Pelle the Conqueror, Martin Andersen Nexø [best fantasy books to read .TXT] 📗

and Master Andres, who was so clever, must say what he thought about it. Sounds that had been confused during the day now entered the workshop, so that those within felt that they were participating in the life of the town; it was as though the walls had fallen.

About seven o’clock a peculiar sound was heard in the street without, approaching in very slowly tempo; there was a dull thump and then two clacking sounds; and then came the thump again, like the tread of a huge padded foot, and once more the clack-clack. This was old Bjerregrav, swinging toward the workshop on his crutches; Bjerregrav, who moved more slowly than anybody, and got forward more quickly. If Master Andres happened to be in one of his bad humors, he would limp away, in order not to remain in the same room with a cripple; at other times he was glad to see Bjerregrav.

“Well, you are a rare bird, aren’t you?” he would cry, when Bjerregrav reached the landing and swung himself sideways through the door; and the old man would laugh⁠—he had paid this visit daily now for many years. The master took no further notice of him, but went on reading; and Bjerregrav sank into his dumb pondering; his pale hands feeling one thing after another, as though the most everyday objects were unknown to him. He took hold of things just as a newborn child might have done; one had to smile at him and leave him to sit there, grubbing about like the child he really was. It was quite impossible to hold a continuous conversation with him; for even if he did actually make an observation it was sure to be quite beside the mark; Bjerregrav was given to remarking attributes which no one else noticed, or which no one would have dwelt upon.

When he sat thus, pondering over and fingering some perfectly familiar object, people used to say, “Now Bjerregrav’s questioning fit is coming on!” For Bjerregrav was an inquirer; he would ask questions about the wind and the weather, and even the food that he ate. He would ask questions about the most laughable subjects⁠—things that were self-evident to anyone else⁠—why a stone was hard, or why water extinguished fire. People did not answer him, but shrugged their shoulders compassionately. “He is quite all there,” they would say; “his head’s all right. But he takes everything the wrong way round!”

The young master looked up from his book. “Now, shall I inherit Bjerregrav’s money?” he asked mischievously.

“No⁠—you’ve always been good to me; I don’t want to cause you any misfortune.”

“Worse things than that might befall me, don’t you think?”

“No, for you’ve got a fair competence. No one has a right to more, so long as the many suffer need.”

“Certain people have money in the bank themselves,” said Master Andres allusively.

“No, that’s all over,” answered the old man cheerfully. “I’m now exactly as rich as you.”

“The devil! Have you run through the lot?” The young master turned round on his chair.

“You and your ‘run through it all’! You always sit over me like a judge and accuse me of things! I’m not conscious of having done anything wrong; but it’s true that the need gets worse every winter. It’s a burden to have money, Andres, when men are hungry all about you; and if you help them then you learn afterward that you’ve done the man injury; they say it themselves, so it must be true. But now I’ve given the money to the Charity Organization Society, so now it will go to the right people.”

“Five thousand kroner!” said the master, musing. “Then there ought to be great rejoicing among the poor this winter.”

“Well, they won’t get it direct in food and firing,” said Bjerregrav, “but it will come to them just as well in other ways. For when I’d made my offer to the Society, Shipowner Monsen⁠—you know him⁠—came to me, and begged me to lend him the money at one year. He would have gone bankrupt if he hadn’t had it, and it was terrible to think of all the poor people who would have gone without bread if that great business of his had come to a standstill. Now the responsibility falls on me. But the money is safe enough, and in that way it does the poor twice as much good.”

Master Andres shook his head. “Suppose Bjerregrav has just sat himself down in the nettles?”

“Why? But what else could I have done?” said the old man uneasily.

“The devil knows it won’t be long before he’s bankrupt. He’s a frothy old rogue,” murmured the master. “Has Bjerregrav got a note of hand?”

The old man nodded; he was quite proud of himself.

“And interest? Five percent?”

“No, no interest. For money to stand out and receive interest⁠—I don’t like that. It has to suck the interest somewhere or other, and of course it’s from the poor. Interest is blood-money, Andres⁠—and it’s a newfangled contrivance, too. When I was young we knew nothing about getting interest on our money.”

“Yes, yes:

‘Who gives to other folks his bread
And after suffers in their stead,
Why club him, club him, club him dead!’ ”

said the master, and went on reading.

Bjerregrav sat there sunk in his own thoughts. Suddenly he looked up.

“Can you, who are so well read, tell me what keeps the moon from falling? I lay overnight puzzling over it, so as I couldn’t sleep. She wanders and wanders through the sky, and you can see plainly there’s nothing but air under her.”

“The devil may know,” said Master Andres thoughtfully. “She must have strength of her own, so that she holds herself up.”

“I’ve thought that myself⁠—for obligation isn’t enough. Now we can do that⁠—we walk and walk where we are put down, but then we’ve the earth under us to support us. And you are always studying, aren’t you? I suppose you have read nearly all the books in the world?” Bjerregrav took the master’s book and felt it