The skipper’s garden was a desert. Trees and bushes were leafless; from the workshop window one could look right through them, and over other gardens beyond, and as far as the backs of the houses in East Street. There were no more games in the garden; the paths were buried in ice and melting snow, and the blocks of coral, and the great conch-shells which, with their rosy mouths and fish-like teeth, had sung so wonderfully of the great ocean, had been taken in on account of the frost.
Manna he saw often enough. She used to come tumbling into the workshop with her school satchel or her skates; a button had got torn off, or a heel had been wrenched loose by a skate. A fresh breeze hovered about her hair and cheeks, and the cold made her face glow. “There is blood!” the young master would say, looking at her delightedly; he laughed and jested when she came in. But Manna would hold on to Pelle’s shoulder and throw her foot into his lap, so that he could button her boots. Sometimes she would pinch him secretly and look angry—she was jealous of Morten. But Pelle did not understand; Morten’s gentle, capable mind had entirely subjugated him and assumed the direction of their relations. Pelle was miserable if Morten was not there when he had an hour to spare. Then he would run, with his heart in his mouth, to find him; everything else was indifferent to him.
One Sunday morning, as he was sweeping the snow in the yard, the girls were in their garden; they were making a snowman.
“Hey, Pelle!” they cried, and they clapped their mittens; “come over here! You can help us to build a snow-house. We’ll wall up the door and light some Christmas-tree candles: we’ve got some ends. Oh, do come!”
“Then Morten must come too—he’ll be here directly!”
Manna turned up her nose. “No, we don’t want Morten here!”
“Why not? He’s so jolly!” said Pelle, wounded.
“Yes, but his father is so dreadful—everybody is afraid of him. And then he’s been in prison.”
“Yes, for beating some one—that’s nothing so dreadful! My father was too, when he was a young man. That’s no disgrace, for it isn’t for stealing.”
But Manna looked at him with an expression exactly like Jeppe’s when he was criticizing somebody from his standpoint as a respectable citizen.
“But, Pelle, aren’t you ashamed of it? That’s how only the very poorest people think—those who haven’t any feelings of shame!”
Pelle blushed for his vulgar way of looking at things. “It’s no fault of Morten’s that his father’s like that!” he retorted lamely.
“No, we won’t have Morten here. And mother won’t let us. She says perhaps we can play with you, but not with anybody else. We belong to a very good family,” she said, in explanation.
“My father has a great farm—it’s worth quite as much as a rotten barge,” said Pelle angrily.
“Father’s ship isn’t rotten!” rejoined Manna, affronted. “It’s the best in the harbor here, and it has three masts!”
“All the same, you’re nothing but a mean hussy!” Pelle spat over the hedge.
“Yes, and you’re a Swede!” Manna blinked her eyes triumphantly, while Dolores and Aina stood behind her and put out their tongues.
Pelle felt strongly inclined to jump over the garden wall and beat them; but just then Jeppe’s old woman began scolding from the kitchen, and he went on with his work.
Now, after Christmas, there was nothing at all to do. People were wearing out their old boots, or they went about in wooden shoes. Little Nikas was seldom in the workshop; he came in at meal-times and went away again, and he was always wearing his best clothes. “He earns his daily bread easily,” said Jeppe. Over on the mainland they didn’t feed their people through the winter; the moment there was no more work, they kicked them out.
In the daytime Pelle was often sent on a round through the harbor in order to visit the shipping. He would find the masters standing about there in their leather aprons, talking about nautical affairs; or they would gather before their doors, to gossip, and each, from sheer habit, would carry some tool or other in his hand.
And the wolf was at the door. The “Saints” held daily meetings, and the people had time enough to attend them. Winter proved how insecurely the town was established, how feeble were its roots; it was not here as it was up in the country, where a man could enjoy himself in the knowledge that the earth was working for him. Here people made themselves as small and ate as little as possible, in order to win through the slack season.
In the workshops the apprentices sat working at cheap boots and shoes for stock; every spring the shoemakers would charter a ship in common and send a cargo to Iceland. This helped them on a little. “Fire away!” the master would repeat, over and over again; “make haste—we don’t get much for it!”
The slack season gave rise to many serious questions. Many of the workers were near to destitution, and it was said that the organized charities would find it very difficult to give assistance to all who applied for it. They were busy everywhere, to their full capacity. “And I’ve heard it’s nothing here to what it is on the mainland,” said Baker Jörgen. “There the unemployed are numbered in tens of thousands.”
