"Yes, now you can see what a domestic affliction I have to bear," Pelle answered gravely.

Ellen let them talk. The trunk was now cram full, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that he would not be going about like a tramp. There were only his toilet articles left now; even those he had forgotten. She drew a huge volume out of the pocket for these articles inside the lid of the trunk to make room for his washing things; but at that Morten sprang forward. "I must have that with me, whatever else is left out," he said with determination. It was Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables," Morten's Bible.

Ellen opened it at the title-page to see if it really was so necessary to travel about with such a monster; it was as big as a loaf.

"There's no room for it," she declared, and quietly laid it on one side, "that's to say if you want things to wash yourself with; and you're sure to meet plenty of unhappy people wherever you go, for there's always enough of them everywhere."

"Then perhaps Madam will not permit me to take my writing things with me?" questioned Morten, in a tone of supplication.

"Oh, yes!" answered Ellen, laughing, "and you may use them too, to do something beautiful—that's to say if it's us poor people you're writing for. There's sorrow and misery enough!"

"When the sun's shone properly upon me, I'll come home and write you a book about it," said Morten seriously.

The following day was Sunday. Morten was up early and went out to the churchyard. He was gone a long time, and they waited breakfast for him. "He's coming now!" cried Lasse Frederik, who had been up to the hill farm for milk. "I saw him down in the field."

"Then we can put the eggs on," said Ellen to Sister, who helped her a little in the kitchen.

Morten was in a solemn mood. "The roses on Johanna's grave have been picked again," he said. "I can't imagine how any one can have the heart to rob the dead; they are really the poorest of us all."

"I'm glad to hear you say that!" exclaimed Pelle. "A month ago you thought the dead were the only ones who were well off."

"You're a rock!" said Morten, smiling and putting his hands on the other's shoulders. "If everything else were to change, we should always know where you were to be found."

"Come to table!" cried Ellen, "but at once, or the surprise will be cold." She stood waiting with a covered dish in her hand.

"Why, I believe you've got new-laid eggs there!" exclaimed Pelle, in astonishment.

"Yes, the hens have begun to lay again the last few days. It must be in Morten's honor."

"No, it's in honor of the fine weather, and because they're allowed to run about anywhere now," said Lasse Frederik.

Morten laughed. "Lasse Frederik's an incorrigible realist," he said. "Life needs no adornment for him."

Ellen looked well after Morten. "Now you must make a good breakfast," she said. "You can't be sure you'll get proper food out there in foreign countries." She was thinking with horror of the messes her lodgers in the "Palace" had put together.

The carriage was at the door, the trunk was put up beside the driver, and Morten and Pelle got into the carriage, not before it was time either. They started at a good pace, Lasse Frederik and Sister each standing on a step all the way down to the main road. Up at the gable window Ellen stood and waved, holding Boy Comfort by the hand.

"It must be strange to go away from everything," said Pelle.

"Yes, it might be strange for you," answered Morten, taking a last look at Pelle's home. "But I'm not going away from anything; on the contrary, I'm going to meet things."

"It'll be strange at any rate not having you walking about overhead any more, especially for Ellen and the children. But I suppose we shall hear from you?"

"Oh, yes! and you'll let me hear how your business gets on, won't you?"

The train started. Pelle felt his heart contract as he stood and gazed after it, feeling as though it were taking part of him with it. It had always been a dream of his to go out and see a little of the world; ever since "Garibaldi" had appeared in the little workshop at home in the provincial town he had looked forward to it. Now Morten was going, but he himself would never get away; he must be content with the "journey abroad" he had had. For a moment Pelle stood looking along the lines where the train had disappeared, with his thoughts far away in melancholy dreams; then he woke up and discovered that without intending it he had been feeling his home a clog upon his feet. And there were Ellen and the children at home watching for his coming, while he stood here and dreamed himself away from them! They would do nothing until he came, for Sunday was his day, the only day they really had him. He hurried out and jumped onto a tram.

As he leaped over the ditch into the field at the tramway terminus, he caught sight of Brun a little farther along the path. The old librarian was toiling up the hill, his asthma making him pause every now and then. "He's on his way to us!" said Pelle to himself, touched at the thought; it had not struck him before how toilsome this walk over ploughed fields and along bad roads must be for the old man; and yet he did it several times in the week to come out and see them.

"Well, here I am again!" said Brun. "I only hope you're not getting tired of me."

"There's no danger of that!" answered Pelle, taking his arm to help him up the hill. "The children are quite silly about you!"

"Yes, the children—I'm safe enough with them, and with you too, Pelle; but your wife makes me a little uncertain."

"Ellen's rather reserved, but it's only her manner; she's very fond of you," said Pelle warmly. "Any one who takes the children on his knee wins Ellen's heart."

"Do you really think so? I've always despised woman because she lacks personality—until I got to know your wife. She's an exceptional wife you've got, Pelle; hers is a strong nature, so strong that she makes me uncertain. Couldn't you get her to leave off calling me Mr. Brun?"

"I'll tell her," said Pelle, laughing; "but I'm not sure it'll be of any use."

"This Mr. Brun is beginning to be an intolerable person, let me tell you; and in your house I should like to get away from him. Just imagine what it means to be burdened all your life with a gentleman like that, who doesn't stand in close relationship to anybody at all. Others are called 'Father,' 'Grandfather'—something or other human; but all conditions of life dispose of me with a 'Mr. Brun'! 'Thank you, Mr. Brun!' 'Many thanks, Mr. Brun!'" The old man had worked himself up, and made the name a caricature.

"These are bad roads out here," he said suddenly, stopping to take breath. "It's incomprehensible that these fields should be allowed to lie here just outside the town—that speculation hasn't got hold of them."

"I suppose it's because of the boggy ground down there," said Pelle. "They've begun to fill it in, however, at the north end, I see."

Brun peered in that direction with some interest, but gave it up, shaking his head.

"No, I can't see so far without glasses; that's another of the blessings bestowed by books. Yes, it is! Old people in the country only make use of spectacles when they want to look at a book, but I have to resort to them when I want to find my way about the world: that makes a great difference. It's the fault of the streets and those stupid books that I'm shortsighted; you don't get any outlook if you don't live in the country. The town shuts up all your senses, and the books take you away from life; so I'm thinking of moving out too."

"Is that wise now just before the winter? It wouldn't do for you to go in and out in all kinds of weather."

"Then I'll give up the library," answered Brun. "I shan't miss it much; I've spent enough of my life there. Fancy, Pelle! it occurred to me last night that I'd helped to catalogue most of the literature of the world, but haven't even seen a baby dressed! What right have people like me to have an opinion?"

"I can't understand that," said Pelle. "Books have given me so much help."

"Yes, because you had the real thing. If I were young, I would go out and set to work with my hands. I've missed more through never having worked with my body till I was hot and tired, than you have through not knowing the great classic writers. I'm discovering my own poverty, Pelle; and I would willingly exchange everything for a place as grandfather by a cozy fireside."

The children came running across the field. "Have you got anything for us to-day?" they cried from a long distance.

"Yes, but not until we get into the warmth. I daren't unbutton my coat out here because of my cough."

"Well, but you walk so slowly," said Boy Comfort. "Is it because you're so old?"

"Yes, that's it," answered the old man, laughing. "You must exercise a little patience."

Patience, however, was a thing of which the children possessed little, and they seized hold of his coat and pulled him along. He was quite out of breath when they reached the house.

Ellen looked severely at the children, but said nothing. She helped Brun off with his coat and neckerchief, and after seeing him comfortably seated in the sitting-room, went out into the kitchen. Pelle guessed there was something she wanted to say to him, and followed her.

"Pelle," she said gravely, "the children are much too free with Mr. Brun. I can't think how you can let them do it."

"Well, but he likes it, Ellen, or of course I should stop them. It's just what he likes. And do you know what I think he would like still better? If you would ask him to live with us."

"That I'll never do!" declared Ellen decidedly. "It would look so extraordinary of me."

"But if he wants a home, and likes us? He's got no friends but us."

