When the workshop closed, Pelle often went on working for an hour or
two in the shop, getting the accounts straight and arranging the work
for the following day in the intervals of attending to customers. A
little before six he closed the shop, mounted his bicycle and hastened
home with longing for the nest in his heart.
Every one else seemed to feel as he did. There was a peculiar homeward
current in the traffic of the streets. Cyclists overtook him in whole
flocks, and raced in shoals in front of the trams, which looked as if
they squirted them away from the lines as they worked their way along
with incessant, deafening ringing, bounding up and down under the
weight of the overfilled platforms.
Crowds of men and women were on their way out, and met other crowds
whose homes were in the opposite quarter. On the outskirts of the town
the factory whistles were crowing like a choir of giant cocks, a single
one beginning, the others all joining in. Sooty workmen poured out of
the gates, with beer-bottles sticking out of coat-pockets and dinner
handkerchiefs dangling from a finger. Women who had been at work or out
making purchases, stood with their baskets on their arms, waiting for
their husbands at the corner of the street. Little children tripping
along hand in hand suddenly caught sight of a man far off in the crowd,
and set off at a run to throw themselves at his legs.
Sister often ran right across the fields to meet her father, and Ellen
stood at the gate of “Daybreak” and waited. “Good-day, Mr.
Manufacturer!” she cried as he approached. She was making up for so
much now, and was glowing with health and happiness. It was no use for
Pelle to protest, and declare that in his world there were only
workmen; she would not give up the title. He was the one who directed
the whole thing, and she did not mind about the fellowship. She was
proud of him, and he might call himself an errand-boy if he liked; men
must always have some crochet or other in their work, or else it would
not satisfy them. The arrangement about the equal division she did not
understand, but she was sure that her big, clever husband deserved to
have twice as much as any of the others. She did not trouble her head
about that, however; she lived her own life and was contented and
happy.
Pelle had feared that she would tire of the country, and apparently she
did not take to it. She weeded and worked in the garden with her
customary energy, and by degrees acquired a fair knowledge of the work;
but it did not seem to afford her any peculiar enjoyment. It was no
pleasure to her to dig her fingers into the mould. Pelle and the
children throve here, and that determined her relations to the place;
but she did not strike root on her own account. She could thrive
anywhere in the world if only they were there; and their welfare was
hers. She grew out from them, and had her own wonderful growth inward.
Within her there were strange hidden forces that had nothing to do with
theories or systems, but produced the warmth that bore up the whole.
Pelle no longer desired to force his way in there. What did he care
about logical understanding between man and woman? It was her heart
with which he needed to be irradiated. He required to be understood by
his friends. His great satisfaction in being with, for instance,
Morten, was that in perfect unanimity they talked until they came to a
stopping- place, and if they were then silent their thoughts ran on
parallel lines and were side by side when they emerged once more. But
even if he and Ellen started from the same point, the shortest pause
would take their thoughts in different directions; he never knew where
she would appear again. No matter how well he thought he knew her, she
always came up just as surprisingly and unexpectedly behind him. And
was it not just that he loved? Why then contend with it on the basis of
the claims of a poor logic?
She continued to be just as unfathomable, no matter how much of her he
thought he had mastered. She became greater and greater with it, and
she brought him a new, strange world—the mysterious unknown with which
he had always had to strive, allowed itself to be tenderly embraced. He
no longer demanded the whole of her; in his inmost soul probably every
human being was lonely. He guessed that she was going through her own
development in concealment, and wondered where she would appear again.
It had formerly been a grief to him that she did not join the Movement;
she was not interested in political questions and the suffrage. He now
dimly realized that that was just her strength, and in any case he did
not wish her otherwise. She seldom interfered definitely with what he
did, and why should she? She exerted a silent influence upon everything
he did, stamped each of his thoughts from the moment they began to
shoot up. For the very reason that she did not know how to discuss, she
could not be refuted; what to him was downright logic had no effect
whatever upon her. He did not get his own thoughts again stale from her
lips, and did not wish to either; her wonderful power over him lay in
the fact that she rested so securely on her own, and answered the most
crushing arguments with a smile. Pelle was beginning to doubt as to the
value of superiority of intellect; it seemed to have undisputed rule
over the age, but did not accomplish chiefly good. As compared with
Ellen’s nature, it seemed to him poor. The warmth in a kiss convinced
her better than a thousand sensible reasons, and yet she seldom made a
mistake.
And she herself gave out warmth. They went to her, both he and the
children, when there was anything wrong. She did not say much, but she
warmed. She still always seemed to him like a pulse that beat, living
and palpable, out from the invisible, with a strangely tranquil speech.
