"Here is a comrade, mother," said Otto.

"Welcome," she said, as she took Pelle's hand. She held it a moment in her own as she looked at him.

In the living room sat Stolpe, a mason, reading The Working Man. He was in shirt sleeves, and was resting his heavy arms on the table. He read whispering to himself, he had not noticed that a guest was in the room.

"Here's some one who would like to say how-d'ye-do to father," said Otto, laying his hand on his father's arm.

Stolpe raised his head and looked at Pelle. "Perhaps you would like to join the Union?" he asked, rising with difficulty, with one hand pressed on the table. He was tall, his hair was sprinkled with gray; his eyes were mottled from the impact of splinters of limestone.

"You and your Union!" said Madam Stolpe. "Perhaps you think there's no one in it but you!"

"No, mother; little by little a whole crowd of people have entered it, but all the same I was the first."

"I'm already in the Union," said Pelle. "But not in yours. I'm a shoemaker, you know."

"Shoemaker, ah, that's a poor trade for a journeyman; but all the same a man can get to be a master; but to-day a mason can't do that—there's a great difference there. And if one remains a journeyman all his life long, he has more interest in modifying his position. Do you understand? That's why the organization of the shoemakers has never been of more than middling dimensions. Another reason is that they work in their own rooms, and one can't get them together. But now there's a new man come, who seems to be making things move."

"Yes, and this is he, father," said Otto, laughing.

"The deuce, and here I stand making a fool of myself! Then I'll say how- d'ye-do over again! And here's good luck to your plans, young comrade." He shook Pelle by the hand. "I think we might have a drop of beer, mother?"

Pelle and Stolpe were soon engaged in a lively conversation; Pelle was in his element. Until now he had never found his way to the heart of the movement. There was so much he wanted to ask about, and the old man incontinently told him of the growth of the organization from year to year, of their first beginning, when there was only one trades unionist in Denmark, namely, himself, down to the present time. He knew all the numbers of the various trades, and was precisely informed as to the development of each individual union. The sons sat silent, thoughtfully listening. When they had something to say, they always waited until the old man nodded his head to show that he had finished. The younger, Frederik, who was a mason's apprentice, never said "thou" to his father; he addressed him in the third person, and his continual "father says, father thinks," sounded curious to Pelle's ears.

While they were still talking Madam Stolpe opened the door leading into an even prettier room, and invited them to go in and to drink their coffee. The living-room had already produced an extremely pleasant impression on Pelle, with its oak-grained dining-room suite and its horse-hair sofa. But here was a red plush suite, an octagonal table of walnut wood, with a black inlaid border and twisted wooden feet, and an etagere full of knick-knacks and pieces of china; mostly droll, impudent little things. On the walls hung pictures of trades unions and assemblies and large photographs of workshops; one of a building during construction, with the scaffolding full of the bricklayers and their mortar-buckets beside them, each with a trowel or a beer-bottle can in his hand. On the wall over the sofa hung a large half-length portrait of a dark, handsome man in a riding-cloak. He looked half a dreamy adventurer, half a soldier.

"That's the grand master," said Stolpe proudly, standing at Pelle's side. "There was always a crowd of women at his heels. But they kept themselves politely in the background, for a fire went out of him at such times—do you understand? Then it was—Men to the front! And even the laziest fellow pricked up his ears."

"Then he's dead now, is he?" asked Pelle, with interest.

Stolpe did not answer. "Well," he said briefly, "shall we have our coffee now?" Otto winked at Pelle; here evidently was a matter that must not be touched upon.

Stolpe sat staring into his cup, but suddenly he raised his head. "There are things one doesn't understand," he cried earnestly. "But this is certain, that but for the grand master here I and a whole host of other men wouldn't perhaps be respectable fathers of families to-day. There were many smart fellows among us young comrades, as is always the case; but as a rule the gifted ones always went to the dogs. For when a man has no opportunity to alter things, he naturally grows impatient, and then one fine day he begins to pour spirit on the flames in order to stop his mouth. I myself had that accursed feeling that I must do something, and little by little I began to drink. But then I discovered the movement, before it existed, I might venture to say; it was in the air like, d'you see. It was as though something was coming, and one sniffed about like a dog in order to catch a glimpse of it. Presently it was, Here it is! There it is! But when one looked into it, there was just a few hungry men bawling at one another about something or other, but the devil himself didn't know what it was. But then the grand master came forward, and that was like a flash of light for all of us. For he could say to a nicety just where the shoe pinched, although he didn't belong to our class at all. Since that time there's been no need to go searching for the best people—they were always to be found in the movement! Although there weren't very many of them, the best people were always on the side of the movement."

"But now there's wind in the sails," said Pelle.

"Yes, now there's talk of it everywhere. But to whom is that due? God knows, to us old veterans—and to him there!"

Stolpe began to talk of indifferent matters, but quite involuntarily the conversation returned to the movement; man and wife lived and breathed for nothing else. They were brave, honest people, who quite simply divided mankind into two parts: those who were for and those who were against the movement. Pelle seemed to breathe more freely and deeply in this home, where the air was as though steeped in Socialism.

He noticed a heavy chest which stood against the wall on four twisted legs. It was thickly ornamented with nail-heads and looked like an old muniment chest.

"Yes—that's the standard!" said Madam Stolpe, but she checked herself in alarm. Mason Stolpe knitted his brows.

"Ah, well, you're a decent fellow, after all," he said. "One needn't slink on tiptoe in front of you!" He took a key out of a secret compartment in his writing-table. "Now the danger's a thing of the past, but one still has to be careful. That's a vestige of the times when things used to go hardly with us. The police used to be down on all our badges of common unity. The grand master himself came to me one evening with the flag under his cloak, and said to me, 'You must look out for it, Stolpe, you are the most reliable of us all.'"

He and his wife unfolded the great piece of bunting. "See, that's the banner of the International. It looks a little the worse for wear, for it has undergone all sorts of treatment. At the communist meetings out in the fields, when the troops were sent against us with ball cartridge, it waved over the speaker's platform, and held us together. When it flapped over our heads it was as though we were swearing an oath to it. The police understood that, and they were mad to get it. They went for the flag during a meeting, but nothing came of it, and since then they've hunted for it so, it's had to be passed from man to man. In that way it has more than once come to me."

"Yes, and once the police broke in here and took father away as we were sitting at supper. They turned the whole place upside down, and dragged him off to the cells without a word of explanation. The children were little then, and you can imagine how miserable it seemed to me. I didn't know when they would let him out again."

"Yes, but they didn't get the colors," said Stolpe, and he laughed heartily. "I had already passed them on, they were never very long in one place in those days. Now they lead a comparatively quiet life, and mother and the rest of us too!"

The young men stood in silence, gazing at the standard that had seen so many vicissitudes, and that was like the hot red blood of the movement. Before Pelle a whole new world was unfolding itself; the hope that had burned in the depths of his soul was after all not so extravagant. When he was still running, wild at home, playing the games of childhood or herding the cows, strong men had already been at work and had laid the foundations of the cause.... A peculiar warmth spread through him and rose to his head. If only it had been he who had waved the glowing standard in the face of the oppressor—he, Pelle!

"And now it lies here in the chest and is forgotten!" he said dejectedly.

"It is only resting," said Stolpe. "Forgotten, yes; the police have no idea that it still exists. But fix it on a staff, and you will see how the comrades flock about it! Old and young alike. There's fire in that bit of cloth! True fire, that never goes out!"

Carefully they folded the colors and laid them back in the chest. "It won't do even now to speak aloud of the colors! You understand?" said Stolpe.

There was a knock, and Stolpe made haste to lock the chest and hide the key, while Frederik went to the door. They looked at one another uneasily and stood listening.

"It is only Ellen," said Frederik, and he returned, followed by a tall dark girl with an earnest bearing. She had a veil over her face, and before her mouth her breath showed like a pearly tissue.

"Ah, that's the lass!" cried Stolpe, laughing. "What folly—we were quite nervous, just as nervous as in the old days. And you're abroad in the streets at this hour of night! And in this weather?" He looked at her affectionately; one could see that she was his darling. Outwardly they were very unlike.

She greeted Pelle with the tiniest nod, but looked at him earnestly. There was something still and gracious about her that fascinated him. She wore dark clothes, without the slightest adornment, but they were of good sound stuff.

"Won't you change?" asked the mother, unbuttoning her cloak. "You are quite wet, child."

"No, I must go out again at once," Ellen replied. "I only wanted to peep in."

"But it's really very late," grumbled Stolpe. "Are you only off duty now?"

"Yes, it's not my going-out day."

"Not to-day again? Yes, it's sheer slavery, till eleven at night!"

"That's the way things are, and it doesn't make it any better for you to scold me," said Ellen courageously.

"No, but you needn't go out to service. There's no sense in our children going out to service in the houses of the employers. Don't you agree with me?" He turned to Pelle.

Ellen laughed brightly. "It's all the same—father works for the employers as well."

"Yes, but that's a different thing. It's from one fixed hour to another, and then it's over. But this other work is a home; she goes from one home to another and undertakes all the dirty work."

"Father's not in a position to keep me at home."

"I know that very well, but all the same I can't bear it. Besides, you could surely get some other kind of work."

"Yes, but I don't want to! I claim the right to dispose of myself!" she replied heatedly.

The others sat silent, looking nervously at one another. The veins swelled on Stolpe's forehead; he was purple, and terribly angry. But Ellen looked at him with a little laugh. He got up and went grumbling into the other room.

Her mother shook her head at Ellen. She was quite pale. "Oh, child, child!" she whispered.

After a while Stolpe returned with some old newspapers, which he wanted to show Pelle. Ellen stood behind his chair, looking down at them; she rested her arm on his shoulders and idly ruffled his hair. The mother pulled at her skirt. The papers were illustrated, and went back to the stirring times.

