Pelle was bound to the “Family” by peculiar ties. The three orphans
were the first to reach him a friendly helping hand when he stood in
the open street three days after his landing, robbed of his last penny.
He had come over feeling important enough. He had not slept all night
on his bench between decks among the cattle. Excitement had kept him
awake; and he lay there making far-reaching plans concerning himself
and his twenty-five kroner. He was up on deck by the first light of
morning, gazing at the shore, where the great capital with its towers
and factory-chimneys showed out of the mist. Above the city floated its
misty light, which reddened in the morning sun, and gave a splendor to
the prospect. And the passage between the forts and the naval harbor
was sufficiently magnificent to impress him. The crowd on the
landing-stage before the steamer laid alongside and the cabmen and
porters began shouting and calling, was enough to stupefy him, but he
had made up his mind beforehand that nothing should disconcert him. It
would have been difficult enough in any case to disentangle himself
from all this confusion.
And then Fortune herself was on his side. Down on the quay stood a
thick-set, jovial man, who looked familiarly at Pelle; he did not shout
and bawl, but merely said quietly, “Good-day, countryman,” and offered
Pelle board and lodging for two kroner a day. It was good to find a
countryman in all this bustle, and Pelle confidingly put himself in his
hands. He was remarkably helpful; Pelle was by no means allowed to
carry the green chest. “I’ll soon have that brought along!” said the
man, and he answered everything with a jolly “I’ll soon arrange that;
you just leave that to me!”
When three days had gone by, he presented Pelle with a circumstantial
account, which amounted exactly to five and twenty kroner. It was a
curious chance that Pelle had just that amount of money. He was not
willing to be done out of it, but the boarding-house keeper, Elleby,
called in a policeman from the street, and Pelle had to pay.
He was standing in the street with his green box, helpless and
bewildered, not knowing what to be about. Then a little boy came
whistling up to him and asked if he could not help him. “I can easily
carry the box alone, to wherever you want it, but it will cost twenty-
five öre and ten öre for the barrow. But if I just take one handle it
will be only ten öre,” he said, and he looked Pelle over in a business-
like manner. He did not seem to be more than nine or ten years old.
“But I don’t know where I shall go,” said Pelle, almost crying. “I’ve
been turned out on the street and have nowhere where I can turn. I am
quite a stranger here in the city and all my money has been taken from
me.”
The youngster made a gesture in the air as though butting something
with his head. “Yes, that’s a cursed business. You’ve fallen into the
hands of the farmer-catchers, my lad. So you must come home with us—you
can very well stay with us, if you don’t mind lying on the floor.”
“But what will your parents say if you go dragging me home?”
“I haven’t any parents, and Marie and Peter, they’ll say nothing. Just
come with me, and, after all, you can get work with old Pipman. Where
do you come from?”
“From Bornholm.”
“So did we! That’s to say, a long time ago, when we were quite
children. Come along with me, countryman!” The boy laughed delightedly
and seized one handle of the chest.
It was also, to be sure, a fellow-countryman who had robbed him; but
none the less he went with the boy; it was not in Pelle’s nature to be
distrustful.
So he had entered the “Ark,” under the protection of a child. The
sister, a little older than the other two, found little Karl’s action
entirely reasonable, and the three waifs, who had formerly been shy and
retiring, quickly attached themselves to Pelle. They found him in the
street and treated him like an elder comrade, who was a stranger, and
needed protection. They afforded him his first glimpse of the great
city, and they helped him to get work from Pipman.
On the day after the outing in the forest, Pelle moved over to the row
of attics, into a room near the “Family,” which was standing empty just
then. Marie helped him to get tidy and to bring his things along, and
with an easier mind he shook himself free of his burdensome relations
with Pipman. There was an end of his profit-sharing, and all the
recriminations which were involved in it. Now he could enter into
direct relations with the employers and look his comrades straight in
the eyes. For various reasons it had been a humiliating time; but he
had no feeling of resentment toward Pipman; he had learned more with
him in a few months than during his whole apprenticeship at home.
