Early one morning Pelle wandered into the city. He had risen before
Ellen, in order to avoid the painfulness of sitting down to breakfast
with her. Ellen tried all sorts of ruses in order to give him a proper
breakfast, and it was not difficult to persuade his stomach; but
afterward he felt ashamed that he should have been cared for at the
cost of others; and cunning though he was too, he could not get the
better of her save by slipping away while she was still asleep.
His fasting condition endowed the city, and the whole of life, with a
curiously unsubstantial aspect. Before him lay a long day full of
terrific labors, and behind him was the fresh triumph of the day
before.
As matters now stood, the employers in the iron industry had conceived
the cunning idea of founding a blackleg Union for smiths and mechanics,
and of giving it a name closely resembling that of the genuine Union.
Then they sent circulars to the men, stating that work would be resumed
on the following day. Many of the men were not accustomed to read, and
regarded the circular as an order from their own Union, while others
were enticed by the high wages offered by the new society. There was
great confusion among the workers of these trades. As soon as the trick
was exposed every respectable man drew back; but there was a great deal
of disappointment, and they felt horribly ashamed before their
comrades.
Pelle was furious at this trick, which affected him more especially, as
the leader in open battle; he had suffered a defeat, and he meditated
revenge. In spite of all the efforts of the pickets, it was not
possible to procure a full list of the strikebreakers; his chagrin on
this account burned in his heart, like a shameful sense of impotency;
hitherto he had been noted for getting to the bottom of anything he
undertook! He resolved then and there to meet ruse with ruse. He set a
trap for his opponents, so that they themselves should deliver the
strikebreakers into his hands. One morning he published his list in
_The Working Man_ with the proud remark, “Look, the enemy has no more!”
Did the employers really fall into the trap, or was the fate of the
strike-breakers really indifferent to them? Next morning their organ
protested, and gave the number of the black-legs and their names into
the bargain!
This was a smack! A good one this; it brought a light to the thin,
impassive faces. There was an answer to the trick of the other day!
This Pelle was a deuce of a fellow! Three cheers for “Lightning Pelle!”
Hip, hip, hurrah!
Pelle was the deuce of a fellow as he strode along ruddy and full of
pugnacity, with the echoes from the side-streets and the
tenement-houses mingled with his own vigorous footsteps. Streets and
houses were white with the night’s hoar frost, and overhead the air was
full of a peculiar glow that came from the city—a light flowing from
hidden sources. He had left all his cares at home; on every hand
working-folk were greeting him, and his greeting in return was like an
inspiriting song. He did not know them, but they knew him! The feeling
that his work—however deep the scars it might leave—was arousing
gratitude, had an uplifting effect upon him.
The city was in its morning mood. The lock-out lay like a paralyzing
hand upon everything; business was slack, and the middle classes were
complaining, but there was no prospect of peace; both sides were
irreconcilable. The workers had lost nothing through the rash cessation
of the masons. Sympathy for the lower classes had become a political
principle; and contributions were still pouring in from the country.
Considerable sums came from abroad. The campaign was now costing the
workers half a million kroner a week; and the help from outside was
like a drop in the ocean. But it had the effect of a moral support, and
it stimulated the self-taxation to which all were subject. The hundred
thousand households of the poor parted with their last possessions in
order to continue the struggle; they meant to force a decision that
should affect their whole future. The employers tried to hinder the
great National Federation by calling the attention of the authorities
to an ancient statute concerning mendicancy; but that merely aroused
merriment. A little laughter over such expedients was permissible.
The workers had become accustomed to starvation. They went no more into
the forest, but strolled thoughtfully through the streets like people
who have too much time on their hands, so that the city’s face wore a
peculiar stamp of meditative poverty. Their loitering steps aroused no
echo, and in the houses the quietness gave one food for reflection. The
noisy, ever-hungry children were scattered over the face of the country
—they at least had plenty to eat. But the place was empty for the lack
of them!
Pelle met several squads of workers; they were on the way to the
various roll-calls. They raised their heads as he passed; his footsteps
echoed loudly enough for all! It was the hope and the will of forty
thousand men that passed there—Pelle was the expression of them all.