The clock struck the half-hour; it was half-past eleven. Pelle rose in consternation; he had quite forgotten the time.

"Take the lass with you," said Stolpe. "You go the same way, don't you, Ellen? Then you'll have company. There's no danger going with her, for she's a saint." It sounded as though he wanted to make up for his scolding. "Come again soon; you will always be welcome here."

They did not speak much on the way home. Pelle was embarrassed, and he had a feeling that she was considering him and thinking him over as they walked, wondering what sort of a fellow he might be. When he ventured to say something, she answered briefly and looked at him searchingly. And yet he found it was an interesting walk. He would gladly have prolonged it.

"Many thanks for your company," he said, when they stood at her house- door. "I should be very glad to see you again."

"You will if we meet," she said taciturnly; but she gave him her hand for a moment.

"We are sure to meet again! Be sure of that!" cried Pelle jovially. "But you are forgetting to reward me for my escort?" He bent over her.

She gazed at him in astonishment—with eyes that were turning him to stone, he thought. Then she slowly turned and went indoors.



X

One day, after his working hours, Pelle was taking some freshly completed work to the Court shoemaker's. The foreman took it and paid for it, and proceeded to give out work to the others, leaving Pelle standing. Pelle waited impatiently, but did no more than clear his throat now and again. This was the way of these people; one had to put up with it if one wanted work. "Have you forgotten me?" he said at last, a little impatiently.

"You can go," said the foreman. "You've finished here."

"What does that mean?" asked Pelle, startled.

"It means what you hear. You've got the sack—if you understand that better."

Pelle understood that very well, but he wanted to establish the fact of his persecution in the presence of his comrades. "Have you any fault to find with my work?" he asked.

"You mix yourself up too much with things that don't concern you, my good fellow, and then you can't do the work you ought to do."

"I should like very much to know what fault you have to find with my work," said Pelle obstinately.

"Go to the devil! I've told you already!" roared the foreman.

The Court shoemaker came down through the door of the back room and looked about him. When he saw Pelle, he went up to him.

"You get out of here, and that at once!" he cried, in a rage. "Do you think we give bread to people that undermine us? Out, out of my place of business, Mossoo Trades-Unionist!"

Pelle stood his ground, and looked his employer in the eyes; he would have struck the man a blow in the face rather than allow himself to be sent away. "Be cool, now; be cool!" he said to himself. He laughed, but his features were quivering. The Court shoemaker kept a certain distance, and continued to shout, "Out with him! Here, foreman, call the police at once!"

"Now you can see, comrades, how they value one here," said Pelle, turning his broad back on Meyer. "We are dogs; nothing more!"

They stood there, staring at the counter, deaf and dumb in their dread of taking sides. Then Pelle went. He made his way northward. His heart was full of violent emotion. Indignation raged within him like a tempest, and by fits and starts found utterance on his lips. Meyer's work was quite immaterial to him; it was badly paid, and he only did it as a stop-gap. But it was disgusting to think they could buy his convictions with badly-paid work! And there they stood not daring to show their colors, as if it wasn't enough to support such a fellow with their skill and energy! Meyer stood there like a wall, in the way of any real progress, but he needn't think he could strike at Pelle, for he'd get a blow in return if he did!

He went straight to Mason Stolpe, in order to talk the matter over with him; the old trades unionist was a man of great experience.

"So he's one of those who go in for the open slave-trade!" said Stolpe. "We've had a go at them before now. 'We've done with you, my good man; we can make no use of agitators!' And if one steals a little march on them 'Off you go; you're done with here!' I myself have been like a hunted cur, and at home mother used to go about crying. I could see what she was feeling, but when I put the matter before her she said, 'Hold out, Stolpe, you shan't give in!' 'You're forgetting our daily bread, mother,' I say. 'Oh, our daily bread. I can just go out washing!' That was in those days—they sing another tune to us now! Now the master politely raises his hat to old Stolpe! If he thinks he can allow himself to hound a man down, an embargo must be put on him!"

Pelle had nothing to say against that. "If only it works," he said. "But our organization looks weak enough as yet."

"Only try it; in any case, you can always damage him. He attacks your livelihood in order to strike at your conscience, so you hit back at his purse-that's where his conscience is! Even if it does no good, at least it makes him realize that you're not a slave."

Pelle sat a while longer chatting. He had secretly hoped to meet Ellen again, but he dared not ask whether that was her day for coming home. Madam Stolpe invited him to stay and to have supper with them she was only waiting for her sons. But Pelle had no time; he must be off to think out instructions for the embargo. "Then come on Sunday," said the mother; "Sunday is Ellen's birthday."

With rapid strides he went off to the president of the Union; the invitation for the following Sunday had dissipated the remains of his anger. The prospect of a tussle with Meyer had put him in the best of tempers. He was certain of winning the president, Petersen, for his purpose, if only he could find him out of bed; he himself had in his time worked for wholesale shoemakers, and hated them like the plague. It was said that Petersen had worked out a clever little invention—a patent button for ladies' boots—which he had taken to Meyer, as he himself did not know how to exploit it. But Meyer had, without more ado, treated the invention as his own, inasmuch as it was produced by one of his workmen. He took out a patent and made a lot of money by it, trifling as the thing was. When Petersen demanded a share of the profits, he was dismissed. He himself never spoke of the matter; he just sat in his cellar brooding over the injustice, so that he never managed to recover his position. Almost his whole time had been devoted to the Union, so that he might revenge himself through it; but it never really made much progress. He fired up passionately enough, but he was lacking in persistence. And his lungs were weak.

He trembled with excitement when Pelle explained his plan. "Great God in heaven, if only we could get at him!" he whispered hoarsely, clenching his skinny fists which Death had already marked with its dusky shadows. "I would willingly give my miserable life to see the scoundrel ruined! Look at that!" He bent down, whispering, and showed Pelle a file ground to a point, which was fastened into a heavy handle. "If I hadn't the children, he would have got that between his ribs long before this!" His gray, restless eyes, which reminded Pelle of Anker, the crazy clockmaker, had a cold, piercing expression.

"Yes, yes," said Pelle, laying his hand soothingly on the other's; "but it's no use to do anything stupid. We shall only do what we want to do if we all stand together."

The day was well spent; on the very next evening the members of the Union were summoned to a meeting. Petersen spoke first, and beginning with a fiery speech. It was like the final efforts of a dying man. "You organize the struggle," said Petersen. "I'm no good nowadays for that— and I've no strength. But I'll sound the assault—ay, and so that they wake up. Then you yourself must see to keeping the fire alight in them." His eyes burned in their shadowy sockets; he stood there like a martyr upholding the necessity of the conflict. The embargo was agreed upon unanimously!

Then Pelle came forward and organized the necessary plan of campaign. It was his turn now. There was no money in the chest, but every man had to promise a certain contribution to be divided among those who were refusing to work. Every man must do his share to deprive Meyer of all access to the labor market. And there was to be no delirious enthusiasm —which they would regret when they woke up next morning. It was essential that every man should form beforehand a clear conception of the difficulties, and must realize what he was pledging himself to. And then—three cheers for a successful issue!

This business meant a lot of running about. But what of that! Pelle, who had to sit such a lot, wouldn't suffer from getting out into the fresh air! He employed the evenings in making up for lost time. He got work from the small employers in Kristianshavn, who were very busy in view of Christmas, which made up for that which he had lost through the Court shoemaker.

On the second day after his dismissal, the declaration of the embargo appeared under the "Labor Items" in The Working Man. "Assistance strictly prohibited!" It was like the day's orders, given by Pelle's own word of mouth. He cut the notice out, and now and again, as he sat at his work, he took it out and considered it. This was Pelle—although it didn't say so—

Pelle and the big employer were having a bit of a tussle! Now they should see which was the stronger!

Pelle went often to see Stolpe. Strangely enough, his visits always coincided with Ellen's days off. Then he accompanied her homeward, and they walked side by side talking of serious things. There was nothing impetuous about them—they behaved as though a long life lay before them. His vehemence cooled in the conflict with Meyer. He was sure of Ellen's character, unapproachable though she was. Something in him told him that she ought to be and would remain so. She was one of those natures to whom it is difficult to come out of their shell, so as to reveal the kernel within; but he felt that there was something that was growing for him within that reserved nature, and he was not impatient.

One evening he had as usual accompanied her to the door, and they stood there bidding one another good night. She gave him her hand in her shy, awkward manner, which might even mean reluctance, and was then about to go indoors.

"But are we going on like this all our lives?" said Pelle, holding her fingers tightly. "I love you so!"

She stood there a while, with an impenetrable expression, then advanced her face and kissed him mechanically, as a child kisses, with tightly closed lips. She was already on her way to the house when she suddenly started back, drew him to herself, and kissed him passionately and unrestrainedly. There was something so violent, so wild and fanatical in her demeanor, that he was quite bewildered. He scarcely recognized her, and when he had come to himself she was already on her way up the kitchen steps. He stood still, as though blinded by a rain of fire, and heard her running as though pursued.

Since that day she had been another creature. Her love was like the spring that comes in a single night. She could not be without him for a day; when she went out to make purchases, she came running over to the "Ark." Her nature had thrown off its restraint; there was tension in her manner and her movements; and this tension now and again escaped from within in little explosions. She did not say very much; when they were together, she clung to him passionately as though to deaden some pain, and hid her face; if he lifted it, she kept her eyes persistently closed. Then she breathed deeply, and sat down smiling and humming to herself when he spoke to her.

It was as though she was delving deep into his inmost being, and Pelle, who felt the need to reach and to know that inner nature, drew confidence from her society. No matter what confronted him, he had always sought in his inner self for his natural support, anxiously listening for that which came to the surface, and unconsciously doubting and inquiring. And now, so surely as she leaned silently on his arm, she confirmed something deep within him, and her steadfast gaze vibrated within him like a proud vocation, and he felt himself infinitely rich. She spoke to something deep within him when she gazed at him so thoughtfully. But what she said he did not know—nor what answer she received. When he recalled her from that gaze of hers, as of one bewitched, she only sighed like one awaking, and kissed him.

