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

heels. The boy rolled on the ground and lay there shrieking; Pelle could see, from the other end of the street, how the other two were toiling to set him on his legs again. He himself had got off with a black eye.

“Have you been fighting again, you devil’s imp?” said the young master.

No! Pelle had fallen and bruised himself.

In the evening he went round the harbor to see the steamer go out and to say goodbye to Peter. He was in a bad temper; he was oppressed by a foreboding of evil.

The steamer was swarming with people. Over the rail hung a swarm of freshly-made journeymen of that year’s batch⁠—the most courageous of them; the others had already gone into other trades, had become postmen or farm servants. “There is no employment for us in the shoe trade,” they said dejectedly as they sank. As soon as their journeyman’s test-work was done they took to their heels, and new apprentices were taken all along the line. But these fellows here were crossing to the capital; they wanted to go on working at their own trade. The hundreds of apprentices of the little town were there, shouting “Hurrah!” every other moment, for those departing were the heroes who were going forth to conquer the land of promise for them all. “We are coming after you!” they cried. “Find me a place, you! Find me a place!”

Emil stood by the harbor shed, with some waterside workers, looking on. His time was long ago over. The eldest apprentice had not had the pluck to leave the island; he was now a postman in Sudland and cobbled shoes at night in order to live. Now Peter stood on the deck above, while Jens and Pelle stood below and looked up at him admiringly. “Goodbye, Pelle!” he cried. “Give Jeppe my best respects and tell him he can kiss my boot-soles!”

Some of the masters were strolling to and fro on the quay, in order to note that none of their apprentices were absconding from the town.

Jens foresaw the time when he himself would stand there penniless. “Send me your address,” he said, “and find me something over there.”

“And me too,” said Pelle.

Peter spat. “There’s a bit of sour cabbage soup⁠—take it home and give it to Jeppe with my love and I wish him good appetite! But give my very best respects to Master Andres. And when I write, then come over⁠—there’s nothing to be done in this hole.”

“Don’t let the Social Democrats eat you up!” cried someone from among the spectators. The words “Social Democrat” were at this time in every mouth, although no one knew what they meant; they were used as terms of abuse.

“If they come to me with their damned rot they’ll get one on the mouth!” said Peter, disdainfully. And then the steamer began to move; the last cheers were given from the outer breakwater. Pelle could have thrown himself into the sea; he was burning with desire to turn his back on it all. And then he let himself drift with the crowd from the harbor to the circus-ground. On the way he heard a few words of a conversation which made his ears burn. Two townsmen were walking ahead of him and were talking.

“They say he got such a kick that he brought up blood,” said the one.

“Yes, it’s terrible, the way that scum behaves! I hope they’ll arrest the ruffian.”

Pelle crept along behind the tent until he came to the opening. There he stood every evening, drinking everything in by his sense of smell. He had no money to pay his way in; but he could catch a glimpse of a whole host of magnificent things when the curtain was drawn up in order to admit a latecomer. Albinus came and went at will⁠—as always, when jugglers were in the town. He was acquainted with them almost before he had seen them. When he had seen some clever feat of strength or skill he would come crawling out from under the canvas in order to show his companions that he could do the same thing. Then he was absolutely in his element; he would walk on his hands along the harbor railings and let his body hang over the water.

Pelle wanted to go home and sleep on the day’s doings, but a happy pair came up to him⁠—a woman who was dancing as she walked, and a timid young workman, whom she held firmly by the arm. “Here, Hans!” she said, “this is Pelle, whose doing it is that we two belong to each other!”

Then she laughed aloud for sheer delight, and Hans, smiling, held out his hand to Pelle. “I ought to thank you for it,” he said.

“Yes, it was that dance,” she said. “If my dancing-shoes hadn’t been mended Hans would have run off with somebody else!” She seized Pelle’s arm. And then they went on, very much pleased with one another, and Pelle’s old merriment returned for a time. He too could perform all sorts of feats of strength.

On the following day Pelle was hired by Baker Jörgensen to knead some dough; the baker had received, at short notice, a large order for ship’s biscuit for the Three Sisters.

“Keep moving properly!” he would cry every moment to the two boys, who had pulled off their stockings and were now standing up in the great kneading-trough, stamping away, with their hands gripping the battens which were firmly nailed to the rafters. The wooden ceiling between the rafters was black and greasy; a slimy paste of dust and dough and condensed vapor was running down the walls. When the boys hung too heavily on the battens the baker would cry: “Use your whole weight! Down into the dough with you⁠—then you’ll get a foot like a fine young lady!”

Sören was pottering about alone, with hanging head as always; now and again he sighed. Then old Jörgen would nudge Marie in the side, and they