From the foundations of the “Ark” rose a peculiar sound, a stumbling,
countrified footstep, dragging itself in heavy footgear over the
flagstones. All Pelle’s blood rushed to his heart; he threw down his
work, and with a leap was on the gallery, quite convinced that this was
only an empty dream…. But there below in the court stood Father Lasse
in the flesh, staring up through the timbers, as though he couldn’t
believe his own eyes. He had a sack filled with rubbish on his back.
“Hallo!” cried Pelle, taking the stairs in long leaps. “Hallo!”
“Good-day, my lad!” said Lasse, in a voice trembling with emotion,
considering his son with his lashless eyes. “Yes, here you have Father
Lasse—if you will have him. But where, really, did you come from? Seems
to me you fell down from heaven?”
Pelle took his father’s sack. “You just come up with me,” he said. “You
can trust the stairs all right; they are stronger than they look.”
“Then they are like Lasse,” answered the old man, trudging up close
behind him; the straps of his half-Wellingtons were peeping out at the
side, and he was quite the old man. At every landing he stood still and
uttered his comments on his surroundings. Pelle had to admonish him to
be silent.
“One doesn’t discuss everything aloud here. It might so easily be
regarded as criticism,” he said.
“No, really? Well, one must learn as long as one lives. But just look
how they stand about chattering up here! There must be a whole
courtyard-full! Well, well. I won’t say any more. I knew they lived one
on top of another, but I didn’t think there’d be so little room here.
To hang the backyard out in front of the kitchen door, one on top of
another, that’s just like the birds that build all on one bough. Lord
God, suppose it was all to come tumbling down one fine day!”
“And do you live here?” he cried, gazing in a disillusioned manner
round the room with its sloping ceiling. “I’ve often wondered how you
were fixed up over here. A few days ago I met a man at home who said
they were talking about you already; but one wouldn’t think so from
your lodgings. However, it isn’t far to heaven, anyhow!”
Pelle was silent. He had come to love his den, and his whole life here;
but Father Lasse continued to enlarge upon his hopes of his son’s
respectability and prosperity, and he felt ashamed. “Did you imagine I
was living in one of the royal palaces?” he said, rather bitterly.
Lasse looked at him kindly and laid both hands on his shoulders. “So
big and strong as you’ve grown, lad,” he said, wondering. “Well, and
now you have me here too! But I won’t be a burden to you. No, but at
home it had grown so dismal after what happened at Due’s, that I got
ready without sending you word. And then I was able to come over with
one of the skippers for nothing.”
“But what’s this about Due?” asked Pelle. “I hope nothing bad?”
“Good God, haven’t you heard? He revenged himself on his wife because
he discovered her with the Consul. He had been absolutely blind, and
had only believed the best of her, until he surprised her in her sin.
Then he killed her, her and the children they had together, and went to
the authorities and gave himself up. But the youngest, whom any one
could see was the Consul’s, he didn’t touch. Oh, it was a dreadful
misfortune! Before he gave himself up to the police he came to me; he
wanted just one last time to be with some one who would talk it over
with him without hypocrisy. ‘I’ve strangled Anna,’ he said, as soon as
he had sat down. ‘It had to be, and I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry. The
children that were mine, too. I’ve dealt honestly with them.’ Yes, yes,
he had dealt honestly with the poor things! ‘I just wanted to say
goodbye to you, Lasse, for my life’s over now, happy as I might have
been, with my contented nature. But Anna always wanted to be climbing,
and if I got on it was her shame I had to thank for it. I never wanted
anything further than the simple happiness of the poor man—a good wife
and a few children—and now I must go to prison! God be thanked that
Anna hasn’t lived to see that! She was finer in her feelings than the
rest, and she had to deceive in order to get on in the world.’ So he
sat there, talking of the dead, and one couldn’t notice any feeling in
him. I wouldn’t let him see how sick at heart he made me feel. For him
it was the best thing, so long as his conscience could sleep easy.
‘Your eyes are watering, Lasse,’ he said quietly; ‘you should bathe
them a bit; they say urine is good.’ Yes, God knows, my eyes did water!
God of my life, yes! Then he stood up. ‘You, too, Lasse, you haven’t
much longer life granted you,’ he said, and he gave me his hand. ‘You
are growing old now. But you must give Pelle my greetings—he’s safe to
get on!’”
Pelle sat mournfully listening to the dismal story. But he shuddered at
the last words. He had so often heard the expression of that
anticipation of his good fortune, which they all seemed to feel, and
had rejoiced to hear it; it was, after all, only an echo of his own
self- confidence. But now it weighed upon him like a burden. It was
always those who were sinking who believed in his luck; and as they
sank they flung their hopes upward toward him. A grievous fashion was
this in which his good fortune was prophesied! A terrible and grievous
blessing it was that was spoken over him and his success in life by
this man dedicated to death, even as he stepped upon the scaffold.
Pelle sat staring at the floor without a sign of life, a brooding
expression on his face; his very soul was shuddering at the foreboding
of a superhuman burden; and suddenly a light was flashed before his
eyes; there could never be happiness for him alone—the fairy-tale was
dead! He was bound up with all the others—he must partake of happiness
or misfortune with them; that was why the unfortunate Due gave him his
blessing. In his soul he was conscious of Due’s difficult journey, as
though he himself had to endure the horror of it. And Fine Anna, who
must clamber up over his own family and tread them in the dust! Never
again could he wrench himself quite free as before! He had already
encountered much unhappiness and had learned to hate its cause. But
this was something more—this was very affliction itself!
