The crazy Anker was knocking on the workshop door. “Bjerregrav is
dead!” he said solemnly. “Now there is only one who can mourn over
poverty!” Then he went away and announced the news to Baker Jörgen.
They heard him going from house to house, all along the street.
Bjerregrav dead! Only yesterday evening he was sitting yonder, on the
chair by the window-bench, and his crutch was standing in the corner by
the door; and he had offered them all his hand in his odd, ingenuous
way—that unpleasantly flabby hand, at whose touch they all felt a
certain aversion, so importunate was it, and almost skinless in its
warmth, so that one felt as if one had involuntarily touched some one
on a naked part. Pelle was always reminded of Father Lasse; he too had
never learned to put on armor, but had always remained the same loyal,
simple soul, unaffected by his hard experience.
The big baker had fallen foul of him as usual. Contact with this
childlike, thin-skinned creature, who let his very heart burn itself
out in a clasp of his hand, always made him brutal. “Now, Bjerregrav,
have you tried it—you know what—since we last saw you?”
Bjerregrav turned crimson. “I am content with the experience which the
dear God has chosen for me,” he answered, with blinking eyes.
“Would you believe it, he is over seventy and doesn’t know yet how a
woman is made!”
“Because, after all I find it suits me best to live alone, and then
there’s my club foot.”
“So he goes about asking questions about everything, things such as
every child knows about,” said Jeppe, in a superior tone. “Bjerregrav
has never rubbed off his childish innocence.”
Yet as he was going home, and Pelle was helping him over the gutter, he
was still in his mood of everlasting wonder.
“What star is that?” he said; “it has quite a different light to the
others. It looks so red to me—if only we don’t have a severe winter,
with the soil frozen and dear fuel for all the poor people.” Bjerregrav
sighed.
“You mustn’t look at the moon so much. Skipper Andersen came by his
accident simply because he slept on deck and the moon shone right in
his face; now he has gone crazy!”
Yesterday evening just the same as always—and now dead! And no one had
known or guessed, so that they might have been a little kinder to him
just at the last! He died in his bed, with his mind full of their last
disdainful words, and now they could never go to him and say: “Don’t
take any notice of it, Bjerregrav; we didn’t mean to be unkind.”
Perhaps their behavior had embittered his last hours. At all events,
there stood Jeppe and Brother Jörgen, and they could not look one
another in the face; an immovable burden weighed upon them.
And it meant a void—as when the clock in a room stops ticking. The
faithful sound of his crutch no longer approached the workshop about
six o’clock. The young master grew restless about that time; he could
not get used to the idea of Bjerregrav’s absence.
“Death is a hateful thing,” he would say, when the truth came over him;
“it is horribly repugnant. Why must one go away from here without
leaving the least part of one behind? Now I listen for Bjerregrav’s
crutch, and there’s a void in my ears, and after a time there won’t be
even that. Then he will be forgotten, and perhaps more besides, who
will have followed him, and so it goes on forever. Is there anything
reasonable about it all, Pelle? They talk about Heaven, but what should
I care about sitting on a damp cloud and singing ‘Hallelujah’? I’d much
rather go about down here and get myself a drink—especially if I had a
sound leg!”
The apprentices accompanied him to the grave. Jeppe wished them to do
so, as a sort of atonement. Jeppe himself and Baker Jörgen, in tall
hats, walked just behind the coffin. Otherwise only a few poor women
and children followed, who had joined the procession out of curiosity.
Coachman Due drove the hearse. He had now bought a pair of horses, and
this was his first good job.
Otherwise life flowed onward, sluggish and monotonous. Winter had come
again, with its commercial stagnation, and the Iceland trade was
ruined. The shoemakers did no more work by artificial light; there was
so little to do that it would not repay the cost of the petroleum; so
the hanging lamp was put on one side and the old tin lamp was brought
out again. That was good enough to sit round and to gossip by. The
neighbors would come into the twilight of the workshop; if Master
Andres was not there, they would slip out again, or they would sit idly
there until Jeppe said it was bed-time. Pelle had begun to occupy
himself with carving once more; he got as close to the lamp as
possible, listening to the conversation while he worked upon a button
which was to be carved like a twenty-five-öre piece. Morten was to have
it for a tie-pin.