Ellen was loyal and unselfish and greatly valued by her employers. There was no real development to be perceived in her—she longed to become his—and that was all. But the future was born on Pelle's own lips under her dreamy gaze, as though it was she who inspired him with the illuminating words. And then she listened with an absent smile—as to something delightful; but she herself seemed to give no thought to the future. She seemed full of a hidden devotion, that filled Pelle with an inward warmth, so that he held up his head very high toward the light. This constant devotion of Ellen's made the children "Family" teasingly call her "the Saint."

It gave him much secret pleasure to be admitted to her home, where the robust Copenhagen humor concealed conditions quite patriarchal in their nature. Everything was founded on order and respect for the parents, especially the father, who spoke the decisive word in every matter, and had his own place, in which no one else ever sat. When he came home from his work, the grown-up sons would always race to take him his slippers, and the wife always had some extra snack for him. The younger son, Frederik, who was just out of his apprenticeship, was as delighted as a child to think of the day when he should become a journeyman and be able to drink brotherhood with the old man.

They lived in a new, spacious, three-roomed tenement with a servant's room thrown in; to Pelle, who was accustomed to find his comrades over here living in one room with a kitchen, this was a new experience. The sons boarded and lodged at home; they slept in the servant's room. The household was founded on and supported by their common energies; although the family submitted unconditionally to the master of the house, they did not do so out of servility; they only did as all others did. For Stolpe was the foremost man in his calling, an esteemed worker and the veteran of the labor movement. His word was unchallenged.

Ellen was the only one who did not respect his supremacy, but courageously opposed him, often without any further motive than that of contradiction. She was the only girl of the family, and the favorite; and she took advantage of her position. Sometimes it looked as though Stolpe would be driven to extremities; as though he longed to pulverize her in his wrath; but he always gave in to her.

He was greatly pleased with Pelle. And he secretly admired his daughter more than ever. "You see, mother, there's something in that lass! She understands how to pick a man for himself!" he would cry enthusiastically.

"Yes; I've nothing against him, either," Madam Stolpe would reply. "A bit countrified still, but of course he's growing out of it."

"Countrified? He? No, you take my word, he knows what he wants. She's really found her master there!" said Stolpe triumphantly.

In the two brothers Pelle found a pair of loyal comrades, who could not but look up to him.



XI

With the embargo matters were going so-so. Meyer replied to it by convoking the employers to a meeting with a view to establishing an employers' union, which would refuse employment to the members of the trade union. Then the matter would have been settled at one blow.

However, things did not go so far as that. The small employers were afraid the journeymen would set up for themselves and compete against them. And instinctively they feared the big employers more than the journeymen, and were shy of entering the Union with them. The inner tendency of the industrial movement was to concentrate everything in a few hands, and to ruin the small business. The small employers had yet another crow to pluck with Meyer, who had extended his business at the expense of their own.

Through Master Beck, Pelle learned what was taking place among the employers. Meyer had demanded that Beck should discharge Pelle, but Beck would not submit to him.

"I can't really complain of you," he said. "Your trades-unionism I don't like—you would do better to leave it alone. But with your work I am very well satisfied. I have always endeavored to render justice to all parties. But if you can knock Meyer's feet from under him, we small employers will be very grateful to your Union, for he's freezing us out."

To knock his feet from under him-that wasn't an easy thing to do. On the contrary, he was driving the weaker brethren out of the Union, and had always enough workers—partly Swedes, with whom he had a written contract, and whom he had to pay high wages. The system of home employment made it impossible to get to grips with him. Pelle and the president of the Union carefully picketed the warehouse about the time when the work was delivered, in order to discover who was working for him. And they succeeded in snatching a few workers away from him and in bringing them to reason, or else their names were published in The Working Man. But then the journeymen sent their wives or children with the work—and there was really nothing that could be done. It cost Meyer large sums of money to keep his business going, but the Union suffered more. It had not as yet sufficient authority, and the large employers stood by Meyer and would not employ members of the Union as long as the embargo lasted. So it was finally raised.

That was a defeat; but Pelle had learned something, none the less! The victory was to the strong, and their organization was not as yet sufficient. They must talk and agitate, and hold meetings! The tendency to embrace the new ideas certainly inclined the men to organize themselves, but their sense of honor was as yet undeveloped. The slightest mishap dispersed them.

Pelle did not lose heart; he must begin all over again, that was all.

On the morning after the defeat was an accomplished fact he was up early. His resolution to go ahead with redoubled energies, he had, so to speak, slept into him, so that it pervaded his body and put energy and decision into his hammer-strokes.

He whistled as the work progressed rapidly under his hands. The window stood open so that the night air might escape; hoar frost lay on the roofs, and the stars twinkled overhead in the cold heavens. But Pelle was not cold! He had just awakened the "Family" and could hear them moving about in their room. People were beginning to tumble out into the gangway, still drunken with sleep. Pelle was whistling a march. On the previous evening he had sent off the last instalment of his debt to Sort, and at the same time had written definitely to Father Lasse that he was to come. And now the day was dawning!

Marie came and reached him his coffee through the door. "Good morning!" she cried merrily, through the crack of the door. "We're going to have fine weather to-day, Pelle!" She was not quite dressed yet and would not let herself be seen. The boys nodded good morning as they ran out. Karl had his coat and waistcoat under his arm. These articles of clothing he always used to put on as he ran down the stairs.

When it was daylight Marie came in to set the room in order. She conversed with him as she scrubbed.

"Look here, Marie!" cried Pelle suddenly. "Ellen came here yesterday and asked you to bring me a message when I came home. You didn't do it."

Marie's face became set, but she did not reply.

"It was only by pure chance that I met her yesterday, otherwise we should have missed one another."

"Then I must have forgotten it," said Marie morosely.

"Why, of course you forgot it. But that's the second time this week. You must be in love!" he added, smiling.

Marie turned her back on him. "I've got nothing to do with her—I don't owe her anything!" suddenly she cried defiantly. "And I'm not going to clean your room any longer, either—let her do it—so there!" She seized her pail and scrubbing-brush and ran into her own room. After a time he heard her voice from within the room; at first he thought she was singing a tune to herself, but then he heard sobs.

He hurried into the room; she was lying on the bed, weeping, biting the pillow and striking at it angrily with her roughened hands. Her thin body burned as if with fever.

"You are ill, Marie dear," said Pelle anxiously, laying his hand on her forehead. "You ought to go to bed and take something to make you sweat. I'll warm it up for you."

She was really ill; her eyes were dry and burning, and her hands were cold and clammy. But she would agree to nothing. "Go away!" she said angrily, "and attend to your own work! Leave me alone!" She had turned her back on him and nudged him away defiantly with her shoulder. "You'd best go in and cuddle Ellen!" she cried suddenly, with a malicious laugh.

"Why are you like this, Marie?" said Pelle, distressed. "You are quite naughty!"

She buried her face in the bed and would neither look at him nor answer him. So he went back to his work.

After a time she came into his room again and resumed her work of cleaning. She banged the things about; pulling down some work of his that he had set to dry by the stove, and giving him a malicious sidelong look. Then a cup containing paste fell to the ground and was broken. "She did that on purpose," he thought unhappily, and he put the paste into an empty box. She stood watching him with a piercing, malicious gaze.

He turned to his work again, and made as though nothing had happened. Suddenly he felt her thin arms about his neck. "Forgive me!" she said, weeping, and she hid her face against his shoulder.

"Come, come, nothing very dreadful has happened! The silly old cup!" he said consolingly, as he stroked her head. "You couldn't help it!"

But at that she broke down altogether, and it seemed as though her crying would destroy her meager body. "Yes, I did it on purpose!" she bellowed. "And I threw down the boots on purpose, and yesterday I didn't give you the message on purpose. I would have liked to hurt you still more, I'm so bad, bad, bad! Why doesn't some one give me a good beating? If you'd only once be properly angry with me!"

She was quite beside herself and did not know what she was saying.

"Now listen to me at once—you've got to be sensible!" said Pelle decidedly, "for this sort of thing is not amusing. I was pleased to think I was going to be at home to-day, so as to work beside you, and then you go and have an attack just like a fine lady!"

She overcame her weeping by a tremendous effort, and went back to her room, gently sobbing. She returned at once with a cracked cup for the paste and a small tin box with a slit in the lid. This was her money- box.

"Take it," she said, pushing the box onto his lap. "Then you can buy yourself lasts and needn't go asking the small employers for work. There's work enough here in the 'Ark.'"

"But, Marie—that's your rent!" said Pelle, aghast.

"What does that matter? I can easily get the money together again by the first."

Oh, she could easily do that! Pelle laughed, a bewildered laugh. How cheerfully she threw her money about, the money that cost her thirty days of painful thought and saving, in order to have it ready each month!

"What do you think Peter and Karl would say to your chucking your money about like that? Put the box away again safely-and be quick about it!"

"Oh, take it!" she cried persistently, thrusting the box upon him. again. "Yes—or I'll throw it out of the window!" She quickly opened one of the sashes. Pelle stood up.

"It's true I still owe you for the last washing," he said, offering to put a krone in the box.

"A good thing you reminded me." She stared at him with an impenetrable expression and ran back to her room.

In there she moved about singing in her harsh voice. After a while she went out to make some purchases clad in a gray shawl, with her house- wife's basket on her arm. He could follow her individual step, which was light as a child's, and yet sounded so old—right to the end of the tunnel. Then he went into the children's room and pulled out the third drawer in the chest of drawers. There she always hid her money-box, wrapped up in her linen. He still possessed two kroner, which he inserted in the box.

