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

and imprecations. Its secret doings inspired him with horror; he hated the town for its darkness which hid so much.

He had stopped in front of his house, and stood gazing downward. Suddenly he heard a sound from within that made him start, and he quickly let himself in. Ellen came out into the passage looking disturbed.

“Thank goodness you’ve come!” she exclaimed, quite forgetting to greet him. “Anna’s so ill!”

“Is it anything serious?” asked Pelle, hurriedly removing his coat.

“It’s the old story. I got a carriage from the farm to drive in for the doctor. It was dear, but Brun said I must. She’s to have hot milk with Ems salts and soda water. You must warm yourself at the stove before you go up to her, but make haste! She keeps on asking for you.”

The sickroom was in semidarkness, Ellen having put a red shade over the lamp, so that the light should not annoy the child. Brun was sitting on a chair by her bed, watching her intently as she lay muttering in a feverish doze. He made a sign to Pelle to walk quietly. “She’s asleep!” he whispered. The old man looked unhappy.

Pelle bent silently over her. She lay with closed eyes, but was not asleep. Her hot breath came in short gasps. As he was about to raise himself again, she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

“What’s the matter with Sister? Is she going to be ill again?” he said softly. “I thought the sun had sent that naughty bronchitis away.”

The child shook her head resignedly. “Listen to the cellar-man!” she whispered. He was whistling as hard as he could down in her windpipe, and she listened to him with a serious expression. Then her hand stole up and she stroked her father’s face as though to comfort him.

Brun, however, put her hand down again immediately and covered her up close. “We very nearly lost that doll!” he said seriously. He had promised her a large doll if she would keep covered up.

“Shall I still get it?” she asked in gasps, gazing at him in dismay.

“Yes, of course you’ll get it, and if you make haste and get well, you shall have a carriage too with india rubber tires.”

Here Ellen came in. “Mr. Brun,” she said, “I’ve made your room all ready for you.” She laid a quieting hand upon the child’s anxious face.

The librarian rose unwillingly. “That’s to say Mr. Brun is to go to bed,” he said half in displeasure. “Well, well, goodnight then! I rely upon your waking me if things become worse.”

“How good he is!” said Ellen softly. “He’s been sitting here all the time to see that she kept covered up. He’s made us afraid to move because she’s to be kept quiet; but he can’t help chattering to her himself whenever she opens her eyes.”

Ellen had moved Lasse Frederik’s bed down into their bedroom and put up her own here so as to watch over the child. “Now you should go to bed,” she said softly to Pelle. “You must be tired to death after your journey, and you can’t have slept last night in the train either.”

He looked tired, but she could not persuade him; he meant to stay up there. “I can’t sleep anyhow as things are,” he whispered, “and tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“Then lie down on my bed! It’ll rest you a little.”

He lay down to please her, and stared up at the ceiling while he listened to the child’s short, rattling respiration. He could hear that she was not asleep. She lay and played with the rattling sound, making the cellar-man speak sometimes with a deep voice, sometimes with a high one. She seemed quite familiar with this dangerous chatter, which had already cost her many hours of illness and sounded so painful to Pelle’s ear. She bore her illness with the wonderful resignation that belonged to the dwellers in the back streets. She did not become unreasonable or exacting, but generally lay and entertained herself. It was as though she felt grateful for her bed; she was always in the best spirits when she was in it. The sun out here had made her very brown, but there must be something in her that it had not prevailed against. It was not so easy to move away from the bad air of the back streets.

Whenever she had a fit of coughing, Pelle raised her into a sitting posture and helped her to get rid of the phlegm. She was purple in the face with coughing, and looked at him with eyes that were almost starting out of her head with the violent exertion. Then Ellen brought her the hot milk and Ems salts, and she drank it with a resigned expression and lay down again.

“It’s never been so bad before,” whispered Ellen, “so what can be the use? Perhaps the country air isn’t good for her.”

“It ought to be though,” said Pelle, “or else she’s a poor little poisoned thing.”

Ellen’s voice rang with the possibility of their moving back again to the town for the sake of the child. To her the town air was not bad, but simply milder than out here. Through several generations she had become accustomed to it and had overcome its injurious effects; to her it seemed good as only the air of home can be. She could live anywhere, but nothing must be said against her childhood’s home. Then she became eager.

The child had wakened with their whispering, and lay and looked at them. “I shan’t die, shall I?” she asked.

They bent over her. “Now you must cover yourself up and not think about such things,” said Ellen anxiously.

But the child continued obstinately. “If I die, will you be as sorry about me as you were about Johanna?” she asked anxiously, with her eyes fixed upon them.

Pelle nodded. It was impossible for him to speak.

“Will you paint the ceiling black to show you’re sorry about me? Will you, father?” she continued inexorably, looking