They stared at his indomitable figure, and drew themselves up. “A devil
of a chap!” they told one another joyfully; “he looks as if he could
trample ’em all underfoot! Look at him—he scarcely makes way for that
great loaded wagon! Long live Pelle, boys!”
The tavern-keepers stood on their cellar stairs gaping up at the
morning sky—this was a time of famine for them! In the tavern windows
hung cards with the inscription: “Contributions received here for the
locked- out workers!”
On the Queen Luise Bridge Pelle encountered a pale, fat little man in a
shabby coat. He had flabby features and a great red nose. “Good
morning, General!” cried Pelle gaily; the man made a condescending
movement with his hand. This was _The Working Man’s_ man of straw; a
sometime capitalist, who for a small weekly wage was, as far as the
public was concerned, the responsible editor of the paper. He served
various terms of imprisonment for the paper, and for a further payment
of five kroner a week he also worked out in prison the fines inflicted
on the paper. When he was not in jail he kept himself alive by
drinking. He suffered from megalomania, and considered that he led the
whole labor movement; for which reason he could not bear Pelle.
In the great court-yard of _The Working Man_ building the dockers were
assembled to answer the roll. The president of their Union met Pelle in
the doorway; he was the very man whom Pelle and Howling Peter had
rescued down by the harbor—now he was working for the new ideas!
“Well, how goes it?” asked Pelle, shaking his hand.
“Splendid! A thousand men all but seven!”
“But where’s the joyful Jacob? Is he ill?”
“He’s in jail,” replied the other gloomily. “He couldn’t bear to see
his old folks starving—so he broke into a grocery, he and his
brother—and now they’re both in prison.”
For a moment the lines on Pelle’s forehead were terribly deep and
gloomy; he stood gazing blindly into space; the radiant expression left
his countenance, which was filled with a pitying gravity. The docker
stared at him—was he going to sleep on his feet? But then he pulled
himself together.
“Well, comrades, are you finding the days too long?” he cried gaily.
“Ach, as for that! It’s the first time one’s had the time to get to
know one’s own wife and children properly!” they replied. “But for all
that it would be fine to get busy again!”
It was obvious that idleness was at last beginning to depress them;
there was a peculiar pondering expression on their impassive features,
and their eyes turned to him with a persistent questioning. They asked
that this undertaking of his should be settled one way or the other.
They were not weakening; they always voted for the continuance of the
campaign, for that which they sought depended thereon; but they gazed
into his face for a look that might promise success.
He had to answer many singular questions; privation engendered in the
most fantastic ideas, which revealed the fact that their quiet,
controlled bearing was the product of the observation and the energy of
the many.
“Shall we deprive the rich of all their wealth and power?” asked one
man, after long pondering and gazing at Pelle. The struggle seemed to
have dealt hardly with him; but it had lit a spark in his eyes.
“Yes, we are going now to take our rights as men, and we shall demand
that the worker shall be respected,” Pelle replied. “Then there’ll be
no more talk of poor man and gentleman!”
“But suppose they try to get on top of us again? We must make short
work of them, so that they can’t clamber on our backs and ride us
again.”
“Do you want to drive them all onto the Common and shoot them? That’s
not necessary,” said his neighbor. “When this is settled no one will
dare to take the food out of our mouths again.”
“Won’t there be any more poverty then?” asked the first speaker,
turning to Pelle.
“No, once we get our affairs properly in going order; then there will
be comfort in every home. Don’t you read your paper?”
Yes, he read it, but there was no harm in hearing the great news
confirmed by Pelle himself. And Pelle could confirm it, because he
never harbored a doubt. It had been difficult to get the masses to
grasp the new conception of things—as difficult as to move the earth!
Something big must happen in return!
A few of the men had brought out sandwiches and began to eat them as
they debated. “Good digestion!” said Pelle, nodding farewell to them.
His mouth was watering, and he remembered that he had had nothing to
eat or drink. But he had no time to think about it; he must go to
Stolpe to arrange about the posting of the pickets.
Over the way stood Marie in a white cap, with a basket over her arm;
she nodded to him, with rosy cheeks. Transplantation had made her grow;
every time he saw her she was more erect and prettier.
At his parents’-in-law the strictest economy prevailed. All sorts of
things—household possessions—had disappeared from that once so
comfortable home; but there was no lack of good spirits. Stolpe was
pottering about waiting for his breakfast; he had been at work early
that morning.