No—no, Ellen could not understand that all the same, with the little they had to offer. And Brun, who could afford to pay for all the comforts that could be had for money! "If he came, I should have to have new table-linen at any rate, and good carpets on the floors, and lots of other things."

"You can have them too," said Pelle. "Of course we'll have everything as nice as we can, though Brun's quite as easily pleased as we are."

That might be so, but Ellen was the mistress of the house, and there were things she could not let go. "If Mr. Brun would like to live with us, he shall be made comfortable," she said; "but it's funny he doesn't propose it himself, for he can do it much better than we can."

"No, it must come from us—from you, Ellen. He's a little afraid of you."

"Of me?" exclaimed Ellen, in dismay. "And I who would—why, there's no one I'd sooner be kind to! Then I'll say it, Pelle, but not just now." She put up her hands to her face, which was glowing with pleasure and confusion at the thought that her little home was worth so much.

Pelle went back to the sitting-room. Brun was sitting on the sofa with Boy Comfort on his knee. "He's a regular little urchin!" he said. "But he's not at all like his mother. He's got your features all through."

"Ellen isn't his mother," said Pelle, in a low voice.

"Oh, isn't she! It's funny that he should have those three wrinkles in his forehead like you; they're like the wave-lines in the countenance of Denmark. You both look as if you were always angry."

"So we were at that time," said Pelle.

"Talking of anger"—Brun went on—"I applied to the police authorities yesterday, and got them to promise to give up their persecution of Peter Dreyer, on condition that he ceases his agitation among the soldiers."

"We shall never get him to agree to that; it would be the same thing as requiring him to swear away his rights as a man. He has taught himself, by a great effort, to use parliamentary expressions, and nobody'll ever get him to do more. In the matter of the Cause itself he'll never yield, and there I agree with him. If you mayn't even fight the existing conditions with spiritual weapons, there'll be an end of everything."

"Yes, that's true," said Brun, "only I'm sorry for him. The police keep him in a perpetual state of inflammation. He can't have any pleasure in life."



XVI

Pelle was always hoping that Peter Dreyer would acquire a calmer view of life. It was his intention to start a cooperative business in the course of the spring at Aarhus too, and Peter was appointed to start it. But his spirit seemed incurable; every time he calmed down a little, conditions roused him to antagonism again. This time it was the increase of unemployment that touched him.

The senseless persecution, moreover, kept him in a state of perpetual irritation. Even when he was left alone, as now, he had the feeling that they were wondering how they could get him to blunder—apparently closed their eyes in order to come down upon him with all the more force. He never knew whether he was bought or sold.

The business was now so large that they had to move the actual factory into the back building, and take the whole of the basement for the repairing workshop. Peter Dreyer managed this workshop, and there was no fault to find with his management; he was energetic and vigilant. He was not capable, however, of managing work on a large scale, for his mind was in constant oscillation. In spite of his abilities he was burning to no purpose.

"He might drop his agitation and take up something more useful," said Brun, one evening when he and Pelle sat discussing the matter. "Nothing's accomplished by violence anyhow! And he's only running his head against a brick wall himself!"

"You didn't think so some time ago," said Pelle. It was Brun's pamphlets on the rights of the individual that had first roused Peter Dreyer's attention.

"No, I know that. I once thought that the whole thing must be smashed to pieces in order that a new world might arise out of chaos. I didn't know you, and I didn't think my own class too good to be tossed aside; they were only hindering the development. But you've converted me. I was a little too quick to condemn your slowness; you have more connectedness in you than I. Our little business in there has proved to me that the common people are wise to admit their heritage from and debt to the upper class. I'm sorry to see Peter running off the track; he's one of your more talented men. Couldn't we get him out here? He could have one of my rooms. I think he needs a few more comforts."

"You'd better propose it to him yourself," said Pelle.

The next day Brun went into town with Pelle and proposed it, but Peter Dreyer declined with thanks. "I've no right to your comforts as long as there are twenty thousand men that have neither food nor firing," he said, dismissing the subject. "But you're an anarchist, of course," he added scornfully, "and a millionaire, from what I hear; so the unemployed have nothing to fear!" He had been disappointed on becoming personally acquainted with the old philosopher, and never disguised his ill-will.

"I think you know that I have already placed my fortune at the disposal of the poor," said Brun, in an offended tone, "and my manner of doing so will, I hope, some day justify itself. If I were to divide what I possess to-day among the unemployed, it would have evaporated like dew by to-morrow, so tremendous, unfortunately, is the want now."

Peter Dreyer shrugged his shoulders. The more reason was there, he thought, to help.

"Would you have us sacrifice our great plan of making all want unnecessary, for one meal of food to the needy?" asked Pelle.

Yes, Peter saw only the want of to-day; it was such a terrible reality to him that the future must take care of itself.

A change had taken place in him, and he seemed quite to have given up the development.

"He sees too much," said Pelle to Brun, "and now his heart has dominated his reason. We'd better leave him alone; we shan't in any case get him to admit anything, and we only irritate him. It's impossible to live with all that he always has before his eyes, and yet keep your head clear; you must either shut your eyes and harden yourself, or let yourself be broken to pieces."

Peter Dreyer's heart was the obstruction. He often had to stop in the middle of his work and gasp for breath. "I'm suffocated!" he would say.

There were many like him. The ever-increasing unemployment began to spread panic in men's minds. It was no longer only the young, hot-headed men who lost patience. Out of the great compact mass of organization, in which it had hitherto been impossible to distinguish the individual beings, simple-minded men suddenly emerged and made themselves ridiculous by bearing the truth of the age upon their lips. Poor people, who understood nothing of the laws of life, nevertheless awakened, disappointed, out of the drowsiness into which the rhythm had lulled them, and stirred impatiently. Nothing happened except that one picked trade after another left them to become middle-class.

The Movement had hitherto been the fixed point of departure; from it came everything that was of any importance, and the light fell from it over the day. But now suddenly a germ was developed in the simplest of them, and they put a note of interrogation after the party-cry. To everything the answer was: When the Movement is victorious, things will be otherwise. But how could they be otherwise when no change had taken place even now when they had the power? A little improvement, perhaps, but no change. It had become the regular refrain, whenever a woman gave birth to a child in secret, or a man stole, or beat his wife:—It is a consequence of the system! Up and vote, comrades! But now it was beginning to sound idiotic in their ears. They were voting, confound it, with all their might, but all the same everything was becoming dearer! Goodness knows they were law-abiding enough. They were positively perspiring with parliamentarianism, and would soon be doing nothing but getting mandates. And what then? Did any one doubt that the poor man was in the majority—an overwhelming majority? What was all this nonsense then that the majority were to gain? No, those who had the power would take good care to keep it; so they might win whatever stupid mandates they liked!

Men had too much respect for the existing conditions, and so they were always being fooled by them. It was all very well with all this lawfulness, but you didn't only go gradually from the one to the other! How else was it that nothing of the new happened? The fact was that every single step toward the new was instantly swallowed up by the existing condition of things, and turned to fat on its ribs. Capital grew fat, confound it, no matter what you did with it; it was like a cat, which always falls upon its feet. Each time the workmen obtained by force a small rise in their wages, the employers multiplied it by two and put it onto the goods; that was why they were beginning to be so accommodating with regard to certain wage-demands. Those who were rather well off, capital enticed over to its side, leaving the others behind as a shabby proletariat. It might be that the Movement had done a good piece of work, but you wanted confounded good eyes to see it.

Thus voices were raised. At first it was only whiners about whom nobody needed to trouble-frequenters of public-houses, who sat and grumbled in their cups; but gradually it became talk that passed from mouth to mouth; the specter of unemployment haunted every home and made men think over matters once more on their own account; no one could know when his turn would come to sweep the pavement.

