Part 104 (2/2)

Marie read out the different notices, and La.s.se made his comments on every one, and when the bystanders laughed La.s.se gazed at them uncomprehendingly, then laughed with them, and nodded his head merrily.

He entered into everything.

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

He looked about him importantly, like a child that is under observation.

”But errand boy--that isn't so bad. We'll make a note of that. There's no great skill needed to be everybody's dog! House porter! Deuce take it--there one need only sit downstairs and make angry faces out of a bas.e.m.e.nt window! We'll look in there and try our luck.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marie nodded.

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

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

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

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

”Those are smart fellows truly,” he said. ”Hey, hey, how they hold themselves! And fine clothes too. But that they know well enough themselves! Yes--I've never been a king's soldier. I went up for it when I was young and felt I'd like it; I was a smart fellow then, you can take my word for it! But they wouldn't have me; my figure wouldn't do, they said; I had worked too hard, from the time I was quite a child.

They'd got it into their heads in those days that a man ought to be made just so and so. I think it's to please the fine ladies. Otherwise I, too, might have defended my country.”

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

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

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

La.s.se drew slowly hack. ”But he was angry!” he said dejectedly to Marie.

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

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

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

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