“What’s the girl doing?” he asked. “We never see her now.”
“She has such a lot to do,” said Pelle apologetically. “And now she’s
going out to work as well.”
“Well, well, with things as they are she’s not too fine to lend a hand.
But we don’t really know what’s amiss with her—she’s a rebellious
nature! Thank God she’s not a man—she would have brought dissolution
into the ranks!”
Breakfast consisted of a portion of coffee and bread-and-butter and
porridge. Madam Stolpe could not find her fine new silver coffee-
service, which her children had given her on her silver-wedding day. “I
must have put it away,” she said.
“Well, well, that’ll soon be found again, mother!” said Stolpe. “Now we
shall soon have better times; many fine things will make their
appearance again then, we shall see!”
“Have you been to the machine-works this morning, father-in-law?” asked
Pelle.
“Yes, I’ve been there. But there is nothing more for the pickets to do.
The employers have quartered all the men in the factory; they get full
board and all there. There must be a crowd of foreign strike-breakers
there—the work’s in full swing.”
This was an overwhelming piece of news! The iron-masters had won the
first victory! This would quickly have a most depressing effect on the
workers, when they saw that their trade could be kept going without
them.
“We must put a bridle on them,” said Pelle, “or they’ll get off the
course and the whole organization will fall to pieces. As for those
fellows in there, we must get a louse under their shirts somehow.”
“How can we do that when they are locked in, and the police are
patrolling day and night in front of the gates? We can’t even speak to
them.” Stolpe laughed despairingly.
“Then some one must slink in and pretend he’s in want of employment!”
Stolpe started. “As a strike-breaker? You’ll never in this life get a
respectable man to do that, even if it’s only in jest! I wouldn’t do it
myself! A strike-breaker is a strike-breaker, turn and twist it how you
will.”
“A strike-breaker, I suppose, is one who does his comrades harm. The
man who risks his skin in this way deserves another name.”
“I won’t admit that,” said Stolpe. “That’s a little too abstract for
me; anyhow, I’m not going to argue with you. But in my catechism it
says that he is a strike-breaker who accepts employment where
assistance is forbidden—and that I stick to!”
Pelle might talk as much as he liked; the old man would not budge an
inch. “But it would be another matter if you wanted to do it yourself,”
said Stolpe. “You don’t have to account to any one for what you do—you
just do what comes into your head.”
“I have to account to the Cause for my doings,” said Pelle sharply,
“and for that very reason I want to do it myself!”
Stolpe contracted his arms and stretched them out again. “Ah, it would
be good to have work again!” he cried suddenly. “Idleness eats into
one’s limbs like the gout. And now there’s the rent, mother—where the
devil are we to get that? It must be paid on the nail on Saturday,
otherwise out we go—so the landlord says.”
“We’ll soon find that, father!” said Madam Stolpe. “Don’t you lose
heart!”
Stolpe looked round the room. “Yes, there’s still a bit to take, as
Hunger said when he began on the bowels. But listen, Pelle—do you know
what? I’m your father-in-law-to be sure—but you haven’t a wife like
mine!”
“I’m contented with Ellen as she is,” said Pelle.
There was a knock; it was Stolpe’s brother, the carpenter. He looked
exhausted; he was thin and poorly dressed; his eyes were surrounded by
red patches. He did not look at those whose hands he took.
“Sit down, brother,” said Stolpe, pushing a chair toward him.
“Thanks—I must go on again directly. It was—I only wanted to tell you
—well….” He stared out of the window.
“Is anything wrong at home?”
“No, no, not that exactly. I just wanted to say—I want to give notice
that I’m deserting!” he cried suddenly.
Stolpe sprang to his feet; he was as white as chalk. “You think what
you are doing!” he cried threateningly.
“I’ve had time enough to think. They are starving, I tell you—and
there’s got to be an end of it. I only wanted to tell you beforehand so
that you shouldn’t hear it from others—after all, you’re my brother.”
“Your brother—I’m your brother no longer! You do this and we’ve done
with one another!” roared Stolpe, striking the table. “But you won’t do
it, you shan’t do it! God damn me, I couldn’t live through the shame of
seeing the comrades condemning my own brother in the open street! And I
shall be with them! I shall be the first to give you a kick, if you are
my brother!” He was quite beside himself.
