and sowed herbs and planted cabbage
in the beds that lay like thick down quilts upon the earth; and when it
happened that things came up, she was happy. She had bought a gardening
book, and puzzled her head about the various kinds and their treatment.
Pelle came to her assistance after working hours, and everything that
he handled flourished. This made Ellen a little angry. She did exactly
what he did, but it was just as if the plants made a difference between
them. “I’ve got the countryman’s hand,” he said, laughing.
All Sunday they were busy. The whole family was in the garden, Lasse
Frederik digging, Pelle pruning the espalier round the garden door, and
Ellen tying it up. The children were trying to help everybody and were
mostly a hindrance. One or other of them was always doing something
wrong, treading on the beds or pulling up the plants. How
extraordinarily stupid they were! Regular town children! They could not
even understand when they were told! Pelle could not comprehend it, and
sometimes nearly lost patience.
One day when little Anna came to him unsuspectingly to show him a
flowering branch of an apple-tree which she had broken off, he was
angry and took her roughly by the arm; but when he saw the frightened
expression in her face, he remembered the man with the strange eyes,
who had taught him in his childhood to manage the cattle without using
anything but his hands, and he was ashamed of himself. He took the
little ones by the hand, went round the garden with them and told them
about the trees and bushes, which were alive just like themselves, and
only wanted to do all they could for the two children. The branches
were their arms and legs, so they could imagine how dreadful it was to
pull them off. Sister turned pale and said nothing, but Boy Comfort,
who at last had decided, to open his mouth and had become quite a
chatterbox, jabbered away and stuck out his little stomach like a
drummer. He was a sturdy little fellow, and Ellen’s eyes followed him
proudly as he went round the garden.
The knowledge that everything was alive had a remarkable effect upon
the two children. They always went about hand in hand, and kept
carefully to the paths. All round them the earth was breaking and
curious things coming up out of it. The beans had a bucket turned over
them to protect them, and the lettuces put up folded hands as if they
were praying for fine weather. Every morning when the children made
their round of the garden, new things had come up. “’Oook, ’ook!”
exclaimed Boy Comfort, pointing to the beds. They stood at a safe
distance and talked to one another about the new wonders, bending over
with their hands upon their backs as if afraid that the new thing would
snatch at their fingers. Sometimes Boy Comfort’s chubby hand would come
out involuntarily and want to take hold of things; but he withdrew it
in alarm as if he had burnt himself, saying “Ow!” and then the two
children would run as fast as they could up to the house.
For them the garden was a wonder-world full of delights—and full of
terrors. They soon became familiar with the plants in their own way,
and entered into a kind of mystic companionship with them, met them in
a friendly way and exchanged opinions—like beings from different
worlds, meeting on the threshold. There was always something mysterious
about their new friends, which kept them at a distance; they did not
give much information about themselves. When they were asked: “Who
called you?” they answered quickly: “Mother Ellen!” But if they were
asked what it looked like down in the earth, they made no answer
whatever. The garden continued to be an inexhaustible world to the
children, no matter how much they trotted about in it. Every day they
went on new journeys of discovery in under elder and thorn bushes;
there were even places which they had not yet got at, and others into
which they did not venture at all. They went near to them many times in
the course of the day, and peeped over the gooseberry bushes into the
horrible darkness that sat in there like an evil being and had no name.
Out in the brilliant sunshine on the path they stood and challenged it,
Sister spitting until her chin and pinafore were wet, and Boy Comfort
laboriously picking up stones and throwing them in. He was so fat that
he could not bend down, but had to squat on his heels whenever he
wanted to pick up anything. And then suddenly they would rush away to
the house in a panic of fear.
It was not necessary to be a child to follow the life in the garden. A
wonderful power of growing filled everything, and in the night it
crackled and rustled out in the moonlight, branches stretched
themselves in fresh growths, the sap broke through the old bark in the
form of flowers and new “eyes.” It was as though Pelle and Ellen’s
happy zeal had been infectious; the half-stifled fruit-trees that had
not borne for many years revived and answered the gay voices by
blossoming luxuriantly. It was a race between human beings and plants
as to who should accomplish the most, and between the plants themselves
as to which could make the best show. “The spring is lavishing its
flowers and green things upon us,” said Pelle. He had never seen a nest
that was so beautiful as his; he had at last made a home.
