Lasse would not sit idle, and was busily employed in running about the
city in search of work. When he spoke to Pelle he put a cheerful face
on a bad business; and looked hopeful; but the capital had already
disillusioned him. He could not understand all this hubbub, and felt
that he was too old to enter into it and fathom its meaning—besides,
perhaps it had none! It really looked as though everybody was just
running to and fro and following his own nose, without troubling in the
least about all the rest. And there were no greetings when you passed
folks in the street; the whole thing was more than Lasse could
understand. “I ought to have stayed at home,” he would often think.
And as for Pelle—well, Pelle was taken up with his own affairs! That
was only to be expected in a man. He ran about going to meetings and
agitating, and had a great deal to do; his thoughts were continually
occupied, so that there was no time for familiar gossip as in the old
days. He was engaged, moreover, so that what time was not devoted to
the Labor movement was given to his sweetheart. How the boy had grown,
and how he had altered, bodily and in every way! Lasse had a feeling
that he only reached up to Pelle’s belt nowadays. He had grown terribly
serious, and was quite the man; he looked as though he was ready to
grasp the reins of something or other; you would never, to look at him,
have thought that he was only a journeyman cobbler. There was an air of
responsibility about him—just a little too much may be!
Marie got into the way of accompanying the old man. They had become
good friends, and there was plenty for them to gossip over. She would
take him to the courtyard of the Berlingske Tidende, where the people
in search of work eddied about the advertisement board, filling up the
gateway and forming a crowd in the street outside.
“We shall never get in there!” said Lasse dejectedly. But Marie worked
herself forward; when people scolded her she scolded them back. Lasse
was quite horrified by the language the child used; but it was a great
help!
Marie read out the different notices, and Lasse made his comments on
every one, and when the bystanders laughed Lasse gazed at them
uncomprehendingly, then laughed with them, and nodded his head merrily.
He entered into everything.
“What do you say? Gentleman’s coachman? Yes, I can drive a pair of
horses well enough, but perhaps I’m not fine enough for the gentry—I’m
afraid my nose would drip!”
He looked about him importantly, like a child that is under
observation. “But errand boy—that isn’t so bad. We’ll make a note of
that. There’s no great skill needed to be everybody’s dog! House
porter! Deuce take it—there one need only sit downstairs and make angry
faces out of a basement window! We’ll look in there and try our luck.”
They impressed the addresses on their minds until they knew them by
heart, and then squeezed their way out through the crowd. “Damn funny
old codger!” said the people, looking after him with a smile—Lasse was
quite high-spirited. They went from house to house, but no one had any
use for him. The people only laughed at the broken old figure with the
wide-toed boots.
“They laugh at me,” said Lasse, quite cast down; “perhaps because I
still look a bit countrified. But that after all can soon be overcome.
“I believe it’s because you are so old and yet want to get work,” said
Marie.
“Do you think it can be on that account? Yet I’m only just seventy, and
on both my father’s and mother’s side we have almost all lived to
ninety. Do you really think that’s it? If they’d only let me set to
work they’d soon see there’s still strength in old Lasse! Many a
younger fellow would sit on his backside for sheer astonishment. But
what are those people there, who stand there and look so dismal and
keep their hands in their pockets?”
“Those are the unemployed; it’s a slack time for work, and they say it
will get still worse.”
“And all those who were crowding round the notice-board—were they idle
hands too?”
Marie nodded.
“But then it’s worse here than at home—there at least we always have
the stone-cutting when there is nothing else. And I had really believed
that the good time had already begun over here!”
“Pelle says it will soon come,” said Marie consolingly.
“Yes, Pelle—he can well talk. He is young and healthy and has the time
before him.”
Lasse was in a bad temper; nothing seemed right to him. In order to
give him pleasure, Marie took him to see the guard changed, which
cheered him a little.
“Those are smart fellows truly,” he said. “Hey, hey, how they hold
themselves! And fine clothes too. But that they know well enough
themselves! Yes—I’ve never been a king’s soldier. I went up for it when
I was young and felt I’d like it; I was a smart fellow then, you can
take my word for it! But they wouldn’t have me; my figure wouldn’t do,
they said; I had worked too hard, from the time I was quite a child.
They’d got it into their heads in those days that a man ought to be
made just so and so. I think it’s to please the fine ladies. Otherwise
I, too, might have defended my country.”