“Well, well, we can still talk it over,” said the carpenter quietly.
“But now you know—I didn’t want to do anything behind your back.” And
then he went.
Stolpe paced up and down the room, moving from one object to another.
He picked them up and put them down again, quite unthinkingly. His
hands were trembling violently; and finally he went to the other room
and shut himself in. After a time his wife entered the room. “You had
better go, Pelle! I don’t think father is fit for company to-day. He’s
lying there quite gray in the face—if he could only cry even! Oh, those
two brothers have always been so much to each other till now! They were
so united in everything!”
Pelle went; he was thinking earnestly. He could see that Stolpe, in his
integrity, would consider it his duty to treat his brother more harshly
than others, dearly as he loved him; perhaps he himself would undertake
the picketing of the place where his brother went to work.
Out by the lakes he met a squad of pickets who were on their way out of
the city; he accompanied them for some distance, in order to make
certain arrangements. Across the road a young fellow came out of a
doorway and slunk round the corner. “You there, stop!” cried one of the
comrades. “There he is—the toff!” A few pickets followed him down
Castle Street and came back leading him among them. A crowd began to
form round the whole party, women and children speedily joining it.
“You are not to do anything to him,” said Pelle decisively.
“God knows no one wants to touch him!” they retorted. For a while they
stood silently gazing at him, as though weighing him in their minds;
then one after another spat at him, and they went their way. The fellow
went silently into a doorway and stood there wiping the spittle from
his face with his sleeve. Pelle followed him in order to say a kind
word to him and lead him back into the organization. The lad pulled
himself up hastily as Pelle approached.
“Are you coming to spit at me?” he said contemptuously. “You forgot it
before—why didn’t you do it then?”
“I don’t spit at people,” said Pelle, “but your comrades are right to
despise you. You have left them in the lurch. Come with me, and I’ll
enter you in the organization again, and no one shall molest you.”
“I am to go about as a culprit and be taunted—no, thanks!”
“Do you prefer to injure your own comrades?”
“I ask for permission to look after my old mother. The rest of you can
go to the devil. My mother isn’t going to hang about courtyards
singing, and picking over the dustbins, while her son plays the great
man! I leave that to certain other people!”
Pelle turned crimson. He knew this allusion was meant for Father Lasse;
the desperate condition of the old man was lurking somewhere in his
mind like an ingrowing grief, and now it came to the surface. “Dare you
repeat what you said?” he growled, pressing close up to the other.
“And if I were married I shouldn’t let my wife earn my daily bread for
me—I should leave that to the pimps!”
Oho! That was like the tattlers, to blacken a man from behind!
Evidently they were spreading all sorts of lying rumors about him,
while he had placed all that he possessed at their disposal. Now Pelle
was furious; the leader could go to hell! He gave the fellow a few
sound boxes on the ear, and asked him which he would rather do—hold his
mouth or take some more?
Morten appeared in the doorway—this had happened in the doorway of the
house in which he worked. “This won’t do!” he whispered, and he drew
Pelle away with him. Pelle could make no reply; he threw himself on
Morten’s bed. His eyes were still blazing with anger at the insult, and
he needed air.
“Things are going badly here now,” said Morten, looking at him with a
peculiar smile.
“Yes, I know very well you can’t stand it—all the same, they must hold
together.”
“And supposing they don’t get better conditions?”
“Then they must accept the consequences. That’s better than the whole
Cause should go to the wall!”
“Are those the new ideas? I think the ignorant have always had to take
the consequences! And there has never been lacking some one to spit on
them!” said Morten sadly.
“But, listen!” cried Pelle, springing to his feet. “You’ll please not
blame me for spitting at anybody—the others did that!” He was very near
losing his temper again, but Morten’s quiet manner mastered him.
“The others—that was nothing at all! But it was you who spat seven
times over into the poor devil’s face—I was standing in the shop, and
saw it.”
Pelle stared at him, speechless. Was this the truth-loving Morten who
stood there lying?
“You say you saw me spit at him?”
Morten nodded. “Do you want to accept the applause and the honor, and
sneak out of the beastliness and the destruction? You have taken a
great responsibility on yourself, Pelle. Look, how blindly they follow
you—at the sight of your bare face, I’m tempted to say. For I’m not
myself quite sure that you give enough of yourself. There is blood on
your hands—but is any of it your own blood?”
