Pelle continued the struggle indefatigably, contending with opposing
circumstances and with disloyalty, but always returning more boldly to
the charge. Many times in the course of the conflict he found himself
back at the same place; Meyer obtained a new lot of workers from
abroad, and he had to begin all over again; he had to work on them
until they went away again, or to make their position among their
housemates so impossible that they resigned. The later winter was hard
and came to Meyer’s assistance. He paid his workers well now, and had
brought together a crowd of non-union hands; for a time it looked as
though he would get his business going again. But Pelle had left the
non-unionists alone only through lack of time; now he began to seek
them out, and he spoke with more authority than before. Already people
were remarking on his strength of will; and most of them surrendered
beforehand. “The devil couldn’t stand up against him!” they said. He
never wavered in his faith in an ultimate victory, but went straight
ahead; he did not philosophize about the other aspect of the result,
but devoted all his energies to achieving it. He was actuated by sheer
robust energy, and it led him the shortest way. The members of the
Union followed him willingly, and willingly accepted the privations
involved in the emptying of the workshops. He possessed their
confidence, and they found that it was, after all, glorious sport to
turn the tables, when for once in a way they could bring the grievance
home to its point of departure! They knew by bitter experience what it
was to run about to no purpose, to beg for work, and to beg for their
wages, and to haggle over them—in short, to be the underdog. It was
amusing to reverse the roles. Now the mouse was playing with the cat
and having a rattling good time of it— although the claws did get home
now and again!
Pelle felt their confidence, the trust of one and all, in the readiness
with which they followed him, as though he were only the expression of
their own convictions. And when he stood up at the general meetings or
conferences, in order to make a report or to conduct an agitation, and
the applause of his comrades fell upon his ears, he felt an influx of
sheer power. He was like the ram of a ship; the weight of the whole was
behind him. He began to feel that he was the expression of something
great; that there was a purpose within him.
The Pelle who dealt so quietly and cleverly with Meyer and achieved
precisely what he willed was not the usual Pelle. A greater nature was
working within him, with more responsibility, according to his old
presentiment. He tested himself, in order to assimilate this as a
conviction, and he felt that there was virtue in the idea.
This higher nature stood in mystical connection with so much in his
life; far back into his childhood he could trace it, as an abundant
promise. So many had involuntarily expected something from him; he had
listened to them with wonder, but now their expectation was proving
prophetic.
He paid strict attention to his words in his personal relations, now
that their illimitable importance had been revealed to him. But in his
agitator’s work the strongest words came to him most naturally; came
like an echo out of the illimitable void that lay behind him. He busied
himself with his personality. All that had hitherto had free and
careless play must now be circumscribed and made to serve an end. He
examined his relations with Ellen, was indulgent to her, and took pains
to understand her demand for happiness. He was kind and gentle to her,
but inflexible in his resolve.
He had no conscientious scruples in respect of the Court shoemaker.
Meyer had in all respects misused his omnipotence long enough; owing to
his huge business he had made conditions and ruled them; and the evil
of those conditions must be brought home to him. It was now summer and
a good time for the workers, and his business was rapidly failing.
Pelle foresaw his fall, and felt himself to be a righteous avenger.
The year-long conflict absorbed his whole mind. He was always on his
feet; came rushing home to the work that lay there waiting for him,
threw it aside like a maniac, and hurried off again. He did not see
much of Ellen and little Lasse these days; they lived their own life
without him.
He dared not rest on what he had accomplished, now that the cohesion of
the Union was so powerful. He was always seeking means to strengthen
and to undermine; he did not wish to fall a sacrifice to the
unforeseen. His indefatigability infected his comrades, they became
more eager the longer the struggle lasted. The conflict was magnified
by the sacrifice it demanded, and by the strength of the opposition;
Meyer gradually became a colossus whom all must stake their welfare to
hew down. Families were ruined thereby, but the more sacrifice the
struggle demanded the more recklessly they struggled on. And they were
full of jubilation on the day when the colossus fell, and buried some
of them in his fall!
Pelle was the undisputed victor. The journeyman-cobbler had laid low
the biggest employer in the trade. They did not ask what the victory
had cost, but carried his name in triumph. They cheered when they
caught sight of him or when his name was mentioned. Formerly this would
have turned his head, but now he regarded his success as entirely
natural—as the expression of a higher power!
A few days later he summoned a general meeting of the Union, laid
before them the draft of a new tariff which was adapted to the times,
and proposed that they should at once begin the fight for its adoption.
“We could never have a better opportunity,” he said. “Now they have
seen what we can do! With the tariff question we struck down Meyer! We
must strike the iron while it is hot!”
He reckoned that his comrades were just in the mood for battle, despite
all the privations that the struggle had entailed, and he was not
mistaken. His proposal was unanimously accepted.
But there was no fight for better wages. Meyer was now making the
rounds of the employers’ establishments with the sample-box of one of
the leather firms. The sight of this once so mighty man had a
stimulating effect. The masters’ Union appointed a few employers with
whom the workers’ Union could discuss the question of the tariff.