Pelle had no difficulty in catching the tone of all this; it was his own settlement with the advance on coming out of prison that was now about to become every one's. But now he was another man! He was no longer sure that the Movement had been so useless. It had not done anything that marked a boundary, but it had kept the apparatus going and strengthened it. It had carried the masses over a dead period, even if only by letting them go in a circle. And now the idea was ready to take them again. Perhaps it was a good thing that there had not been too great progress, or they would probably never have wakened again. They might very well starve a little longer, until they could establish themselves in their own world; fat slaves soon lost sight of liberty.

Behind the discontented fussing Pelle could hear the new. It expressed itself in remarkable ways. A party of workmen—more than two hundred— who were employed on a large excavation work, were thrown out of work by the bankruptcy of the contractor. A new contractor took over the work, but the men made it a condition for beginning work again that he should pay them the wages that were due to them, and also for the time they were unemployed. "We have no share in the cake," they said, "so you must take the risk too!" They made the one employer responsible for the other! And capriciously refused good work at a time when thousands were unemployed! Public opinion almost lost its head, and even their own press held aloof from them; but they obstinately kept to their determination, and joined the crowd of unemployed until their unreasonable demand was submitted to.

Pelle heard a new tone here. For the first time the lower class made capital responsible for its sins, without any petty distinction between Tom, Dick, and Harry. There was beginning to be perspective in the feeling of solidarity.

The great weariness occasioned by wandering in a spiritual desert came once more to the surface. He had experienced the same thing once before, when the Movement was raised; but oddly enough the breaking out came that time from the bottom of everything. It began with blind attacks on parliamentarianism, the suffrage, and the paroles; there was in it an unconscious rebellion against restraint and treatment in the mass. By an incomprehensible process of renewal, the mass began to resolve itself into individuals, who, in the midst of the bad times, set about an inquiry after the ego and the laws for its satisfaction. They came from the very bottom, and demanded that their shabby, ragged person should be respected.

Where did they come from? It was a complete mystery! Did it not sound foolish that the poor man, after a century's life in rags and discomfort, which ended in his entire effacement in collectivism, should now make his appearance with the strongest claim of all, and demand his soul back?

Pelle recognized the impatience of the young men in this commotion. It was not for nothing that Peter Dreyer was the moving spirit at the meetings of the unemployed. Peter wanted him to come and speak, and he went with him two or three times, as he wanted to find out the relation of these people to his idea; but he remained in the background and could not be persuaded to mount the platform. He had nothing to do with these confused crowds, who turned all his ideas upside down. In any case he could not give them food to-day, and he had grown out of the use of strong language.

"Go up and say something nice to them! Don't you see how starved they are?" said Peter Dreyer, one evening. "They still have confidence in you from old days. But don't preach cooperation; you don't feed hungry men with music of the future."

"Do you give them food then?" asked Pelle.

"No, I can't do that, but I give them a vent for their grievances, and get them to rise and protest. It's something at any rate, that they no longer keep silence and submit."

"And if to-morrow they get something to eat, the whole turmoil's forgotten; but they're no further on than they were. Isn't it a matter of indifference whether they suffer want today, as compared with the question whether they will do so eternally?"

"If you can put the responsibility upon those poor creatures, you must be a hard-hearted brute!" said Peter angrily.

Well, it was necessary now to harden one's heart, for nothing would be accomplished with sympathy only! The man with eyes that watered would not do for a driver through the darkness.

It was a dull time, and men were glad when they could keep their situations. There was no question of new undertakings before the spring. But Pelle worked hard to gain adherents to his idea. He had started a discussion in the labor party press, and gave lectures. He chose the quiet trade unions, disdained all agitation eloquence, and put forward his idea with the clearness of an expert, building it up from his own experience until, without any fuss, by the mere power of the facts, it embraced the world. It was the slow ones he wanted to get hold of, those who had been the firm nucleus of the Movement through all these years, and steadfastly continued to walk in the old foot-prints, although they led nowhere. It was the picked troops from the great conflict that must first of all be called upon! He knew that if he got them to go into fire for his idea with their unyielding discipline, much would be gained.

It was high time for a new idea to come and take them on; they had grown weary of this perpetual goose-step; the Movement was running away from them. But now he had come with an idea of which they would never grow weary, and which would carry them right through. No one would be able to say that he could not understand it, for it was the simple idea of the home carried out so as to include everything. Ellen had taught it to him, and if they did not know it themselves, they must go home to their wives and learn it. They did not brood over the question as to which of the family paid least or ate most, but gave to each one according to his needs, and took the will for the deed. The world would be like a good, loving home, where no one oppressed the other—nothing more complicated than that.

Pelle was at work early and late. Scarcely a day passed on which he did not give a lecture or write about his cooperation idea. He was frequently summoned into the provinces to speak. People wanted to see and hear the remarkable manufacturer who earned no more than his work- people.

In these journeys he came to know the country, and saw that much of his idea had been anticipated out there. The peasant, who stiffened with horror at the word "socialist," put the ideas of the Movement into practice on a large scale. He had arranged matters on the cooperative system, and had knitted the country into supply associations.

"We must join on there when we get our business into better order," said Pelle to Brun.

"Yes, if the farmers will work with us," said Brun doubtfully. "They're conservative, you know."

This was now almost revolutionary. As far as Pelle could see, there would soon be no place as big as his thumb-nail for capital to feed upon out there. The farmers went about things so quickly! Pelle came of peasant stock himself, and did not doubt that he would be able to get in touch with the country when the time came.

The development was preparing on several sides; they would not break with that if they wanted to attain anything.

It was like a fixed law relating to growth in existence, an inviolable divine idea running through it all. It was now leading him and his fellows into the fire, and when they advanced, no one must stay behind. No class of the community had yet advanced with so bright and great a call; they were going to put an end forever to the infamy of human genius sitting and weighing the spheres in space, but forgetting to weigh the bread justly.

He was not tired of the awakening discontent with the old condition of things; it opened up the overgrown minds, and created possibility for the new. At present he had no great number of adherents; various new currents were fighting over the minds, which, in their faltering search, were drawn now to one side, now to the other. But he had a buoyant feeling of serving a world-idea, and did not lose courage.

Unemployment and the awakening ego-feeling brought many to join Peter Dreyer. They rebelled against the conditions, and now saw no alternative but to break with everything. They sprang naked out of nothing, and demanded that their personality should be respected, but were unable as yet to bear its burdens; and their hopeless view of their misery threatened to stifle them. Then they made obstruction, their own broken- down condition making them want to break down the whole. They were Pelle's most troublesome opponents.

Up to the present they had unfortunately been right, but now he could not comprehend their desperate impatience. He had given them an idea now, with which they could conquer the world just by preserving their coherence, and if they did not accept this, there must be something wrong with them. Taking this view of the matter, he looked upon their disintegrating agitation with composure; the healthy mind would be victorious!

Peter Dreyer was at present agitating for a mass-meeting of the unemployed. He wanted the twenty thousand men, with wives and children, to take up their position on the Council House Square or Amalienborg Palace Square, and refuse to move away until the community took charge of them.

"Then the authorities can choose between listening to their demands, and driving up horses and cannon," he said. Perhaps that would open up the question.

"Take care then that the police don't arrest you," said Pelle, in a warning voice; "or your people will be left without a head, and you will have enticed them into a ridiculous situation which can only end in defeat."

"Let them take care, the curs!" answered Peter threateningly. "I shall strike at the first hand that attempts to seize me!"

"And what then? What do you gain by striking the policemen? They are only the tool, and there are plenty of them!".

Peter laughed bitterly. "No," he said, "it's not the policemen, nor the assistant, nor the chief of police! It's no one! That's so convenient, no one can help it! They've always stolen a march upon us in that way; the evil always dives and disappears when you want to catch it. 'It wasn't me!' Now the workman's demanding his right, the employer finds it to his advantage to disappear, and the impersonal joint stock company appears. Oh, this confounded sneaking out of a thing! Where is one to apply? There's no one to take the blame! But something shall be done now! If I hit the hand, I hit what stands behind it too; you must hit what you can see. I've got a revolver to use against the police; to carry arms against one's own people shall not be made a harmless means of livelihood unchallenged."