It was pleasant here. Virginia creeper and purple clematis covered the
whole front of the house and hung down before the garden door, where
Ellen liked to sit with her work, keeping an eye on the little ones
playing on the grass, where she liked best to sit with Pelle on
Sundays, when the Copenhagen families came wandering past on their
little country excursions. They often stopped outside the hedge and
exclaimed: “Oh, what a lovely home!”
The work in Pelle’s workshop began, as in all other places, at six in
the morning; but it stopped at four, so that those who cared about it
could easily make something of the day. Pelle had reduced the working
hours to nine, and dared not venture any further for the present.
Some of the hands liked this arrangement, and employed the afternoon in
going out with their wives and children; but others would rather have
had an hour longer in bed in the morning. One day the latter came and
declared that now they were in the majority and would have it changed.
“I can’t agree to that,” answered Pelle. “Being early up is the
workman’s privilege, and I’m not going to give it up.”
“But we’ve taken the votes on it,” they said. “This is a democratic
institution, isn’t it?”
“I’ve taken no oath to the vote,” Pelle answered quietly, “and in the
meantime I should advise those who are dissatisfied with the conditions
here to try somewhere else.”
There was always something like this going on, but he did not take it
for more than it was worth. They had acquired consciousness of their
power, but most of them had not yet discovered its aim. They used it
blindly, in childish pleasure at seeing it unfold, like boys in
unfurling their banner, tyrannized a little by way of a change, and
took their revenge for the subjection of old times by systematically
demanding the opposite to what they had. They reeled a little; the
miracle of the voting-paper had gone to their heads. It was an
intelligible transition; the feeling of responsibility would get hold
of them in time.
Another day two of the most skilful workmen came and asked to have
piece-work introduced again. “We won’t stand toiling to make money for
our comrades,” they said.
“Are they idle?” asked Pelle.
“No, but we work quicker.”
“Then they’re more thorough on the whole. The one generally balances
the other.”
“That’s all very well, but it doesn’t benefit us.”
“It benefits the consumers, and under the new conditions that’s the
same thing. We must maintain the principle that all who do their duty
are equally good; it’s in our own interests.”
They were satisfied for the time. They were two clever fellows, and it
was only that they had not got hold of the new feature in the
arrangement.
In this way there was considerable trouble. The workmen were short-
sighted, and saw only from their hands to their own mouths. Impatience
had also something to do with it. They had shorter hours and higher
wages, but had not as much to do as in other places. It was new of
course, and had to answer to their dreams; but there would be no
fortunes to be made out of it as Pelle was working it. He was a little
more precise than was necessary when you were pressed on all sides by
vulgar competition.
There were, for instance, still a number of people who kept to the good
old handsewn boots and shoes, and willingly paid half as much again for
them. A good many small shoemakers availed themselves of this by
advertising handsewn foot-wear, and then passed the measures on to a
factory. It was a good business for both factory and shoemaker, but
Pelle would have nothing to do with such transactions. He put his
trade- mark on the sole of everything that went out of his workshop.
Pelle took all this with dignified calmness. What right had he to
demand perspicuity of these people? It was _his_ business to educate
them to it. If only they were willing, he was satisfied. Some day he
supposed he would take them so far that they would be able to take over
the business jointly, or make it self-supporting; but until then they
would have to fall in with his plans.
Part of a great, far-off dream was nevertheless being realized in his
undertaking, modest though it was at present; and if it were
successful, the way to a new age for the petty tradesmen was open. And
what was of still more importance, his own home was growing through
this work. He had found the point where the happiness of the many lay
in the lengthening of his own; he had got the right way now! Sometimes
in the evening after a troublesome day he felt a little tired of the
difficulties; but when he bicycled down toward the town in the early
morning, while the mists of night drifted across the fields and the
lark sang above his head, he was always in good spirits. Then he could
follow the consequences of his labor, and see the good principles
victorious and the work growing. Kindred enterprises sprang up in other
parts of the town, in other towns, still farther out. In the far
distance he could see that all production was in the hands of the
working-men themselves.
