Pelle the Conqueror Part 108

"Surely he can't have gone on the roof?" said one. They ran up the back stairs; the door of the loft was open, and the skylight also.

Otto threw off his coat and swung himself up through the opening. On the extreme end of the ridge of the roof sat Albert Olsen, snoring.

He was leaning against the edge of the party-wall, which projected upward about eighteen inches. Close behind him was empty s.p.a.ce.

"For G.o.d's sake don't call him," said Mother Stolpe, under her breath; "and catch hold of him before he wakes."

But Otto went straight up to his comrade. "Hullo, mate! Time's up!" he cried.

"Righto!" said the Vanisher, and he rose to his feet. He stood there a moment, swaying above the abyss, then, giving the preference to the way leading over the roof, he followed in Otto's track and crept through the window.

"What the d.i.c.kens were you really doing there?" asked Stolpe, laughing.

"Have you been to work?"

"I just went up there and enjoyed the fresh air a bit. Have you got a bottle of beer? But what's this? Everybody going home already?" "Yes, you've been two hours sitting up there and squinting at the stars,"

replied Otto.

Now all the guests had gone. La.s.se and the young couple stood waiting to say farewell. Madam Stolpe had tears in her eyes. She threw her arms round Ellen. "Take good care of yourself, the night is so cold," she said, in a choking voice, and she stood nodding after them with eyes that were blinded with tears.

"Why, but there's nothing to cry about!" said Mason Stolpe, as he led her indoors. "Go to bed now--I'll soon sing the Vanis.h.i.+ng Man to sleep!

Thank G.o.d for to-day, mother!"

XVI

Pelle had placed his work-bench against the wall-s.p.a.ce between the two windows of the living-room. There was just room to squeeze past between the edge of the bench and the round table which stood in the middle of the room. Against the wall by the door stood an oak-stained sideboard, which was Ellen's pride, and exactly opposite this, on the opposing wall, stood the chest of drawers of her girlhood, with a mirror above it and a white embroidered cover on the top. On this chest of drawers stood a polished wooden workbox, a few photographs, and various knick-knacks; with its white cover it was like a little altar.

Pelle went to Master Beck's only every other day; the rest of the time he sat at home playing the little master. He had many acquaintances hereabouts, really poor folks, who wore their boots until their stockings appeared before they had them repaired; nevertheless, it was possible to earn a day's pay among them. He obtained work, too, from Ellen's family and their acquaintances. These were people of another sort; even when things went badly with them they always kept up appearances and even displayed a certain amount of luxury. They kept their troubles to themselves.

He could have obtained plenty of journeyman work, but he preferred this arrangement, which laid the foundation of a certain independence; there was more chance of a future in it. And there was a peculiar feeling about work done with his home as the background. When he lifted his eyes from his work as he sat at home a fruitful warmth came into his heart; things looked so familiar; they radiated comfort, as though they had always belonged together. And when the morning sun shone into the room everything wore a smile, and in the midst of it all Ellen moved busily to and fro humming a tune. She felt a need always to be near him, and rejoiced over every day which he spent at home. On those days she hurried through her work in the kitchen as quickly as possible, and then sat down to keep him company. He had to teach her how to make a patch, and how to sew a sole on, and she helped him with his work.

"Now you are the master and I'm the journeyman!" she would say delightedly. She brought him customers too; her ambition was to keep him always at home. "I'll help you all I can. And one fine day you'll have so much work you'll have to take an apprentice--and then a journeyman."

Then he would take her in his arms, and they worked in emulation, and sang as they worked.

Pelle was perfectly happy, and had cast off all his cares and burdens.

This was his nest, where every stick and stone was worth more than all else in the world besides. They had their work cut out to keep it together and feed themselves a little daintily; and Pelle tackled his work as joyfully as though he had at last found his true vocation.

Now and again a heavy wave came rolling up from the struggling ma.s.ses, making his heart beat violently, and then he would break out into fiery speech; or his happiness would weave radiant pictures before his eyes, and he would describe these to Ellen. She listened to him proudly, and with her beloved eyes upon him he would venture upon stronger expression and more vivid pictures, as was really natural to him. When at last he was silent she would remain quietly gazing at him with those dark eyes of hers that always seemed to be looking at something in him of which he himself was unaware.

"What are you thinking of now?" Pelle would ask, for he would have enjoyed an exposition of the ideas that filled his mind. There was no one for him but Ellen, and he wanted to discuss the new ideas with her, and to feel the wonderful happiness of sharing these too with her.

"I was thinking how red your lips are when you speak! They certainly want to be kissed!" she replied, throwing her arms round his neck.