He obtained a few necessary tools from an ironmonger, and bought a
bench and a bed for ready money. From the master-shoemaker he obtained
as a beginning some material for children’s shoes, which he made at odd
times. His principal living he got from Master Beck in Market Street.
Beck was a man of the old school; his clientele consisted principally
of night watchmen, pilots, and old seamen, who lived out in
Kristianshavn. Although he was born and had grown up in Copenhagen, he
was like a country shoemaker to look at, going about in canvas slippers
which his daughter made for him, and in the mornings he smoked his long
pipe at the house-door. He had old-fashioned views concerning handwork,
and was delighted with Pelle, who could strain any piece of greased
leather and was not afraid to strap a pair of old dubbin’d boots with
it. Beck’s work could not well be given out to do at home, and Pelle
willingly established himself in the workshop and was afraid of no work
that came his way. But he would not accept bed and board from his
master in the old-fashioned way.
From the very first day this change was an improvement. He worked heart
and soul and began to put by something with which to pay off his debt
to Sort. Now he saw the day in the distance when he should be able to
send for Father Lasse.
In the morning, when the dwellers on the roof, drunken with sleep,
tumbled out into the long gangway, in order to go to their work, before
the quarter-to-six whistle sounded, Pelle already sat in his room
hammering on his cobbler’s last. About seven o’clock he went to Beck’s
workshop, if there was anything for him to do there. And he received
orders too from the dwellers in the “Ark.”
In connection with this work he acquired an item of practical
experience, an idea which was like a fruitful seed which lay
germinating where it fell and continually produced fresh fruit. It was
equivalent to an improvement in his circumstances to discover that he
had shaken off one parasite; if only he could send the other after him
and keep all his profits for himself!
That sounded quite fantastic, but Pelle had no desire to climb up to
the heights only to fall flat on the earth again. He had obtained
certain tangible experience, and he wanted to know how far it would
take him. While he sat there working he pursued the question in and out
among his thoughts, so that he could properly consider it.
Pipman was superfluous as a middleman; one could get a little work
without the necessity of going to him and pouring a flask of brandy
down his thirsty gullet. But was it any more reasonable that the shoes
Pelle made should go to the customer by way of the Court shoemaker and
yield him carriages and high living? Could not Pelle himself establish
relations with his customers? And shake off Meyer as he had shaken off
Pipman? Why, of course! It was said that the Court shoemaker paid taxes
on a yearly income of thirty thousand kroner. “That ought to be evenly
divided among all those who work for him!” thought Pelle, as he
hammered away at his pegs. “Then Father Lasse wouldn’t need to stay at
home a day longer, or drag himself through life so miserably.”
Here was something which he could take in hand with the feeling that he
was setting himself a practical problem in economics—and one that
apparently had nothing to do with his easy belief in luck. This idea
was always lurking somewhere in secrecy, and held him upright through
everything—although it did not afford him any definite assistance. A
hardly earned instinct told him that it was only among poor people that
this idea could be developed. This belief was his family inheritance,
and he would retain it faithfully through all vicissitudes; as millions
had done before him, always ready to cope with the unknown, until they
reached the grave and resigned the inherited dream. There lay hope for
himself in this, but if he miscarried, the hope itself would remain in
spite of him. With Fortune there was no definite promise of tangible
success for the individual, but only a general promise, which was
maintained through hundreds of years of servitude with something of the
long patience of eternity.
Pelle bore the whole endless wandering within himself: it lay deep in
his heart, like a great and incomprehensible patience. In his world,
capacity was often great enough, but resignation was always greater. It
was thoroughly accustomed to see everything go to ruin and yet to go on
hoping.
Often enough during the long march, hope had assumed tones like those
of “David’s City with streets of gold,” or “Paradise,” or “The splendor
of the Lord returns.” He himself had questioningly given ear; but never
until now had the voice of hope sounded in a song that had to do with
food and clothing, house and farm; so how was he to find his way?
