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

his quid as though inwardly considering his difficult philosophy. “Damn it all, tomorrow we put to sea!” he cried suddenly.

They went out to Alleenberg and sat in the gardens. Pelle ordered beer. “I can very well stand a few pints when I meet a good pal,” he said, “but at other times I save like the devil. I’ve got to see about getting my old father over here; he’s living on charity at home.”

“So your father’s still living? I can see him still so plainly⁠—he had a love-affair with Madam Olsen for some time, but then bo’sun Olsen came home unexpectedly; they thought he’d remain abroad.”

Pelle laughed. Much water had run into the sea since those days. Now he was no longer ashamed of Father Lasse’s foolish prank.

Light was gleaming from the booths in the garden. Young couples wandered about and had their fortunes told; they ventured themselves on the Wheel of Happiness, or had their portraits cut out by the silhouette artist. By the roundabout was a mingled whirl of cries and music and brightly colored petticoats. Now and again a tremendous outcry arose, curiously dreadful, over all other sounds, and from the concert-pavilion one heard the cracked, straining voices of onetime “stars.” Wretched little worldlings came breathlessly hurrying thither, pushing through the crowd, and disappeared into the pavilion, nodding familiarly to the man in the ticket-office window.

“It’s really quite jolly here,” said Per Kofod. “You have a damn good time of it on land!”

On the wide pathway under the trees apprentices, workmen, soldiers, and now and again a student, loitered up and down, to and fro, looking sideways at the servant-girls, who had stationed themselves on either side of the walk, standing there arm-in-arm, or forming little groups. Their eyes sent many a message before ever one of them stopped and ventured to speak. Perhaps the maiden turned away; if so, that was an end of the matter, and the youngster began the business all over again. Or perhaps she ran off with him to one of the closed arbors, where they drank coffee, or else to the roundabouts. Several of the young people were from Pelle’s home; and every time he heard the confident voices of the Bornholm girls Pelle’s heart stirred like a bird about to fly away.

Suddenly his troubles returned to his mind. “I really felt inclined, this evening, to have done with the whole thing.⁠ ⁠… Just look at those two, Per!” Two girls were standing arm-in-arm under a tree, quite close to their table. They were rocking to and fro together, and now and again they glanced at the two young men.

“Nothing there for me⁠—that’s only for you landlubbers,” said Per Kofod. “For look you now, they’re like so many little lambs whose ears you’ve got to tickle. And then it all comes back to you in the nights when you take the dogwatch alone; you’ve told her lies, or you promised to come back again when she undid her bodice.⁠ ⁠… And in the end there she is, planted, and goin’ to have a kid! It don’t do. A sailor ought to keep to the naughty girls.”

“But married women can be frisky sometimes,” said Pelle.

“That so, really? Once I wouldn’t have believed that anyone could have kicked a good woman; but after all they strangle little children.⁠ ⁠… And they come and eat out of your hand if you give ’em a kind word⁠—that’s the mischief of it.⁠ ⁠… D’you remember Howling Peter?”

“Yes, as you ask me, I remember him very well.”

“Well, his father was a sailor, too, and that’s just what he did.⁠ ⁠… And she was just such a girl, one who couldn’t say no, and believed everything a man told her. He was going to come back again⁠—of course. ‘When you hear the trap-door of the loft rattle, that’ll be me,’ he told her. But the trap-door rattled several times, and he didn’t come. Then she hanged herself from the trap-door with a rope. Howling Peter came on to the parish. And you know how they all scorned him. Even the wenches thought they had the right to spit at him. He could do nothing but bellow. His mother had cried such a lot before he was born, d’ye see? Yes, and then he hanged himself too⁠—twice he tried to do it. He’d inherited that! After that he had a worse time than ever; everybody thought it honorable to ill-use him and ask after the marks on his throat. No, not you; you were the only one who didn’t raise a hand to him. That’s why I’ve so often thought about you. ‘What has become of him?’ I used to ask myself. ‘God only knows where he’s got to!’ ” And he gazed at Pelle with a pair of eyes full of trust.

“No, that was due to Father Lasse,” said Pelle, and his tone was quite childlike. “He always said I must be good to you because you were in God’s keeping.”

“In God’s keeping, did he say?” repeated Per Kofod thoughtfully. “That was a curious thing to say. That’s a feeling I’ve never had. There was nothing in the whole world at that time that could have helped me to stand up for myself. I can scarcely understand how it is that I’m sitting here talking to you⁠—I mean, that they didn’t torment the life out of my body.”

“Yes, you’ve altered very much. How does it really come about that you’re such a smart fellow now?”

“Why, such as I am now, that’s really my real nature. It has just waked up, that’s what I think. But I don’t understand really what was the matter with me then. I knew well enough I could knock you down if I had only wanted to. But I didn’t dare strike out, just out of sheer wretchedness. I saw so much that you others couldn’t see. Damn it all, I can’t make head nor tail of it! It must have been my mother’s dreadful misery that was still in