“Yes,” sighed Lasse, “a lucky thing that Brother Kalle did not live to
see all this. He worked himself to skin and bone for his children, and
now, for all thanks, he lied buried in the poorhouse burying-ground.
Albinus, who travels about the country as a conjurer, was the only one
who had a thought for him; but the money came too late, although it was
sent by telegraph. Have you ever heard of a conjuring-trick like that—
to send money from England to Bornholm over the telegraph cable? A
devilish clever acrobat! Well, Brother Kalle, he knew all sorts of
conjuring-tricks too, but he didn’t learn them abroad. They had heard
nothing at all of Alfred at the funeral. He belongs to the fine folks
now and has cut off all connection with his poor relations. He has been
appointed to various posts of honor, and they say he’s a regular
bloodhound toward the poor—a man’s always worst toward his own kind.
But the fine folks, they say, they think great things of him.”
Pelle heard the old man’s speech only as a monotonous trickle of sound.
Due, Due, the best, the most good-natured man he knew, who championed
Anna’s illegitimate child against her own mother, and loved her like
his own, because she was defenceless and needed his love—Due was now to
lay his head on the scaffold! So dearly bought was the fulfilment of
his wish, to obtain a pair of horses and become a coachman! He had
obtained the horses and a carriage on credit, and had himself made up
for the instalments and the interest—the Consul had merely stood
security for him. And for this humble success he was now treading the
path of shame! His steps echoed in Pelle’s soul; Pelle did not know how
he was going to bear it. He longed for his former obtuseness.
Lasse continued to chatter. For him it was fate—grievous and heavy, but
it could not be otherwise. And the meeting with Pelle had stirred up so
many memories; he was quite excited. Everything he saw amused him.
However did anybody hit on the idea of packing folks away like this,
one on top of another, like herrings in a barrel? And at home on
Bornholm there were whole stretches of country where no one lived at
all! He did not venture to approach the window, but prudently stood a
little way back in the room, looking out over the roofs. There, too,
was a crazy arrangement! One could count the ears in a cornfield as
easily as the houses over here!
Pelle called Marie, who had discreetly remained in her own room. “This
is my foster-mother,” he said, with his arm round her shoulders. “And
that is Father Lasse, whom you are fond of already, so you always say.
Now can you get us some breakfast?” He gave her money.
“She’s a good girl, that she is,” said Lasse, feeling in his sack. “She
shall have a present. There’s a red apple,” he said to Marie, when she
returned; “you must eat it, and then you’ll be my sweetheart.” Marie
smiled gravely and looked at Pelle.
They borrowed the old clothes dealer’s handcart and went across to the
apple barges to fetch Lasse’s belongings. He had sold most of them in
order not to bring too great a load to the city. But he had retained a
bedstead with bedding, and all sorts of other things. “And then I have
still to give you greetings from Sort and Marie Nielsen,” he said.
Pelle blushed. “I owe her a few words, but over here I quite forgot it
somehow! And I have half promised her my portrait. I must see now about
sending it.”
“Yes, do,” said Father Lasse. “I don’t know how close you two stand to
each other, but she was a good woman. And those who stay behind,
they’re sad when they’re forgotten. Remember that.”
At midday Lasse had tidied himself a trifle and began to brush his hat.
“What now?” inquired Pelle. “You don’t want to go out all alone?”
“I want to go out and look at the city a bit,” replied Lasse, as though
it were quite a matter of course. “I want to find some work, and
perhaps I’ll go and have a peep at the king for once. You need only
explain in which direction I must go.”
“You had better wait until I can come with you—you’ll only lose
yourself.”
“Shall I do that?” replied Lasse, offended. “But I found my way here
alone, I seem to remember!”
“I can go with the old man!” said Marie.
“Yes, you come with the old man, then no one can say he has lost his
youth!” cried Lasse jestingly, as he took her hand. “I think we two
shall be good friends.”
Toward evening they returned. “There are folks enough here,” said
Lasse, panting, “but there doesn’t seem to be a superfluity of work.
I’ve been asking first this one and then that, but no one will have me.
Well, that’s all right! If they won’t, I can just put a spike on my
stick and set to work collecting the bits of paper in the streets, like
the other old men; I can at least do that still.”
“But I can’t give my consent to that,” replied Pelle forcibly. “My
father shan’t become a scavenger!”
“Well—but I must get something to do, or I shall go back home again.
I’m not going to go idling about here while you work.”
“But you can surely rest and enjoy a little comfort in your old days,
father. However, we shall soon see.”
“I can rest, can I? I had better lie on my back and let myself be fed
like a long-clothes child! Only I don’t believe my back would stand
it!”
They had placed Lasse’s bed with the footboard under the sloping
ceiling; there was just room enough for it. Pelle felt like a little
boy when he went to bed that night; it was so many years since he had
slept in the same room as Father Lasse. But in the night he was
oppressed by evil dreams; Due’s dreadful fate pursued him in his sleep.
His energetic, good-humored face went drifting through the endless
grayness, the head bowed low, the hands chained behind him, a heavy
iron chain was about his neck, and his eyes were fixed on the ground as
though he were searching the very abyss. When Pelle awoke it was
because Father Lasse stood bending over his bed, feeling his face, as
in the days of his childhood.