XVII

One Saturday evening Pelle came home by train from a provincial town where he had been helping to start a cooperative undertaking.

It was late, but many shops were still open and sent their brilliant light out into the drizzling rain, through which the black stream of the streets flowed as fast as ever. It was the time when the working women came from the center of the city—pale typists, cashiers with the excitement of the cheap novel still in their eyes, seamstresses from the large businesses. Some hurried along looking straight before them without taking any notice of the solitary street-wanderers; they had something waiting for them—a little child perhaps. Others had nothing to hurry for, and looked weariedly about them as they walked, until perhaps they suddenly brightened up at sight of a young man in the throng.

Charwomen were on their way home with their basket on their arm. They had had a long day, and dragged their heavy feet along. The street was full of women workers—a changed world! The bad times had called the women out and left the men at home. On their way home they made their purchases for Sunday. In the butchers' and provision-dealers' they stood waiting like tired horses for their turn. Shivering children stood on tiptoe with their money clasped convulsively in one hand, and their chin supported on the edge of the counter, staring greedily at the eatables, while the light was reflected from their ravenous eyes.

Pelle walked quickly to reach the open country. He did not like these desolate streets on the outskirts of the city, where poverty rose like a sea-birds' nesting-place on both sides of the narrow cleft, and the darkness sighed beneath so much. When he entered an endless brick channel such as these, where one- and two-roomed flats, in seven stories extended as far as he could see, he felt his courage forsaking him. It was like passing through a huge churchyard of disappointed hopes. All these thousands of families were like so many unhappy fates; they had set out brightly and hopefully, and now they stood here, fighting with the emptiness.

Pelle walked quickly out along the field road. It was pitch-dark and raining, but he knew every ditch and path by heart. Far up on the hill there shone a light which resembled a star that hung low in the sky. It must be the lamp in Brun's bedroom. He wondered at the old man being up still, for he was soon tired now that he had given up the occupation of a long lifetime, and generally went to bed early. Perhaps he had forgotten to put out the lamp.

Pelle had turned his coat-collar up about his ears, and was in a comfortable frame of mind. He liked walking alone in the dark. Formerly its yawning emptiness had filled him with a panic of fear, but the prison had made his mind familiar with it. He used to look forward to these lonely night walks home across the fields. The noises of the city died away behind him, and he breathed the pure air that seemed to come straight to him out of space. All that a man cannot impart to others arose in him in these walks. In the daily struggle he often had a depressing feeling that the result depended upon pure chance. It was not easy to obtain a hearing through the thousand-voiced noise. A sensation was needed in order to attract attention, and he had presented himself with only quite an ordinary idea, and declared that without stopping a wheel it could remodel the world. No one took the trouble to oppose him, and even the manufacturers in his trade took his enterprise calmly and seemed to have given up the war against him. He had expected great opposition, and had looked forward to overcoming it, and this indifference sometimes made him doubt himself. His invincible idea would simply disappear in the motley confusion of life!

But out here in the country, where night lay upon the earth like great rest, his strength returned to him. All the indifference fell away, and he saw that like the piers of a bridge, his reality lay beneath the surface. Insignificant though he appeared, he rested upon an immense foundation. The solitude around him revealed it to him and made him feel his own power. While they overlooked his enterprise he would make it so strong that they would run their head against it when they awoke.

Pelle was glad he lived in the country, and it was a dream of his to move the workmen out there again some day. He disliked the town more and more, and never became quite familiar with it. It was always just as strange to go about in this humming hive, where each seemed to buzz on his own account, and yet all were subject to one great will—that of hunger. The town exerted a dull power over men's minds, it drew the poor to it with lies about happiness, and when it once had them, held them fiendishly fast. The poisonous air was like opium; the most miserable beings dream they are happy in it; and when they have once got a taste for it, they had not the strength of mind to go back to the uneventful everyday life again. There was always something dreadful behind the town's physiognomy, as though it were lying in wait to drag men into its net and fleece them. In the daytime it might be concealed by the multitudinous noises, but the darkness brought it out.

Every evening before Pelle went to bed he went out to the end of the house and gazed out into the night. It was an old peasant-custom that he had inherited from Father Lasse and his father before him. His inquiring gaze sought the town where his thoughts already were. On sunny days there was only smoke and mist to be seen, but on a dark night like this there was a cheerful glow above it. The town had a peculiar power of shedding darkness round about it, and lighting white artificial light in it. It lay low, like a bog with the land sloping down to it on all sides, and all water running into it. Its luminous mist seemed to reach to the uttermost borders of the land; everything came this way. Large dragon-flies hovered over the bog in metallic splendor; gnats danced above it like careless shadows. A ceaseless hum rose from it, and below lay the depth that had fostered them, seething so that he could hear it where he stood.

Sometimes the light of the town flickered up over the sky like the reflection from a gigantic forge-fire. It was like an enormous heart throbbing in panic in the darkness down there; his own caught the infection and contracted in vague terror. Cries would suddenly rise from down there, and one almost wished for them; a loud exclamation was a relief from the everlasting latent excitement. Down there beneath the walls of the city the darkness was always alive; it glided along like a heavy life-stream, flowing slowly among taverns and low music-halls and barracks, with their fateful contents of want and imprecations. Its secret doings inspired him with horror; he hated the town for its darkness which hid so much.

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

"Thank goodness you've come!" she exclaimed, quite forgetting to greet him. "Anna's so ill!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked tired, but she could not persuade him; he meant to stay up there. "I can't sleep anyhow as things are," he whispered, "and to- morrow's Sunday."

"Then lie down on my bed! It'll rest you a little."

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

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

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

"It ought to be though," said Pelle, "or else she's a poor little poisoned thing."

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

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

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

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

Pelle nodded. It was impossible for him to speak.

"Will you paint the ceiling black to show you're sorry about me? Will you, father?" she continued inexorably, looking at him.

"Yes, yes!" said Ellen desperately, kissing her lips to make her stop talking. The child turned over contentedly, and in another moment she was asleep.

"She's not hot now," whispered Pelle. "I think the fever's gone." His face was very grave. Death had passed its cold hand over it; he knew it was only in jest, but he could not shake off the impression it had made.

They sat silent, listening to the child's breathing, which was now quiet. Ellen had put her hand into Pelle's, and every now and then she shuddered. They did not move, but simply sat and listened, while the time ran singing on. Then the cock crew below, and roused Pelle. It was three o'clock, and the child had slept for two hours. The lamp had almost burned dry, and he could scarcely see Ellen's profile in the semi-darkness. She looked tired.

He rose noiselessly and kissed her forehead. "Go downstairs and go to bed," he whispered, leading her toward the door.

Stealthy footsteps were heard outside. It was Brun who had been down to listen at the door. He had not been to bed at all. The lamp was burning in his sitting-room, and the table was covered with papers. He had been writing.

He became very cheerful when he heard that the attack was over. "I think you ought rather to treat us to a cup of coffee," he answered, when Ellen scolded him because he was not asleep.

Ellen went down and made the coffee, and they drank it in Brun's room. The doors were left ajar so that they could hear the child.

"It's been a long night," said Pelle, passing his hand across his forehead.

"Yes, if there are going to be more like it, we shall certainly have to move back into town," said Ellen obstinately.

"It would be a better plan to begin giving her a cold bath in the morning as soon as she's well again, and try to get her hardened," said Pelle.

"Do you know," said Ellen, turning to Brun, "Pelle thinks it's the bad air and the good air fighting for the child, and that's the only reason why she's worse here than in town."

"So it is," said Brun gravely; "and a sick child like that gives one something to think about."



XVIII

The next day they were up late. Ellen did not wake until about ten, and was quite horrified; but when she got up she found the fire on and everything in order, for Lasse Frederik had seen to it all. She could start on breakfast at once.

Sister was quite bright again, and Ellen moved her into the sitting-room and made up a bed on the sofa, where she sat packed in with pillows, and had her breakfast with the others.

"Are you sorry Sister's getting well, old man?" asked Boy Comfort.