“How can they live, all those thousands of poor people, if the unemployment is so great?” asked Bjerregrav. “The need is bad enough here in town, where every employer provides his people with their daily bread.”
“Here no one starves unless he wants to,” said Jeppe. “We have a well-organized system of relief.”
“You’re certainly becoming a Social Democrat, Jeppe,” said Baker Jörgen; “you want to put everything on to the organized charities!”
Wooden-leg Larsen laughed; that was a new interpretation.
“Well, what do they really want? For they are not freemasons. They say they are raising their heads again over on the mainland.”
“Well, that, of course, is a thing that comes and goes with unemployment,” said Jeppe. “The people must do something. Last winter a son of the sailmaker’s came home—well, he was one of them in secret. But the old folks would never admit it, and he himself was so clever that he got out of it somehow.”
“If he’d been a son of mine he would have got the stick,” said Jörgen.
“Aren’t they the sort of people who are making ready for the millennium? We’ve got a few of their sort here,” said Bjerregrav diffidently.
“D’you mean the poor devils who believe in the watchmaker and his ‘new time’? Yes, that may well be,” said Jeppe contemptuously. “I have heard they are quite wicked enough for that. I’m inclined to think they are the Antichrist the Bible foretells.”
“Ah, but what do they really want?” asked Baker Jörgen. “What is their madness really driving at?”
“What do they want?” Wooden-leg Larsen pulled himself together. “I’ve knocked up against a lot of people, I have, and as far as I can understand it they want to get justice; they want to take the right of coining money away from the Crown and give it to everybody. And they want to overthrow everything, that is quite certain.”
“Well,” said Master Andres, “what they want, I believe, is perfectly right, only they’ll never get it. I know a little about it, on account of Garibaldi.”
“But what do they want, then, if they don’t want to overthrow the whole world?”
“What do they want? Well, what do they want? That everybody should have exactly the same?” Master Andres was uncertain.
“Then the ship’s boy would have as much as the captain! No, it would be the devil and all!” Baker Jörgen smacked his thigh and laughed.
“And they want to abolish the king,” said Wooden-leg Larsen eagerly.
“Who the devil would reign over us then? The Germans would soon come hurrying over! That’s a most wicked thing, that Danish people should want to hand over their country to the enemy! All I wonder is that they don’t shoot them down without trial! They’d never be admitted to Bornholm.”
“That we don’t really know!” The young master smiled.
“To the devil with them—we’d all go down to the shore and shoot them: they should never land alive!”
“They are just a miserable rabble, the lot of them,” said Jeppe. “I should very much like to know whether there is a decent citizen among them.”
“Naturally, it’s always the poor who complain of poverty,” said Bjerregrav. “So the thing never comes to an end.”
Baker Jörgen was the only one of them who had anything to do. Things would have to be bad indeed before the people stopped buying his black bread. He even had more to do than usual; the more people abstained from meat and cheese, the more bread they ate. He often hired Jeppe’s apprentices so that they might help him in the kneading.
But he was not in a happy frame of mind. He was always shouting his abuse of Sören through the open doors, because the latter would not go near his buxom young wife. Old Jörgen had taken him and put him into bed with her with his own hands, but Sören had got out of the business by crying and trembling like a new-born calf.
“D’you think he’s perhaps bewitched?” asked Master Andres.
“She’s young and pretty, and there’s not the least fault to be found with her—and we’ve fed him with eggs right through the winter. She goes about hanging her head, she gets no attention from him. ‘Marie! Sören!’ I cry, just to put a little life into them—he ought to be the sort of devil I was, I can tell you! She laughs and blushes, but Sören, he simply sneaks off. It’s really a shame—so dainty as she is too, in every way. Ah, it ought to have been in my young days, I can tell you!”
“You are still young enough, Uncle Jörgen!” laughed Master Andres.
“Well, a man could almost bring himself to it—when he considers what a dreadful injustice is going on under his own eyes. For, look you, Andres, I’ve been a dirty beast about all that sort of thing, but I’ve been a jolly fellow too; people were always glad to be on board with me. And I’ve had strength for a booze, and a girl; and for hard work in bad weather. The life I’ve led—it hasn’t been bad; I’d live it all over again the same. But Sören—what sort of a strayed weakling is he? He can’t find his own way about! Now, if only you would have a chat with him—you’ve got some influence over him.”
“I’ll willingly try.”
“Thanks; but look here, I owe you money.” Jörgen took ten kroner and laid them on the table as he was going.
“Pelle, you devil’s imp, can you run an errand for me?” The young master limped into the cutting-out room, Pelle following on his heels.