When his head was hot and tired with adverse happenings, there was
nothing more delightful than to rest it upon her bosom and listen, only
half awake, to the dull, soothing murmur within like that of the
earth’s springs when, in his childhood, he laid his ear to the grass.
The spring was beautiful, and they were much out in it; when no one
could see them they walked hand-in-hand along the dikes like two young
lovers. Then Pelle talked and showed her things. Look! there it grew in
that way, and here in quite a different way. Was it not strange? He
lived over again all his childhood’s excitement in spring. Ellen
listened to him, smiling; she was not astonished at anything so natural
as that things grew; she was merely _transformed!_ The earth simply
sent up its juices into her too.
The fresh air and the work in the garden tanned her bare arms, and gave
strength and beauty to her figure, while her easy circumstances freed
her from care. One day a new being showed in her eyes, and looked at
Pelle with the inquisitiveness of a kid. “Shall we play?” it said. Was
it he or the spring that set fire to her? No matter! The pleasure was
his! The sunshine entered the innermost corners of his soul, the musty
corners left by the darkness of his prison-cell, and cured him
completely; her freedom from care infected him, and he was entirely
happy. It was Ellen who had done it all; at last she had taken upon
herself to be the messenger between joy and him!
She became gentler and more vigorous in disposition every day. The sun
and the wind across the open country called forth something in her that
had never been there before, an innocent pleasure in her own body and a
physical appetite that made her teeth white and gleaming. She was
radiant with delight when Pelle brought her little things to adorn
herself with; she did not use them for the children now! “Look!” she
said once, holding up a piece of dark velvet to her face which in the
evening gave out again the warmth of the sun, as hay its scent. “You
must give me a dress like this when we become rich.” And her eyes
sparkled as she looked at him, full of promises of abundant returns. He
thought he belonged to the soil, and yet it was through her that he
first really came into contact with it! There was worship of nature in
the appetite with which she crunched the first radishes of the year and
delighted in their juicy freshness; and when in the evening he sprang
from his bicycle and took her in his arms, she herself exhaled the
fresh perfume of all that had passed through the spring day—the wind
and the products of the soil. He could smell in her breath the perfume
of wild honey, mixed with the pollen and nectar of wild flowers; and
she would close her eyes as though she herself were intoxicated with
it.
Their dawning affection became passionate first love out here. Ellen
was always standing at the gate waiting for him. As soon as Pelle had
had his supper, the children dragged him round the garden to show him
what had taken place during the day. They held his hands and Ellen had
to walk by herself. Pelle and she had an intense desire to be close
together, but the little ones would not submit to be set aside. “He’s
our father!” they said; and Pelle and Ellen were like two young people
that are kept cruelly apart by a remorseless fate, and they looked at
one another with eyes that were heavy with expression.
When the little ones had gone to bed they stole away from it all,
leaving Lasse Frederik in charge of the house. He had seen an artist
sitting outside the hedge and painting the smoky city in the spring
light, and had procured himself a paintbox. He sat out there every
evening now, daubing away busily. He did not mean to be a sailor now!
They went up past the farm and on toward the evening sun, walked hand-
in-hand in the dewy grass, gazing silently in front of them. The ruddy
evening light colored their faces and made their eyes glow. There was a
little grove of trees not far off, to which they often went so as to be
quite away from the world. With their arms round one another they
passed into the deep twilight, whispering together. Now and then she
bent her head back for him to kiss her, when an invisible ray would
strike her eye and be refracted into a rainbow-colored star, in the
darkness.
A high dike of turfs ran along the edge of the wood, and low over it
hung hazel and young beech trees. In under the branches there were
little bowers where they hid themselves; the dead leaves had drifted
together in under the dike and made a soft couch. The birds above their
heads gave little sleepy chirps, turned on the branch and twittered
softly as though they dreamed the day’s melodies over again. Sometimes
the moon peeped in at them with a broad smile. The heavy night-
exhalations of the leaves lulled them to sleep, and sometimes they were
only wakened by the tremor that passes through everything when the sun
rises. Pelle would be cold then, but Ellen’s body was always warm
although she had removed some of her clothing to make a pillow for
their heads.
She still continued to be motherly; her devotion only called forth new
sides of her desire for self-sacrifice. How rich she was in her
motherliness! She demanded nothing but the hard ground, and could not
make herself soft enough: everything was for him. And she could make
herself so incomprehensibly soft! Providence had thrown all His riches
and warmth into her lap; it was no wonder that both life and happiness
had made their nesting-place there.