"My name isn't 'old man.' It's 'grandfather' or else 'Mr. Brun,'" said the librarian, laughing and looking at Ellen, who blushed.

"Are you sorry Sister's getting well, grandfather?" repeated the boy with a funny, pedantic literalness.

"And why should I be sorry for that, you little stupid?"

"Because you've got to give money!"

"The doll, yes! That's true! You'll have to wait till tomorrow, Sister, because to-day's Sunday."

Anna had eaten her egg and turned the shell upside down in the egg-cup so that it looked like an egg that had not been touched. She pushed it slowly toward Brun.

"What's the matter now?" he exclaimed, pushing his spectacles up onto his forehead. "You haven't eaten your egg!"

"I can't," she said, hanging her head.

"Why, there must be something wrong with her!" said the old man, in amazement. "Such a big, fat egg too! Very well, then I must eat it." And he began to crack the egg, Anna and Boy Comfort following his movements with dancing eyes and their hands over their mouths, until his spoon went through the shell and he sprang up to throw it at their heads, when their merriment burst forth. It was a joke that never suffered by repetition.

While breakfast was in progress, the farmer from the hill farm came in to tell them that they must be prepared to move out, as he meant to sell the house. He was one of those farmers of common-land, whom the city had thrown off their balance. He had lived up there and had seen one farm after another grow larger and make their owners into millionaires, and was always expecting that his turn would come. He neglected the land, and even the most abundant harvest was ridiculously small in comparison with his golden dreams; so the fields were allowed to lie and produce weeds.

Ellen was just as dismayed as Pelle at the thought of having to leave "Daybreak." It was their home, their nest too; all their happiness and welfare were really connected with this spot.

"You can buy the house of course," said the farmer. "I've had an offer of fifteen thousand (L850) for it, and I'll let it go for that."

After he had gone they sat and discussed the matter. "It's very cheap," said Brun. "In a year or two you'll have the town spreading in this direction, and then it'll be worth at least twice as much."

"Yes, that may be," said Pelle; "but you've both to get the amount and make it yield interest."

"There's eight thousand (L450) in the first mortgage, and the loan institution will lend half that. That'll make twelve thousand (L675). That leaves three thousand (L175), and I'm not afraid of putting that in as a third mortgage," said Brun.

Pelle did not like that. "There'll be need for your money in the business," he said.

"Yes, yes! But when you put the house into repair and have it re-valued, I'm certain you can get the whole fifteen thousand in the Loan Societies," said Brun. "I think it'll be to your advantage to do it."

Ellen had taken pencil and paper, and was making calculations. "What percentage do you reckon for interest and paying off by instalments?" she asked.

"Five," said the old man. "You do all the work of keeping it up yourselves."

"Then I would venture," she said, looking dauntlessly at them. "It would be nice to own the house ourselves, don't you think so, Pelle?"

"No, I think it's quite mad," Pelle answered. "We shall be saddled with a house-rent of seven hundred and fifty kroner (over L40)."

Ellen was not afraid of the house-rent; the house and garden would bear that. "And in a few years we can sell the ground for building and make a lot of money." She was red with excitement.

Pelle laughed. "Yes, speculation! Isn't that what the hill farmer has gone to pieces over?" Pelle had quite enough on his hands and had no desire to have property to struggle with.

But Ellen became only more and more bent upon it. "Then buy it yourself!" said Pelle, laughing. "I've no desire to become a millionaire."

Ellen was quite ready to do it. "But then the house'll be mine," she declared. "And if I make money on it, I must be allowed to spend it just as I like. It's not to go into your bottomless common cash-box!" The men laughed.

"Brun and I are going for a walk," said Pelle, "so we'll go in and write a contract note for you at once."

They went down the garden and followed the edge of the hill to the south. The weather was clear; it had changed to slight frost, and white rime covered the fields. Where the low sun's rays fell upon them, the rime had melted and the withered green grass appeared. "It's really pretty here," said Brun. "See how nice the town looks with its towers— only one shouldn't live there. I was thinking of that last night when the child was lying there with her cough. The work-people really get no share of the sun, nor do those who in other respects are decently well off. And then I thought I'd like to build houses for our people on the ridge of the hill on both sides of 'Daybreak.' The people of the new age ought to live in higher and brighter situations than others. I'll tell you how I thought of doing it. I should in the meantime advance money for the plots, and the business should gradually redeem them with its surplus. That is quite as practical as dividing the surplus among the workmen, and we thereby create values for the enterprise. Talking of surplus—you've worked well, Pelle! I made an estimate of it last night and found it's already about ten thousand (L555) this year. But to return to what we were talking about—mortgage loans are generally able to, cover the building expenses, and with amortization the whole thing is unencumbered after some years have passed."

"Who's to own it?" asked Pelle. He was chewing a piece of grass and putting his feet down deliberately like a farmer walking on ploughed land.

"The cooperative company. It's to be so arranged that the houses can't be made over to others, nor encumbered with fresh loan. Our cooperative enterprises must avoid all form of speculation, thereby limiting the field for capital. The whole thing should be self-supporting and be able to do away with private property within its boundaries. You see it's your own idea of a community within the community that I'm building upon. At present it's not easy to find a juridical form under which the whole thing can work itself, but in the meantime you and I will manage it, and Morten if he will join us. I expect he'll come home with renewed strength."

"And when is this plan to be realized? Will it be in the near future?"

"This very winter, I had thought; and in this way we should also be able to do a little for the great unemployment. Thirty houses! It would be a beginning anyhow. And behind it lies the whole world, Pelle!"

"Shall you make the occupation of the houses obligatory for our workmen?"

"Yes, cooperation makes it an obligation. You can't be half outside and half inside! Well, what do you think of it?"

"It's a strong plan," said Pelle. "We shall build our own town here on the hill."

The old man's face shone with delight. "There's something in me after all, eh? There's old business-blood in my veins too. My forefathers built a world for themselves, and why should I do less than they? I ought to have been younger, Pelle!"

They walked round the hill and came to the farm from the other side. "The whole piece wouldn't really be too large if we're to have room to extend ourselves," said Pelle, who was not afraid of a large outlay when it was a question of a great plan.

"I was thinking the same thing," answered Bran. "How much is there here? A couple of hundred acres? There'll be room for a thousand families if each of them is to have a fair-sized piece of land."

They then went in and took the whole for a quarter of a million (L14,000).

"But Ellen!" exclaimed Pelle, when they were on their way home again. "How are we going to come to terms with her?"

"Bless my soul! Why, it was her business we went upon! And now we've done business for ourselves! Well, I suppose she'll give in when she hears what's been done."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Pelle, laughing. "Perhaps when you tackle her."

"Well, did you get the house?" asked Ellen, from the house door, where she was standing to receive them.

"Yes, we got much more," said Brun airily. "We bought the whole concern."

"Is that a fact, Pelle?"

Pelle nodded.

"What about my house then?" she asked slowly.

"Well, we bought that together with all the rest," said Brun. "But as far as that goes it can easily be separated from the rest, only it's rather soon to break up the cooperation before it's started." He waited a little, expecting that Ellen would say something, and when she continued silent he went on, rather shortly: "Well, then there's nothing more to be said about that? Fair play's a jewel, and to-morrow I'll make arrangements for the conveyance of the house to you for the fifteen thousand (L850). And then we must give up the whole concern, Pelle. It won't do for the man at the head of it to live on his private property; so that plan's come to nothing!"

"Unless Ellen and I live in separate houses," said Pelle slyly. "I might build just the other side of the boundary, and then we could nod to one another at any rate."

Ellen looked at him gravely. "I only think it's rather strange that you settle my affairs without asking me first," she said at length.

"Yes, it was inconsiderate of us," answered Brun, "and we hope you'll forget all about it. You'll give up the house then?"

"I'm pretty well obliged to when Pelle threatens to move out," Ellen answered with a smile. "But I'm sorry about it. I'm certain that in a short time there'd have been money to make over it."