What happened round about her did not interest her; she could only speak of their love and of what concerned herself. But the pa.s.sionate gaze of her eyes was like a deep background to their life. It had quite a mysterious effect upon his mind; it was like a lure that called to the unknown depths of his being. "The Pelle she sees must be different to the one I know," he thought happily. There must be something fine and strong in him for her to cling to him so closely and suffer so when parted from him only for a moment. When she had gazed at him long enough she would press herself against him, confused, and hide her face.

Without his remarking it, she directed his energies back to his own calling. He could work for two when she sat at the bench facing him and talked to him as she helped him. Pelle really found their little nest quite comfortable, but Ellen's mind was full of plans for improvement and progress. His business was to support a respectable home with dainty furniture and all sorts of other things; she was counting on these already. This home, which to him was like a beloved face that one cannot imagine other than it is, was to her only a temporary affair, which would by degrees be replaced by something finer and better. Behind her intimate gossip of every-day trivialities she concealed a far-reaching ambition. He must do his utmost if he was to accomplish all she expected of him!

Ellen by no means neglected her housekeeping, and nothing ever slipped through her fingers. When Pelle was away at the workshop she turned the whole place upside down, sweeping and scrubbing, and had always something good on the table for him. In the evening she was waiting for him at the door of the workshop. Then they would take a stroll along the ca.n.a.l, and across the green rampart where the children played. "Oh, Pelle, how I've longed for you to-day!" she would say haltingly. "Now, I've got you, and yet I've still got quite a pain in my b.r.e.a.s.t.s; they don't know yet that you're with me!"

"Shan't we work a little this evening--just a quarter of an hour?" she would say, when they had eaten, "so that you can become a master all the sooner and make things more comfortable for yourself." Pelle perhaps would rather have taken a walk through the city with her, or have gone somewhere where they could enjoy the sunset, but her dark eyes fixed themselves upon him.

She was full of energy from top to toe, and it was all centered on him. There was something in her nature that excluded the possibility of selfishness. In relation to herself, everything was indifferent; she only wanted to be with him--and to live for him. She was beneficent and intact as virgin soil; Pelle had awakened love in her--and it took the shape of a perpetual need of giving. He felt, humbly, that she brought all she had and was to him as a gift, and all he did was done to repay her generosity.

He had refused to undertake the direction of the labor organization. His life together with Ellen and the maintenance of the newly established household left him no time for any effectual efforts outside his home.

Ellen did not interfere in the matter; but when he came home after spending the evening at a meeting he could see she had been crying. So he stopped at home with her; it was weak of him, out he did not see what else he could do. And he missed nothing; Ellen more than made amends.

She knew how to make their little home close itself about him, how to turn it into a world of exuberant inner life. There was no greater pleasure than to set themselves to achieve some magnificent object--as, for instance, to buy a china flower-pot, which could stand on the window-sill and contain an aspidistra. That meant a week of saving, and when they had got it they would cross over to the other side of the ca.n.a.l, arm in arm, and look up at the window in order to see the effect.

And then something else would be needed; a perforating machine, an engraved nameplate for the door; every Sat.u.r.day meant some fresh acquisition.

_The Working Man_ lay unread. If Pelle laid down his work a moment in order to glance at it, there was Ellen nipping his ear with her lips; his free time belonged to her, and it was a glorious distraction in work-time, to frolic as carelessly as a couple of puppies, far more delightful than shouldering the burden of the servitude of the ma.s.ses!

So the paper was given up; Ellen received the money every week for her savings-bank. She had discovered a corner in Market Street where she wanted to set up a shop and work-room with three or four a.s.sistants--that was what she was saving for. Pelle wondered at her sagacity, for that was a good neighborhood.

After their marriage they did not visit Ellen's parents so often. Stolpe found Pelle was cooling down, and used to tease him a little, in order to make him answer the helm; but that angered Ellen, and resulted in explosions--she would tolerate no criticism of Pelle. She went to see them only when Pelle proposed it; she herself seemed to feel no desire to see her family, but preferred staying at home. Often they pretended they were not at home when "the family" knocked, in order to go out alone, to the Zoological Gardens or to Lyngby.

They did not see much of La.s.se. Ellen had invited him once for all to eat his supper with them. But when he came home from work he was too tired to change his clothes, and wash himself, and make himself tidy, and Ellen was particular about her little home. He had a great respect for her, but did not feel properly at home in her living-room.

He had taken Pelle's old room, and was boarding with the three orphans.

They thought great things of him, and all their queer care for the big foundling Pelle was now transferred to old La.s.se. And here they fell on better soil. La.s.se was becoming a child again, and had felt the need of a little pampering. With devout attention he would listen to Marie's little troubles, and the boy's narrations of everything that they did and saw. In return he told them the adventures of his boyhood, or related his experiences in the stone-breaking yard, swaggering suitably, in order not to be outdone. When Pelle came to fetch his father the four of them would be sitting down to some childish game. They would wrangle as to how the game should be played, for La.s.se was the most skilful. The old man would excuse himself.

