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

He stretched himself and shook off the nightmare. Free! No gaoler was coming like a bad spirit to shatter the night’s happy dream of freedom. He was free! His pallet had not to be hooked up to the wall at a certain hour; he could lie as long as he wanted to, the whole day, if he liked. But now he had more important things to do; life was waiting. He hastily put on his clothes.

In the street the lamplighter was lighting every other lamp. An endless procession of carts was pouring in from the country to supply the town. Pelle threw open the window and looked out over the wakening city while he dressed himself. He was accustomed to sleep in a silence that was only broken by the soft squeaking of the mice under the heat-grating; and the night-noises of the city⁠—the rumble of the electric trams, the shouts of night-wanderers⁠—all these unwonted sounds that pierced the darkness so startlingly, had filled, his sleep with feverish dreams and caused a series of ugly, deformed visions to pass through his brain.

He now felt quite rested, however, and greeted the city with awakened pleasure. Yes, he had slept more than sufficiently; the noise called him and he must go down and give a helping hand to keep it going. For years he had done nothing but hoard; now he would set to work again with strength and courage. As soon as he was dressed he went out. It was too early to visit Ellen, but he could not bear to stay in any longer. It was early morning. The first tramcar came in, filled with workmen, some even hanging on to the steps both of the motor-wagon and the two cars following it. And there was the first peasant with milk: they were not even up yet in the ice-dairy! Every quarter of an hour trams came in with workmen, and the market-carts continued to drive in from the country laden with vegetables, corn or pigs’ carcasses. The street was like a feeding-tube through which nourishment was continually being drawn into the city.

On the top of swaying loads of straw sat Zealand peasants nodding. They had come all the way from the Frederikssund quarter, and had been driving all night. Here and there came a drover with a few animals intended for the cattle-market. The animals did not like the town, and constantly became restive, hitching themselves round lampposts or getting across the tramlines. The newspaperwomen trudged from street-door to street-door with their aprons laden with morning papers, and he heard them toiling up the stairs as though their feet were weighted with lead. And beneath all this could be heard the endless tramp-tramp of workmen hastening to their work.

There was a peculiarly familiar sound in those footsteps, which suddenly reminded him that he no longer belonged to their party, but had marked out his own way for good and evil.

Why was he not still a small, impersonal fraction of this great stream which day after day mechanically followed the same round in the mill? Solitude had made his view of mankind a new and wondering one; he now, in every strange face he met, involuntarily sought for a little of that which makes each individual a world in himself. But these men were all alike, he thought; they came hurrying out of the darkness of the side streets, and were not fully awake and steady on their feet until they joined the throng, but then they did walk capitally. He recognized the firm beat again: he had himself taught it to them.

Daylight came stealing in over Vesterbro, gray and heavy with spring moisture and the city smoke. That part of the town was not quite awake yet; the step sounding in the main street was that of the belated night-wanderer. He turned down Victoria Street, looking about him in surprise; he had never been here before. He read the doorplates: Artists’ Bureau, Artisan Heim, Lodging for Artists, Masseur & Chiropodist, Costumes for Hire. Most of the announcements were in foreign languages. There was also a Gymnasium for Equilibrists and a Conservatorium for Singing and Music, Dancing and Deportment. Nor did there seem to be a scarcity of pawnbrokers and dealers in secondhand goods. How had Ellen drifted into this strange atmosphere of perfumes and old clothes and foreign countries? Behind the windows in the low rooms he saw wonderful dresses thrown over chair-backs⁠—burnouses and red fezes; and a little dark figure with a long pigtail and bare feet in yellow slippers, glided noiselessly past him in the old-fashioned, palatial doorway of No. 20.

He mounted the stairs with a beating heart. The steps were worn and groaned ominously when trodden on. The door of the flat stood ajar, and he heard the sound of sweeping in the front room, while farther in a child was talking to itself or its doll. He had to stand a little while on the landing to take breath and to regain his composure.

Ellen was sweeping under the sofa with quick movements. She rose and gazed at him in bewilderment; the broom fell from her hand and she swayed to and fro. Pelle caught her, and she leaned inert and helpless against him, and remained thus for a considerable time, pale and with closed eyes. When at last he turned her inanimate face toward him and kissed it, she burst into tears.

He spoke gently and reassuringly to her as to a child. She kept her eyes closed, as she had always done when anything overwhelmed her. She lay back on his arm, and he felt her body tremble at the sound of his voice. Her tears seemed to soften her, and from the yielding of her body now he could see how stiffly she must have held herself, and was filled with joy. It had all been for his sake, and with a tremendous effort of