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

is that he’ll get a wife with money. They say Bodil’s saved more than a hundred krones from her two or three months as housemaid. Some people can⁠—they get paid for what the rest of us have always had to do for nothing.” It was one of the old women who spoke.

“Well, we’ll just see whether he ever gets her for a wife. I doubt it myself. One oughtn’t to speak evil of one’s fellow-servant, but Bodil’s not a faithful girl. That matter with the master must go for what it was⁠—as I once said to Gustav when he was raging about it; the master comes before his men! Bengta was a good wife to me in every way, but she too was very fond of laying herself out for the landlord at home. The greatest take first; that’s the way of the world! But Bodil’s never of the same mind for long together. Now she’s carrying on with the pupil, though he’s not sixteen yet, and takes presents from him. Gustav should get out of it in time; it always leads to misfortune when love gets into a person. We’ve got an example of that at the farm here.”

“I was talking to someone the other day who thought that the mistress hadn’t gone to Copenhagen at all, but was with relations in the south. She’s run away from him, you’ll see!”

“That’s the genteel thing to do nowadays, it seems!” said Lasse. “If only she’ll stay away! Things are much better as they are.”

An altogether different atmosphere seemed to fill Stone Farm. The dismal feeling was gone; no wailing tones came from the house and settled upon one like horse flies and black care. The change was most apparent in the farmer. He looked ten or twenty years younger, and joked good-humoredly like one freed from chains and fetters. He took an interest in the work of the farm, drove to the quarry two or three times a day in his gig, was present whenever a new piece of work was started, and would often throw off his coat and take a hand in it. Fair Maria laid his table and made his bed, and he was not afraid of showing his kindness for her. His good humor was infectious and made everything pleasanter.

But it could not be denied that Lasse had his own burden to bear. His anxiety to get married grew greater with the arrival of very cold weather as early as December; he longed to have his feet under his own table, and have a woman to himself who should be everything to him. He had not entirely given up thoughts of Karna yet, but he had promised Thatcher Holm’s wife ten krones down if she could find someone that would do for him.

He had really put the whole matter out of his head as an impossibility, and had passed into the land of old age; but what was the use of shutting yourself in, when you were all the time looking for doors through which to slip out again? Lasse looked out once more, and as usual it was Pelle who brought life and joy to the house.

Down in the outskirts of the fishing-village there lived a woman, whose husband had gone to sea and had not been heard of for a good many years. Two or three times on his way to and from school, Pelle had sought shelter from the weather in her porch, and they had gradually become good friends; he performed little services for her, and received a cup of hot coffee in return. When the cold was very bitter, she always called him in; and then she would tell him about the sea and about her good-for-nothing husband, who kept away and left her to toil for her living by mending nets for the fishermen. In return Pelle felt bound to tell her about Father Lasse, and Mother Bengta who lay at home in the churchyard at Tommelilla. The talk never came to much more, for she always returned to her husband who had gone away and left her a widow.

“I suppose he’s drowned,” Pelle would say.

“No, he isn’t, for I’ve had no warning,” she answered decidedly, always in the same words.

Pelle repeated it all to his father, who was very much interested. “Well, did you run in to Madam Olsen today?” was the first thing he said when the boy came in from school; and then Pelle had to tell him every detail several times over. It could never be too circumstantially told for Lasse.

“You’ve told her, I suppose, that Mother Bengta’s dead? Yes, of course you have! Well, what did she ask about me today? Does she know about the legacy?” (Lasse had recently had twenty-five krones left him by an uncle.) “You might very well let fall a word or two about that, so that she shouldn’t think we’re quite paupers.”

Pelle was the bearer of ambiguous messages backward and forward. From Lasse he took little things in return for her kindness to himself, such as embroidered handkerchiefs and a fine silk kerchief, the last remnants of Mother Bengta’s effects. It would be hard to lose them if this new chance failed, for then there would be no memories to fall back upon. But Lasse staked everything upon one card.

One day Pelle brought word that warning had come to Madam Olsen. She had been awakened in the night by a big black dog that stood gasping at the head of her bed. Its eyes shone in the darkness, and she heard the water dripping from its fur. She understood that it must be the ship’s dog with a message for her, and went to the window; and out in the moonlight on the sea she saw a ship sailing with all sail set. She stood high, and you could see the sea and sky right through her. Over the bulwark hung her husband and the others, and they were