"It'll be nice, won't it, if the women are going to move into our forsaken snail-shells?" said Brun half seriously.

"Ellen's always been an incorrigible capitalist," Pelle put in.

"It's only that I've never had so much money that I shouldn't know what it was worth," answered Ellen, with ready wit.

Old Brun laughed. "That was one for Mr. Brun!" he said. "But since you've such a desire for land-speculation, Mistress Ellen, I've got a suggestion to make. On the ground we've bought there's a piece of meadow that lies halfway in to town, by the bog. We'll give you that. It's not worth anything at present, and will have to be filled in to be of any value; but it won't be very long before the town is out there wanting more room."

Ellen had no objection to that. "But then," she said, "I must be allowed to do what I like with what comes out of it."



XIX

The sun held out well that year. Remnants of summer continued to hang in the air right into December. Every time they had bad weather Ellen said, "Now it'll be winter, I'm sure!" But the sun put it aside once more; it went far down in the south and looked straight into the whole sitting- room, as if it were going to count the pictures.

The large yellow Gloire de Dijon went on flowering, and every day Ellen brought in a large, heavy bunch of roses and red leaves. She was heavy herself, and the fresh cold nipped her nose—which was growing sharper— and reddened her cheeks. One day she brought a large bunch to Pelle, and asked him: "How much money am I going to get to keep Christmas with?"

It was true! The year was almost ended!

After the new year winter began in earnest. It began with much snow and frost, and made it a difficult matter to keep in communication with the outside world, while indoors people drew all the closer to one another. Anna should really have been going to school now, but she suffered a good deal from the cold and was altogether not very strong, so Pelle and Ellen dared not expose her to the long wading through the snow, and taught her themselves.

Ellen had become a little lazy about walking, and seldom went into town; the two men made the purchases for her in the evening on their way home. It was a dull time, and no work was done by artificial light, so they were home early. Ellen had changed the dinner-hour to five, so that they could all have it together. After dinner Brun generally went upstairs to work for another couple of hours. He was busy working out projects for the building on the Hill Farm land, and gave himself no rest. Pelle's wealth of ideas and energy infected him, and his plans grew and assumed ever-increasing dimensions. He gave no consideration to his weak frame, but rose early and worked all day at the affairs of the cooperative works. He seemed to be vying with Pelle's youth, and to be in constant fear that something would come up behind him and interrupt his work.

The other members of the family gathered round the lamp, each with some occupation. Boy Comfort had his toy-table put up and was hammering indefatigably with his little wooden mallet upon a piece of stuff that Ellen had put between to prevent his marking the table. He was a sturdy little fellow, and the fat lay in creases round his wrists. The wrinkles on his forehead gave him a funny look when one did not recall the fact that he had cost his mother her life. He looked as if he knew it himself, he was so serious. He had leave to sit up for a little while with the others, but he went to bed at six.

Lasse Frederik generally drew when he was finished with his lessons. He had a turn for it, and Pelle, wondering, saw his own gift, out of which nothing had ever come but the prison, repeated in the boy in an improved form. He showed him the way to proceed, and held the pencil once more in his own hand. His chief occupation, however, was teaching little Anna, and telling her anything that might occur to him. She was especially fond of hearing about animals, and Pelle had plenty of reminiscences of his herding-time from which to draw.

"Have animals really intelligence?" asked Ellen, in surprise. "You really believe that they think about things just as we do?"

It was nothing new to Sister; she talked every day to the fowls and rabbits, and knew how wise they were.

"I wonder if flowers can think too," said Lasse Frederik. He was busy drawing a flower from memory, and it would look like a face: hence the remark.

Pelle thought they could.

"No, no, Pelle!" said Ellen. "You're going too far now! It's only us people who can think."

"They can feel at any rate, and that's thinking in a way, I suppose, only with the heart. They notice at once if you're fond of them; if you aren't they don't thrive."

"Yes, I do believe that, for if you're fond of them you take good care of them," said the incorrigible Ellen.

"I'm not so sure of that," said Pelle, looking at her teasingly. "You're very fond of your balsam, but a gardener would be sure to tell you that you treat it like a cabbage. And look how industriously it flowers all the same. They answer kind thoughts with gratitude, and that's a nice way of thinking. Intelligence isn't perhaps worth as much as we human beings imagine it to be. You yourself think with your heart, little mother." It was his pet name for her just now.

After a little interlude such as this, they went on with their work. Pelle had to tell Sister all about the animals in her alphabet-book— about the useful cow and the hare that licked the dew off the clover and leaped up under the very nose of the cowherd. In the winter it went into the garden, gnawed the bark off the young trees and ate the farmer's wife's cabbage. "Yes, I must acknowledge that," Ellen interposed, and then they all laughed, for puss had just eaten her kail.

Then the child suddenly left the subject, and wanted to know whether there had always, always been a Copenhagen. Pelle came to a standstill for a moment, but by a happy inspiration dug Bishop Absalom out of his memory. He took the opportunity of telling them that the capital had a population of half a million.

"Have you counted them, father?" exclaimed Sister, in perplexity, taking hold of his sleeve.

"Why, of course father hasn't, you little donkey!" said Lasse Frederik. "One might be born while he was counting!"

Then they were at the cock again, which both began and ended the book. He stood and crowed so proudly and never slept. He was a regular prig, but when Sister was diligent he put a one-ore piece among the leaves. But the hens laid eggs, and it was evident that they were the same as the flowers; for when you were kind to them and treated them as if they belonged to the family, they were industrious in laying, but if you built a model house for them and treated them according to all established rules, they did not even earn as much as would pay for their food. At Uncle Kalle's there was a hen that came into the room among all the children and laid its egg under the bed every single day all through the winter, when no other hens were laying. Then the farmer of Stone Farm bought it to make something by it. He gave twenty kroner (a guinea) for it and thought he had got a gold mine; but no sooner did it come to Stone Farm than it left off laying winter eggs, for there it was not one of the family, but was only a hen that they wanted to make money out of.

"Mother's balsam flowers all the winter," said Sister, looking fondly at the plant.

"Yes, that's because it sees how industrious we all are," said Lasse Frederik mischievously.

"Will you be quiet!" said Pelle, hitting out at him.

Ellen sat knitting some tiny socks. Her glance moved lingeringly from one to another of them, and she smiled indulgently at their chatter. They were just a lot of children!

"Mother, may I have those for my doll?" asked Anna, taking up the finished sock.

"No, little sister's to have them when she comes."

"If it is a girl," put in Lasse Frederik.

"When's little sister coming?"

"In the spring when the stork comes back to the farm; he'll bring her with him."

"Pooh! The stork!" said Lasse Frederik contemptuously. "What a pack of nonsense!"

Sister too was wiser than that. When the weather was fine she fetched milk from the farm, and had learned a few things there.

"Now you must go to bed, my child," said Ellen, rising. "I can see you're tired." When she had helped the child into bed she came back and sat down again with her knitting.

"Now I think you should leave off work for to-day," said Pelle.

"Then I shouldn't be ready in time," answered Ellen, moving her knitting-needles more swiftly.

"Send it to a machine-knitter. You don't even earn your bread anyhow with that handicraft; and there must be a time for work and a time for rest, or else you'd not be a human being."

"Mother can make three ore (nearly a halfpenny) an hour by knitting," said Lasse Frederik, who had made a careful calculation.

What did it matter? Ellen did not think she neglected anything else in doing it.

"It is stupid though!" exclaimed Lasse Frederik suddenly. "Why doesn't wool grow on one's legs? Then you'd have none of the bother of shearing the wool off sheep, carding it, spinning it, and knitting stockings."

"Oh, what nonsense you're talking!" said Ellen, laughing.

"Well, men were hairy once," Lasse Frederik continued. "It was a great pity that they didn't go on being it!"

Pelle did not think it such a pity, for it meant that they had taken over the care of themselves. Animals were born fully equipped. Even water-haters like cats and hens were born with the power of swimming; but men had to acquire whatever they had a use for. Nature did not equip them, because they had become responsible for themselves; they were the lords of creation.