A hundred times a day the master would run to the front door, but he hurried back again directly; he could not stand the cold. His eyes were full of dreams of other countries, whose climates were kinder, and he spoke of his two brothers, of whom one was lost in South America—perhaps murdered. But the other was in Australia, herding sheep. He earned more at that than the town magistrate received as salary, and was the cleverest boxer in the neighborhood. Here the master made his bloodless hands circle one round the other, and let them fall clenched upon Pelle’s back. “That,” he said, in a superior tone, “is what they call boxing. Brother Martin can cripple a man with one blow. He is paid for it, the devil!” The master shuddered. His brother had on several occasions offered to send him his steamer-ticket, but there was that damned leg. “Tell me what I should do over there, eh, Pelle?”
Pelle had to bring books from the lending library every day, and he soon learned which writers were the most exciting. He also attempted to read himself, but he could not get on with it; it was more amusing to stand about by the skating-pond and freeze and watch the others gliding over the ice. But he got Morten to tell him of exciting books, and these he brought home for the master; such was the “Flying Dutchman.” “That’s a work of poetry, Lord alive!” said the master, and he related its contents to Bjerregrav, who took them all for reality.
“You should have played some part in the great world, Andres—I for my part do best to stay at home here. But you could have managed it—I’m sure of it.”
“The great world!” said the master scornfully. No, he didn’t take much stock in the world—it wasn’t big enough. “If I were to travel, I should like to look for the way into the interior of the earth— they say there’s a way into it in Iceland. Or it would be glorious to make a voyage to the moon; but that will always be just a story.”
At the beginning of the new year the crazy Anker came to the young master and dictated a love-letter to the eldest daughter of the king. “This year he will surely answer,” he said thoughtfully. “Time is passing, and fortune disappears, and there are few that have their share of it; we need the new time very badly.”
“Yes, we certainly do,” said Master Andres. “But if such a misfortune should happen that the king should refuse, why, you are man enough to manage the matter yourself, Anker!”
It was a slack season, and, just as it was at its very worst, shoemaker Bohn returned and opened a shop on the marketplace. He had spent a year on the mainland and had learned all sorts of modern humbug. There was only one pair of boots in his window, and those were his own Sunday boots. Every Monday they were put out and exhibited again, so that there should be something to look at.
If he himself was in the shop, talking to the people, his wife would sit in the living-room behind and hammer on a boot, so that it sounded as though there were men in the workshop.
But at Shrovetide Jeppe received some orders. Master Andres came home quite cheerfully one day from Bjerhansen’s cellar; there he had made the acquaintance of some of the actors of a troupe which had just arrived. “They are fellows, too!” he said, stroking his cheeks. “They travel continually from one place to another and give performances—they get to see the world!” He could not sit quiet.
The next morning they came rioting into the workshop, filling the place with their deafening gabble. “Soles and heels!” “Heels that won’t come off!” “A bit of heel-work and two on the snout!” So they went on, bringing great armfuls of boots from under their cloaks, or fishing them out of bottomless pockets, and throwing them in heaps on the window-bench, each with his droll remarks. Boots and shoes they called “understandings”; they turned and twisted every word, tossing it like a ball from mouth to mouth, until not a trace of sense was left in it.
The apprentices forgot everything, and could scarcely contain themselves for laughing, and the young master overflowed with wit— he was equal to the best of them. Now one saw that he really might have luck with the women: there was no boasting or lying about it. The young actress with the hair like the lightest flax could not keep her eyes off him, although she evidently had all the others at her petticoat-tails; she made signs to her companions that they should admire the master’s splendid big mustache. The master had forgotten his lame leg and thrown his stick away; he was on his knees, taking the actress’s measure for a pair of high boots with patent tops and concertina-like folds in the legs. She had a hole in the heel of her stocking, but she only laughed over it; one of the actors cried “Poached egg!” and then they laughed uproariously.
Old Jeppe came tumbling into the room, attracted by the merriment. The blonde lady called him “Grandfather,” and wanted to dance with him, and Jeppe forgot his dignity and laughed with the rest. “Yes, it’s to us they come when they want to have something good,” he said proudly. “And I learned my trade in Copenhagen, and I used to carry boots and shoes to more than one play-actor there. We had to work for the whole theater; Jungfer Patges, who became so famous later on, got her first dancing shoes from us.”
“Yes, those are the fellows!” said Master Andres, as at last they bustled out; “devil take me, but those are the chaps!” Jeppe could not in the least understand how they had found their way thither, and Master Andres did not explain that he had been to the tavern. “Perhaps Jungfer Patges sent them to me,” he said, gazing into the distance. “She must somehow have kept me in mind.”