He could only sit and meditate the problem as to how he should obtain,
quickly and easily, a share in the good things of this world;
presumptuously, and with an impatience for which he himself could not
have accounted.
And round about him things were happening in the same way. An awakening
shudder was passing through the masses. They no longer wandered on and
on with blind and patient surrender, but turned this way and that in
bewildered consultation. The miracle was no longer to be accomplished
of itself when the time was fulfilled. For an evil power had seized
upon their great hope, and pressed her knees together so that she could
not bring forth; they themselves must help to bring happiness into the
world!
The unshakable fatalism which hitherto had kept them on their difficult
path was shattered; the masses would no longer allow themselves to be
held down in stupid resignation. Men who all their lives had plodded
their accustomed way to and from their work now stood still and asked
unreasonable questions as to the aim of it all. Even the simple
ventured to cast doubts upon the established order of things. Things
were no longer thus because they must be; there was a painful cause of
poverty. That was the beginning of the matter; and now they conceived a
desire to master life; their fingers itched to be tearing down
something that obstructed them—but what it was they did not know.
All this was rather like a whirlpool; all boundaries disappeared.
Unfamiliar powers arose, and the most good-natured became suspicious or
were frankly bewildered. People who had hitherto crawled like dogs in
order to win their food were now filled with self-will, and preferred
to be struck down rather than bow down of their own accord. Prudent
folks who had worked all their lives in one place could no longer put
up with the conditions, and went at a word. Their hard-won endurance
was banished from their minds, and those who had quietly borne the
whole burden on their shoulders were now becoming restive; they were as
unwilling and unruly as a pregnant woman. It was as though they were
acting under the inward compulsion of an invisible power, and were
striving to break open the hard shell which lay over something new
within them. One could perceive that painful striving in their
bewildered gaze and in their sudden crazy grasp at the empty air.
There was something menacing in the very uncertainty which possessed
the masses. It was as though they were listening for a word to sound
out of the darkness. Swiftly they resolved to banish old custom and
convention from their minds, in order to make room there. On every side
men continually spoke of new things, and sought blindly to find their
way to them; it was a matter of course that the time had come and the
promised land was about to be opened to them. They went about in
readiness to accomplish something—what, they did not know; they formed
themselves into little groups; they conducted unfortunate strikes,
quite at random. Others organized debating societies, and began in
weighty speech to squabble about the new ideas—which none of them knew
anything about. These were more particularly the young men. Many of
them had come to the city in search of fortune, as had Pelle himself,
and these were full of burning restlessness. There was something
violent and feverish about them.
Such was the situation when Pelle entered the capital. It was chaotic;
there was no definite plan by which they could reach their goal. The
masses no longer supported one another, but were in a state of
solution, bewildered and drifting about in the search for something
that would weld them together. In the upper ranks of society people
noted nothing but the insecurity of the position of the workers; people
complained of their restlessness, a senseless restlessness which
jeopardized revenue and aggravated foreign competition. A few
thoughtful individuals saw the people as one great listening ear; new
preachers were arising who wanted to lead the crowd by new ways to God.
Pelle now and again allowed the stream to carry him into such quarters,
but he did allow himself to be caught; it was only the old story over
again; there was nothing in it. Nobody now was satisfied with
directions how to reach heaven—the new prophets disappeared as quickly
as they had arisen.
But in the midst of all this confusion there was one permanent center,
one community, which had steadily increased during the years, and had
fanatically endured the scorn and the persecution of those above and
below, until it at last possessed several thousand of members. It stood
fast in the maelstrom and obstinately affirmed that its doctrines were
those of the future. And now the wind seemed to be filling its sails;
it replied after its own fashion to the impatient demands for a heaven
to be enjoyed here on earth and an attainable happiness.