Pelle sat there heavily pondering; Morten’s words always forced his
thoughts to follow paths they had never before known. But now he
understood him; and a dark shadow passed over his face, which left its
traces behind it. “This business has cost me my home,” he said quietly.
“Ellen cares nothing for me now, and my children are being neglected,
and are drifting away from me. I have given up splendid prospects for
the future; I go hungry every day, and I have to see my old father in
want and wretchedness! I believe no one can feel as homeless and lonely
and forsaken as I do! So it has cost me something—you force me to say
it myself.” He smiled at Morten, but there were tears in his eyes.
“Forgive me, my dear friend!” said Morten. “I was afraid you didn’t
really know what you were doing. Already there are many left on the
field of battle, and it’s grievous to see them—especially if it should
all lead to nothing.”
“Do you condemn the Movement, then? According to you, I can never do
anything wise!”
“Not if it leads to an end! I myself have dreamed of leading them on to
fortune—in my own way; but it isn’t a way after their own heart. You
have power over them—they follow you blindly—lead them on, then! But
every wound they receive in battle should be yours as well—otherwise
you are not the right man for the place. And are you certain of the
goal?”
Yes, Pelle was certain of that. “And we are reaching it!” he cried,
suddenly inspired. “See how cheerfully they approve of everything, and
just go forward!”
“But, Pelle!” said Morten, with a meaning smile, laying his hand on his
shoulder, “a leader is not Judge Lynch. Otherwise the parties would
fight it out with clubs!”
“Ah, you are thinking of what happened just now!” said Pelle. “That had
nothing to do with the Movement! He said my father was going about the
backyards fishing things out of dustbins—so I gave him a few on the
jaw. I have the same right as any one else to revenge an insult.” He
did not mention the evil words concerning Ellen; he could not bring
himself to do so.
“But that is true,” said Morten quietly.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” asked Pelle.
“I thought you knew it. And you have enough to struggle against as it
is—you’ve nothing to reproach yourself with.”
“Perhaps you can tell me where he could be found?” said Pelle, in a low
voice.
“He is usually to be found in this quarter.”
Pelle went. His mind was oppressed; all that day fresh responsibilities
had heaped themselves upon him; a burden heavy for one man to bear. Was
he to accept the responsibility for all that the Movement destroyed as
it progressed, simply because he had placed all his energies and his
whole fortune at its disposal? And now Father Lasse was going about as
a scavenger. He blushed for shame—yet how could he have prevented it?
Was he to be made responsible for the situation? And now they were
spitting upon Ellen—that was the thanks he got!
He did not know where to begin his search, so he went into the courts
and backyards and asked at random. People were crowding into a
courtyard in Blaagaard Street, so Pelle entered it. There was a
missionary there who spoke with the sing-song accent of the Bornholmer,
in whose eyes was the peculiar expression which Pelle remembered as
that of the “saints” of his childhood. He was preaching and singing
alternately. Pelle gazed at him with eyes full of reminiscence, and in
his despairing mood he was near losing control of himself and bellowing
aloud as in his childish years when anything touched him deeply. This
was the very lad who had said something rude about Father Lasse, and
whom he—young as he was— had kicked so that he became ruptured. He was
able to protect his father in those days, at all events!
He went up to the preacher and held out his hand. “It’s Peter Kune! So
you are here?”
The man looked at him with a gaze that seemed to belong to another
world. “Yes, I had to come over here, Pelle!” he said significantly. “I
saw the poor wandering hither from the town and farther away, so I
followed them, so that no harm should come to them. For you poor are
the chosen people of God, who must wander and wander until they come
into the Kingdom. Now the sea has stayed you here, and you can go no
farther; so you think the Kingdom must lie here. God has sent me to
tell you that you are mistaken. And you, Pelle, will you join us now?
God is waiting and longing for you; he wants to use you for the good of
all these little ones.” And he held Pelle’s hand in his, gazing at him
compellingly; perhaps he thought Pelle had come in order to seek the
shelter of his “Kingdom.”
Here was another who had the intention of leading the poor to the land
of fortune! But Pelle had his own poor. “I have done what I could for
them,” he said self-consciously.
