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

would both laugh. They stood close together, and as they were rolling out the dough their hands kept on meeting; they laughed and jested together. But the young man saw nothing of this.

“Don’t you see?” whispered his mother, striking him sharply in the ribs; her angry eyes were constantly fixed on the pair.

“Oh, leave me alone!” the son would say, moving a little away from her. But she moved after him. “Go and put your arm round her waist⁠—that’s what she wants! Let her feel your hands on her hips! Why do you suppose she sticks out her bosom like that? Let her feel your hands on her hips! Push the old man aside!”

“Oh, leave me alone!” replied Sören, and he moved further away from her again.

“You are tempting your father to sin⁠—you know what he is! And she can’t properly control herself any longer, now that she claims to have a word in the matter. Are you going to put up with that? Go and take her round the waist⁠—strike her if you can’t put up with her, but make her feel that you’re a man!”

“Well, are you working up there?” old Jörgen cried to the boys, turning his laughing countenance from Marie. “Tread away! The dough will draw all the rottenness out of your bodies! And you, Sören⁠—get a move on you!”

“Yes, get a move on⁠—don’t stand there like an idiot!” continued his mother.

“Oh, leave me alone! I’ve done nothing to anybody; leave me in peace!”

“Pah!” The old woman spat at him. “Are you a man? Letting another handle your wife! There she is, obliged to take up with a gouty old man like that! Pah, I say! But perhaps you are a woman after all? I did once bring a girl into the world, only I always thought she was dead. But perhaps you are she? Yes, make long ears at me!” she cried to the two boys, “you’ve never seen anything like what’s going on here! There’s a son for you, who leaves his father to do all the work by himself!”

“Now then, what’s the matter with you?” cried old Jörgen jollily. “Is mother turning the boys’ heads?” Marie broke into a loud laugh.

Jeppe came to fetch Pelle. “Now you’ll go to the Town Hall and get a thrashing,” he said, as they entered the workshop. Pelle turned an ashen gray.

“What have you been doing now?” asked Master Andres, looking sadly at him.

“Yes, and to one of our customers, too!” said Jeppe. “You’ve deserved that, haven’t you?”

“Can’t father get him let off the beating?” said Master Andres.

“I have proposed that Pelle should have a good flogging here in the workshop, in the presence of the deputy and his son. But the deputy says no. He wants justice to run its course.”

Pelle collapsed. He knew what it meant when a poor boy went to the town hall and was branded for life. His brain sought desperately for some way of escape. There was only one⁠—death! He could secretly hide the knee-strap under his blouse and go into the little house and hang himself. He was conscious of a monotonous din; that was Jeppe, admonishing him; but the words escaped him; his soul had already began its journey toward death. As the noise ceased he rose silently.

“Well? What are you going out for?” asked Jeppe.

“I’m going to the yard.” He spoke like a sleepwalker.

“Perhaps you want to take the knee-strap out with you?”

Jeppe and the master exchanged a look of understanding. Then Master Andres came over to him. “You wouldn’t be so silly?” he said, and looked deep into Pelle’s eyes. Then he made himself tidy and went into the town.

“Pelle, you devil’s imp,” he said, as he came home, “I’ve been running from Herod to Pilate, and I’ve arranged matters so that you can get off if you will ask for pardon. You must go to the grammar-school about one o’clock. But think it over first, as to what you are going to say, because the whole class will hear it.”

“I won’t ask for pardon.” It sounded like a cry.

The master looked at Pelle hesitatingly. “But that is no disgrace⁠—if one has done wrong.”

“I have not done wrong. They began it, and they have been making game of me for a long time.”

“But you thrashed him, Pelle, and one mustn’t thrash fine folks like that; they have got a doctor’s certificate that might be your ruin. Is your father a friend of the magistrate’s? They can dishonor you for the rest of your life. I think you ought to choose the lesser evil.”

No, Pelle could not do that. “So let them flog me instead!” he said morosely.

“Then it will be about three o’clock at the town hall,” said the master, shortly, and he turned red about the eyes.

Suddenly Pelle felt how obstinacy must pain the young master, who, lame and sick as he was, had of his own accord gone running about the town for him. “Yes, I’ll do it!” he said; “I’ll do it!”

“Yes, yes!” replied Master Andres quietly; “for your own sake as well. And I believe you ought to be getting ready now.”

Pelle slunk away; it was not his intention to apologize, and he had plenty of time. He walked as though asleep; everything was dead within him. His thoughts were busy with all sorts of indifferent matters, as though he sought to delay something by chattering; Crazy Anker went by with his bag of sand on his back, his thin legs wobbling under him. “I will help him to carry it,” thought Pelle dejectedly, as he went onward; “I will help him to carry it.”

Alfred came strolling down the street; he was carrying his best walking-stick and was wearing gloves, although it was in the midst of working hours. “If he sees me now he’ll turn down the corner by the coal-merchant’s,” thought Pelle bitterly. “Oughtn’t I to ask him to say a good word for me? He is such an important person!