Pelle had been captured by the new doctrines out by the Schleswig
Stone, and had thrown himself, glowing and energetic, into the heart of
the movement. He attended meetings and discussions, his ears on the
alert to absorb anything really essential; for his practical nature
called for something palpable whereupon his mind could get to work.
Deep within his being was a mighty flux, like that of a river beneath
its ice; and at times traces of it rose to the surface, and alarmed
him. Yet he had no power to sound the retreat; and when he heard the
complaint, in respect of the prevailing unrest, that it endangered the
welfare of the nation, he was not able to grasp the connection.
“It’s preposterous that they should knock off work without any reason,”
he once told Morten, when the baker’s driver had thrown up his place.
“Like your driver, for example—he had no ground for complaint.”
“Perhaps he suddenly got a pain between the legs because his ancestor
great-grandfather was once made to ride on a wooden horse—he came from
the country,” said Morten solemnly.
Pelle looked at him quickly. He did not like Morten’s ambiguous manner
of expressing himself. It made him feel insecure.
“Can’t you talk reasonably?” he said. “I can’t understand you.”
“No? And yet that’s quite reason enough—there have been lots of reasons
since his great-grandfather’s days. What the devil—why should they want
a reason referring to yesterday precisely? Don’t you realize that the
worker, who has so long been working the treadmill in the belief that
the movement was caused by somebody else, has suddenly discovered that
it’s he that keeps the whole thing in motion? For that’s what is going
on. The poor man is not merely a slave who treads the wheel, and had a
handful of meal shoved down his gullet now and again to keep him from
starving to death. He is on the point of discovering that he performs a
higher service, look you! And now the movement is altering—it is
continuing of itself! But that you probably can’t see,” he added, as he
noted Pelle’s incredulous expression.
“No, for I’m not one of the big-bellies,” said Pelle, laughing, “and
you’re no prophet, to prophesy such great things. And I have enough
understanding to realize that if you want to make a row you must
absolutely have something definite to make a fuss about, otherwise it
won’t work. But that about the wooden horse isn’t good enough!”
“That’s just the point about lots of fusses,” Morten replied. “There’s
no need to give a pretext for anything that everybody’s interested in.”
Pelle pondered further over all this while at work. But these
deliberations did not proceed as in general; as a rule, such matters as
were considered in his world of thought were fixed by the generations
and referred principally to life and death. He had to set to work in a
practical manner, and to return to his own significant experience.
Old Pipman was superfluous; that Pelle himself had proved. And there
was really no reason why he should not shake off the Court shoemaker as
well; the journeymen saw to the measuring and the cutting-out; indeed,
they did the whole work. He was also really a parasite, who had placed
himself at the head of them all, and was sucking up their profits. But
then Morten was right with his unabashed assertion that the working-man
carried on the whole business! Pelle hesitated a little over this
conclusion; he cautiously verified the fact that it was in any case
valid in his craft. There was some sense in winning back his own—but
how?
His sound common-sense demanded something that would take the place of
Meyer and the other big parasites. It wouldn’t do for every journeyman
to sit down and botch away on his own account, like a little employer;
he had seen that plainly enough in the little town at home; it was mere
bungling.
So he set himself to work out a plan for a cooperative business. A
number of craftsmen should band together, each should contribute his
little capital, and a place of business would be selected. The work
would be distributed according to the various capacities of the men,
and they would choose one from their midst who would superintend the
whole. In this way the problem could be solved—every man would receive
the full profit of his work.
When he had thoroughly thought out his plan, he went to Morten.
“They’ve already put that into practice!” cried Morten, and he pulled
out a book. “But it didn’t work particularly well. Where did you get
the idea from?”
“I thought it out myself,” answered Pelle self-consciously.
Morten looked a trifle incredulous; then he consulted the book, and
showed Pelle that his idea was described there—almost word for word—as
a phase of the progressive movement. The book was a work on Socialism.