“Yes, I know that well; but that is not the right way, the way you are
following! You do not give them the bread of life!”
“I think they have more need of black bread. Look at them—d’you think
they get too much to eat?”
“And can you give them food, then? I can give them the joy of God, so
that they forget their hunger for a while. Can you do more than make
them feel their hunger even more keenly?”
“Perhaps I can. But I’ve got no time to talk it over now; I came to
look for my old father.”
“Your father, I have met in the streets lately, with a sack on his back
—he did not look very cheerful. And I met him once over yonder with
Sort the shoemaker; he wanted to come over here and spend his old age
with his son.”
Pelle said nothing, but ran off. He clenched his fists in impotent
wrath as he rushed out of the place. People went about jeering at him,
one more eagerly than the other, and the naked truth was that he—young
and strong and capable as he was in his calling—could not look after
his wife and children and his old father, even when he had regular
work. Yes, so damnable were the conditions that a man in the prime of
his youth could not follow the bidding of nature and found a family
without plunging those that were dependent on him into want and misery!
Curse it all, the entire system ought to be smashed! If he had power
over it he would want to make the best use of it!
In Stone Street he heard a hoarse, quavering voice singing in the
central courtyard of one of the houses. It was Father Lasse. The
rag-bag lay near him, with the hook stuck into it. He was clasping the
book with one hand, while with the other he gesticulated toward the
windows as he sang. The song made the people smile, and he tried to
make it still more amusing by violent gestures which ill-suited his
pitiful appearance.
It cut Pelle to the heart to see his wretched condition. He stepped
into a doorway and waited until his father should have finished his
song. At certain points in the course of the song Lasse took off his
cap and smacked it against his head while he raised one leg in the air.
He very nearly lost his equilibrium when he did this, and the street
urchins who surrounded him pulled at his ragged coat-tails and pushed
one another against him. Then he stood still, spoke to them in his
quavering voice, and took up his song again.
“O listen to my song, a tale of woe:
I came into the world as do so many:
My mother bore me in the street below,
And as for father, why, I hadn’t any!
Till now I’ve faithfully her shame concealed:
I tell it now to make my song complete.
O drop a shilling down that I may eat,
For eat I must, or soon to Death I yield.
“Into this world without deceit I came,
That’s why you see me wear no stockings now.
A poor old man who drudges anyhow,
I have a wealthy brother, more’s the shame.
But he and I are opposites in all;
While I rake muck he rakes his money up:
Much gold is his and many a jewelled cup,
And all he fancies, that is his at call.
“My brother, he has built a palace splendid,
And silver harness all his horses bear.
Full twenty crowns an hour he gets, I hear,
By twiddling thumbs and wishing day were ended!
Gold comes to him as dirt to Lasse, blast him!
And everywhere he turns there money lies.
’Twill all be mine when once my brother dies—
If I but live—so help me to outlast him!
“Luck tried to help me once, but not again!
Weary with toiling I was like to swoon.
When God let fall milk-porridge ’stead of rain!
And I, poor donkey, hadn’t brought a spoon!
Yes, Heaven had meant to help me, me accurst!
I saw my luck but couldn’t by it profit!
Quickly my brother made a banquet of it—
Ate my milk-porridge till he nearly burst!
“Want bears the sceptre here on earth below,
And life is always grievous to the poor.
But God, who rules the world, and ought to know,
Says all will get their rights when life is o’er.
Therefore, good people, hear me for His sake—
A trifle for the poor man’s coffin give,
Wherein his final journey he must take;
Have mercy on my end while yet I live!
“Yet one thing God has given me—my boy.
And children are the poor man’s wealth, I know.
O does he think of me, my only joy,
Who have no other treasure here below?
Long time have we been parted by mishap:
I’m tired of picking rags and sick of song;
God who sees all reward you all ere long:
O drop a trifle in poor Lasse’s cap!”
When Lasse had finished his song the people clapped and threw down
coins wrapped in paper, and he went round picking them up. Then he took
his sack on his back and stumped away, bent almost double, through the
gateway.
“Father!” cried Pelle desperately. “Father!”
