Part 55 (2/2)

And he knew who was a thief and who a bankrupt speculator, and that Merchant Lau only did business with the little shopkeepers, because his daughter had gone to the bad. Pelle knew the secret pride of the town, the ”Top-galea.s.s,” as she was called, who in her sole self represented the allurements of the capital, and he knew the two sharpers, and the consul with the disease which was eating him up. All this was very gratifying knowledge for one of the rejected.

He had no intention of letting the town retain any trace of those splendors with which he had once endowed it. In his constant ramblings he stripped it to the buff. For instance, there stood the houses of the town, some retiring, some standing well forward, but all so neat on the side that faced the street, with their wonderful old doorways and flowers in every window. Their neatly tarred framework glistened, and they were always newly lime-washed, ochrous yellow or dazzling white, sea-green, or blue as the sky. And on Sundays there was quite a festive display of flags. But Pelle had explored the back quarters of every house; and there were sinks and traps there, with dense slimy growths, and stinking refuse-barrels, and one great dustbin with a drooping elder-tree over it. And the s.p.a.ces between the cobble-stones were foul with the scales of herrings and the guts of codfish, and the lower portions of the walls were covered with patches of green moss.

The bookbinder and his wife went about hand in hand when they set out for the meeting of some religious society. But at home they fought, and in chapel, as they sat together and sang out of the same hymn-book, they would secretly pinch one another's legs. ”Yes,” people used to say, ”such a nice couple!” But the town couldn't throw dust in Pelle's eyes; he knew a thing or two. If only he had known just how to get himself a new blouse!

Some people didn't go without clothes so readily; they were forever making use of that fabulous thing--credit! At first it took his breath away to discover that the people here in the town got everything they wanted without paying money for it. ”Will you please put it down?” they would say, when they came for their boots; and ”it's to be entered,” he himself would say, when he made a purchase for his employers. All spoke the same magical formula, and Pelle was reminded of Father La.s.se, who had counted his s.h.i.+llings over a score of times before he ventured to buy anything. He antic.i.p.ated much from this discovery, and it was his intention to make good use of the magic words when his own means became exhausted.

Now, naturally, he was wiser. He had discovered that the very poor must always go marketing with their money in their hands, and even for the others there came a day of reckoning. The master already spoke with horror of the New Year; and it was very unfortunate for his business that the leather-sellers had got him in their pocket, so that he could not buy his material where it was cheapest. All the small employers made the same complaint.

But the fairy-tale of credit was not yet exhausted--there was still a manner of drawing a draft upon fortune, which could be kept waiting, and on the future, which redeems all drafts. Credit was a spark of poetry in the scramble of life; there were people going about who were poor as church mice, yet they played the lord. Alfred was such a lucky fellow; he earned not a red cent, but was always dressed like a counter-jumper, and let himself want for nothing. If he took a fancy to anything he simply went in and got it on ”tick”; and he was never refused. His comrades envied him and regarded him as a child of fortune.

Pelle himself had a little flirtation with fortune. One day he went gaily into a shop, in order to procure himself some underclothing. When he asked for credit they looked at him as though he could not be quite sane, and he had to go away without effecting his object. ”There must be some secret about it that I don't know,” he thought; and he dimly remembered another boy, who couldn't stir the pot to cook his porridge or lay the table for himself, because he didn't know the necessary word.

He sought Alfred forthwith in order to receive enlightenment.

Alfred was wearing new patent braces, and was putting on his collar.

On his feet were slippers with fur edging, which looked like feeding pigeons. ”I got them from a shopkeeper's daughter,” he said; and he coquetted with his legs; ”she's quite gone on me. A nice girl too--only there's no money.”

Pelle explained his requirements.

”s.h.i.+rts! s.h.i.+rts!” Alfred chortled with delight, and clapped his hands before his face. ”Good Lord, he wants to gets s.h.i.+rts on tick! If only they had been linen s.h.i.+rts!” He was near bursting with laughter.

Pelle tried again. As a peasant--for he was still that--he had thought of s.h.i.+rts first of all; but now he wanted a summer overcoat and rubber cuffs. ”Why do you want credit?” asked the shopkeeper, hesitating.

”Are you expecting any money? Or is there any one who will give you a reference?”

No, Pelle didn't want to bring any one else into it; it was simply that he had no money.

”Then wait until you have,” said the shopkeeper surlily. ”We don't clothe paupers!” Pelle slunk away abashed.

”You're a fool!” said Alfred shortly. ”You are just like Albinus--he can never learn how to do it!”

”How do you do it then?” asked Pelle meekly.

”How do I do it--how do I do it?” Alfred could give no explanation; ”it just came of itself. But naturally I don't tell them that I'm poor! No, you'd better leave it alone--it'll never succeed with you!”

”Why do you sit there and pinch your upper lip?” asked Pelle discontentedly.

”Pinch? You goat, I'm stroking my moustache!”

VII

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon Pelle was busily sweeping the street. It was getting on for evening; in the little houses there was already a fire in the grate; one could hear it crackling at Builder Rasmussen's and Swedish Anders', and the smell of broiled herrings filled the street.

The women were preparing something extra good in order to wheedle their husbands when they came home with the week's wages. Then they ran across to the huckster's for schnaps and beer, leaving the door wide open behind them; there was just half a minute to spare while the herring was getting cooked on the one side! And now Pelle sniffed it afar off--Madame Rasmussen was tattling away to the huckster, and a voice screeched after her: ”Madame Rasmussen! Your herring is burning!” Now she came rus.h.i.+ng back, turning her head confusedly from house to house as she scampered across the street and into her house. The blue smoke drifted down among the houses; the sun fell lower and filled the street with gold-dust.

There were people sweeping all along the street; Baker Jorgen, the washerwoman, and the Comptroller's maid-servant. The heavy boughs of the mulberry-tree across the road drooped over the wall and offered their last ripe fruits to whomsoever would pick them. On the other side of the wall the rich merchant Hans--he who married the nurse-maid--was pottering about his garden. He never came out, and the rumor ran that he was held a prisoner by his wife and her kin. But Pelle had leaned his ear against the wall, and had heard a stammering old voice repeating the same pet names, so that it sounded like one of those love-songs that never come to an end; and when in the twilight he slipped out of his attic window and climbed on to the ridge of the roof, in order to take a look at the world, he had seen a tiny little white-haired man walking down there in the garden, with his arm round the waist of a woman younger than himself. They were like a couple of young lovers, and they had to stop every other moment in order to caress one another. The most monstrous things were said of him and his money; of his fortune, that once upon a time was founded on a paper of pins, and was now so great that some curse must rest upon it.

From the baker's house the baker's son came slinking hymn-book in hand.

He fled across to the shelter of the wall, and hurried off; old Jorgen stood there gobbling with laughter as he watched him, his hands folded over his broomstick.

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