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

to him. Ellen flung her arms round his neck in her joy; she would not let him go again, but held him fast gazing at him wonderingly, as in the old days. “I’ve always known you were intended for something!” she said, looking at him with pride. “There’s no one like you! And now, only think. But the children, they must know too!” And she snatched little sister from her sleep, and informed her what had happened. The child began to cry.

“You are frightening her, you are so delighted,” said Pelle, who was himself smiling all over his face.

“But now⁠—now we shall mix with genteel people,” said Ellen suddenly, as she was laying the table. “If only I can adapt myself to it! And the children shall go to the middle-class school.”

When Pelle had eaten he was about to sit down to his cobbling. “No!” said Ellen decidedly, taking the work away, “that’s no work for you any longer!”

“But it must be finished,” said Pelle; “we can’t deliver half-finished work!”

“I’ll soon finish it for you; you just put your best clothes on; you look like a⁠—”

“Like a workingman, eh?” said Pelle, smiling.

Pelle dressed himself and went off to the “Ark” to give Father Lasse the news. Later he would meet the others at his father-in-law’s. Lasse was at home, and was eating his supper. He had fried himself an egg over the stove, and there was beer and brandy on the table. He had rented a little room off the long corridor, near crazy Vinslev’s; there was no window, but there was a pane of glass over the door leading into the gloomy passage. The lime was falling from the walls, so that the cob was showing in great patches.

“Well, well,” said Lasse, delighted, “so it’s come to this! I’ve often wondered to myself why you had been given such unprofitable talents⁠—such as lying about and painting on the walls or on paper⁠—you, a poor laborer’s son. Something must be intended by that, I used to tell myself, in my own mind; perhaps it’s the gift of God and he’ll get on by reason of it! And now it really seems as if it’s to find its use.”

“It’s not comfortable for you here, father!” said Pelle. “But I shall soon take you away from here, whether you like it or not. When we’ve paid off a few of the winter’s debts we shall be moving into a three-roomed apartment, and then you’ll have a room for your own use; but you mustn’t go to work any longer then. You must be prepared for that.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve nothing against living with you, so long as I’m not taking the bread out of others’ mouths. Ah, no, Pelle, it won’t be difficult for me to give up my work; I have overworked myself ever since I could crawl; for seventy years almost I’ve toiled for my daily bread⁠—and now I’m tired! So many thanks for your kind intentions. I shall pass the time well with the children. Send me word whenever you will.”

The news was already known in the “Ark,” and the inmates came up to wish him luck as he was leaving. “You won’t he running in here any more and gossiping with us when once you are settled in your new calling,” they said. “That would never do! But don’t quite forget all about us just because we are poor!”

“No, no, Pelle has been through so many hungry times with us poor folks; he’s not one of those who forget old friendship!” they themselves replied.

Only now, when he had left the “Ark,” did he realize that there was something to which he was bidding farewell. It was the cordial community with all his kind, their radiant faith in him, and his own belief in his mission there; he had known a peculiar joy in the half-embittered recklessness, the community of feeling, and the struggle. Was he not, so to speak, the Prince of poverty, to whom they all looked up, and of whom they all expected that he would lead them into a strange world? And could he justify himself for leaving them all in the lurch because of his own good fortune? Perhaps he was really appointed to lead the movement⁠—perhaps he was the only one who could do so!

This belief had always been faintly glimmering in the back of his mind, had stood behind his endurance in the conflict, and behind all the gladness with which he bore privation. Was he in his arrogance to repudiate the place that had formed him? No, he was not so blatant as all that! There was plenty beside himself capable of seeing the movement through⁠—and Fortune had tapped him on the shoulder. “March forward, Pelle!” an inward voice exhorted him. “What have you to consider? You have no right to thrust success away from you? Do you want to ruin yourself without profiting others? You have been a good comrade, but here your ways divide. God Himself has given you talent; even as a child you used to practise it; no one will gain by your remaining poor. Choose your own path!”

Yes, Pelle had chosen readily enough! He knew very well that he must accept this good fortune, whatever the world might say to it. Only it hurt him to leave the others behind! He was bound to poverty by such intimate ties; he felt the solidarity of the poor so keenly that it hurt him to tear himself away. Common cares had made him a man, and the struggle had given him a peculiar and effective strength. But now he would attend no more meetings! It would be droll indeed if he were to have nothing more to do with the Cause, but were to belong to the other side⁠—he, Pelle, who had been a flaming torch! No, he would never leave them in the lurch, that he knew; even if he were to climb ever so high⁠—and he entertained