He used always to pay her in this way. When she counted out her money and found there was too much, she believed the good God had put the money in her box, and would come jubilantly into his room to tell him about it. The child believed blindly in Fortune, and accepted the money as a sign of election; and for her this money was something quite different to that which she herself had saved.

About noon she came to invite him into her room. "There's fried herring, Pelle, so you can't possibly say no," she said persuasively, "for no Bornholmer could! Then you needn't go and buy that stuffy food from the hawker, and throw away five and twenty ore." She had bought half a score of the fish, and had kept back five for her brothers when they came home. "And there's coffee after," she said. She had set out everything delightfully, with a clean napkin at one end of the table.

The factory girl's little Paul came in and was given a mouthful of food. Then he ran out into the gangway again and tumbled about there, for the little fellow was never a moment still from the moment his mother let him out in the morning; there was so much to make up for after his long imprisonment. From the little idiot whom his mother had to tie to the stove because he had water on the brain and wanted to throw himself out of the window, he had become a regular vagabond. Every moment he would thrust his head in at the door and look at Pelle; and he would often come right in, put his hand on Pelle's knee, and say, "You's my father!" Then he would rush off again. Marie helped him in all his infantile necessities—he always appealed to her!

After she had washed up, she sat by Pelle with her mending, chattering away concerning her household cares. "I shall soon have to get jackets for the boys—it's awful what they need now they're grown up. I peep in at the second-hand clothes shop every day. And you must have a new blouse, too, Pelle; that one will soon be done for; and then you've none to go to the wash. If you'll buy the stuff, I'll soon make it up for you—I can sew! I made my best blouse myself—Hanne helped me with it! Why, really, don't you go to see Hanne any longer?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Hanne has grown so peculiar. She never comes down into the courtyard now to dance with us. She used to. Then I used to watch out of the window, and run down. It was so jolly, playing with her. We used to go round and round her and sing! 'We all bow to Hanne, we curtsy all to Hanne, we all turn round before her!' And then we bowed and curtsied and suddenly we all turned round. I tell you, it was jolly! You ought to have taken Hanne."

"But you didn't like it when I took Ellen. Why should I have taken Hanne?"

"Oh, I don't know ... Hanne...." Marie stopped, listened, and suddenly wrenched the window open.

Down in the "Ark" a door slammed, and a long hooting sound rose up from below, sounding just like a husky scream from the crazy Vinslev's flute or like the wind in the long corridors. Like a strange, disconnected snatch of melody, the sound floated about below, trickling up along the wooden walls, and breaking out into the daylight with a note of ecstasy: "Hanne's with child! The Fairy Princess is going to be confined!"

Marie went down the stairs like a flash. The half-grown girls were shrieking and running together in the court below; the women on the galleries were murmuring to others above and below. Not that this was in itself anything novel; but in this case it was Hanne herself, the immaculate, whom as yet no tongue had dared to besmirch. And even now they dared hardly speak of it openly; it had come as such a shock. In a certain sense they had all entered into her exaltation, and with her had waited for the fairy-tale to come true; as quite a child she had been elected to represent the incomprehensible; and now she was merely going to have a child! It really was like a miracle just at first; it was such a surprise to them all!

Marie came back with dragging steps and with an expression of horror and astonishment. Down in the court the grimy-nosed little brats were screeching, as they wheeled hand in hand round the sewer-grating—it was splendid for dancing round—

"Bro-bro-brille-brid Hanne's doin' to have a tid!"

They couldn't speak plainly yet.

And there was "Grete with the baby," the mad-woman, tearing her cellar- window open, leaning out of it backward, with her doll on her arm, and yelling up through the well, so that it echoed loud and shrill: "The Fairy Princess has got a child, and Pelle's its father!"

Pelle bent over his work in silence. Fortunately he was not the king's son in disguise in this case! But he wasn't going to wrangle with women.

Hanne's mother came storming out onto her gallery. "That's a shameless lie!" she cried. "Pelle's name ain't going to be dragged into this—the other may be who he likes!"

Overhead the hearse-driver came staggering out onto his gallery. "The princess there has run a beam into her body," he rumbled, in his good- natured bass. "What a pity I'm not a midwife! They've got hold of the wrong end of it!"

"Clear off into your hole and hold your tongue, you body-snatcher!" cried Madam Johnsen, spitting with rage. "You've got to stick your brandy-nose into everything!"

He stood there, half drunk, leaning over the rail, babbling, teasing, without returning Madam Johnsen's vituperation. But then little Marie flung up a window and came to her assistance, and up from her platform Ferdinand's mother emerged. "How many hams did you buy last month? Fetch out your bear hams, then, and show us them! He kills a bear for every corpse, the drunkard!" From all sides they fell upon him. He could do nothing against them, and contented himself with opening his eyes and his mouth and giving vent to a "Ba-a-a!" Then his red-haired wife came out and hailed him in.



XII

From the moment when the gray morning broke there was audible a peculiar note in the buzzing of the "Ark," a hoarse excitement, which thrust all care aside. Down the long corridors there was a sound of weeping and scrubbing; while the galleries and the dark wooden stair-cases were sluiced with water. "Look out there!" called somebody every moment from somewhere, and then it was a question of escaping the downward-streaming flood. During the whole morning the water poured from one gallery to another, as over a mill-race.

But now the "Ark" stood freezing in its own cleanliness, with an expression that seemed to say the old warren didn't know itself. Here and there a curtain or a bit of furniture had disappeared from a window —it had found its way to the pawn shop in honor of the day. What was lacking in that way was made up for by the expectation and festive delight on the faces of the inmates.

Little fir-trees peeped out of the cellar entries in the City Ward, and in the market-place they stood like a whole forest along the wall of the prison. In the windows of the basement-shops hung hearts and colored candles, and the grocer at the corner had a great Christmas goblin in his window—it was made of red and gray wool-work and had a whole cat's skin for its beard.

On the stairs of the "Ark" the children lay about cleaning knives and forks with sand sprinkled on the steps.

Pelle sat over his work and listened in secret. His appearance usually had a quieting effect on these crazy outbursts of the "Ark," but he did not want to mix himself up with this affair. And he had never even dreamed that Hanne's mother could be like this! She was like a fury, turning her head, quick as lightning, now to one side, now to the other, and listening to every sound, ready to break out again!

Ah, she was protecting her child now that it was too late! She was like a spitting cat.

"The youngest of all the lordlin's,"

sang the children down in the court. That was Hanne's song. Madam Johnsen stood there as though she would like to swoop down on their heads. Suddenly she flung her apron over her face and ran indoors, sobbing.

"Ah!" they said, and they slapped their bellies every time an odor of something cooking streamed out into the court. Every few minutes they had to run out and buy five or ten ore worth of something or other; there was no end to the things that were needed in preparation for Christmas Eve. "We're having lovely red beetroot!" said one little child, singing, making a song of it—"We're having lovely red beetroot, aha, aha, aha!" And they swayed their little bodies to and fro as they scoured.

"Frederik!" a sharp voice cried from one of the corridors. "Run and get a score of firewood and a white roll—a ten-ore one. But look out the grocer counts the score properly and don't pick out the crumb!"

Madam Olsen with the warm wall was frying pork. She couldn't pull her range out onto the gallery, but she did let the pork burn so that the whole courtyard was filled with bluish smoke. "Madam Olsen! Your pork is burning!" cried a dozen women at once.

"That's because the frying-pan's too small!" replied Frau Olsen, thrusting her red head out through the balusters. "What's a poor devil to do when her frying-pan's too small?" And Madam Olsen's frying-pan was the biggest in the whole "Ark"!

Shortly before the twilight fell Pelle came home from the workshop. He saw the streets and the people with strange eyes that diffused a radiance over all things; it was the Christmas spirit in his heart. But why? he asked himself involuntarily. Nothing in particular was in store for him. To-day he would have to work longer than usual, and he would not be able to spend the evening with Ellen, for she had to be busy in her kitchen, making things jolly for others. Why, then, did this feeling possess him? It was not a memory; so far as he could look back he had never taken part in a genuine cheerful Christmas Eve, but had been forced to content himself with the current reports of such festivities. And all the other poor folks whom he met were in the same mood as he himself. The hard questioning look had gone from their faces; they were smiling to themselves as they went. To-day there was nothing of that wan, heavy depression which commonly broods over the lower classes like the foreboding of disaster; they could not have looked more cheerful had all their hopes been fulfilled! A woman with a feather-bed in her arms passed him and disappeared into the pawn-shop; and she looked extremely well pleased. Were they really so cheerful just because they were going to have a bit of a feast, while to do so they were making a succession of lean days yet leaner? No, they were going to keep festival because the Christmas spirit prevailed in their hearts, because they must keep holiday, however dearly it might cost them!

It was on this night to be sure that Christ was born. Were the people so kind and cheerful on that account?

Pelle still knew by heart most of the Bible texts of his school-days. They had remained stowed away somewhere in his mind, without burdening him or taking up any room, and now and again they reappeared and helped to build up his knowledge of mankind. But of Christ Himself he had formed his own private picture, from the day when as a boy he first stumbled upon the command given to the rich: to sell all that they had and to give to the starving. But they took precious good care not to do so; they took the great friend of the poor man and hanged him on high! He achieved no more than this, that He became a promise to the poor; but perhaps it was this promise that, after two thousand years, they were now so solemnly celebrating!

They had so long been silent, holding themselves in readiness, like the wise virgins in the Bible, and now at last it was coming! Now at last they were beginning to proclaim the great Gospel of the Poor—it was a goodly motive for all this Christmas joy! Why did they not assemble the multitudes on the night of Christ's birth and announce the Gospel to them? Then they would all understand the Cause and would join it then and there! There was a whirl of new living thoughts in Pelle's head. He had not hitherto known that that in which he was participating was so great a thing. He felt that he was serving the Highest.

