Part 85 (1/2)
”I don't rightly understand it,” he said at last. ”But to-day I joined the trade union. I shan't stand still and look on when there's anything big to be done.”
Morten nodded, faintly smiling. He was tired now, and hardly heard what Pelle was saying. ”I must go to bed now so that I can get up at one. But where do you live? I'll come and see you some time. How queer it is that we should have run across one another here!”
”I live out in Kristianshavn--in the 'Ark,' if you know where that is!”
”That's a queer sort of house to have tumbled into! I know the 'Ark'
very well, it's been so often described in the papers. There's all sorts of people live there!”
”I don't know anything about that,” said Pelle, half offended. ”I like the people well enough.... But it's capital that we should have run into one another's arms like this! What bit of luck, eh? And I behaved like a clown and kept out of your way? But that was when I was going to the dogs, and hated everybody! But now nothing's going to come between us again, you may lay to that!”
”That's good, but now be off with you,” replied Morten, smiling; he was already half-undressed.
”I'm going, I'm going!” said Pelle, and he picked up his hat, and stood for a moment gazing out over the city. ”But it's magnificent, what you were saying about things just now!” he cried suddenly. ”If I had the strength of all us poor folks in me, I'd break out right away and conquer the whole of it! If such a ma.s.s of wealth were shared out there'd never be any poverty any more!” He stood there with his arms uplifted, as though he held it all in his hands. Then he laughed uproariously. He looked full of energy. Morten lay half asleep, staring at him and saying nothing. And then he went.
Pipman scolded Pelle outrageously when at last he returned. ”Curse it all, what are you thinking of? To go strolling about and playing the duke while such as we can sit here working our eyes out of our heads!
And we have to go thirsty too! Now don't you dream of being insolent to me, or there'll be an end of the matter. I am excessively annoyed!”
He held out his hand in pathetic expostulation, although Pelle had no intention of answering him. He no longer took Pipman seriously. ”Devil fry me, but a man must sit here and drink the clothes off his body while a lout like you goes for a stroll!”
Pelle was standing there counting the week's earnings when he suddenly burst into a loud laugh as his glance fell upon Pipman. His blue naked shanks, miserably s.h.i.+vering under his leather ap.r.o.n, looked so enormously ridiculous when contrasted with the fully-dressed body and the venerable beard.
”Yes, you grin!” said Pipman, laughing too. ”But suppose it was you had to take off your trousers in front of the old clothes' man, and wanted to get upstairs respectably! Those d.a.m.ned brats! 'Pipman's got D. T.,'
they yell. 'Pipman's got D. T. And G.o.d knows I haven't got D. T., but I haven't got any trousers, and that's just the trouble! And these accursed open staircases! Olsen's hired girl took the opportunity, and you may be sure she saw all there was to see! You might lend me your old bags!”
Pelle opened his green chest and took out his work-day trousers.
”You'd better put a few more locks on that spinach-green lumber-chest of yours,” said Pipman surlily. ”After all, there might be a thief here, near heaven as we are!”
Pelle apparently did not hear the allusion, and locked the chest up again. Then, his short pipe in his hand, he strolled out on to the platform. Above the roofs the twilight was rising from the Sound. A few doves were flying there, catching the last red rays of the sun on their white pinions, while down in the shaft the darkness lay like a hot lilac mist. The hurdy-gurdy man had come home and was playing his evening tune down there to the dancing children, while the inhabitants of the ”Ark”
were gossiping and squabbling from gallery to gallery. Now and again a faint vibrating note rose upward, and all fell silent. This was the dwarf Vinslev, who sat playing his flute somewhere in his den deep within the ”Ark.” He always hid himself right away when he played, for at such times he was like a sick animal, and sat quaking in his lair.
The notes of his flute were so sweet, as they came trickling out of his hiding place, that they seemed like a song or a lament from another world. And the restless creatures in the ”Ark” must perforce be silent and listen. Now Vinslev was in one of his gentle moods, and one somehow felt better for hearing him. But at times, in his dark moods, the devil seemed to enter into him, and breathed such music into his crazy mind that all his hearers felt a panic terror. Then the decaying timbers of the ”Ark” seemed to expand and form a vast monstrous, pitch-black forest, in which all terror lay lurking, and one must strike out blindly in order to avoid being trampled on. The hea.r.s.e-driver in the fourth story, who at other times was so gentle in his cups, would beat his wife shamefully, and the two lay about in their den drinking and fighting in self-defence. And Vinslev's devilish flute was to blame when Johnsen vainly bewailed his miserable life and ended it under the sewer-grating.
But there was nothing to be said about the matter; Vinslev played the flute, and Johnsen's suicide was a death like any other.
Now the devil was going about with a ring in his nose; Vinslev's playing was like a gentle breeze that played on people's hearts, so that they opened like flowers. This was his good time.
Pelle knew all this, although he had not long been here; but it was nothing to him. For he wore the conqueror's s.h.i.+rt of mail, such as Father La.s.se had dreamed of for him.
Down in the third story, on the built-out gallery, another sort of magic was at work. A climbing pelargonium and some ivy had wound themselves round the broken beams and met overhead, and there hung a little red paper lantern, which cast a cheerful glow over it all.
It was as though the summer night had found a sanctuary in the heart of this wilderness of stone. Under the lantern sat Madam Johnsen and her daughter sewing; and Hanne's face glowed like a rose in the night, and every now and then she turned it up toward Pelle and smiled, and made an impatient movement of her head. Then Pelle turned away a little, re-crossed his leg, and leant over on the other side, restless as a horse in blinkers.
Close behind him his neighbor, Madam Frandsen, was bustling about her little kitchen. The door stood open on to the platform, and she chattered incessantly, half to herself and half to Pelle, about her gout, her dead husband, and her lout of a son. She needed to rest her body, did this old woman. ”My G.o.d, yes; and here I have to keep slaving and getting his food ready for Ferdinand from morning to night and from night to morning again. And he doesn't even trouble himself to come home to it. I can't go looking into his wild ways; all I can do is to sit here and worry and keep his meals warm. Now that's a tasty little bit; and he'll soon come when he's hungry, I tell myself. Ah, yes, our young days, they're soon gone. And you stand there and stare like a baa-lamb and the girl down there is nodding at you fit to crick her neck! Yes, the men are a queer race; they pretend they wouldn't dare--and yet who is it causes all the misfortunes?”
”She doesn't want anything to do with me!” said Pelle grumpily; ”she's just playing with me.”
”Yes, a girl goes on playing with a white mouse until she gets it!
You ought to be ashamed to stand there hanging your head! So young and well-grown as you are too! You cut her tail-feathers off, and you'll get a good wife!” She nudged him in the side with her elbow.