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

up and some things that could not be arranged! Pelle sometimes found it burdensome enough to be responsible for himself.

About this time Morten was often in his thoughts. “Morten has disappointed me at any rate,” he thought; “he could not bear my prosperity!” This was a point on which Pelle had right upon his side! Morten must come to him if they were to have anything more to do with one another. Pelle bore no malice, but it was reasonable and just that the one who was on the top should first hold out his hand.

In this way he thought he had obtained rest from that question in any case, but it returned. He had taken the responsibility upon himself now, and was going to begin by sacrificing his only friend on a question of etiquette! He would have to go to him and hold out a hand of reconciliation!

This at last seemed to be a noble thought!

But Pelle was not allowed to feel satisfied with himself in this either. He was a prey to the same tormenting unrest that he had suffered in his cell, when he stole away from his work and sat reading secretly⁠—he felt as if there were always an eye at the peephole, which saw everything that he did. He would have to go into the question once more.

That unselfish Morten envious? It was true he had not celebrated Pelle’s victory with a flourish of trumpets, but had preferred to be his conscience! That was really at the bottom of it. He had intoxicated himself in the noise, and wanted to find something with which to drown Morten’s quiet warning voice, and the accusation was not far to seek⁠—envy! It was he himself, in fact, who had been the one to disappoint.

One day he hunted him up. Morten’s dwelling was not difficult to find out; he had acquired a name as an author, and was often mentioned in the papers in connection with the lower classes. He lived on the South Boulevard, up in an attic as usual, with a view over Kalvebod Strand and Amager.

“Why, is that you?” he said, taking Pelle’s hands in his and gazing into his stern, furrowed face until the tears filled his eyes. “I say, how you have changed!” he whispered half tearfully, and led him into his room.

“I suppose I have,” Pelle answered gloomily. “I’ve had good reason to, anyhow. And how have you been? Are you married?”

“No, I’m as solitary as ever. The one I want still doesn’t care about me, and the others I don’t want. I thought you’d thrown me over too, but you’ve come after all.”

“I had too much prosperity, and that makes you self-important.”

“Oh, well, it does. But in prison⁠—why did you send my letters back? It was almost too hard.”

Pelle looked up in astonishment. “It would never have occurred to the prisoner that he could hurt anybody, so you do me an injustice there,” he said. “It was myself I wanted to punish!”

“You’ve been ill then, Pelle!”

“Yes, ill! You should only know what one gets like when they stifle your right to be a human being and shut you in between four bare walls. At one time I hated blindly the whole world; my brain reeled with trying to find out a really crushing revenge, and when I couldn’t hit others I helped to carry out the punishment upon myself. There was always a satisfaction in feeling that the more I suffered, the greater devils did it make the others appear. And I really did get a hit at them; they hated with all their hearts having to give me a transfer.”

“Wasn’t there anyone there who could speak a comforting word⁠—the chaplain, the teachers?”

Pelle smiled a bitter smile. “Oh, yes, the lash! The jailer couldn’t keep me under discipline; I was what they call a difficult prisoner. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but I had quite lost my balance. You might just as well expect a man to walk steadily when everything is whirling round him. They saw, I suppose, that I couldn’t come right by myself, so one day they tied me to a post, pulled my shirt up over my head and gave me a thrashing. It sounds strange, but that did it; the manner of procedure was so brutal that everything in me was struck dumb. When such a thing as that could happen, there was nothing more to protest against. They put a wet sheet round me and I was lifted onto my pallet, so that was all right. For a week I had to lie on my face and couldn’t move for the pain; the slightest movement made me growl like an animal. The strokes had gone right through me and could be counted on my chest; and there I lay like a lump of lead, struck down to the earth in open-mouthed astonishment. ‘This is what they do to human beings!’ I groaned inwardly; ‘this is what they do to human beings!’ I could no longer comprehend anything.”

Pelle’s face had become ashen gray; all the blood had left it, and the bones stood out sharply as in a dead face. He gulped two or three times to obtain control over his voice.

“I wonder if you understand what it means to get a thrashing!” he said hoarsely. “Fire’s nothing; I’d rather be burnt alive than have it again. The fellow doesn’t beat; he’s not the least angry; nobody’s angry with you; they’re all so seriously grieved on your account. He places the strokes carefully down over your back as if he were weighing out food, almost as if he were fondling you. But your lungs gasp at each stroke and your heart beats wildly; it’s as if a thousand pincers were tearing all your fibers and nerves apart at once. My very entrails contracted in terror, and seemed ready to escape through my throat every time the lash fell. My lungs still burn when I