He stood a while in the market-place, silently considering the Christmas-trees—they led his thoughts back to the pasture on which he had herded the cows, and the little wood of firs. It pleased him to buy a tree, and to take the children by surprise; the previous evening they had sat together cutting out Christmas-tree decorations, and Karl had fastened four fir-tree boughs together to make a Christmas-tree.

At the grocer's he bought some sweets and Christmas candles. The grocer was going about on tip-toe in honor of the day, and was serving the dirty little urchins with ceremonious bows. He was "throwing things in," and had quite forgotten his customary, "Here, you, don't forget that you still owe for two lots of tea and a quarter of coffee!" But he was cheating with the scales as usual.

Marie was going about with rolled-up sleeves, and was very busy. But she dropped her work and came running when she saw the tree. "It won't stand here yet, Pelle," she cried, "it will have to be cut shorter. It will have to be cut still shorter even now! Oh, how pretty it is! No, at the end there—at the end! We had a Christmas-tree at home; father went out himself and cut it down on the cliffs; and we children went with him. But this one is much finer!" Then she ran out into the gangway, in order to tell the news, but it suddenly occurred to her that the boys had not come home yet, so she rushed in to Pelle once more.

Pelle sat down to his work. From time to time he lifted his head and looked out. The seamstress, who had just moved into Pipman's old den, and who was working away at her snoring machine, looked longingly at him. Of course she must be lonely; perhaps there was nowhere where she could spend the evening.

Old Madam Frandsen came out on her platform and shuffled down the steep stairs in her cloth slippers. The rope slipped through her trembling hands. She had a little basket on her arm and a purse in her hand—she too looked so lonely, the poor old worm! She had now heard nothing of her son for three months. Madam Olsen called out to her and invited her in, but the old woman shook her head. On the way back she looked in on Pelle.

"He's coming this evening," she whispered delightedly. "I've been buying brandy and beefsteak for him, because he's coming this evening!"

"Well, don't be disappointed, Madam Frandsen," said Pelle, "but he daren't venture here any more. Come over to us instead and keep Christmas with us."

She nodded confidently. "He'll come tonight. On Christmas Eve he has always slept in mother's bed, ever since he could crawl, and he can't do without it, not if I know my Ferdinand!" She had already made up a bed for herself on the chairs, so certain was she.

The police evidently thought as she did, for down in the court strange footsteps were heard. It was just about twilight, when so many were coming and going unremarked. But at these steps a female head popped back over the balustrade, a sharp cry was heard, and at the same moment every gallery was filled with women and children. They hung over the rails and made an ear-splitting din, so that the whole deep, narrow shaft was filled with an unendurable uproar. It sounded as though a hurricane came raging down through the shaft, sweeping with it a hailstorm of roofing-slates. The policeman leaped back into the tunnel- entry, stupefied. He stood there a moment recovering himself before he withdrew. Upstairs, in the galleries, they leaned on the rails and recovered their breath, exhausted by the terrific eruption; and then fell to chattering like a flock of small birds that have been chasing a flying hawk.

"Merry Christmas!" was now shouted from gallery to gallery. "Thanks, the same to you!" And the children shouted to one another, "A jolly feast and all the best!" "A dainty feast for man and beast!"

Christmas Eve was here! The men came shuffling home at a heavy trot, and the factory-girls came rushing in. Here and there a feeble wail filtered out of one of the long corridors, so that the milk-filled breast ached. Children incessantly ran in and out, fetching the last ingredients of the feast. Down by the exit into the street they had to push two tramps, who stood there shuddering in the cold. They were suspicious-looking people. "There are two men down there, but they aren't genuine," said Karl. "They look as if they came out of a music-hall."

"Run over to old Madam Frandsen and tell her that," said Pelle. But her only answer was, "God be thanked, then they haven't caught him yet!"

Over at Olsen's their daughter Elvira had come home. The blind was not drawn, and she was standing at the window with her huge hat with flowers in it, allowing herself to be admired. Marie came running in. "Have you seen how fine she is, Pelle?" she said, quite stupefied. "And she gets all that for nothing from the gentlemen, just because they think she's so pretty. But at night she paints her naked back!"

The children were running about in the gangway, waiting until Pelle should have finished. They would not keep Christmas without him. But now he, too, had finished work; he pulled on a jacket, wrapped up his work, and ran off.

Out on the platform he stood still for a moment. He could see the light of the city glimmering in the deep, star-filled sky. The night was so solemnly beautiful. Below him the galleries were forsaken; they were creaking in the frost. All the doors were closed to keep the cold out and the joy in. "Down, down from the green fir-trees!"—it sounded from every corner. The light shone through the window and in all directions through the woodwork. Suddenly there was a dull booming sound on the stairs—it was the hearse-driver staggering home with a ham under either arm. Then all grew quiet—quiet as it never was at other times in the "Ark," where night or day some one was always complaining. A child came out and lifted a pair of questioning eyes, in order to look at the Star of Bethlehem! There was a light at Madam Frandsen's. She had hung a white sheet over the window today, and had drawn it tight; the lamp stood close to the window, so that any one moving within would cast no shadow across it.

The poor old worm! thought Pelle, as he ran past; she might have spared herself the trouble! When he had delivered his work he hurried over to Holberg Street, in order to wish Ellen a happy Christmas. The table was finely decked out in his room when he got home; there was pork chops, rice boiled in milk, and Christmas beer. Marie was glowing with pride over her performance; she sat helping the others, but she herself took nothing.

"You ought to cook a dinner as good as this every day, lass!" said Karl, as he set to. "God knows, you might well get a situation in the King's kitchen."

"Why don't you eat any of this nice food?" said Pelle.

"Oh, no, I can't," she replied, touching her cheeks; her eyes beamed upon him.

They laughed and chattered and clinked their glasses together. Karl came out with the latest puns and the newest street-songs; so he had gained something by his scouring of the city streets. Peter sat there looking impenetrably now at one, now at another; he never laughed, but from time to time he made a dry remark by which one knew that he was amusing himself. Now and again they looked over at old Madam Frandsen's window— it was a pity that she wouldn't be with them.

Five candles were now burning over there—they were apparently fixed on a little Christmas tree which stood in a flowerpot. They twinkled like distant stars through the white curtain, and Madam Frandsen's voice sounded cracked and thin: "O thou joyful, O thou holy, mercy-bringing Christmas-tide!" Pelle opened his window and listened; he wondered that the old woman should be so cheerful.

Suddenly a warning voice sounded from below: "Madam Frandsen, there are visitors coming!"

Doors and windows flew open on the galleries round about. People tumbled out of doorways, their food in their hands, and leaned over the railings. "Who dares to disturb our Christmas rejoicings?" cried a deep, threatening voice.

"The officers of the law!" the reply came out of the darkness. "Keep quiet, all of you—in the name of the law!"

Over on Madam Frandsen's side two figures became visible, noiselessly running up on all fours. Upstairs nothing was happening; apparently they had lost their heads. "Ferdinand, Ferdinand!" shrieked a girl's voice wildly; "they're coming now!"

At the same moment the door flew open, and with a leap Ferdinand stood on the platform. He flung a chair down at his pursuers, and violently swayed the hand-rope, in order to sweep them off the steps. Then he seized the gutter and swung himself up onto the roof. "Good-bye, mother!" he cried from above, and his leap resounded in the darkness. "Good-bye, mother, and a merry Christmas!" A howl like that of a wounded beast flung the alarm far out into the night, and they heard the stumbling pursuit of the policemen over the roofs. And then all was still.

They returned unsuccessful. "Well, then you haven't got him!" cried Olsen, leaning out of his window down below.

"No; d'you think we are going to break our necks for the like of him?" retorted the policemen, as they scrambled down. "Any one going to stand a glass of Christmas beer?" As no response followed, they departed.

Old Madam Frandsen went into her room and locked up; she was tired and worried and wanted to go to bed. But after a time she came shuffling down the long gangway. "Pelle," she whispered, "he's in bed in my room! While they were scrambling about on the roofs he slipped quietly back over the garrets and got into my bed! Good God, he hasn't slept in a bed for four months! He's snoring already!" And she slipped out again.

Yes, that was an annoying interruption! No one felt inclined to begin all over again excepting Karl, and Marie did not count him, as he was always hungry. So she cleared away, gossiping as she went in and out; she did not like to see Pelle so serious.

"But the secret!" she cried of a sudden, quite startled. The boys ran in to her; then they came back, close together, with Marie behind them, carrying something under her apron. The two boys flung themselves upon Pelle and closed his eyes, while Marie inserted something in his mouth. "Guess now!" she cried, "guess now!" It was a porcelain pipe with a green silken tassel. On the bowl of the pipe, which was Ellen's Christmas gift, was a representation of a ten-kroner note. The children had inserted a screw of tobacco. "Now you'll be able to smoke properly," said Marie, pursing her lips together round the mouthpiece; "you are so clever in everything else."

The children had invited guests for the Christmas-tree; the seamstress, the old night-watchman from the courtyard, the factory-hand with her little boy; all those who were sitting at home and keeping Christmas all alone. They didn't know themselves, there were so many of them! Hanne and her mother were invited too, but they had gone to bed early—they were not inclined for sociability. One after another they were pulled into the room, and they came with cheerful faces. Marie turned the lamp out and went in to light up the Christmas tree.

They sat in silence and expectation. The light from the stove flickered cheerfully to and fro in the room, lighting up a face with closed eyelids and eager features, and dying away with a little crash. The factory hand's little boy was the only one to chatter; he had sought a refuge on Pelle's knee and felt quite safe in the darkness; his childish voice sounded strangely bright in the firelight. "Paul must be quite good and quiet," repeated the mother admonishingly.

"Mus'n't Paul 'peak?" asked the child, feeling for Pelle's face.