But Pelle did not lose heart on that account! He was proud to have hit
on something that others had worked out before him—and learned people,
too! He began to have confidence in his own ideas, and eagerly attended
lectures and meetings. He had energy and courage, that he knew. He
would try to make himself efficient, and then he would seek out those
at the head of things, who were preparing the way, and would offer them
his services.
Hitherto Fortune had always hovered before his eyes, obscurely, like a
fairy-tale, as something that suddenly swooped down upon a man and
lifted him to higher regions, while all those who were left behind
gazed longingly after him—that was the worst of it! But now he
perceived new paths, which for all those that were in need led on to
fortune, just as the “Great Power” had fancied in the hour of his
death. He did not quite understand where everything was to come from,
but that was just the thing he must discover.
All this kept his mind in a state of new and unaccustomed activity. He
was not used to thinking things out for himself, but had until now
always adhered to the ideas which had been handed down from generation
to generation as established—and he often found it difficult and
wearisome. Then he would try to shelve the whole subject, in order to
escape from it; but it always returned to him.
When he was tired, Hanne regained her influence over him, and then he
went over to see her in the evenings. He knew very well that this would
lead to nothing good. To picture for himself a future beside Hanne
seemed impossible; for her only the moment existed. Her peculiar nature
had a certain power over him—that was all. He often vowed to himself
that he would not allow her to make a fool of him—but he always went
over to see her again. He must try to conquer her—and then take the
consequences.
One day, when work was over, he strolled across to see her. There was
no one on the gallery, so he went into the little kitchen.
“Is that you, Pelle?” Hanne’s voice sounded from the living-room. “Come
in, then!”
She had apparently been washing her body, and was now sitting in a
white petticoat and chemise, and combing her beautiful hair. There was
something of the princess about her; she took such care of her body,
and knew how it should be done. The mirror stood before her, on the
window- sill; from the little back room one could see, between the
roofs and the mottled party-wall, the prison and the bridge and the
canal that ran beneath it. Out beyond the Exchange the air was gray and
streaked with the tackle of ships.
Pelle sat down heavily by the stove, his elbows on his knees, and gazed
on the floor. He was greatly moved. If only the old woman would come!
“I believe I’ll go out,” he thought, “and behave as though I were
looking out for her.” But he remained sitting there. Against the wall
was the double bed with its red-flowered counterpane, while the table
stood by the opposite wall, with the chairs pushed under it. “She
shouldn’t drive me too far,” he thought, “or perhaps it’ll end in my
seizing her, and then she’ll have her fingers burnt!”
“Why don’t you talk to me, Pelle?” said Hanne.
He raised his head and looked at her in the mirror. She was holding the
end of her plait in her mouth, and looked like a kitten biting its
tail.
“Oh, what should I talk about?” he replied morosely.
“You are angry with me, but it isn’t fair of you—really, it isn’t fair!
Is it my fault that I’m so terrified of poverty? Oh, how it does
frighten me! It has always been like that ever since I was born, and
you are poor too, Pelle, as poor as I am! What would become of us both?
We know the whole story!”
“What will become of us?” said Pelle.
“That I don’t know, and it’s all the same to me—only it must be
something I don’t know all about. Everything is so familiar if one is
poor—one knows every stitch of one’s clothes by heart; one can watch
them wearing out. If you’d only been a sailor, Pelle!”
“Have you seen _him_ again?” asked Pelle.
Hanne laughingly shook her head. “No; but I believe something will
happen—something splendid. Out there lies a great ship—I can see it
from the window. It’s full of wonderful things, Pelle.”
“You are crazy!” said Pelle scornfully. “That’s a bark—bound for the
coal quay. She comes from England with coals.”
“That may well be,” replied Hanne indifferently. “I don’t mind that.
There’s something in me singing, ‘There lies the ship, and it has
brought something for me from foreign parts.’ And you needn’t grudge me
my happiness.”
But now her mother came in, and began to mimic her.
