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

go? So he wants to drive us out through the cold⁠—like the bugs! They’ve driven my husband to death⁠—” Suddenly she recognized Pelle. “So it’s you, you accursed devil!” she cried. “It was you yourself who set him on! Perhaps you remember how he used to drink out of the bottle? Formerly he always used to behave himself properly. And you saw, too, how we were turned out of St. Hans Street⁠—the tenants forced us to go⁠—didn’t you see that? Oh, you torturer! You’ve followed him everywhere, hunted him like a wild beast, taunted him and tormented him to death! When he went into a tavern the others would stand away from him, and the landlord had to ask him to go. But he had more sense of honor than you! ‘I’m infected with the plague!’ he said, and one morning he hanged himself. Ah, if I could pray the good God to smite you!” She was tearless; her voice was dry and hoarse.

“You have no need to do that,” replied Pelle bitterly. “He has smitten me! But I never wished your husband any harm; both times, when I met him, I tried to help him. We have to suffer for the benefit of all⁠—my own happiness is shattered into fragments.” He suddenly found relief in tears.

“They just ought to see that⁠—the working men⁠—Pelle crying! Then they wouldn’t shout ‘Hurrah!’ when he appears!” she cried scornfully.

“I have still ten kroner⁠—will you take them?” said Pelle, handing her the money.

She took it hesitating. “You must need that for your wife and children⁠—that must be your share of your strike pay!”

“I have no wife and children now. Take it!”

“Good God! Has your home gone to pieces too? Couldn’t even Pelle keep it together? Well, well, it’s only natural that he who sows should reap!”

Pelle went his way without replying. The unjust judgment of this woman depressed him more than the applause of thousands would have pleased him. But it aroused a violent mental protest. Where she had struck him he was invulnerable; he had not been looking after his own trivial affairs; but had justly and honorably served the great Cause, and had led the people to victory. The wounded and the fallen had no right to abuse him. He had lost more than anyone⁠—he had lost everything!

With care-laden heart, but curiously calm, he went toward the North Bridge and rented a room in a cheap lodging house.

XXXV

The final instructions issued to the workers aroused terrible indignation in the city. At one blow the entire public was set against them; the press was furious, and full of threats and warnings. Even the independent journals considered that the workers had infringed the laws of human civilization. But The Working Man quietly called attention to the fact that the conflict was a matter of life or death for the lower classes. They were ready to proceed to extremities; they still had it in their power to cut off the water and gas⁠—the means of the capital’s commercial and physical life!

Then the tide set in against the employers. Something had to give somewhere! And what was the real motive of the conflict? Merely a question of power! They wanted to have the sole voice⁠—to have their workers bound hand and foot. The financiers, who stood at the back of the big employers, had had enough of the whole affair. It would be an expensive game first and last, and there would be little profit in destroying the cohesion of the workers if the various industries were ruined at the same time.

Pelle saw how the crisis was approaching while he wandered about the lesser streets in search of Father Lasse. Now the Cause was progressing by its own momentum, and he could rest. An unending strain was at last lifted from his shoulders, and now he wanted time to gather together the remnants of his own happiness⁠—and at last to do something for one who had always sacrificed himself for him. Now he and Lasse would find a home together, and resume the old life in company together; he rejoiced at the thought. Father Lasse’s nature never clashed with his; he had always stood by him through everything; his love was like a mother’s.

Lasse was no longer living in his lair behind Baker Street. The old woman with whom he was living had died shortly before this, and Lasse had then disappeared.

Pelle continued to ask after him, and, well known as he was among the poor, it was not difficult for him to follow the old man’s traces, which gradually led him out to Kristianshavn. During his inquiries he encountered a great deal of misery, which delayed him. Now, when the battle was fighting itself to a conclusion, he was everywhere confronted by need, and his old compassion welled up in his heart. He helped where he could, finding remedies with his usual energy.

Lasse had not been to the “Ark” itself, but someone there had seen him in the streets, in a deplorable condition; where he lived no one knew. “Have you looked in the cellar of the Merchant’s House over yonder?” the old night watchman asked him. “Many live there in these hard times. Every morning about six o’clock I lock the cellar up, and then I call down and warn them so that they shan’t be pinched. If I happen to turn away, then they come slinking up. It seems to me I heard of an old man who was said to be lying down there, but I’m not sure, for I’ve wadding in my ears; I’m obliged to in my calling, in order not to hear too much!” He went to the place with Pelle.

The Merchant’s House, which in the eighteenth century was the palace of one of the great mercantile families of Kristianshavn, was now used as a granary; it lay fronting on one of the canals. The deep cellars, which were entirely below the level of the