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

was like a newborn lamb in the cold. The children sing it, too.” Ole looked round at them imploringly. “It was only a piece of boyish heedlessness, and now he’s taken his punishment.”

“Your son hasn’t had any punishment, Ole, and neither has he deserved any,” said Fris, putting his arm about the old man’s shoulder. “But he’s given a great gift as he lies there and cannot say anything. He gave five men their lives and gave up his own in return for the one offense that he committed in thoughtlessness! It was a generous son you had, Ole!” Fris looked at him with a bright smile.

“Yes,” said Ole, with animation. “He saved five people⁠—of course he did⁠—yes, he did!” He had not thought of that before; it would probably never have occurred to him. But now someone else had given it form, and he clung to it. “He saved five lives, even if they were only Finn-Lapps; so perhaps God will not disown him.”

Fris shook his head until his gray hair fell over his eyes. “Never forget him, children!” he said; “and now go quietly home.” The children silently took up their things and went; at that moment they would have done anything that Fris told them: he had complete power over them.

Ole stood staring absently, and then took Fris by the sleeve and drew him up to the dead body. “He’s rowed well!” he said. “The blood’s come out at his finger-ends, look!” And he raised his son’s hands to the light. “And there’s a wrist, Fris! He could take up an old man like me and carry me like a little child.” Ole laughed feebly. “But I carried him; all the way from the south reef I carried him on my back. I’m too heavy for you, father! I could hear him say, for he was a good son; but I carried him, and now I can’t do anything more. If only they see that!”⁠—he was looking again at the bloodstained fingers. “He did do his best. If only God Himself would give him his discharge!”

“Yes,” said Fris. “God will give him his discharge Himself, and he sees everything, you know, Ole.”

Some fishermen entered the room. They took off their caps, and one by one went quietly up and shook hands with Ole, and then, each passing his hand over his face, turned questioningly to the schoolmaster. Fris nodded, and they raised the dead body between them, and passed with heavy, cautious steps out through the entry and on toward the village, Ole following them, bowed down and moaning to himself.

XVIII

It was Pelle who, one day in his first year at school, when he was being questioned in Religion, and Fris asked him whether he could give the names of the three greatest festivals in the year, amused everyone by answering: “Midsummer Eve, Harvest-home and⁠—and⁠—” There was a third, too, but when it came to the point, he was shy of mentioning it⁠—his birthday! In certain ways it was the greatest of them all, even though no one but Father Lasse knew about it⁠—and the people who wrote the almanac, of course; they knew about simply everything!

It came on the twenty-sixth of June and was called Pelagius in the calendar. In the morning his father kissed him and said: “Happiness and a blessing to you, laddie!” and then there was always something in his pocket when he came to pull on his trousers. His father was just as excited as he was himself, and waited by him while he dressed, to share in the surprise. But it was Pelle’s way to spin things out when something nice was coming; it made the pleasure all the greater. He purposely passed over the interesting pocket, while Father Lasse stood by fidgeting and not knowing what to do.

“I say, what’s the matter with that pocket? It looks to me so fat! You surely haven’t been out stealing hens’ eggs in the night?”

Then Pelle had to take it out⁠—a large bundle of paper⁠—and undo it, layer after layer. And Lasse would be amazed.

“Pooh, it’s nothing but paper! What rubbish to go and fill your pockets with!” But in the very inside of all there was a pocketknife with two blades.

“Thank you!” whispered Pelle then, with tears in his eyes.

“Oh, nonsense! It’s a poor present, that!” said Lasse, blinking his red, lashless eyelids.

Beyond this the boy did not come in for anything better on that day than usual, but all the same he had a solemn feeling all day. The sun never failed to shine⁠—was even unusually bright; and the animals looked meaningly at him while they lay munching. “It’s my birthday today!” he said, hanging with his arms round the neck of Nero, one of the bullocks. “Can you say ‘A happy birthday’?” And Nero breathed warm breath down his back, together with green juice from his chewing; and Pelle went about happy, and stole green corn to give to him and to his favorite calf, kept the new knife⁠—or whatever it might have been⁠—in his hand the whole day long, and dwelt in a peculiarly solemn way upon everything he did. He could make the whole of the long day swell with a festive feeling; and when he went to bed he tried to keep awake so as to make the day longer still.

Nevertheless, Midsummer Eve was in its way a greater day; it had at any rate the glamour of the unattainable over it. On that day everything that could creep and walk went up to the Common; there was not a servant on the whole island so poor-spirited as to submit to the refusal of a holiday on that day⁠—none except just Lasse and Pelle.

Every year they had seen the day come and go without sharing in its pleasure. “Someone must stay at home, confound it!” said the bailiff always. “Or perhaps you think I can do it all for you?” They had too