Lasse stood up with a jerk and peered through the gateway with his
feeble eyes. “Is that you, lad? Ach, it sounded like your voice when
you were a child, when any one was going to hurt you and you came to me
for help.” The old man was trembling from head to foot. “And now I
suppose you’ve heard the whole thing and are ashamed of your old
father?” He dared not look at his son.
“Father, you must come home with me now—do you hear?” said Pelle, as
they entered the street together.
“No, that I can’t do! There’s not enough even for your own mouths—no,
you must let me go my own way. I must look after myself—and I’m doing
quite well.”
“You are to come home with me—the children miss you, and Ellen asks
after you day after day.”
“Yes, that would be very welcome…. But I know what folks would think if
I were to take the food out of your children’s mouths! Besides—I’m a
rag-picker now! No, you mustn’t lead me into temptation.”
“You are to come with me now—never mind about anything else. I can’t
bear this, father!”
“Well, then, in God’s name, I must publish my shame before you, lad—if
you won’t let me be! See now, I’m living with some one—with a woman. I
met her out on the refuse-heaps, where she was collecting rubbish, just
as I was. I had arranged a corner for myself out there—for the night,
until I could find a lodging—and then she said I was to go home with
her—it wouldn’t be so cold if there were two of us. Won’t you come home
with me, so that you can see where we’ve both got to? Then you can see
the whole thing and judge for yourself. We live quite close.”
They turned into a narrow lane and entered a gateway. In the backyard,
in a shed, which looked like the remains of an old farm cottage, was
Lasse’s home. It looked as though it had once been used as a fuel-shed;
the floor was of beaten earth and the roof consisted of loose boards.
Under the roof cords were stretched, on which rags, paper, and other
articles from the dustbins were hung to dry. In one corner was a mean-
looking iron stove, on which a coffee-pot was singing, mingling its
pleasant fragrance with the musty stench of the rubbish. Lasse
stretched himself to ease his limbs.
“Ach, I’m quite stiff!” he said, “and a little chilled. Well, here you
see my little mother—and this is my son, Pelle, my boy.” He contentedly
stroked the cheeks of his new life’s partner.
This was an old, bent, withered woman, grimy and ragged; her face was
covered with a red eruption which she had probably contracted on the
refuse-heaps. But a pair of kind eyes looked out of it, which made up
for everything else.
“So that is Pelle!” she said, looking at him. “So that’s what he is
like! Yes, one has heard his name; he’s one of those who will astonish
the world, although he hasn’t red hair.”
Pelle had to drink a cup of coffee. “You can only have bread-and-butter
with it; we old folks can’t manage anything else for supper,” said
Lasse. “We go to bed early, both of us, and one sleeps badly with an
over-full stomach.”
“Well, now, what do you think of our home?” said Father Lasse, looking
proudly about him. “We pay only four kroner a month for it, and all the
furniture we get for nothing—mother and I have brought it all here from
the refuse-heaps, every stick of it, even the stove. Just look at this
straw mattress, now—it’s really not bad, but the rich folks threw it
away! And the iron bedstead—we found that there; I’ve tied a leg to it.
And yesterday mother came in carrying those curtains, and hung them up.
A good thing there are people who have so much that they have to throw
it on the dust-heap!”
Lasse was quite cheerful; things seemed to be going well with him; and
the old woman looked after him as if he had been the love of her youth.
She helped him off with his boots and on with his list slippers, then
she brought a long pipe out of the corner, which she placed between his
lips; he smiled, and settled down to enjoy himself.
“Do you see this pipe, Pelle? Mother saved up for this, without my
knowing anything about it—she has got such a long one I can’t light it
myself! She says I look like a regular pope!” Lasse had to lean back in
his chair while she lit the pipe.
When Pelle left, Lasse accompanied him across the yard. “Well, what do
you think of it?” he said.
“I am glad to see things are going so well with you,” said Pelle
humbly.
Lasse pressed his hand. “Thanks for that! I was afraid you would be
strict about it. As quite a little boy, you used to be deucedly strict
in that direction. And see now, of course, we could marry—there is no
impediment in either case. But that costs money—and the times are hard.
As for children coming, and asking to be brought into the world
respectably, there’s no danger of that.”
Pelle could not help smiling; the old man was so much in earnest.
“Look in on us again soon—you are always welcome,” said Lasse. “But you
needn’t say anything of this to Ellen—she is so peculiar in that
respect!”