“Yes, out there lies the ship that has brought me something—out there
lies the ship that has brought me something! Good God! Haven’t you had
enough of listening to your own crazy nonsense? All through your
childhood you’ve sat there and made up stories and looked out for the
ship! We shall soon have had enough of it! And you let Pelle sit there
and watch you uncovering your youth—aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“Pelle’s so good, mother—and he’s my brother, too. He thinks nothing of
it.”
“Thinks nothing of it? Yes, he does; he thinks how soft and white your
bosom is! And he’s fit to cry inside of him because he mustn’t lay his
head there. I, too, have known what it is to give joy, in my young
days.”
Hanne blushed from her bosom upward. She threw a kerchief over her
bosom and ran into the kitchen.
The mother looked after her.
“She’s got a skin as tender as that of a king’s daughter. Wouldn’t one
think she was a cuckoo’s child? Her father couldn’t stand her. ‘You’ve
betrayed me with some fine gentleman’—he used so often to say that. ‘We
poor folks couldn’t bring a piece like that into the world!’ ‘As God
lives, Johnsen,’ I used to say, ‘you and no other are the girl’s
father.’ But he used to beat us—he wouldn’t believe me. He used to fly
into a rage when he looked at the child, and he hated us both because
she was so fine. So its no wonder that she had gone a bit queer in the
head. You can believe she’s cost me tears of blood, Pelle. But you let
her be, Pelle. I could wish you could get her, but it wouldn’t be best
for you, and it isn’t good for you to have her playing with you. And if
you got her after all, it would be even worse. A woman’s whims are poor
capital for setting up house with.”
Pelle agreed with her in cold blood; he had allowed himself to he
fooled, and was wasting his youth upon a path that led nowhere. But now
there should be an end of it.
Hanne came back and looked at him, radiant, full of visions. “Will you
take me for a walk, Pelle?” she asked him.
“Yes!” answered Pelle joyfully, and he threw all his good resolutions
overboard.
V
Pelle and his little neighbor used to compete as to which of them
should be up first in the morning. When she was lucky and had to wake
him her face was radiant with pride. It sometimes happened that he
would lie in bed a little longer, so that he should not deprive her of
a pleasure, and when she knocked on the wall he would answer in a voice
quite stupid with drowsiness. But sometimes her childish years demanded
the sleep that was their right, when Pelle would move about as quietly
as possible, and then, at half-past six, it would be his turn to knock
on the wall. On these occasions she would feel ashamed of herself all
the morning. Her brothers were supposed to get their early coffee and
go to work by six o’clock. Peter, who was the elder, worked in a
tin-plate works, while Earl sold the morning papers, and undertook
every possible kind of occasional work as well; this he had to hunt
for, and you could read as much in his whole little person. There was
something restless and nomadic about him, as though his thoughts were
always seeking some outlet.
It was quite a lively neighborhood at this time of day; across the
floor of the well, and out through the tunnel-like entry there was an
endless clattering of footsteps, as the hundreds of the “Ark” tumbled
out into the daylight, half tipsy with sleep, dishevelled, with
evidence of hasty rising in their eyes and their garments, smacking
their lips as though they relished the contrast between the night and
day, audibly yawning as they scuttled away. Up in Pelle’s long gangway
factory girls, artisans, and newspaper women came tumbling out, half
naked; they were always late, and stood there scolding until their turn
came to wash themselves. There was only one lavatory at either end of
the gangway, and there was only just time to sluice their eyes and wake
themselves up. The doors of all the rooms stood open; the odors of
night were heavy on the air.
On the days when Pelle worked at home little Marie was in high spirits.