"Yes, to-night Paul can do just as he likes," replied Pelle. Then the youngster chattered on and kicked out at the darkness with his little legs.

"Now you can come!" cried Marie, and she opened the door leading to the gangway. In the children's room everything had been cleared away. The Christmas-tree stood in the middle, on the floor, and was blazing with light. And how splendid it was—and how tall! Now they could have a proper good look! The lights were reflected in their eyes, and in the window-panes, and in the old mahogany-framed mirror, and the glass of the cheap pictures, so that they seemed suddenly to be moving about in the midst of myriads of stars, and forgot all their miseries. It was as though they had escaped from all their griefs and cares, and had entered straightway into glory, and all of a sudden a pure, clear voice arose, tremulous with embarrassment, and the voice sang:

"O little angel, make us glad! Down from high Heaven's halls Through sunshine flown, in splendor clad, Earth's shadow on thee falls!"

It sounded like a greeting from the clouds. They closed their eyes and wandered, hand in hand, about the tree. Then the seamstress fell silent, blushing. "You aren't singing with me!" she cried.

"We'll sing the Yule Song—we all know that," said Pelle.

"Down, down from the high green tree!"—It was Karl who struck up. And they just did sing that! It fitted in so admirably—even the name of Peter fitted in! And it was great fun, too, when all the presents cropped up in the song; every single person was remembered! Only, the lines about the purse, at the end, were all too true! There wasn't much more to be said for that song! But suddenly the boys set the ring-dance going; they stamped like a couple of soldiers, and then they all went whirling round in frantic movement—a real witches' dance!

"Hey dicker dick, My man fell smack; It was on Christmas Eve! I took a stick And broke it on his back, It was on Christmas Eve!"

How hot all the candles made it, and how it all went to one's head! They had to open the door on to the gangway.

And there outside stood the inmates of the garrets, listening and craning their necks. "Come inside," cried the boys. "There's room enough if we make two rings!" So once again they moved round the tree, singing Christmas carols. Every time there was a pause somebody struck up a new carol, that had to be sung through. The doors opposite were open too, the old rag-picker sat at the head of his table singing on his own account. He had a loaf of black bread and a plate of bacon in front of him, and after every carol he took a mouthful. In the other doorway sat three coal-porters playing "sixty-six" for beer and brandy. They sat facing toward the Christmas-tree, and they joined in the singing as they played; but from time to time they broke off in the middle of a verse in order to say something or to cry "Trumped!" Now they suddenly threw down their cards and came into the room. "We don't want to sit here idle and look on while others are working," they said, and they joined the circle.

Finally they had all had enough of circling round the tree and singing. So chairs and stools were brought in from the other rooms; they had to squeeze close together, right under the sloping roof, and some sat up on the window-sill. There was a clear circle left round the Christmas-tree. And there they sat gossiping, crouching in all sorts of distorted postures, as though that was the only way in which their bodies could really find repose, their arms hanging loosely between their knees. But their faces were still eager and excited; and the smoke from the candles and the crackling fir-boughs of the tree veiled them in a bluish cloud, through which they loomed as round as so many moons. The burning turpentine gave the smoke a mysterious, alluring fragrance, and the devout and attentive faces were like so many murmuring spirits, hovering in the clouds, each above its outworn body.

Pelle sat there considering them till his heart bled for them—that was his Christmas devotion. Poor storm-beaten birds, what was this splendid experience which outweighed all their privations? Only a little light! And they looked as though they could fall down before it and give up their lives! He knew the life's story of each one of them better than they knew. But their faces were still eager and excited; and they themselves; when they approached the light they always burned themselves in it, like the moths, they were so chilled!

"All the same, that's a queer invention, when one thinks about it," said one of the dockers, nodding toward the Christmas-tree. "But it's fine. God knows what it really is supposed to mean!"

"It means that now the year is returning toward the light again," said the old night-watchman.

"No; it stands for the joy of the shepherds over the birth of Christ," said the rag-picker, stepping into the doorway.

"The shepherds were poor folks, like ourselves, who lived in the darkness. That's why they rejoiced so over Him, because He came with the light."

"Well, it don't seem to me we've been granted such a terrible deal of light! Oh, yes, the Christmas-tree here, that's splendid, Lord knows it is, and we should all of us like to thank the children for it—but one can't have trees like that to set light to every day; and as for the sun—well, you see, the rich folks have got a monopoly of that!"

"Yes, you are right there, Jacob," said Pelle, who was moving about round the tree, taking down the hearts and packages for the children, who distributed the sweets. "You are all three of you right—curiously enough. The Christmas-tree is to remind us of Christ's birth, and also that the year is returning toward the sun—but that's all the same thing. And then it's to remind us, too, that we too ought to have a share in things; Christ was born especially to remind the poor of their rights! Yes, that is so! For the Lord God isn't one to give long-winded directions as to how one should go ahead; He sends the sun rolling round the earth every day, and each of us must look out for himself, and see how best he himself can get into the sunshine. It's just like the wife of a public-house keeper I remember at home, who used to tell travellers, 'What would you like to eat? You can have ducks or pork chops or sweets—anything you've brought with you!'"

"That was a devilish funny statement!" said his hearers, laughing.

"Yes, it's easy enough to invite one to all sorts of fine things when all the time one has to bring them along one's self! You ought to have been a preacher."

"He'd far better be the Devil's advocate!" said the old rag-picker. "For there's not much Christianity in what he says!"

"But you yourself said that Christ came bringing light for the poor," said Pelle; "and He Himself said as much, quite plainly; what He wanted was to make the blind to see and the dead to walk, and to restore consideration to the despised and rejected. Also, He wanted men to have faith!"

"The blind shall see, the lame shall walk, the leper shall be clean, the deaf shall hear, and the dead shall arise, and the Word shall be preached to the poor," said the rag-picker, correcting Pelle. "You are distorting the Scriptures, Pelle."

"But I don't believe He meant only individual cripples—no, He meant all of us in our misery, and all the temptations that lie in wait for us. That's how Preacher Sort conceived it, and he was a godly, upright man. He believed the millennium would come for the poor, and that Christ was already on the earth making ready for its coming."

The women sat quite bemused, listening with open mouths; they dared scarcely breathe. Paul was asleep on his mother's lap.

"Can He really have thought about us poor vermin, and so long beforehand?" cried the men, looking from one to another. "Then why haven't we long ago got a bit more forward than this?"

"Yes, I too don't understand that," said Pelle, hesitating. "Perhaps we ourselves have got to work our way in the right direction—and that takes time."

"Yes, but—if He would only give us proper conditions of life. But if we have to win them for ourselves we don't need any Christ for that!"

This was something that Pelle could not explain even to himself, although he felt it within him as a living conviction, A man must win what was due to him himself—that was clear as the day, and he couldn't understand how they could be blind to the fact; but why he must do so he couldn't—however he racked his brains—explain to another person. "But I can tell you a story," he said.

"But a proper exciting story!" cried Earl, who was feeling bored. "Oh, if only Vinslev were here—he has such droll ideas!"

"Be quiet, boy!" said Marie crossly. "Pelle makes proper speeches— before whole meetings," she said, nodding solemnly to the others. "What is the story called?"

"Howling Peter."

"Oh, it's a story with Peter in it—then it's a fairy-tale! What is it about?"

"You'll know that when you hear it, my child," said the old night- watchman.

"Yes, but then one can't enjoy it when it comes out right. Isn't it a story about a boy who goes out into the world?"

"The story is about"—Pelle bethought himself a moment; "the story is about the birth of Christ," he said quickly, and then blushed a deep red at his own audacity. But the others looked disappointed, and settled themselves decently and stared at the floor, as though they had been in church.

And then Pelle told them the story of Howling Peter; who was born and grew up in poverty and grief, until he was big and strong, and every man's cur to kick. For it was the greatest pity to see this finely-made fellow, who was so full of fear and misery that if even a girl so much as touched him he must flood himself with tears; and the only way out of his misery was the rope. What a disgrace it was, that he should have earned his daily bread and yet have been kept in the workhouse, as though they did him a kindness in allowing him a hole to creep into there, when with his capacity for work he could have got on anywhere! And it became quite unendurable as he grew up and was still misused by all the world, and treated like a dog. But then, all of a sudden, he broke the magic spell, struck down his tormentors, and leaped out into the daylight as the boldest of them all!

They drew a deep breath when he had finished. Marie clapped her hands. "That was a real fairy-tale!" she cried. Karl threw himself upon Peter and pummeled away at him, although that serious-minded lad was anything but a tyrant!

They cheerfully talked the matter over. Everybody had something to say about Howling Peter. "That was damned well done," said the men; "he thrashed the whole crew from beginning to end; a fine fellow that! And a strong one too! But why the devil did he take such a long time about it? And put up with all that?"

"Yes, it isn't quite so easy for us to understand that—not for us, who boast such a lot about our rights!" said Pelle, smiling.

"Well, you're a clever chap, and you've told it us properly!" cried the cheerful Jacob. "But if ever you need a fist, there's mine!" He seized and shook Pelle's hand.

The candles had long burned out, but they did not notice it.

Their eyes fastened on Pelle's as though seeking something, with a peculiar expression in which a question plainly came and went. And suddenly they overwhelmed him with questions. They wanted to know enough, anyhow! He maintained that a whole world of splendors belonged to them, and now they were in a hurry to get possession of them. Even the old rag-picker let himself be carried away with the rest; it was too alluring, the idea of giving way to a little intoxication, even if the everyday world was to come after it.

Pelle stood among them all, strong and hearty, listening to all their questions with a confident smile. He knew all that was to be theirs— even if it couldn't come just at once. It was a matter of patience and perseverance; but that they couldn't understand just now. When they had at last entered into their glory they would know well enough how to protect it. He had no doubts; he stood there among them like their embodied consciousness, happily growing from deeply-buried roots.