"You mustn't be angry, lad, because I neglect you--but I'm tired of an evening and I go to bed early."

"Then come on Sunday--and breakfast with us; afterward we go out."

"No, I've something on for Sunday--an a.s.signation," said La.s.se roguishly, in order to obviate further questions. "Enjoy your youthful happiness; it won't last forever."

He would never accept help. "I earn what I need for my food and a few clothes; I don't need much of either, and I am quite contented. And you've enough to see to yourself," was his constant answer.

La.s.se was always gentle and amiable, and appeared contented, but there was a curious veil over his eyes, as though some disappointment were gnawing at his heart.

And Pelle knew well what it was--it had always been an understood thing that La.s.se should spend his old age at Pelle's fireside. In his childish dreams of the future, however various they might be, Father La.s.se was always at hand, enjoying a restful old age, in return for all he had done for Pelle.

That was how it should be; at home in the country in every poor home a gray-headed old man sat in the chimney-corner--for children among the poor are the only comfort of age.

For the time being this could not be arranged; there was no room in their two little rooms. Ellen was by no means lacking in heart; she often thought of this or that for the old man's comfort, but her pa.s.sionate love would permit of no third person to approach them too closely. Such a thing had never entered her mind; and Pelle felt that if he were to persuade her to take Father La.s.se into their home, the wonder of their life together would be killed. They lived so fully from hour to hour; theirs was a sacred happiness, that must not be sacrificed, but which itself demanded the sacrifice of all else. Their relation was not the usual practical self-love, but love itself, which seldom touches the every-day life of the poor, save that they hear it in tragic and beautiful songs of unhappy lovers. But here, to them, had come its very self--a s.h.i.+ning wonder!

And now Ellen was going to bear a child. Her figure grew fuller and softer. Toward all others she was cold and remote in her behavior; only to Pelle she disclosed herself utterly. The slight reserve which had always lurked somewhere within her, as though there was something that he could not yet conquer, had disappeared. Her gaze was no longer fixed and searching; but sought his own with quiet self-surrender. A tender and wonderful harmony was visible in her, as though she had now come into her own, and from day to day she grew more beautiful.

Pelle was filled with pride to see how luxuriantly she unfolded beneath his caresses. He was conscious of a sense of inexhaustible liberality, such as the earth had suddenly inspired in him at times in his childhood; and an infinite tenderness filled his heart. There was an alluring power in Ellen's helplessness, so rich in promise as it was. He would joyfully have sacrificed the whole world in order to serve her and that which she so wonderfully bore within her.

He got up first in the morning, tidied the rooms, and made coffee before he went to work. He was vexed if when he came home Ellen had been sweeping or scrubbing. He made two of himself in order to spare her, stinted himself of sleep, and was restlessly busy; his face had a.s.sumed a fixed expression of happiness, which gave him almost a look of stupidity. His thoughts never went beyond the four walls of his home; Ellen's blessed form entirely engrossed him.

The buying of new furniture was discontinued; in its place Ellen made curious purchases of linen and flannel and material for swaddling-bands, and mysterious conversations were continually taking place between her and her mother, from which Pelle was excluded; and when they went to see Ellen's parents Madam Stolpe was always burrowing in her chests of drawers, and giving Ellen little packages to be taken home.

The time pa.s.sed only too quickly. Exclusively as they had lived for their own affairs, it seemed as if they could never get everything finished. And one day it was as though the world was shattered about their heads. Ellen lay in bed, turning from side to side and shrieking as though an evil spirit had taken possession of her body. Pelle bent over her with a helpless expression, while at the foot of the bed sat Madam Blom; she sat there knitting and reading the papers as though nothing whatever was amiss. "Shriek away, little woman," she said from time to time, when Ellen became silent; "that's part of the business!"

Ellen looked at her spitefully and defiantly pressed her lips together, but next moment she opened her mouth wide and roared wildly. A rope was fastened to the foot of the bed, and she pulled on this while she shrieked. Then she collapsed, exhausted. "You wicked, wicked boy," she whispered, with a faint smile. Pelle bent over her happily; but she pushed him suddenly away; her beautiful body contorted itself, and the dreadful struggle was raging again. But at last a feeble voice relieved hers and filled the home with a new note. "Another mouth to fill," said Madam Blom, holding the new-born child in the air by one leg. It was a boy.

Pelle went about blus.h.i.+ng and quite bewildered, as though something had happened to him that no one else had ever experienced. At first he took Master Beck's work home with him and looked after the child himself at night. Every other moment he had to put down his work and run in to the mother and child. "You are a wonderful woman, to give me such a child for a kiss," he said, beaming, "and a boy into the bargain! What a man he'll be!"