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

pulled him along. He was quite out of breath when they reached the house.

Ellen looked severely at the children, but said nothing. She helped Brun off with his coat and neckerchief, and after seeing him comfortably seated in the sitting-room, went out into the kitchen. Pelle guessed there was something she wanted to say to him, and followed her.

“Pelle,” she said gravely, “the children are much too free with Mr. Brun. I can’t think how you can let them do it.”

“Well, but he likes it, Ellen, or of course I should stop them. It’s just what he likes. And do you know what I think he would like still better? If you would ask him to live with us.”

“That I’ll never do!” declared Ellen decidedly. “It would look so extraordinary of me.”

“But if he wants a home, and likes us? He’s got no friends but us.”

No⁠—no, Ellen could not understand that all the same, with the little they had to offer. And Brun, who could afford to pay for all the comforts that could be had for money! “If he came, I should have to have new table-linen at any rate, and good carpets on the floors, and lots of other things.”

“You can have them too,” said Pelle. “Of course we’ll have everything as nice as we can, though Brun’s quite as easily pleased as we are.”

That might be so, but Ellen was the mistress of the house, and there were things she could not let go. “If Mr. Brun would like to live with us, he shall be made comfortable,” she said; “but it’s funny he doesn’t propose it himself, for he can do it much better than we can.”

“No, it must come from us⁠—from you, Ellen. He’s a little afraid of you.”

“Of me?” exclaimed Ellen, in dismay. “And I who would⁠—why, there’s no one I’d sooner be kind to! Then I’ll say it, Pelle, but not just now.” She put up her hands to her face, which was glowing with pleasure and confusion at the thought that her little home was worth so much.

Pelle went back to the sitting-room. Brun was sitting on the sofa with Boy Comfort on his knee. “He’s a regular little urchin!” he said. “But he’s not at all like his mother. He’s got your features all through.”

“Ellen isn’t his mother,” said Pelle, in a low voice.

“Oh, isn’t she! It’s funny that he should have those three wrinkles in his forehead like you; they’re like the wave-lines in the countenance of Denmark. You both look as if you were always angry.”

“So we were at that time,” said Pelle.

“Talking of anger”⁠—Brun went on⁠—“I applied to the police authorities yesterday, and got them to promise to give up their persecution of Peter Dreyer, on condition that he ceases his agitation among the soldiers.”

“We shall never get him to agree to that; it would be the same thing as requiring him to swear away his rights as a man. He has taught himself, by a great effort, to use parliamentary expressions, and nobody’ll ever get him to do more. In the matter of the Cause itself he’ll never yield, and there I agree with him. If you mayn’t even fight the existing conditions with spiritual weapons, there’ll be an end of everything.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Brun, “only I’m sorry for him. The police keep him in a perpetual state of inflammation. He can’t have any pleasure in life.”

XVI

Pelle was always hoping that Peter Dreyer would acquire a calmer view of life. It was his intention to start a cooperative business in the course of the spring at Aarhus too, and Peter was appointed to start it. But his spirit seemed incurable; every time he calmed down a little, conditions roused him to antagonism again. This time it was the increase of unemployment that touched him.

The senseless persecution, moreover, kept him in a state of perpetual irritation. Even when he was left alone, as now, he had the feeling that they were wondering how they could get him to blunder⁠—apparently closed their eyes in order to come down upon him with all the more force. He never knew whether he was bought or sold.

The business was now so large that they had to move the actual factory into the back building, and take the whole of the basement for the repairing workshop. Peter Dreyer managed this workshop, and there was no fault to find with his management; he was energetic and vigilant. He was not capable, however, of managing work on a large scale, for his mind was in constant oscillation. In spite of his abilities he was burning to no purpose.

“He might drop his agitation and take up something more useful,” said Brun, one evening when he and Pelle sat discussing the matter. “Nothing’s accomplished by violence anyhow! And he’s only running his head against a brick wall himself!”

“You didn’t think so some time ago,” said Pelle. It was Brun’s pamphlets on the rights of the individual that had first roused Peter Dreyer’s attention.

“No, I know that. I once thought that the whole thing must be smashed to pieces in order that a new world might arise out of chaos. I didn’t know you, and I didn’t think my own class too good to be tossed aside; they were only hindering the development. But you’ve converted me. I was a little too quick to condemn your slowness; you have more connectedness in you than I. Our little business in there has proved to me that the common people are wise to admit their heritage from and debt to the upper class. I’m sorry to see Peter running off the track; he’s one of your more talented men. Couldn’t we get him out here? He could have one of my rooms. I think he needs a few more comforts.”

“You’d better propose it to him yourself,” said Pelle.

The next day Brun went into town with Pelle and proposed it, but Peter Dreyer declined with thanks. “I’ve no