"But then the poor ought to be hairy all over their bodies," Ellen objected. "Why doesn't Nature take as much care of the poor as of the animals? They can't do it themselves."

"Yes, but that's just what they can do!" said Pelle, "for it's they who produce most things. Perhaps you think it's money that cultivates the land, or weaves materials, or drags coal out of the earth? It had to leave that alone; all the capital in the world can't so much as pick up a pin from the ground if there are no hands that it can pay to do it. If the poor were born hairy, it would simply stamp him as an inferior being. Isn't it a wonder that Nature obstinately lets the poor men's children be born just as naked as the king's, in spite of all that we've gone through of want and hardship? If you exchange the prince's and the beggar's new-born babies, no one can say which is which. It's as if Providence was never tired of holding our stamp of nobility up before us."

"Do you really think then that the world can be transformed?" said Ellen, looking affectionately at him. It seemed so wonderful that this Pelle, whom she could take in her arms, occupied himself with such great matters. And Pelle looked back at her affectionately and wonderingly. She was the same to-day as on the day he first got to know her, perhaps as the day the world was created! She put nothing out on usury, but had been born with all she had. The world could indeed be transformed, but she would always remain as she was.

The post brought a letter from Morten. He was staying at present in Sicily, and thought of travelling along the north coast of Africa to the south of Spain. "And I may make an excursion in to the borders of the Desert, and try what riding on a camel is like," he wrote. He was well and in good spirits. It was strange to think that he was writing with open doors, while here they were struggling with the cold. He drank wine at every meal just as you drank pale ale here at home; and he wrote that the olive and orange harvests were just over.

"It must be lovely to be in such a place just for once!" said Ellen, with a sigh.

"When the new conditions gain a footing, it'll no longer be among unattainable things for the working-man," Pelle answered.

Brun now came down, having at last finished his work. "Ah, it's good to be at home!" he said, shaking himself; "it's a stormy night."

"Here's a letter from Morten," said Pelle, handing it to him.

The old man put on his spectacles.



XX

As soon as it was possible to get at the ground, the work of excavating for the foundations of the new workmen's houses was begun with full vigor. Brun took a great interest in the work, and watched it out in the cold from morning till evening. He wore an extra great-coat, and woollen gloves outside his fur-lined ones. Ellen had knitted him a large scarf, which he was to wrap round his mouth. She kept an eye on him from the windows, and had to fetch him in every now and then to thaw him. It was quite impossible, however, to keep him in; he was far too eager for the work to progress. When the frost stopped it, he still wandered about out there, fidgety and in low spirits.

On weekdays Pelle was never at home in daylight, but on Sunday he had to go out with him and see what had been done, as soon as day dawned. The old man came and knocked at Pelle's door. "Well, Pelle!" he said. "Will you soon be out of bed?"

"He must really be allowed to lie there while he has his coffee!" cried Ellen from the kitchen.

Brun ran once round the house to pass the time. He was not happy until he had shown it all to Pelle and got him to approve of the alterations. This was where he had thought the road should go. And there, where the roads crossed, a little park with statuary would look nice. New ideas were always springing up. The librarian's imagination conjured up a whole town from the bare fields, with free schools and theaters and comfortable dwellings for the aged. "We must have a supply association and a school at once," he said; "and by degrees, as our numbers increase, we shall get all the rest. A poor-house and a prison are the only things I don't think we shall have any use for."

They would spend the whole morning out there, walking about and laying plans. Ellen had to fetch them in when dinner-time came. She generally found them standing over some hole in earnest conversation—just an ordinary, square hole in the earth, with mud or ice at the bottom. Such holes were always dug for houses; but these two talked about them as if they were the beginning of an entirely new earth!

Brun missed Pelle during the day, and watched for him quite as eagerly as Ellen when the time came for him to return from work. "I shall soon be quite jealous of him," said Ellen, as she drew Pelle into the kitchen to give him her evening greeting in private. "If he could he'd take you quite away from me."

When Pelle had been giving a lecture, he generally came home after Brun had gone to rest, and in the morning when he left home the old man was not up. Brun never went to town. He laid the blame on the weather, but in reality he did not know what he would do with himself in there. But if a couple of days passed without his seeing Pelle, he became restless, lost interest in the excavating, and wandered about feebly without doing anything. Then he would suddenly put on his boots, excuse himself with some pressing errand, and set off over the fields toward the tram, while Ellen stood at the window watching him with a tender smile. She knew what was drawing him!

One would have thought there were ties of blood between these two, so dependent were they on one another. "How's the old man?" was Pelle's first question on entering; and Brun could not have followed Pelle's movements with tenderer admiration in his old days if he had been his father. While Pelle was away the old man went about as if he were always looking for something.

Ellen did not like his being out among the navvies in all kinds of weather. In the evening the warmth of the room affected his lungs and made him cough badly.

"It'll end in a regular cold," she said. She wanted him to stay in bed for a few days and try to get rid of the cold before it took a firm hold.

It was a constant subject of argument between them, but Ellen did not give in until she got her way. When once he had made this concession to the cold, it came on in earnest. The warmth of bed thawed the cold out of his body and made both eyes and nose run.

"It's a good thing we got you to bed in time," said Ellen. "And now you won't be allowed up until the worst cold weather is over, even if I have to hide your clothes." She tended him like a child and made "camel tea" for him from flowers that she had gathered and dried in the summer.

When once he had gone to bed he quite liked it and took delight in being waited on, discovering a need of all kinds of things, so as to receive them from Ellen's hands.

"Now you're making yourself out worse than you are!" she said, laughing at him.

Brun laughed too. "You see, I've never been petted before," he said. "From the time I was born, my parents hired people to look after me; that's why I'm so shrivelled up. I've had to buy everything. Well, there's a certain amount of justice in the fact that money kills affection, or else you'd both eat your cake and have it."

"Yes, it's a good thing the best can't be had for money," said Ellen, tucking the clothes about his feet. He was propped up with pillows, so that he could lie there and work. He had a map of the Hill Farm land beside him, and was making plans for a systematic laying out of the ground for building. He wrote down his ideas about it in a book that was to be appended to the plans. He worked from sunrise until the middle of the day, and during that time it was all that Ellen could do to keep the children away from him; Boy Comfort was on his way up to the old man every few minutes.

In the afternoon, when she had finished in the kitchen, she took the children up for an hour. They were given a picture-book and were placed at Brun's large writing-table, while Ellen seated herself by the window with her knitting and talked to the old man. From her seat she could follow the work out on the field, and had to give him a full description of how far they had got with each plot.

There were always several hundred men out there standing watching the work—a shivering crowd that never diminished. They were unemployed who had heard that something was going on out here, and long before the dawn of day they were standing there in the hope of coming in for something. All day they streamed in and out, an endless chain of sad men. They resembled prisoners condemned hopelessly to tread a huge wheel; there was a broad track across the fields where they went.

Brun was troubled by the thought of these thousands of men who came all this way to look for a day's work and had to go back with a refusal. "We can't take more men on than there are already," he said to Pelle, "or they'll only get in one another's way. But perhaps we could begin to carry out some of our plans for the future. Can't we begin to make roads and such like, so that these men can get something to do?"

No, Pelle dared not agree to that.

"In the spring we shall want capital to start the tanners with a cooperative tannery," he said. "It'll be agreed on in their Union at an early date, on the presupposition that we contribute money; and I consider it very important to get it started. Our opponents find fault with us for getting our materials from abroad. It's untenable in the long run, and must come to an end now. As it is, the factory's hanging in the air; they can cut us off from the supply of materials, and then we're done. But if we only have our own tannery, the one business can be carried out thoroughly and can't be smashed up, and then we're ready to meet a lock-out in the trade."

"The hides!" interpolated Brun.

"There we come to agriculture. That's already arranged cooperatively, and will certainly not be used against us. We must anyhow join in there as soon as ever we get started—buy cattle and kill, ourselves, so that besides the hides we provide ourselves with good, cheap meat."

