Pelle the Conqueror, Martin Andersen Nexø [best fantasy books to read .TXT] 📗
- Author: Martin Andersen Nexø
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“Those were two of the fruits upon the decaying family tree,” said Brun bitterly, “and it can’t be denied that they were rather worm-eaten. The third was myself. I came fifteen years after my youngest brother. By that time my parents had had enough of their progeny; at any rate, I was considered from the beginning to be a hopeless failure, even before I had had an opportunity of showing anything at all. Perhaps they felt instinctively that I should take a wrong direction too. In me too the disintegrating forces predominated; I was greatly deficient, for instance, in family feeling. I remember when still quite little hearing my mother complain of my plebeian tendencies; I always kept with the servants, and took their part against my parents. My family looked more askance at me for upholding the rights of our inferiors than they had done at the idiot who tore everything to pieces, or the spendthrift who made scandals and got into debt. And I dare say with good reason! Mother gave me plenty of money to amuse myself with, probably to counteract my plebeian tendencies; but I had soon done with the pleasures and devoted myself to study. Things of the day did not interest me, but even as a boy I had a remarkable desire to look back; I devoted myself especially to history and its philosophy. Father was right when he derided me and called it going into a monastery; at an age when other young men are lovers, I could not find any woman that interested me, while almost any book tempted me to a closer acquaintance. For a long time he hoped that I would think better of it and take over the business, and when I definitely chose study, it came to a quarrel between us. ‘When the business comes to an end, there’s an end of the family!’ he said, and sold the whole concern. He had been a widower then for several years, and had only me; but during the five years that he lived after selling the business we didn’t see one another. He hated me because I didn’t take it over, but what could I have done with it? I possessed none of the qualities necessary for the carrying on of business in our day, and should only have ruined the whole thing. From the time I was thirty, my time has been passed among bookshelves, and I’ve registered the lives and doings of others. It’s only now that I’ve come out into the daylight and am beginning to live my own life; and now it’ll soon be ended!”
“It’s only now that life’s beginning to be worth living,” said Pelle, “so you’ve come out just at the right time.”
“Ah, no!” said Brun despondently. “I’m not in the ascendant! I meet young men and my mind inclines to them; but it’s like evening and morning meeting in the same glow during the light nights. I’ve only got my share in the new because the old must bend to it, so that the ring may be completed. You go in where I go out.”
“It must have been a melancholy existence to be always among books, books, without a creature that cared for you,” put in Ellen. “Why didn’t you marry? Surely we women aren’t so terrible that there mightn’t have been one that you liked?”
“No, you’d think not, but it’s true nevertheless,” answered Brun, with a smile. “The antipathy was mutual too; it’s always like that. I suppose it wasn’t intended that an old fellow like me should put children into the world! It’s not nice, though, to be the end of something.”
Ellen laughed. “Yes, but you haven’t always been old!”
“Yes, I have really; I was born old. I’m only now beginning to feel young. And who knows?” he exclaimed with grim humor. “I may play Providence a trick and make my appearance some day with a little wife on my arm.”
“Brun’s indulging in fancies,” said Pelle, as they went down to bed. “But I suppose they’ll go when he’s about again.”
“He’s not had much of a time, poor old soul!” said Ellen, going closer to Pelle. “It’s a shame that there are people who get no share in all the love there is—just as great a shame as what you’re working against, I think!”
“Yes, but we can’t put that straight!” exclaimed Pelle, laughing.
XXIIn the garden at “Daybreak” the snow
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