Part 112 (2/2)

”The journeymen have had to run about to no purpose--I myself have worked for you,” replied Pelle. ”But you are perhaps of opinion that we can better bear the loss of time?”

Meyer shrugged his shoulders. ”That's a condition of your livelihood--its conditions are naturally based on order. But if only I could at least depend on getting hands! Man, this can't go on!” he cried suddenly, ”d.a.m.n and blast it all, it can't go on, it's not honorable!”

Little La.s.se gave a jump and began to bellow. Ellen came hurrying in and took him into the bedroom.

Pelle's mouth was hard. ”If your people are leaving you, they must surely have some reason for it,” he replied; he would far rather have told Meyer to his face that he was a sweater! ”The Union can't compel its members to work for an employer with whom perhaps they can't agree.

I myself even have been dismissed from a workshop--but we can't bother two Unions on those grounds!” He looked steadily at his opponent as he made this thrust; his features were quivering slightly.

”Aha!” Meyer responded, and he rubbed his hands with an expression that seemed to say that--now at last he felt firm ground under his feet.

”Aha--so it's out at last! So you're a diplomatist into the bargain--a great diplomatist! You have a clever husband, little lady!” He turned to Ellen, who was busying herself at the sideboard. ”Now just listen, Herre Pelle! You are just the man for me, and we must come to an arrangement.

When two capable men get talking together something always comes of it--it couldn't be otherwise! I have room for a capable and intelligent expert who understands fitting and cutting. The place is well paid, and you can have a written contract for a term of years. What do you say to that?”

Pelle raised his head with a start. Ellen's eyes began to sparkle, and then became mysteriously dark; they rested on him compellingly, as though they would burn their purpose into him. For a moment he gazed before him, bewildered. The offer was so overpowering, so surprising; and then he laughed. What, what, was he to sell himself to be the understrapper of a sweater!

”That won't do for me,” he replied.

”You must naturally consider my offer,” said Meyer, rising. ”Shall we say three days?”

When the Court shoemaker had gone, Ellen came slowly back and laid her arm round Pelle's shoulders. ”What a clever, capable man you are, then!”

she said, in a low voice, playing with his hair; there was something apologetic in her manner. She said nothing to call attention to the offer, but she began to sing at her work. It was a long time since Pelle had heard her sing; and the song was to him like a radiant a.s.surance that this time he would be the victor.

XX

Pelle continued the struggle indefatigably, contending with opposing circ.u.mstances and with disloyalty, but always returning more boldly to the charge. Many times in the course of the conflict he found himself back at the same place; Meyer obtained a new lot of workers from abroad, and he had to begin all over again; he had to work on them until they went away again, or to make their position among their housemates so impossible that they resigned. The later winter was hard and came to Meyer's a.s.sistance. He paid his workers well now, and had brought together a crowd of non-union hands; for a time it looked as though he would get his business going again. But Pelle had left the non-unionists alone only through lack of time; now he began to seek them out, and he spoke with more authority than before. Already people were remarking on his strength of will; and most of them surrendered beforehand. ”The devil couldn't stand up against him!” they said. He never wavered in his faith in an ultimate victory, but went straight ahead; he did not philosophize about the other aspect of the result, but devoted all his energies to achieving it. He was actuated by sheer robust energy, and it led him the shortest way. The members of the Union followed him willingly, and willingly accepted the privations involved in the emptying of the workshops. He possessed their confidence, and they found that it was, after all, glorious sport to turn the tables, when for once in a way they could bring the grievance home to its point of departure!

They knew by bitter experience what it was to run about to no purpose, to beg for work, and to beg for their wages, and to haggle over them--in short, to be the underdog. It was amusing to reverse the roles. Now the mouse was playing with the cat and having a rattling good time of it--although the claws did get home now and again! Pelle felt their confidence, the trust of one and all, in the readiness with which they followed him, as though he were only the expression of their own convictions. And when he stood up at the general meetings or conferences, in order to make a report or to conduct an agitation, and the applause of his comrades fell upon his ears, he felt an influx of sheer power. He was like the ram of a s.h.i.+p; the weight of the whole was behind him. He began to feel that he was the expression of something great; that there was a purpose within him.

The Pelle who dealt so quietly and cleverly with Meyer and achieved precisely what he willed was not the usual Pelle. A greater nature was working within him, with more responsibility, according to his old presentiment. He tested himself, in order to a.s.similate this as a conviction, and he felt that there was virtue in the idea.

This higher nature stood in mystical connection with so much in his life; far back into his childhood he could trace it, as an abundant promise. So many had involuntarily expected something from him; he had listened to them with wonder, but now their expectation was proving prophetic.

He paid strict attention to his words in his personal relations, now that their illimitable importance had been revealed to him. But in his agitator's work the strongest words came to him most naturally; came like an echo out of the illimitable void that lay behind him. He busied himself with his personality. All that had hitherto had free and careless play must now be circ.u.mscribed and made to serve an end. He examined his relations with Ellen, was indulgent to her, and took pains to understand her demand for happiness. He was kind and gentle to her, but inflexible in his resolve.

He had no conscientious scruples in respect of the Court shoemaker.

Meyer had in all respects misused his omnipotence long enough; owing to his huge business he had made conditions and ruled them; and the evil of those conditions must be brought home to him. It was now summer and a good time for the workers, and his business was rapidly failing. Pelle foresaw his fall, and felt himself to be a righteous avenger.

The year-long conflict absorbed his whole mind. He was always on his feet; came rus.h.i.+ng home to the work that lay there waiting for him, threw it aside like a maniac, and hurried off again. He did not see much of Ellen and little La.s.se these days; they lived their own life without him.

He dared not rest on what he had accomplished, now that the cohesion of the Union was so powerful. He was always seeking means to strengthen and to undermine; he did not wish to fall a sacrifice to the unforeseen.

His indefatigability infected his comrades, they became more eager the longer the struggle lasted. The conflict was magnified by the sacrifice it demanded, and by the strength of the opposition; Meyer gradually became a colossus whom all must stake their welfare to hew down.

Families were ruined thereby, but the more sacrifice the struggle demanded the more recklessly they struggled on. And they were full of jubilation on the day when the colossus fell, and buried some of them in his fall!

Pelle was the undisputed victor. The journeyman-cobbler had laid low the biggest employer in the trade. They did not ask what the victory had cost, but carried his name in triumph. They cheered when they caught sight of him or when his name was mentioned. Formerly this would have turned his head, but now he regarded his success as entirely natural--as the expression of a higher power!

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