"Yes, yes, but the tannery won't swallow everything! We can afford to do some road-making."

"No, we can't!" Pelle declared decisively. "Remember we've also got to think of the supply associations, or else all our work is useless; the one thing leads to the other. There's too much depending on what we're doing, and we mustn't hamper our undertaking with dead values that will drag it down. First the men and then the roads! The unemployed to-day must take care of themselves without our help."

"You're a little hard, I think," said Brun, somewhat hurt at Pelle's firmness, and drumming on the quilt with his fingers.

"It's not the first time that I've been blamed for it in this connection," answered Pelle gravely; "but I must put up with it."

The old man held out his hand. "I beg your pardon! It wasn't my intention to find fault with you because you don't act thoughtlessly. Of course we mustn't give up the victory out of sympathy with those who fight. It was only a momentary weakness, but a weakness that might spoil everything—that I must admit! But it's not so easy to be a passive spectator of these topsy-turvy conditions. It's affirmed that the workmen prefer to receive a starvation allowance to doing any work; and judging by what they've hitherto got out of their work it's easy to understand that it's true. But during the month that the excavations here have been going on, at least a thousand unemployed have come every day ready to turn to; and we pay them for refraining from doing anything! They can at a pinch receive support, but at no price obtain work. It's as insane as it's possible to be! You feel you'd like to give the machinery a little push and set it going again."

"It wants a good big push," said Pelle. "They're not trifles that are in the way."

"They look absurdly small, at any rate. The workmen are not in want because they're out of work, as our social economists want us to believe; but they're out of work because they're in want. What a putting of the cart before the horse! The procession of the unemployed is a disgrace to the community; what a waste—also from a purely mercantile point of view—while the country and the nation are neglected! If a private business were conducted on such principles, it would be doomed from the very first."

"If the pitiable condition arose only from a wrong grasp of things, it would be easily corrected," said Pelle; "but the people who settle the whole thing can't at any rate be charged with a lack of mercantile perception. It would be a good thing if they had the rest in as good order! Believe me, not a sparrow falls to the ground unless it is to the advantage of the money-power; if it paid, in a mercantile sense, to have country and people in perfect order, it would take good care that they were so. But it simply can't be done; the welfare of the many and the accumulation of property by the few are irreconcilable contradictions. I think there is a wonderful balance in humanity, so that at any time it can produce exactly enough to satisfy all its requirements; and when one claims too much, others let go. It's on that understanding indeed that we want to remove the others and take over the management."

"Yes, yes! I didn't mean that I wanted to protect the existing state of affairs. Let those who make the venture take the responsibility. But I've been wondering whether we couldn't find a way to gather up all this waste so that it should benefit the cooperative works?"

"How could we? We can't afford to give occupation to the unemployed."

"Not for wages! But both the Movement and the community have begun to support them, and what would be more natural than that one required work of them in return? Only, remember, letting it benefit them!"

"You mean that, for instance, unemployed bricklayers and carpenters should build houses for the workmen?" asked Pelle, with animation.

"Yes, as an instance. But the houses should be ensured against private speculation, in the same way as those we're building, and always belong to the workmen. As we can't be suspected of trying to make profits, we should be suitable people for its management, and it would help on the cooperative company. In that way the refuse of former times would fertilize the new seed."

Pelle sat lost in thought, and the old man lay and looked at him in suspense. "Well, are you asleep?" he asked at last impatiently.

"It's a fine idea," said Pelle, raising his head. "I think we should get the organizations on our side; they're already beginning to be interested in cooperation. When the committee sits, I'll lay your plan before them. I'm not so sure of the community, however, Brun! They have occasional use for the great hunger-reserve, so they'll go on just keeping life in it; if they hadn't, it would soon be allowed to die of hunger. I don't think they'll agree to have it employed, so to speak, against themselves."

"You're an incorrigible pessimist!" said Brun a little irritably.

"Yes, as regards the old state of things," answered Pelle, with a smile.

Thus they would discuss the possibilities for the fixture in connection with the events of the day when Pelle sat beside the old man in the evening, both of them engrossed in the subject. Sometimes the old man felt that he ran off the lines. "It's the blood," he said despondently. "I'm not, after all, quite one of you. It's so long since one of my family worked with his hands that I've forgotten it."

During this time he often touched upon his past, and every evening had something to tell about himself. It was as though he were determined to find a law that would place him by Pelle's side.

Brun belonged to an old family that could be traced back several hundred years to the captain of a ship, who traded with the Tranquebar coast. The founder of the family, who was also a whaler and a pirate, lived in a house on one of the Kristianshavn canals. When his ship was at home, she lay to at the wharf just outside his street-door. The Bruns' house descended from father to son, and was gradually enlarged until it became quite a mansion. In the course of four generations it had become one of the largest trading-houses of the capital. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, most of the members of the family had gone over into the world of stockbrokers and bankers, and thence the changes went still further. Brun's father, the well-known Kornelius Brun, stuck to the old business, his brothers making over their share to him and entering the diplomatic service, one of them receiving a high Court appointment.

Kornelius Brun felt it his duty to carry on the old business, and in order to keep on a level with his brothers as regarded rank, he married a lady of noble birth from Funen, of a very old family heavily burdened with debt. She bore him three children, all of whom—as he himself said —were failures. The first child was a deaf mute with very small intellectual powers. It fortunately died before it attained to man's estate. Number two was very intelligent and endowed with every talent, but even as a boy exhibited perverse tendencies. He was very handsome, had soft, dark hair, and a delicate, womanish complexion. His mother dressed him in velvet, and idolized him. He never did anything useful, but went about in fine company and spent large sums of money. In his fortieth year he died suddenly, a physical and moral wreck. The announcement of the death gave a stroke as the cause; but the truth was that rumors had begun to circulate of a scandal in which he was implicated together with some persons of high standing. It was at the end of the seventies, at the time when the lower class movement began to gather way. An energetic investigation was demanded from below, and it was considered inadvisable to hush the story up altogether, for fear of giving support to the assertion of the rottenness and onesidedness of the existing conditions. When an investigation became imminent, and it was evident that Brun would be offered up upon the altar of the multitude in order to shield those who stood higher, Kornelius Brun put a pistol into his son's hand—or shot him; the librarian was unable to say which.

"Those were two of the fruits upon the decaying family tree," said Brun bitterly, "and it can't be denied that they were rather worm-eaten. The third was myself. I came fifteen years after my youngest brother. By that time my parents had had enough of their progeny; at any rate, I was considered from the beginning to be a hopeless failure, even before I had had an opportunity of showing anything at all. Perhaps they felt instinctively that I should take a wrong direction too. In me too the disintegrating forces predominated; I was greatly deficient, for instance, in family feeling. I remember when still quite little hearing my mother complain of my plebeian tendencies; I always kept with the servants, and took their part against my parents. My family looked more askance at me for upholding the rights of our inferiors than they had done at the idiot who tore everything to pieces, or the spendthrift who made scandals and got into debt. And I dare say with good reason! Mother gave me plenty of money to amuse myself with, probably to counteract my plebeian tendencies; but I had soon done with the pleasures and devoted myself to study. Things of the day did not interest me, but even as a boy I had a remarkable desire to look back; I devoted myself especially to history and its philosophy. Father was right when he derided me and called it going into a monastery; at an age when other young men are lovers, I could not find any woman that interested me, while almost any book tempted me to a closer acquaintance. For a long time he hoped that I would think better of it and take over the business, and when I definitely chose study, it came to a quarrel between us. 'When the business comes to an end, there's an end of the family!' he said, and sold the whole concern. He had been a widower then for several years, and had only me; but during the five years that he lived after selling the business we didn't see one another. He hated me because I didn't take it over, but what could I have done with it? I possessed none of the qualities necessary for the carrying on of business in our day, and should only have ruined the whole thing. From the time I was thirty, my time has been passed among bookshelves, and I've registered the lives and doings of others. It's only now that I've come out into the daylight and am beginning to live my own life; and now it'll soon be ended!"