Part 128 (2/2)

It had been Pelle's plan to put a good face on a crooked job, and cautiously to feel his way; but now he grew angry.

”You had better think what you're doing before you call honorable men idiots,” he retorted violently. ”Do you know what you are? Swine! You lie there eating your fill and pouring the drink down your throats and living easy on the need of your comrades! Swine, that you are--Judases, who have sold a good cause for dirty money! How much did you get? Five and twenty kroner, eh? And out there they are loyally starving, so that all of us--yes, you too--can live a little more like human beings in the future!”

”You hold your jaw!” said the big smith. ”You've no wife and children--you can easily talk!”

”Aren't you the fellow who lives in Jaegersborg Street?” Pelle demanded.

”Perhaps you are sending what you earn to your wife and children? Then why are they in want? Yesterday they were turned out of doors; the organization took them in and found a roof to go over their heads--although they were a strike-breaker's family!” Pelle himself had made this possible.

”Send--d.a.m.n and blast it all--I'll send them something! But if one lives this h.e.l.l of a life in here the bit of money one earns all goes in rot-gut! And now you're going to get a thras.h.i.+ng!” The smith turned up his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves so that his mighty muscles were revealed. He was no longer reasonable, but glared at Pelle like an angry bull.

”Wait a bit,” said an older man, stepping up to Pelle. ”I think I've seen you before. What is your real name, if I may make bold to ask?”

”My name? You are welcome to know it. I am Pelle.”

This name produced an effect like that of an explosion. They were dazzled. The smith's arms fell slack; he turned his head aside in shame.

Pelle was among them! They had left him in the lurch, had turned their backs on him, and now he stood there laughing at them, not the least bit angry with them. What was more, he had called them comrades; so he did not despise them! ”Pelle is here!” they said quietly; further and further spread the news, and their tongues dwelt curiously on his name.

A murmur ran through the shops. ”What the devil--has Pelle come?” they cried, stumbling to their legs. Pelle had leaped onto a great anvil.

”Silence!” he cried, in a voice of thunder; ”silence!” And there was silence in the great building. The men could hear their own deep breathing.

The foremen came rus.h.i.+ng up and attempted to drag him down. ”You can't make speeches here!” they cried.

”Let him speak!” said the big smith threateningly. ”You aren't big enough to stop his mouth, not by a long chalk!” He seized a hammer and stationed himself at the foot of the anvil.

”Comrades!” Pelle began, in an easy tone, ”I have been sent here to you with greetings from those outside there--from the comrades who used to stand next to you at work, from your friends and fellow-unionists. Where are our old comrades?--they are asking. We have fought so many battles by their side, we have shared good and evil with them--are we to enter into the new conditions without them? And your wives and children are asking after you! Outside there it is the spring! They don't understand why they can't pack the picnic basket and go out into the forest with father!”

”No, there's no picnic basket!” said a heavy voice.

”There are fifty thousand men accepting the situation without grumbling,” Pelle earnestly replied. ”And they are asking after you--they don't understand why you demand more than they do. Have you done more for the movement than they have?--they ask. Or are you a lot of dukes, that you can't quietly stand by the rank and file? And now it's the spring out there!” he cried once more. ”The poor man's winter is past, and the bright day is coming for him! And here you go over to the wrong side and walk into prison! Do you know what the locked-out workers call you? They call you the locked-in workers!”

There were a few suppressed smiles at this. ”That's a dam' good smack!”

they told, one another. ”He made that up himself!”

”They have other names for us as well!” cried a voice defiantly.

”Yes, they have,” said Pelle vigorously. ”But that's because they are hungry. People get unreasonable then, you know very well--and they grudge other folks their food!”

They thronged about him, pressing closer and closer. His words were scorching them, yet were doing them good. No one could hit out like Pelle, and yet at the same time make them feel that they were decent fellows after all. The foreign workers stood round about them, eagerly listening, in order that they, too, might catch a little of what was said.

Pelle had suddenly plunged into the subject of the famine, laying bare the year-long, endless despair of their families, so that they all saw what the others had suffered--saw really for the first time. They were amazed that they could have endured so much, but they knew that it was so; they nodded continually, in agreement; it was all literally true.

It was Pelle's own desperate struggle that was speaking through him now, but the refrain of suffering ran through it all. He stood before them radiant and confident of victory, towering indomitably over them all.

Gradually his words became keen and vigorous. He reproached them with their disloyalty; he reminded them how dearly and bitterly they had bought the power of cohesion, and in brief, striking phrases he awakened the inspiriting rhythm of the Cause, that lay slumbering in every heart.

It was the old, beloved music, the well-known melody of the home and labor. Pelle sounded it with a new accent. Like all those that forsake their country, they had forgotten the voice of their mother--that was why they could not find their way home; but now she was calling them, calling them back to the old dream of a Land of Fortune! He could see it in their faces, and with a leap he was at them: ”Do you know of anything more infamous than to sell your mother-country? That is what you have done--before ever you set foot in it--you have sold it, with your brothers, your wives, and your children! You have foresworn your religion--your faith in the great Cause! You have disobeyed orders, and have sold yourselves for a miserable Judas-price and a keg of brandy!”

He stood with his left hand on the big smith's shoulder, his right hand he clenched and held out toward them. In that hand he was holding them; he felt that so strongly that he did not dare to let it sink, but continued to hold it outstretched. A murmuring wave pa.s.sed through the ranks, reaching even to the foreign workers. They were infected by the emotion of the others, and followed the proceedings with tense attention, although they did not understand much of the language. At each sally they nodded and nudged one another, until now they stood there motionless, with expectant faces; they, too, were under the spell of his words. This was solidarity, the mighty, earth-encircling power!

Pelle recognized the look of wonder on their faces; a cold shudder ran up and down his spine. He held them all in his hand, and now the blow was to be struck before they had time to think matters over. Now!

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