Part 149 (1/2)

Neither Pelle nor Ellen demanded much of life now. They had settled down in resignation side by side like a pair of carthorses that were accustomed to share manger and toil. It would have been a great thing now to have done with that confounded loan, so that they need not go about with their lives in their hands continually; but even that was requiring too much! All that could be sc.r.a.ped together went every month to the money-lender, and they were no nearer the end. On the one hundred and eighty krones (10) that Pelle had received they had now in all paid off one hundred and twenty (7), and yet they still owed two hundred and forty (more than 13). It was the ”punishment interest” that made it mount up whenever they came only a day or two too late with the instalments or whatever it might be. In any case it was an endless screw that would go on all their life pumping out whatever they could sc.r.a.pe together into the money-lender's pocket.

But now Pelle meant to put an end to this. He had not paid the last instalment and meant to pay no more, but let things go as they liked.

”You ought to borrow of Herr Brun and pay off that money-lender,” said Ellen, ”or else he'll only come down on us and take our furniture.” But Pelle was obstinate and would not listen to reason. The consciousness that a parasite had fastened upon him and sucked him dry in spite of all his resistance, made him angry. He would like to see them touching his things!

When the money-lender came to fetch his instalment, Pelle shut the door in his face. For the rest he took everything with the calmness of resignation; but when the subject cropped up, he fired up and did not know what he said. Ellen had to keep silence and let his mood work itself out.

One afternoon he sat working at the bas.e.m.e.nt window. The librarian was sitting on the chair by the door, with a child on each knee, feeding them with dates. Pelle was taking no notice, but bent over his work with the expression of a madman who is afraid of being spoken to. His work did not interest him as it had formerly done, and progressed slowly; a disturbing element had entered, and whenever he could not instantly find a tool, he grew angry and threw the things about.

Brun sat watching him anxiously, though apparently taken up with the children. A pitying expression would have made Pelle furious. Brun guessed that there was some money trouble, but dared not offer his a.s.sistance; every time he tried to begin a conversation Pelle repelled him with a cunning look which said: ”You're seeking for an opportunity to come with your money, but you won't get it!” Something or other had gone wrong with him, but it would all come right in the end.

A cab stopped outside the door, and three men stepped out and went into the house. A little while after Ellen burst into the workshop. ”Pelle!”

she cried, without noticing Brun, ”they've come to take away our things!” She broke into a fit of weeping, and seeing their mother crying, the children began to cry too.

Pelle rose and seized a hammer. ”I'll soon get _them_ out!” he said between his teeth in a low tone as he moved toward the door. He did not hurry, but went with lowered head, not looking at any one.

Brun seized him by the arm and stopped him.

”You forget that there's something called Prison!” he said with peculiar emphasis.

Pelle gazed at him in astonishment, and for a moment it looked as if he were going to strike the old man; then the hammer dropped from his hand and he broke down.

IX

Now and then a comrade from the good old days would come up and want Pelle to go with him to a meeting. Old fighting memories wakened within him. Perhaps it was there the whole point lay. He threw off his leather ap.r.o.n and went. Ellen's eyes followed him to the door, wondering that he could still wish to have anything to do with that after what _he_ had got out of it.

But it was not there after all! He remembered the tremendous ferment in men's minds during the Movement, and it seemed to him that the excitement had died down. People only came forward before the elections, otherwise they went about their own business as if there had never been any rallying idea. They were all organized, but there was nothing new and strong in that fact; they were born--so to speak--in organization, and connected nothing great and elevating with it. His old a.s.sociates had cooled down remarkably; they must have discovered that success was neither so romantic nor so easy as they had thought. They had no longer simply to open the gate into the land of success and stream through it; there was a long and difficult road before that. So they each arranged his own matters, and disposed of the doubtful future for small present advantages which were immediately swallowed up by the existing conditions.