XIII

From the foundations of the "Ark" rose a peculiar sound, a stumbling, countrified footstep, dragging itself in heavy footgear over the flagstones. All Pelle's blood rushed to his heart; he threw down his work, and with a leap was on the gallery, quite convinced that this was only an empty dream.... But there below in the court stood Father Lasse in the flesh, staring up through the timbers, as though he couldn't believe his own eyes. He had a sack filled with rubbish on his back.

"Hallo!" cried Pelle, taking the stairs in long leaps. "Hallo!"

"Good-day, my lad!" said Lasse, in a voice trembling with emotion, considering his son with his lashless eyes. "Yes, here you have Father Lasse—if you will have him. But where, really, did you come from? Seems to me you fell down from heaven?"

Pelle took his father's sack. "You just come up with me," he said. "You can trust the stairs all right; they are stronger than they look."

"Then they are like Lasse," answered the old man, trudging up close behind him; the straps of his half-Wellingtons were peeping out at the side, and he was quite the old man. At every landing he stood still and uttered his comments on his surroundings. Pelle had to admonish him to be silent.

"One doesn't discuss everything aloud here. It might so easily be regarded as criticism," he said.

"No, really? Well, one must learn as long as one lives. But just look how they stand about chattering up here! There must be a whole courtyard-full! Well, well. I won't say any more. I knew they lived one on top of another, but I didn't think there'd be so little room here. To hang the backyard out in front of the kitchen door, one on top of another, that's just like the birds that build all on one bough. Lord God, suppose it was all to come tumbling down one fine day!"

"And do you live here?" he cried, gazing in a disillusioned manner round the room with its sloping ceiling. "I've often wondered how you were fixed up over here. A few days ago I met a man at home who said they were talking about you already; but one wouldn't think so from your lodgings. However, it isn't far to heaven, anyhow!"

Pelle was silent. He had come to love his den, and his whole life here; but Father Lasse continued to enlarge upon his hopes of his son's respectability and prosperity, and he felt ashamed. "Did you imagine I was living in one of the royal palaces?" he said, rather bitterly.

Lasse looked at him kindly and laid both hands on his shoulders. "So big and strong as you've grown, lad," he said, wondering. "Well, and now you have me here too! But I won't be a burden to you. No, but at home it had grown so dismal after what happened at Due's, that I got ready without sending you word. And then I was able to come over with one of the skippers for nothing."

"But what's this about Due?" asked Pelle. "I hope nothing bad?"

"Good God, haven't you heard? He revenged himself on his wife because he discovered her with the Consul. He had been absolutely blind, and had only believed the best of her, until he surprised her in her sin. Then he killed her, her and the children they had together, and went to the authorities and gave himself up. But the youngest, whom any one could see was the Consul's, he didn't touch. Oh, it was a dreadful misfortune! Before he gave himself up to the police he came to me; he wanted just one last time to be with some one who would talk it over with him without hypocrisy. 'I've strangled Anna,' he said, as soon as he had sat down. 'It had to be, and I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry. The children that were mine, too. I've dealt honestly with them.' Yes, yes, he had dealt honestly with the poor things! 'I just wanted to say goodbye to you, Lasse, for my life's over now, happy as I might have been, with my contented nature. But Anna always wanted to be climbing, and if I got on it was her shame I had to thank for it. I never wanted anything further than the simple happiness of the poor man—a good wife and a few children—and now I must go to prison! God be thanked that Anna hasn't lived to see that! She was finer in her feelings than the rest, and she had to deceive in order to get on in the world.' So he sat there, talking of the dead, and one couldn't notice any feeling in him. I wouldn't let him see how sick at heart he made me feel. For him it was the best thing, so long as his conscience could sleep easy. 'Your eyes are watering, Lasse,' he said quietly; 'you should bathe them a bit; they say urine is good.' Yes, God knows, my eyes did water! God of my life, yes! Then he stood up. 'You, too, Lasse, you haven't much longer life granted you,' he said, and he gave me his hand. 'You are growing old now. But you must give Pelle my greetings—he's safe to get on!'"

Pelle sat mournfully listening to the dismal story. But he shuddered at the last words. He had so often heard the expression of that anticipation of his good fortune, which they all seemed to feel, and had rejoiced to hear it; it was, after all, only an echo of his own self- confidence. But now it weighed upon him like a burden. It was always those who were sinking who believed in his luck; and as they sank they flung their hopes upward toward him. A grievous fashion was this in which his good fortune was prophesied! A terrible and grievous blessing it was that was spoken over him and his success in life by this man dedicated to death, even as he stepped upon the scaffold. Pelle sat staring at the floor without a sign of life, a brooding expression on his face; his very soul was shuddering at the foreboding of a superhuman burden; and suddenly a light was flashed before his eyes; there could never be happiness for him alone—the fairy-tale was dead! He was bound up with all the others—he must partake of happiness or misfortune with them; that was why the unfortunate Due gave him his blessing. In his soul he was conscious of Due's difficult journey, as though he himself had to endure the horror of it. And Fine Anna, who must clamber up over his own family and tread them in the dust! Never again could he wrench himself quite free as before! He had already encountered much unhappiness and had learned to hate its cause. But this was something more—this was very affliction itself!

"Yes," sighed Lasse, "a lucky thing that Brother Kalle did not live to see all this. He worked himself to skin and bone for his children, and now, for all thanks, he lied buried in the poorhouse burying-ground. Albinus, who travels about the country as a conjurer, was the only one who had a thought for him; but the money came too late, although it was sent by telegraph. Have you ever heard of a conjuring-trick like that— to send money from England to Bornholm over the telegraph cable? A devilish clever acrobat! Well, Brother Kalle, he knew all sorts of conjuring-tricks too, but he didn't learn them abroad. They had heard nothing at all of Alfred at the funeral. He belongs to the fine folks now and has cut off all connection with his poor relations. He has been appointed to various posts of honor, and they say he's a regular bloodhound toward the poor—a man's always worst toward his own kind. But the fine folks, they say, they think great things of him."

Pelle heard the old man's speech only as a monotonous trickle of sound.

Due, Due, the best, the most good-natured man he knew, who championed Anna's illegitimate child against her own mother, and loved her like his own, because she was defenceless and needed his love—Due was now to lay his head on the scaffold! So dearly bought was the fulfilment of his wish, to obtain a pair of horses and become a coachman! He had obtained the horses and a carriage on credit, and had himself made up for the instalments and the interest—the Consul had merely stood security for him. And for this humble success he was now treading the path of shame! His steps echoed in Pelle's soul; Pelle did not know how he was going to bear it. He longed for his former obtuseness.

Lasse continued to chatter. For him it was fate—grievous and heavy, but it could not be otherwise. And the meeting with Pelle had stirred up so many memories; he was quite excited. Everything he saw amused him. However did anybody hit on the idea of packing folks away like this, one on top of another, like herrings in a barrel? And at home on Bornholm there were whole stretches of country where no one lived at all! He did not venture to approach the window, but prudently stood a little way back in the room, looking out over the roofs. There, too, was a crazy arrangement! One could count the ears in a cornfield as easily as the houses over here!

Pelle called Marie, who had discreetly remained in her own room. "This is my foster-mother," he said, with his arm round her shoulders. "And that is Father Lasse, whom you are fond of already, so you always say. Now can you get us some breakfast?" He gave her money.

"She's a good girl, that she is," said Lasse, feeling in his sack. "She shall have a present. There's a red apple," he said to Marie, when she returned; "you must eat it, and then you'll be my sweetheart." Marie smiled gravely and looked at Pelle.

They borrowed the old clothes dealer's handcart and went across to the apple barges to fetch Lasse's belongings. He had sold most of them in order not to bring too great a load to the city. But he had retained a bedstead with bedding, and all sorts of other things. "And then I have still to give you greetings from Sort and Marie Nielsen," he said.

Pelle blushed. "I owe her a few words, but over here I quite forgot it somehow! And I have half promised her my portrait. I must see now about sending it."

"Yes, do," said Father Lasse. "I don't know how close you two stand to each other, but she was a good woman. And those who stay behind, they're sad when they're forgotten. Remember that."

At midday Lasse had tidied himself a trifle and began to brush his hat.

"What now?" inquired Pelle. "You don't want to go out all alone?"

"I want to go out and look at the city a bit," replied Lasse, as though it were quite a matter of course. "I want to find some work, and perhaps I'll go and have a peep at the king for once. You need only explain in which direction I must go."

"You had better wait until I can come with you—you'll only lose yourself."

"Shall I do that?" replied Lasse, offended. "But I found my way here alone, I seem to remember!"

"I can go with the old man!" said Marie.

"Yes, you come with the old man, then no one can say he has lost his youth!" cried Lasse jestingly, as he took her hand. "I think we two shall be good friends."

Toward evening they returned. "There are folks enough here," said Lasse, panting, "but there doesn't seem to be a superfluity of work. I've been asking first this one and then that, but no one will have me. Well, that's all right! If they won't, I can just put a spike on my stick and set to work collecting the bits of paper in the streets, like the other old men; I can at least do that still."

"But I can't give my consent to that," replied Pelle forcibly. "My father shan't become a scavenger!"

"Well—but I must get something to do, or I shall go back home again. I'm not going to go idling about here while you work."

"But you can surely rest and enjoy a little comfort in your old days, father. However, we shall soon see."

"I can rest, can I? I had better lie on my back and let myself be fed like a long-clothes child! Only I don't believe my back would stand it!"

They had placed Lasse's bed with the footboard under the sloping ceiling; there was just room enough for it. Pelle felt like a little boy when he went to bed that night; it was so many years since he had slept in the same room as Father Lasse. But in the night he was oppressed by evil dreams; Due's dreadful fate pursued him in his sleep. His energetic, good-humored face went drifting through the endless grayness, the head bowed low, the hands chained behind him, a heavy iron chain was about his neck, and his eyes were fixed on the ground as though he were searching the very abyss. When Pelle awoke it was because Father Lasse stood bending over his bed, feeling his face, as in the days of his childhood.