Their love increased with the sunshine, and made everything bright and
good; there was no room for any darkness. Pelle met all troubles with a
smile. He went about in a state of semi-stupor, and even his most
serious business affairs could not efface Ellen’s picture from his
mind. Her breath warmed the air around him throughout the day, and made
him hasten home. At table at home they had secret signs that referred
to their secret world. They were living in the first love of youth with
all its sweet secrecy, and smiled at one another in youthful, stealthy
comprehension, as though the whole world were watching them and must
learn nothing. If their feet touched under the table, their eyes met
and Ellen would blush like a young girl. Her affection was so great
that she could not bear it to be known, even to themselves. A red flame
passed over her face, and her eyes were veiled as though she hid in
them the unspeakable sweetness of her tryst from time to time. She
rarely spoke and generally answered with a smile; she sang softly to
herself, filled with the happiness of youth.
One afternoon when he came cycling home Ellen did not meet him as
usual. He became anxious, and hurried in. The sofa was made into a bed,
and Ellen was standing by it, bending over Johanna, who lay shivering
with fever. Ellen raised her head and said, “Hush!” The children were
sitting in a corner gazing fearfully at the sick girl, who lay with
closed eyes, moaning slightly.
“She came running out here this afternoon,” whispered Ellen, looking
strangely at him; “I can’t think why. She’s terribly ill! I’ve sent
Lasse Frederik in to Morten, so that he may know she’s with us.”
“Have you sent for the doctor?” asked Pelle, bending down over Johanna.
“Yes. Lasse Frederik will tell Morten to bring his doctor with him. He
must know her best. I should think they’ll soon be here.”
A shivering fit came over Johanna. She lay working her tongue against
the dry roof of her mouth, now and then uttering a number of
disconnected words, and tossing to and fro upon the bed. Suddenly she
raised herself in terror, her wide-open eyes fixed upon Pelle, but with
no recognition in them. “Go away! I won’t!” she screamed, pushing him
away. His deep voice calmed her, however, and she allowed herself to be
laid down once more, and then lay still with closed eyes.
“Some one has been after her,” said Ellen, weeping. “What can it be?”
“It’s the old story,” Pelle whispered with emotion. “Morten says that
it constantly reappears in her.—Take the children out into the garden,
Ellen. I’ll stay here with her.”
Ellen went out with the little ones, who could hardly be persuaded to
come out of their corner; but it was not long before their chattering
voices could be heard out on the grass.
Pelle sat with his hand on Johanna’s forehead, staring straight before
him. He had been rudely awakened to the horror of life once more.
Convulsive tremors passed through her tortured brow. It was as if he
held in his hand a fluttering soul that had been trodden in the mire
beneath heavy heels—a poor crushed fledgeling that could neither fly
nor die.
He was roused by the sound of a carriage driving quickly up to the
garden gate, and went out to meet the men.
The doctor was very doubtful about Johanna’s condition. “I’m afraid
that the fits will increase rather than decrease,” he said in a
whisper. “It would be better if she were sent to the hospital as soon
as she’s able to be moved.”
“Would it be better for her?” asked Ellen.
“No, not exactly for her, but—she’ll be a difficult patient, you know!”
“Then she shall remain here,” said Ellen; “she shall be well looked
after.”
Lasse Frederik had to take his bicycle and ride to the chemist’s, and
immediately after the doctor drove away.
They sat outside the garden door, so that they could hear any sound
from the sick girl, and talked together in low tones. It was sad to see
Morten; Johanna’s flight from him had wounded him deeply.
“I wonder why she did it?” said Pelle.
“She’s been strange ever since you came up and proposed that she should
come out to you,” said Morten sadly. “She got it into her head that she
was a burden to me and that I would like to get rid of her. Two or
three days ago she got up while I was out, and began working in the
house—I suppose as a return for my keeping her. She’s morbidly
sensitive. When I distinctly forbade her she declared that she wouldn’t
owe me anything and meant to go away. I knew that she might very likely
do it in spite of her being ill, so I stayed at home. At midday to-day
I just went down to fetch milk, and when I came up she was gone. It was
a good thing she came out here; I think she’d do anything when once the
idea’s taken her that she’s a burden.”
“She must be very fond of you,” said Ellen, looking at him.
“I don’t think so,” answered Morten, with a sad smile. “At any rate,
she’s hidden it well. My impression is that she’s hated me ever since
the day we spoke of her coming out here.—May I stay here for the
night?”
“If you can put up with what we have,” answered Ellen. “It won’t be a
luxurious bed, but it’ll be something to lie down on.”
Morten did not want a bed, however. “I’ll sit up and watch over
Johanna,” he said.