Down by the Exchange the roadway was broken up; a crowd of navvies were
at work digging out the foundation for a conduit. Lasse grew quite
excited, and hurried up to them.
“That would be the sort of thing for me,” he said, and he stood there
and fell into a dream at the sight of the work. Every time the workers
swung their picks he followed the movement with his old head. He drew
closer and closer. “Hi,” he said to one of the workers, who was taking
a breath, “can a man get taken on here?”
The man took a long look at him. “Get taken on here?” he cried, turning
more to his comrades than to Lasse. “Ah, you’d like to, would you? Here
you foreigners come running, from Funen and Middlefart, and want to
take the bread out of the mouths of us natives. Get away with you, you
Jutland carrion!” Laughing, he swung his pick over his head.
Lasse drew slowly hack. “But he was angry!” he said dejectedly to
Marie.
In the evening Pelle had to go to all his various meetings, whatever
they might be. He had a great deal to do, and, hard as he worked, the
situation still remained unfavorable. It was by no means so easy a
thing, to break the back of poverty!
“You just look after your own affairs,” said Lasse. “I sit here and
chat a little with the children—and then I go to bed. I don’t know why,
but my body gets fonder and fonder of bed, although I’ve never been
considered lazy exactly. It must be the grave that’s calling me. But I
can’t go about idle any longer—I’m quite stiff in my body from doing
it.”
Formerly Lasse never used to speak of the grave; but now he had
seemingly reconciled himself to the idea. “And the city is so big and
so confusing,” he told the children. “And the little one has put by
soon runs through one’s fingers.”
He found it much easier to confide his troubles to them. Pelle had
grown so big and so serious that he absolutely inspired respect. One
could take no real pleasure in worrying him with trivialities.
But with the children he found himself in tune. They had to contend
with little obstacles and difficulties, just as he did, and could grasp
all his troubles. They gave him good, practical advice, and in return
he gave them his senile words of wisdom.
“I don’t exactly know why it is so,” he said, “but this great city
makes me quite confused and queer in the head. To mention nothing else,
no one here knows me and looks after me when I go by. That takes all
the courage out of my knees. At home there was always one or another
who would turn his head and say to himself, ‘Look, there goes old
Lasse, he’ll be going down to the harbor to break stone; devil take me,
but how he holds himself! Many a man would nod to me too, and I myself
knew every second man. Here they all go running by as if they were
crazy! I don’t understand how you manage to find employment here,
Karl?”
“Oh, that’s quite easy,” replied the boy. “About six in the morning I
get to the vegetable market; there is always something to be delivered
for the small dealers who can’t keep a man. When the vegetable market
is over I deliver flowers for the gardeners. That’s a very uncertain
business, for I get nothing more than the tips. And besides that I run
wherever I think there’s anything going. To the East Bridge and out to
Frederiksburg. And I have a few regular places too, where I go every
afternoon for an hour and deliver goods. There’s always something if
one runs about properly.”
“And does that provide you with an average good employment every day?”
said Lasse wonderingly. “The arrangement looks to me a little
uncertain. In the morning you can’t be sure you will have earned
anything when the night comes.”
“Ah, Karl is so quick,” said Marie knowingly. “When the times are
ordinarily good he can earn a krone a day regularly.”
“And that could really be made a regular calling?” No, Lasse couldn’t
understand it.
“Very often it’s evening before I have earned anything at all, but one
just has to stir one’s stumps; there’s always something or other if one
knows where to look for it.”
“What do you think—suppose I were to go with you?” said Lasse
thoughtfully.
“You can’t do that, because I run the whole time. Really you’d do much
better to hide one of your arms.”
“Hide one of my arms?” said Lasse wonderingly.
“Yes—stick one arm under your coat and then go up to people and ask
them for something. That wouldn’t be any trouble to you, you look like
an invalid.”
“Do I, indeed?” asked Lasse, blinking his eyes. “I never knew that
before. But even if that were so I shouldn’t like to beg at people’s
doors. I don’t think any one will get old Lasse to do that.”
“Then go along to the lime works—they are looking for stone-breakers
these days,” said the omniscient youngster.
“Now you are talking!” said Lasse; “so they have stone here? Yes, I
brought my stone-cutter’s tools with me, and if there’s one thing on
earth I long to do it is to be able to bang away at a stone again!”