Free tickets poured in on them; the young master was in the theater every evening. Pelle received a gallery ticket every time he went round with a pair of boots. He was to say nothing—but the price was plainly marked on the sole with chalk.
“Did you get the money?” the master would ask eagerly; he used to stand on the stairs all the time, waiting. No, Pelle was to present their very best wishes, and to say they would come round and settle up themselves.
“Well, well, people of that sort are safe enough,” said the master.
One day Lasse came stamping into the workshop and into the midst of them all, looking the picture of a big farmer, with his fur collar drawn round his ears. He had a sack of potatoes outside; it was a present to Pelle’s employers, because Pelle was learning his trade so well. Pelle was given leave and went out with his father; and he kept looking furtively at the fur collar. At last he could contain himself no longer, but turned it up inquiringly. Disillusioned, he let it fall again.
“Ah, yes—er—well—that’s just tacked on to my driving-cloak. It looks well, and it keeps my ears nice and warm. You thought I’d blossomed out into a proper fur coat? No, it won’t run to that just yet—but it will soon. And I could name you more than one big farmer who has nothing better than this.”
Yes, Pelle was just a trifle disappointed. But he must admit that there was no difference to be perceived between this cloak and the real bear-skin. “Are things going on all right?” he asked.
“Oh, yes; at present I am breaking stone. I’ve got to break twenty cords if I’m to pay everybody what’s owing to him by the Devil’s birthday.[2] So long as we keep our health and strength, Karna and I.”
[2] The 11th December—the general pay-day and hiring-day.—TR.
They drove to the merchant’s and put up the horses. Pelle noticed that the people at the merchant’s did not rush forward to Lasse quite so eagerly as they did to the real farmers; but Lasse himself behaved in quite an important manner. He stumped right into the merchant’s counting-house, just like the rest, filled his pipe at the barrel, and helped himself to a drink of brandy. A cold breath of air hung about him as he went backward and forward from the cart with buttoned-up cloak, and he stamped as loudly on the sharp cobble-stones as though his boot-soles too were made of stone.
Then they went on to Due’s cottage; Lasse was anxious to see how matters were prospering there. “It isn’t always easy when one of the parties brings a love-child into the business.”
Pelle explained to him how matters stood. “Tell them at Uncle Kalle’s that they must take little Maria back again. Anna ill-treats her. They are getting on well in other ways; now they want to buy a wagon and horses and set up as carriers.”
“Do they? Well, it’s easy for those to get on who haven’t any heart.” Lasse sighed.
“Look, father,” said Pelle suddenly, “there’s a theater here now, and I know all the players. I take them their boots, and they give me a ticket every evening. I’ve seen the whole thing.”
“But, of course, that’s all lies, eh?” Lasse had to pull up, in order to scrutinize Pelle’s face. “So you’ve been in a proper theater, eh? Well, those who live in the town have got the devil to thank for it if they are cleverer than a peasant. One can have everything here!”
“Will you go with me to-night? I can get the tickets.”
Lasse was uneasy. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go; but the whole thing was so unaccustomed. However, it was arranged that he should sleep the night at Due’s, and in the evening they both went to the theater.
“Is it here?” asked Lasse, astounded. They had come to a great building like a barn, before which a number of people were standing. But it was fine inside. They sat right up at the top, at the back, where the seats were arranged like the side of a hill, and they had a view over the whole theater. Down below, right in front, sat some ladies who, so far as Lasse could see, were naked. “I suppose those are the performers?” he inquired.
Pelle laughed. “No, those are the grandest ladies in the town—the doctor’s wife, the burgomaster’s lady, and the inspector’s wife, and such like.”
“What, they are so grand that they haven’t enough clothes to wear!” cried Lasse. “With us we call that poverty! But where are the players, then?”
“They are the other side of the curtain.”
“Then have they begun already?”
“No, you can see they haven’t—the curtain has to go up first.”
There was a hole in the curtain, and a finger came through it, and began to turn from side to side, pointing at the spectators. Lasse laughed. “That’s devilish funny!” he cried, slapping his thighs, as the finger continued to point.
“It hasn’t begun yet,” said Pelle.
“Is that so?” This damped Lasse’s spirits a little.