She sang and hummed continually, with her curiously small voice, and
every few minutes she would run in and offer Pelle her services. At
such times she would station herself behind him and stand there in
silence, watching the progress of his work, while her breathing was
audibly perceptible, as a faint, whistling sound. There was a curious,
still, brooding look about her little under-grown figure that reminded
Pelle of Morten’s unhappy sister; something hard and undeveloped, as in
the fruit of a too-young tree. But the same shadow did not lie upon
her; childish toil had not steeped her as with a bitter sap; only her
outer shell was branded by it. There was about her, on the contrary, a
gleam of careful happiness, as though things had turned out much better
than she had expected. Perhaps this was because she could see the
result of her hard childish labors; no one could scatter that to the
winds.
She was a capable little housewife, and her brothers respected her, and
faithfully brought home what they earned. Then she took what she
needed, laid something by toward the rent, in a box which was put away
in the chest of drawers, and gave them something wherewith to amuse
themselves. “They must have something!” she told people; “besides, men
always need money in their pockets. But they deserve it, for they have
never yet spent a farthing in drink. On Saturday nights they always
come straight home with their earnings. But now I must get on with my
work; it’s dreadful how the time runs through one’s hands.”
She talked just like a young married woman, and Pelle inwardly chuckled
over her.
After a while she would peep in again; it was time for Pelle to have a
bite of something; or else she would bring her mending with her and sit
down on the edge of a chair.
She was always in a fidget lest a saucepan should boil over, or
something else go amiss.
At such times they had long, sensible talks. Little Marie did not care
about gossip; but there were plenty of serious things which had to be
talked over; the difficult times, Marie’s parents, and then the
wonderful fact that they had met one another once before, a long time
ago; that was an event which provided her with an inexhaustible mine of
discussion, although she herself could not remember the occasion.
But Pelle remembered it all quite well, and over and over again he had
to tell her how one day at home he had gone down to the harbor, in
order to show old Thatcher Holm the steamers; and she always laughed
when she heard how Holm had run away in his alarm every time the
steam-crane blew off steam. And then? Yes, the steamer was just on the
point of taking on board a heap of furniture, old beds, tables, and the
like.
“That was all ours!” cried Marie, clapping her hands. “We still had a
few things then. We took them to the pawn-shop when father lay ill
after his fall.” And then she would meet his gaze, asking for more.
And in the midst of all the furniture stood a man with a fine old
mirror in his arms. Thatcher Holm knew him, and had a talk with him.
“He was crying, wasn’t he?” asked Marie compassionately. “Father was so
unhappy, because things were going so badly with us.”
And then she herself would talk about the hotel, down among the cliffs
of the east coast, and of the fine guests who came there in summer.
Three years they had kept the hotel, and Pelle had to name the sum out
of which her father had been cheated. She was proud that they had once
possessed so much. Ten thousand kroner!
Over here her father had found work as a stonemason’s laborer, but one
day he trod on a loose beam and fell. For a few months he lay sick, and
all their household goods found their way to the pawn-shop; then he
died, and then they came to the “Ark.” Their mother did washing out of
doors, but at last she became queer in the head. She could not bear
unhappiness, and neglected her housework, to run about seeking
consolation from all sorts of religious sects. At last she was quite
demented, and one day she disappeared. It was believed that she had
drowned herself in the canal. “But things are going well with us now,”
Marie always concluded; “now there’s nothing to worry about.”
“But don’t you get tired of having all this to look after?” Pelle would
ask, wondering.
She would look at him in astonishment. “Why should I be tired? There’s
not more than one can manage—if one only knows how to manage. And the
children never make things difficult for me; they are pleased with
everything I do.”
The three orphans struggled on as well as they could, and were quite
proud of their little household. When things went badly with them, they
went hungry, and took serious counsel together; but they accepted help
from no one. They lived in the continual fear that the police would get
to know of their position, and haul them off to school. Then they would
be forcibly separated and brought up at the expense of the poor-rates.
They were shy, and “kept themselves to themselves.” In the “Ark”
everybody liked them, and helped them to keep their secret. The other
inmates managed their family affairs as best they could; there was
always a scandal somewhere. It was a sort of satisfaction to have these
three children living so decently in the midst of all this hotch-potch.