Peter Dreyer supported him like a good comrade, and took a good deal of
the worry off his shoulders. He unselfishly put all his strength into
it, but he did not share Pelle’s belief in the enormous results that
would come from it. “But, dear me, this is capitalistic too!” he said—
“socialist capitalism! Just look up to the pavement! there goes a man
with no soles to his shoes, and his feet are wet, but all the same he
doesn’t come down here and get new shoes, for we want money for them
just like all the others, and those who need our work most simply have
none. That thing”—he went on, giving a kick to one of the machines—
“turns ten men into the street! There you have the whole thing!”
Pelle defended his machines, but Peter would not give in. “The whole
thing should have been altered first,” he said angrily. “As it is, they
are inventions of the devil! The machines have come a day or two too
early, and point their mouths at us, like captured cannons!”
“The machines make shoes for ten times as many people as we could make
for with our hands,” said Pelle, “and that can hardly be called a
misfortune. It’s only the distribution that’s all wrong.”
Peter Dreyer shrugged his shoulders; he would not discuss the question
of distribution any more. If they meant to do anything to alter it he
was willing to help. There had been enough nonsense talked about it.
Those who had money could buy up all that they made, while the
barefooted would be no better off than before. It was a deadlock. Did
he think it would revolutionize the world if every man received the
entire proceeds of his work? That only meant justice in the existing
conditions, so long as diamonds continued to be more valuable than
bread. “I don’t see that those who happen to have work should have a
better right to live than those who can’t get any,” he said wrathfully.
“Or perhaps you don’t know the curse of unemployment! Look at them
wandering about in thousands, summer and winter, a whole army of
shadows! The community provides for them so that they can just hang
together. Good heavens, that isn’t helping the poor, with all respect
to the honorable workman! Let him keep his vote, since it amuses him!
It’s an innocent pleasure. Just think if he demanded proper food
instead of it!”
Yes, Pelle was well enough acquainted with the great hunger reserve; he
had very nearly been transferred into it himself. But here he
nevertheless caught a glimpse of the bottom. There was a peaceable
strength in what he was doing that might carry them on a long way.
Peter Dreyer acknowledged it himself by working so faithfully with him.
It was only that he would not admit it.
At first they had to stand a good deal, but by degrees Pelle learned to
turn things off. Peter, who was generally so good and amenable, spoke
in an angry, vexed tone when the conversation touched upon social
conditions; it was as though he was at the end of his patience. Though
he earned a very good amount, he was badly dressed and looked as if he
did not get sufficient food; his breakfast, which he ate together with
the others in the workshop, generally consisted of bread and margarine,
and he quenched his thirst at the water-tap. At first the others made
fun of his prison fare, but he soon taught them to mind their own
business: it was not safe to offend him. Part of his earnings he used
for agitation, and his comrades said that he lived with a humpbacked
woman and her mother. He himself admitted no one into his confidence,
but grew more and more reticent. Pelle knew that he lived in one of the
Vesterbro back streets, but did not know his address. When he stood
silent at his work, his expression was always gloomy, sometimes
terribly sad. He seemed to be always in pain.
The police were always after him. Pelle had once or twice received a
hint not to employ him, but firmly refused to submit to any
interference in his affairs. It was then arbitrarily decided that Peter
Dreyer should report himself to the authorities every week.
“I won’t do it!” he said. “It’s quite illegal. I’ve only been punished
for political offences, and I’ve been so careful that they shouldn’t be
able to get at me for any formal mistake, and here they’re having this
triumph! I won’t!” He spoke quietly and without excitement, but his
hands shook.
Pelle tried an appeal to his unselfishness. “Do it for my sake then,”
he said. “If you don’t they’ll shut you up, and you know I can’t do
without you.”
“Would you go and report yourself then if you were told to?” Peter
asked.
“Yes. No one need be ashamed of submitting to superior brute force.”
So he went. But it cost him an enormous effort, and on that day in the
week it was better to leave him alone.