The conversation turned upon the weather, and how fortunate it was that
the frost had not yet come to stop the great harbor works. Then it
touched upon the “Great Power,” and from him it glanced at the crazy
Anker, and poverty, and discontent. The Social Democrats “over yonder”
had for a long time been occupying the public mind. All the summer
through disquieting rumors had crossed the water; it was quite plain
that they were increasing their power and their numbers —but what were
they actually aiming at? In any case, it was nothing good. “They must
be the very poorest who are revolting,” said Wooden-leg Larsen. “So
their numbers must be very great!” It was as though one heard the
roaring of something or other out on the horizon, but did not know what
was going on there. The echo of the upheaval of the lower classes was
quite distorted by the time it reached the island; people understood
just so much, that the lowest classes wanted to turn God’s appointed
order upside down and to get to the top themselves, and involuntarily
their glance fell covertly on the poor in the town. But these were
going about in their customary half-slumber, working when there was
work to be had and contenting themselves with that. “That would be the
last straw,” said Jeppe, “here, where we have such a well-organized
poor-relief!”
Baker Jörgen was the most eager—every day he came with news of some
kind to discuss. Now they had threatened the life of the King himself!
And now the troops were called out.
“The troops!” The young master made a disdainful gesture. “That’ll help
a lot! If they merely throw a handful of dynamite among the soldiers
there won’t be a trouser-button left whole! No, they’ll conquer the
capital now!” His cheeks glowed: he saw the event already in his mind’s
eye. “Yes, and then? Then they’ll plunder the royal Mint!”
“Yes—no. Then they’ll come over here—the whole party!”
“Come over here? No, by God! We’d call out all the militia and shoot
them down from the shore. I’ve put my gun in order already!”
One day Marker came running in. “The pastrycook’s got a new journeyman
from over yonder—and he’s a Social Democrat!” he cried breathlessly.
“He came yesterday evening by the steamer.” Baker Jörgen had also heard
the news.
“Yes, now they’re on you!” said Jeppe, as one announcing disaster.
“You’ve all been trifling with the new spirit of the times. This would
have been something for Bjerregrav to see—him with his compassion for
the poor!”
“Let the tailor rest in peace in his grave,” said Wooden-leg Larsen, in
a conciliatory tone. “You mustn’t blame him for the angry masses that
exist to-day. He wanted nothing but people’s good—and perhaps these
people want to do good, too!”
“Good!” Jeppe was loud with scorn. “They want to overturn law and
order, and sell the fatherland to the Germans! They say the sum is
settled already, and all!”
“They say they’ll be let into the capital during the night, when our
own people are asleep,” said Marker.
“Yes,” said Master Andres solemnly. “They’ve let out that the key’s
hidden under the mat—the devils!” Here Baker Jörgen burst into a shout
of laughter; his laughter filled the whole workshop when he once began.
They guessed what sort of a fellow the new journeyman might be. No one
had seen him yet. “He certainly has red hair and a red beard,” said
Baker Jörgen. “That’s the good God’s way of marking those who have
signed themselves to the Evil One.”
“God knows what the pastrycook wants with him,” said Jeppe. “People of
that sort can’t do anything—they only ask. I’ve heard the whole lot of
them are free-thinkers.”
“What a lark!” The young master shook himself contentedly. “He won’t
grow old here in the town!”
“Old?” The baker drew up his heavy body. “To-morrow I shall go to the
pastrycook and demand that he be sent away. I am commander of the
militia, and I know all the townsfolk think as I do.”
Drejer thought it might be well to pray from the pulpit—as in time of
plague, and in the bad year when the field-mice infested the country.
Next morning Jörgen Kofod looked in on his way to the pastrycook’s. He
was wearing his old militia coat, and at his belt hung the leather
wallet in which flints for the old flint-locks had been carried many
years before. He filled his uniform well; but he came back without
success. The pastrycook praised his new journeyman beyond all measure,
and wouldn’t hear a word of sending him away. He was quite besotted.
“But we shall buy there no more—we must all stick to that—and no
respectable family can deal with the traitor in future.”
“Did you see the journeyman, Uncle Jörgen?” asked Master Andres
eagerly.
“Yes, I saw him—that is, from a distance! He had a pair of terrible,
piercing eyes; but he shan’t bewitch me with his serpent’s glance!”
In the evening Pelle and the others were strolling about the market in
order to catch a glimpse of the new journeyman—there were a number of
people there, and they were all strolling to and fro with the same
object in view. But he evidently kept the house.
And then one day, toward evening, the master came tumbling into the
workshop. “Hurry up, damn it all!” he cried, quite out of breath; “he’s
passing now!” They threw down their work and stumbled along the passage
into the best room, which at ordinary times they were not allowed to
enter. He was a tall, powerful man, with full cheeks and a big, dashing
moustache, quite as big as the master’s. His nostrils were distended,
and he held his chest well forward. His jacket and wasitcoat were open,
as though he wanted more air. Behind him slunk a few street urchins, in
the hope of seeing something; they had quite lost their accustomed
insolence, and followed him in silence.
“He walks as though the whole town belonged to him!” said Jeppe
scornfully. “But we’ll soon finish with him here!”