People thought a great deal of their little model household, and
protected it as though it had been a sanctuary.
To Pelle they attached themselves blindly. They had picked him up out
of the streets, and they certainly regarded him to some extent as a
foundling who was still under their protection. When Marie had given
the boys their morning coffee, she carried some in to Pelle—it was no
use protesting. And in the mornings, when she was busy indoors by
herself, she would go round to him with broom and bucket. Her
precocious, intelligent face was beaming with circumspection and the
desire to help. She did not ask permission, but set to work where need
was. If Pelle was away at Beck’s workshop, he always found his room
clean and tidy in the evening.
If he had work at home, she would bring coffee for the two of them
during the morning. He did not dare to drive her away, for she would
take that to heart, and would go about offended all the rest of the
day; so he would run below to fetch a roll of white bread. Marie always
found some pretext for putting aside her share for the boys; it gave
her no real pleasure to enjoy anything by herself.
Pelle felt that he was making headway; and he was conscious of his own
youth. He was continually in the rosiest of humors, and even Hanne
could not throw any real shadow over his existence. In his relations
with her there was something of a beautiful unreality; they left no
permanent scar upon his heart.
He felt quite simply ashamed in the presence of this much tried child,
whenever something cropped up to put him out of temper. He felt it was
his duty to brighten her poverty-stricken life with his high spirits.
He chatted merrily to her, chaffed her, teased her, to charm her from
her unnatural solemnity. And she would smile, in her quiet, motherly
fashion, as one smiles at a much-loved child who seeks to drive away
our cares—and would then offer to do something for him.
“Shall I wash out your blouse or do up your shirt?” she would ask. Her
gratitude always found its expression in some kind of work.
“No, thanks, Marie; Hanne and her mother look after that.”
“But that’s not work for the Princess—I can do it much better.”
“The Princess?” said Pelle, raising his head. “Is that what they call
her?”
“Only us children—we don’t mean it unkindly. But we always played at
there being a princess when she was with us—and she was always the
princess. But do you know what? Some one will come and take her away—
some one very distinguished. She has been promised from the cradle to a
fine gentleman.”
“What nonsense!” said Pelle crossly.
“But that’s really true! When it rained we used to sit under the
gallery—in the corner by the dustbin—and she used to tell us—and it’s
really true! And, besides, don’t you think she’s fascinating? She’s
really just like a princess—like that!” Marie made a gesture in the air
with her fingers outspread. “And she knows everything that is going to
happen. She used to run down to us, in the courtyard, in her long
dress, and her mother used to stand up above and call her; then she’d
sit on the grating as if it was a throne and she was the queen and we
were her ladies. She used to braid our hair, and then dress it
beautifully with colored ribbons, and when I came up here again mother
used to tear it all down and make my hair rough again. It was a sin
against God to deck one’s self out like that, she said. And when mother
disappeared I hadn’t time to play down there any more.”
“Poor little girl!” said Pelle, stroking her hair.
“Why do you say that?” she asked him, looking at him in astonishment.
He enjoyed her absolute confidence, and was told things that the boys
were not allowed to know. She began to dress more carefully, and her
fine fair hair was always brushed smoothly back from her forehead. She
was delighted when they both had some errand in the city. Then she put
on her best and went through the streets at his side, her whole face
smiling. “Now perhaps people will think we are a couple of lovers—but
what does it matter? Let them think it!” Pelle laughed; with her
thirteen years she was no bigger than a child of nine, so backward in
growth was she.
She often found it difficult to make both ends meet; she would say
little or nothing about it, but a kind of fear would betray itself in
her expression. Then Pelle would speak cheerfully of the good times
that would soon be coming for all poor people. It cost him a great deal
of exertion to put this in words so as to make it sound as it ought to
sound. His thoughts were still so new—even to himself. But the children
thought nothing of his unwieldy speech; to them it was easier to
believe in the new age than it was to him.