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

Pelle knew all this, although he had not long been here; but it was nothing to him. For he wore the conqueror’s shirt of mail, such as Father Lasse had dreamed of for him.

Down in the third story, on the built-out gallery, another sort of magic was at work. A climbing pelargonium and some ivy had wound themselves round the broken beams and met overhead, and there hung a little red paper lantern, which cast a cheerful glow over it all.

It was as though the summer night had found a sanctuary in the heart of this wilderness of stone. Under the lantern sat Madam Johnsen and her daughter sewing; and Hanne’s face glowed like a rose in the night, and every now and then she turned it up toward Pelle and smiled, and made an impatient movement of her head. Then Pelle turned away a little, re-crossed his leg, and leant over on the other side, restless as a horse in blinkers.

Close behind him his neighbor, Madam Frandsen, was bustling about her little kitchen. The door stood open on to the platform, and she chattered incessantly, half to herself and half to Pelle, about her gout, her dead husband, and her lout of a son. She needed to rest her body, did this old woman. “My God, yes; and here I have to keep slaving and getting his food ready for Ferdinand from morning to night and from night to morning again. And he doesn’t even trouble himself to come home to it. I can’t go looking into his wild ways; all I can do is to sit here and worry and keep his meals warm. Now that’s a tasty little bit; and he’ll soon come when he’s hungry, I tell myself. Ah, yes, our young days, they’re soon gone. And you stand there and stare like a baa-lamb and the girl down there is nodding at you fit to crick her neck! Yes, the men are a queer race; they pretend they wouldn’t dare⁠—and yet who is it causes all the misfortunes?”

“She doesn’t want anything to do with me!” said Pelle grumpily; “she’s just playing with me.”

“Yes, a girl goes on playing with a white mouse until she gets it! You ought to be ashamed to stand there hanging your head! So young and well-grown as you are too! You cut her tail-feathers off, and you’ll get a good wife!” She nudged him in the side with her elbow.

Then at last Pelle made up his mind to go clattering down the stairs to the third story, and along the gallery.

“Why have you been so standoffish today?” said Madam Johnsen, making room for him. “You know you are always very welcome. What are all these preliminaries for?”

“Pelle is shortsighted; he can’t see as far as this,” said Hanne, tossing her head. She sat there turning her head about; she gazed at him smiling, her head thrown back and her mouth open. The light fell on her white teeth.

“Shall we get fine weather tomorrow?” asked the mother.

Pelle thought they would; he gazed up at the little speck of sky in a weather-wise manner. Hanne laughed.

“Are you a weather-prophet, Pelle? But you haven’t any corns!”

“Now stop your teasing, child!” said the mother, pretending to slap her. “If it’s fine tomorrow we want to go into the woods. Will you come with us?”

Pelle would be glad to go; but he hesitated slightly before answering.

“Come with us, Pelle,” said Hanne, and she laid her hand invitingly on his shoulder. “And then you shall be my young man. It’s so tedious going to the woods with the old lady; and then I want to be able to do as I like.” She made a challenging movement with her head.

“Then we’ll go from the North Gate by omnibus; I don’t care a bit about going by train.”

“From the North Gate? But it doesn’t exist any longer, mummy! But there are still omnibuses running from the Triangle.”

“Well then, from the Triangle, you clever one! Can I help it if they go pulling everything down? When I was a girl that North Gate was a splendid place. From there you could get a view over the country where my home was, and the summer nights were never so fine as on the wall. One didn’t know what it was to feel the cold then. If one’s clothes were thin one’s heart was young.”

Hanne went into the kitchen to make coffee. The door stood open. She hummed at her task and now and again joined in the conversation. Then she came out, serving Pelle with a cracked tea-tray. “But you look very peculiar tonight!” She touched Pelle’s face and gazed at him searchingly.

“I joined the trade union today,” answered Pelle; he still had the feeling that of something unusual, and felt as though everybody must notice something about him.

Hanne burst out laughing. “Is that where you got that black sign on your forehead? Just look, mother, just look at him! The trade mark!” She turned her head toward the old woman.

“Ah, the rogue!” said the old woman, laughing. “Now she’s smeared soot over your face!” She wetted her apron with her tongue and began to rub the soot away, Hanne standing behind him and holding his head in both hands so that he should not move. “Thank your stars that Pelle’s a good-natured fellow,” said the old woman, as she rubbed. “Or else he’d take it in bad part!”

Pelle himself laughed shamefacedly.

The hearse-driver came up through the trap in the gallery and turned round to mount to the fourth story. “Good evening!” he said, in his deep bass voice, as he approached them; “and good digestion, too, I ought to say!” He carried a great ham under his arm.

“Lord o’ my body!” whispered Madam Johnsen. “There he is again with his ham; that means he’s wasted the whole week’s wages again. They’ve always got more than enough ham and bacon up