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

had left all his cares at home; on every hand working-folk were greeting him, and his greeting in return was like an inspiriting song. He did not know them, but they knew him! The feeling that his work⁠—however deep the scars it might leave⁠—was arousing gratitude, had an uplifting effect upon him.

The city was in its morning mood. The lockout lay like a paralyzing hand upon everything; business was slack, and the middle classes were complaining, but there was no prospect of peace; both sides were irreconcilable. The workers had lost nothing through the rash cessation of the masons. Sympathy for the lower classes had become a political principle; and contributions were still pouring in from the country. Considerable sums came from abroad. The campaign was now costing the workers half a million kroner a week; and the help from outside was like a drop in the ocean. But it had the effect of a moral support, and it stimulated the self-taxation to which all were subject. The hundred thousand households of the poor parted with their last possessions in order to continue the struggle; they meant to force a decision that should affect their whole future. The employers tried to hinder the great National Federation by calling the attention of the authorities to an ancient statute concerning mendicancy; but that merely aroused merriment. A little laughter over such expedients was permissible.

The workers had become accustomed to starvation. They went no more into the forest, but strolled thoughtfully through the streets like people who have too much time on their hands, so that the city’s face wore a peculiar stamp of meditative poverty. Their loitering steps aroused no echo, and in the houses the quietness gave one food for reflection. The noisy, ever-hungry children were scattered over the face of the country⁠—they at least had plenty to eat. But the place was empty for the lack of them!

Pelle met several squads of workers; they were on the way to the various roll-calls. They raised their heads as he passed; his footsteps echoed loudly enough for all! It was the hope and the will of forty thousand men that passed there⁠—Pelle was the expression of them all. They stared at his indomitable figure, and drew themselves up. “A devil of a chap!” they told one another joyfully; “he looks as if he could trample ’em all underfoot! Look at him⁠—he scarcely makes way for that great loaded wagon! Long live Pelle, boys!”

The tavern-keepers stood on their cellar stairs gaping up at the morning sky⁠—this was a time of famine for them! In the tavern windows hung cards with the inscription: “Contributions received here for the locked-out workers!”

On the Queen Luise Bridge Pelle encountered a pale, fat little man in a shabby coat. He had flabby features and a great red nose. “Good morning, General!” cried Pelle gaily; the man made a condescending movement with his hand. This was The Working Man’s man of straw; a sometime capitalist, who for a small weekly wage was, as far as the public was concerned, the responsible editor of the paper. He served various terms of imprisonment for the paper, and for a further payment of five kroner a week he also worked out in prison the fines inflicted on the paper. When he was not in jail he kept himself alive by drinking. He suffered from megalomania, and considered that he led the whole labor movement; for which reason he could not bear Pelle.

In the great courtyard of The Working Man building the dockers were assembled to answer the roll. The president of their Union met Pelle in the doorway; he was the very man whom Pelle and Howling Peter had rescued down by the harbor⁠—now he was working for the new ideas!

“Well, how goes it?” asked Pelle, shaking his hand.

“Splendid! A thousand men all but seven!”

“But where’s the joyful Jacob? Is he ill?”

“He’s in jail,” replied the other gloomily. “He couldn’t bear to see his old folks starving⁠—so he broke into a grocery, he and his brother⁠—and now they’re both in prison.”

For a moment the lines on Pelle’s forehead were terribly deep and gloomy; he stood gazing blindly into space; the radiant expression left his countenance, which was filled with a pitying gravity. The docker stared at him⁠—was he going to sleep on his feet? But then he pulled himself together.

“Well, comrades, are you finding the days too long?” he cried gaily.

“Ach, as for that! It’s the first time one’s had the time to get to know one’s own wife and children properly!” they replied. “But for all that it would be fine to get busy again!”

It was obvious that idleness was at last beginning to depress them; there was a peculiar pondering expression on their impassive features, and their eyes turned to him with a persistent questioning. They asked that this undertaking of his should be settled one way or the other. They were not weakening; they always voted for the continuance of the campaign, for that which they sought depended thereon; but they gazed into his face for a look that might promise success.

He had to answer many singular questions; privation engendered in the most fantastic ideas, which revealed the fact that their quiet, controlled bearing was the product of the observation and the energy of the many.

“Shall we deprive the rich of all their wealth and power?” asked one man, after long pondering and gazing at Pelle. The struggle seemed to have dealt hardly with him; but it had lit a spark in his eyes.

“Yes, we are going now to take our rights as men, and we shall demand that the worker shall be respected,” Pelle replied. “Then there’ll be no more talk of poor man and gentleman!”

“But suppose they try to get on top of us again? We must make short work of them, so that they can’t clamber on our backs and ride us again.”

“Do you want to drive them all onto the Common and shoot