The Movement had not reached to the bottom. There was an accusation against himself in this fact; it had not been designed with sufficient breadth. Even at that time it had pa.s.sed over the heads of the inhabitants of the ”Ark,” and now a large proletariat was left with their own expectations of the future. The good old cla.s.s of the common people had split up into a cla.s.s of petty tradesmen--who seemed to be occupied solely in establis.h.i.+ng themselves--and this proletariat.

But there was nothing new in this. One stratum moved up and revealed a new one below; it had always been thus in history. Was it then everlastingly determined that at the bottom of existence there should always be the same innumerable crowd of those who were thrust down, who bore the burden of the whole, the great hunger reserve? Was it only possible to be happy when one knew how to push the difficulties down, just as one might push the folds of a material until at last they were heaped up in one place? It was the old question over again. Formerly he had had his clear faith with which to beat down doubt, but now he could not be content with a blind hope; he required to be shown an expedient.

If the Movement had failed through having been begun crookedly, the causes with which one had to do were practical causes, and it was possible to do the whole thing over again.

There were also others engaged in taking the whole thing up from the bottom, and through Peter Dreyer he came into contact with young men of an entirely new type. They had emerged from the Movement, shot up surprisingly out of its sediment, and now made new ambitious claims upon life. By unknown paths they had reached the same point as he himself had done, and demanded first and foremost to be human beings. The sacredness of the ego filled them, and made them rebel at all yokes; they began from within by shaking them off, did not smoke or drink, would be slaves to nothing. They kept out of the Movement and had their own places of meeting out about the South Boulevard, where they read and discussed new social forms. They were intelligent, well-paid working-men, who persistently shared the conditions of the proletariat; fanatics who gave away their week's wages if they met a man who was poorer than themselves; hot-headed enthusiasts who awaited revolution. Several of them had been in prison for agitating against the social order. There were also country people among them--sons of the men who stood in the ditches and peat-pits out there. ”The little man's children,” Morten called them.

These were the offspring of those who had made the Movement; that was how it should go on. By being contented they kept themselves free from the ensnaring expedients of capitalism, they despised the petty tradesman's inclination for comfort, and were always ready for action.

In them the departure was at any rate a fact!

They wanted to get hold of Pelle. ”Come over to us!” Peter Dreyer often said.

Pelle, however, was not easily enticed out; he had his home where he hid himself like a snail in its sh.e.l.l. He had the responsibility for this little world of five people, and he had not even succeeded in securing it. His strength and industry were not enough even to keep one little home above water; a benefactor was needed for that! It was not the time to tend jealously one's own honor when wife and children would be the sufferers; and now that it was all arranged he felt deeply grateful to the old librarian. It was nevertheless a disgraceful fact which did not encourage him to have anything to do with the affairs of others.

The violent language used by the young men frightened him too. He had rebelled against the old conditions just as they had done, but he met with different experiences. From the time he could crawl he had struggled to accommodate himself to the great connection of things; even the life of the prison had not placed him outside it, but had only united him the more closely with the whole. He had no inclination to cut the knot, but demanded that it should be untied.

”You're no good,” said Morten and the others when they tried to rouse him, ”for you can't hate.” No, the cold in his mind was like the night-frost; it melted at the first sunbeam. When he looked back there were redeeming ties that held the whole together in spite of all the evil; and now the old librarian had brought him close up to the good in the other side of the cleft too. He had settled down to his shoemaking again and refused to be roused by the others' impatience; but he looked as if he had an eternity in which to unravel his affairs.

Sister was often down with him and filled the workshop with her chatter.

At about eight, when it began to grow light, he heard her staggering step on the stair, and she remained with him until Ellen took her up in the evening by main force to put her to bed. She dragged all the tools together and piled them up in front of Pelle on the bench so that he could hardly move, and called it helping. Then she rested, standing with her hands upon the edge of the bench and talking to him. ”Sister's clever!” she said appreciatively, pointing with satisfaction to her work. ”Big girl!” And if he did not answer she repeated it and did not leave off until he had praised her.