XIV

Lasse would not sit idle, and was busily employed in running about the city in search of work. When he spoke to Pelle he put a cheerful face on a bad business; and looked hopeful; but the capital had already disillusioned him. He could not understand all this hubbub, and felt that he was too old to enter into it and fathom its meaning—besides, perhaps it had none! It really looked as though everybody was just running to and fro and following his own nose, without troubling in the least about all the rest. And there were no greetings when you passed folks in the street; the whole thing was more than Lasse could understand. "I ought to have stayed at home," he would often think.

And as for Pelle—well, Pelle was taken up with his own affairs! That was only to be expected in a man. He ran about going to meetings and agitating, and had a great deal to do; his thoughts were continually occupied, so that there was no time for familiar gossip as in the old days. He was engaged, moreover, so that what time was not devoted to the Labor movement was given to his sweetheart. How the boy had grown, and how he had altered, bodily and in every way! Lasse had a feeling that he only reached up to Pelle's belt nowadays. He had grown terribly serious, and was quite the man; he looked as though he was ready to grasp the reins of something or other; you would never, to look at him, have thought that he was only a journeyman cobbler. There was an air of responsibility about him—just a little too much may be!

Marie got into the way of accompanying the old man. They had become good friends, and there was plenty for them to gossip over. She would take him to the courtyard of the Berlingske Tidende, where the people in search of work eddied about the advertisement board, filling up the gateway and forming a crowd in the street outside.

"We shall never get in there!" said Lasse dejectedly. But Marie worked herself forward; when people scolded her she scolded them back. Lasse was quite horrified by the language the child used; but it was a great help!

Marie read out the different notices, and Lasse made his comments on every one, and when the bystanders laughed Lasse gazed at them uncomprehendingly, then laughed with them, and nodded his head merrily. He entered into everything.

"What do you say? Gentleman's coachman? Yes, I can drive a pair of horses well enough, but perhaps I'm not fine enough for the gentry—I'm afraid my nose would drip!"

He looked about him importantly, like a child that is under observation. "But errand boy—that isn't so bad. We'll make a note of that. There's no great skill needed to be everybody's dog! House porter! Deuce take it—there one need only sit downstairs and make angry faces out of a basement window! We'll look in there and try our luck."

They impressed the addresses on their minds until they knew them by heart, and then squeezed their way out through the crowd. "Damn funny old codger!" said the people, looking after him with a smile—Lasse was quite high-spirited. They went from house to house, but no one had any use for him. The people only laughed at the broken old figure with the wide-toed boots.

"They laugh at me," said Lasse, quite cast down; "perhaps because I still look a bit countrified. But that after all can soon be overcome.

"I believe it's because you are so old and yet want to get work," said Marie.

"Do you think it can be on that account? Yet I'm only just seventy, and on both my father's and mother's side we have almost all lived to ninety. Do you really think that's it? If they'd only let me set to work they'd soon see there's still strength in old Lasse! Many a younger fellow would sit on his backside for sheer astonishment. But what are those people there, who stand there and look so dismal and keep their hands in their pockets?"

"Those are the unemployed; it's a slack time for work, and they say it will get still worse."

"And all those who were crowding round the notice-board—were they idle hands too?"

Marie nodded.

"But then it's worse here than at home—there at least we always have the stone-cutting when there is nothing else. And I had really believed that the good time had already begun over here!"

"Pelle says it will soon come,' said Marie consolingly.

"Yes, Pelle—he can well talk. He is young and healthy and has the time before him."

Lasse was in a bad temper; nothing seemed right to him. In order to give him pleasure, Marie took him to see the guard changed, which cheered him a little.

"Those are smart fellows truly," he said. "Hey, hey, how they hold themselves! And fine clothes too. But that they know well enough themselves! Yes—I've never been a king's soldier. I went up for it when I was young and felt I'd like it; I was a smart fellow then, you can take my word for it! But they wouldn't have me; my figure wouldn't do, they said; I had worked too hard, from the time I was quite a child. They'd got it into their heads in those days that a man ought to be made just so and so. I think it's to please the fine ladies. Otherwise I, too, might have defended my country."

Down by the Exchange the roadway was broken up; a crowd of navvies were at work digging out the foundation for a conduit. Lasse grew quite excited, and hurried up to them.

"That would be the sort of thing for me," he said, and he stood there and fell into a dream at the sight of the work. Every time the workers swung their picks he followed the movement with his old head. He drew closer and closer. "Hi," he said to one of the workers, who was taking a breath, "can a man get taken on here?"

The man took a long look at him. "Get taken on here?" he cried, turning more to his comrades than to Lasse. "Ah, you'd like to, would you? Here you foreigners come running, from Funen and Middlefart, and want to take the bread out of the mouths of us natives. Get away with you, you Jutland carrion!" Laughing, he swung his pick over his head.

Lasse drew slowly hack. "But he was angry!" he said dejectedly to Marie.

In the evening Pelle had to go to all his various meetings, whatever they might be. He had a great deal to do, and, hard as he worked, the situation still remained unfavorable. It was by no means so easy a thing, to break the back of poverty!

"You just look after your own affairs," said Lasse. "I sit here and chat a little with the children—and then I go to bed. I don't know why, but my body gets fonder and fonder of bed, although I've never been considered lazy exactly. It must be the grave that's calling me. But I can't go about idle any longer—I'm quite stiff in my body from doing it."

Formerly Lasse never used to speak of the grave; but now he had seemingly reconciled himself to the idea. "And the city is so big and so confusing," he told the children. "And the little one has put by soon runs through one's fingers."

He found it much easier to confide his troubles to them. Pelle had grown so big and so serious that he absolutely inspired respect. One could take no real pleasure in worrying him with trivialities.

But with the children he found himself in tune. They had to contend with little obstacles and difficulties, just as he did, and could grasp all his troubles. They gave him good, practical advice, and in return he gave them his senile words of wisdom.

"I don't exactly know why it is so," he said, "but this great city makes me quite confused and queer in the head. To mention nothing else, no one here knows me and looks after me when I go by. That takes all the courage out of my knees. At home there was always one or another who would turn his head and say to himself, 'Look, there goes old Lasse, he'll be going down to the harbor to break stone; devil take me, but how he holds himself! Many a man would nod to me too, and I myself knew every second man. Here they all go running by as if they were crazy! I don't understand how you manage to find employment here, Karl?"

"Oh, that's quite easy," replied the boy. "About six in the morning I get to the vegetable market; there is always something to be delivered for the small dealers who can't keep a man. When the vegetable market is over I deliver flowers for the gardeners. That's a very uncertain business, for I get nothing more than the tips. And besides that I run wherever I think there's anything going. To the East Bridge and out to Frederiksburg. And I have a few regular places too, where I go every afternoon for an hour and deliver goods. There's always something if one runs about properly."

"And does that provide you with an average good employment every day?" said Lasse wonderingly. "The arrangement looks to me a little uncertain. In the morning you can't be sure you will have earned anything when the night comes."

"Ah, Karl is so quick," said Marie knowingly. "When the times are ordinarily good he can earn a krone a day regularly."

"And that could really be made a regular calling?" No, Lasse couldn't understand it.

"Very often it's evening before I have earned anything at all, but one just has to stir one's stumps; there's always something or other if one knows where to look for it."

"What do you think—suppose I were to go with you?" said Lasse thoughtfully.

"You can't do that, because I run the whole time. Really you'd do much better to hide one of your arms."

"Hide one of my arms?" said Lasse wonderingly.

"Yes—stick one arm under your coat and then go up to people and ask them for something. That wouldn't be any trouble to you, you look like an invalid."

"Do I, indeed?" asked Lasse, blinking his eyes. "I never knew that before. But even if that were so I shouldn't like to beg at people's doors. I don't think any one will get old Lasse to do that."

"Then go along to the lime works—they are looking for stone-breakers these days," said the omniscient youngster.

"Now you are talking!" said Lasse; "so they have stone here? Yes, I brought my stone-cutter's tools with me, and if there's one thing on earth I long to do it is to be able to bang away at a stone again!"



XV

Pelle was now a man; he was able to look after his own affairs and a little more besides; and he was capable of weighing one circumstance against another. He had thrust aside his horror concerning Due's fate, and once again saw light in the future. But this horror still lurked within his mind, corroding everything else, lending everything a gloomy, sinister hue. Over his brow brooded a dark cloud, as to which he himself was not quite clear. But Ellen saw it and stroked it away with her soft fingers, in order to make it disappear. It formed a curious contrast to his fresh, ruddy face, like a meaningless threat upon a fine spring day.

He began to be conscious of confidence like a sustaining strength. It was not only in the "Ark" that he was idolized; his comrades looked up to him; if there was anything important in hand their eyes involuntarily turned to him. Although he had, thoughtlessly enough, well-nigh wrecked the organism in order to come to grips with Meyer, he had fully made up for his action, and the Union was now stronger than ever, and this was his doing. So he could stretch his limbs and give a little thought to his own affairs.

He and Ellen felt a warm longing to come together and live in their own little home. There were many objections that might be opposed to such a course, and he was not blind to them. Pelle was a valiant worker, but his earnings were not so large that one could found a family on them; it was the naked truth that even a good worker could not properly support a wife and children. He counted on children as a matter of course, and the day would come also when Father Lasse would no longer be able to earn his daily bread. But that day lay still in the remote future, and, on the other hand, it was no more expensive to live with a companion than alone—if that companion was a good and saving wife. If a man meant to enjoy some little share of the joy of life, he must close his eyes and leap over all obstacles, and for once put his trust in the exceptional.