But then the big crown-light began suddenly to run up through a hole in the ceiling; up in the loft some boys were kneeling round the hole, and as the light came up they blew out the lamps. Then the curtain went up, and there was a great brightly-lit hall, in which a number of pretty young girls were moving about, dressed in the most wonderful costumes—and they were speaking! Lasse was quite astonished to find that he could understand what they said; the whole thing seemed so strange and foreign to him; it was like a peep into dreamland. But there was one maiden who sat there all alone at her spinning wheel, and she was the fairest of them all.
“That’s surely a fine lady?” asked Lasse.
But Pelle whispered that she was only a poor forest maiden, whom the lord of the castle had robbed, and now he wanted to force her to be his sweetheart. All the others were making a tremendous lot of her, combing her golden hair and kneeling before her; but she only looked unhappier than before. And sometimes her sadness was more than she could bear; then she opened her beautiful mouth and her wounded heart bled in song, which affected Lasse so that he had to fetch a long sighing breath.
Then a tall man with a huge red beard came stamping into the hall. Lasse saw that he was dressed like a man who has been keeping Carnival.
“That’s the one we made the fine boots for,” whispered Pelle: “the lord of the castle, who wants to seduce her.”
“An ugly devil he looks too!” said Lasse, and spat. “The master at Stone Farm is a child of God compared with him!” Pelle signed to him to be quiet.
The lord of the castle drove all the other women away, and then began to tramp stormily to and fro, eyeing the forest maiden and showing the whites of his eyes. “Well, have you at last decided?” he roared, and snorted like a mad bull. And suddenly he sprang at her as if to take her by force.
“Ha! Touch me not!” she cried, “or by the living God, I will plunge this dagger into my heart! You believe you can buy my innocence because I am poor, but the honor of the poor is not to be bought with gold!”
“That’s a true word!” said Lasse loudly.
But the lord of the castle gave a malicious laugh, and tugged at his red beard. He rolled his r’s dreadfully.
“Is my offer not enough for you? Come, stay this night with me and you shall receive a farm with ten head of cattle, so that to-morrow you can stand at the altar with your huntsman!”
“Hold your tongue, you whoremonger!” said Lasse angrily.
Those round about him tried to calm him; one or another nudged him in the ribs. “Well, can’t a man speak any longer?” Lasse turned crossly to Pelle. “I’m no clergyman, but if the girl doesn’t want to, let him leave her alone; at any rate he shan’t slake his lust publicly in the presence of hundreds of people with impunity! A swine like that!” Lasse was speaking loudly, and it seemed as though his words had had their effect on the lord of the castle. He stood there awhile staring in front of him, and then called a man, and bade him lead the maiden back to the forest.
Lasse breathed easily again as the curtain fell and the boys overhead by the hole in the ceiling relit the lamps and let them down again. “So far she’s got out of it all right,” he told Pelle, “but I don’t trust the lord—he’s a scoundrel!” He was perspiring freely, and did not look entirely satisfied.
The next scene which was conjured up on the stage was a forest. It was wonderfully fine, with pelargoniums blooming on the ground, and a spring which was flowing out of something green. “That is a covered beer-barrel!” said Pelle, and now Lasse too could see the tap, but it was wonderfully natural. Right in the background one could see the lord’s castle on a cliff, and in the foreground lay a fallen tree-trunk; two green-clad huntsmen sat astride of it, concocting their evil schemes. Lasse nodded—he knew something of the wickedness of the world.
Now they heard a sound, and crouched down behind the tree-trunk, each with a knife in his hand. For a moment all was silent; then came the forest maiden and her huntsman, wandering all unawares down the forest path. By the spring they took a clinging and affectionate farewell; then the man came forward, hurrying to his certain death.
This was too much. Lasse stood up. “Look out!” he cried in a choking voice: “look out!” Those behind him pulled his coat and scolded him. “No, devil take you all, I won’t hold my tongue!” he cried, and laid about him. And then he leaned forward again: “Look where you’re going, d’you hear! Your life is at stake! They’re hiding behind the fallen tree!”
The huntsman stood where he was and stared up, and the two assassins had risen to their feet and were staring, and the actors and actresses came through from the wings and gazed upward over the auditorium. Lasse saw that the man was saved, but now he had to suffer for his services; the manager wanted to throw him out. “I can perfectly well go by myself,” he said. “An honorable man is one too many in this company!” In the street below he talked aloud to himself; he was in a blazing temper.
“It was only a play,” said Pelle dejectedly. In his heart he was ashamed of his father.
“You needn’t try to teach me about that! I know very well that it all happened long ago and that I can do nothing to alter it, not if I was to stand on my head. But that such low doings should be brought to life again! If the others had felt as I did we should have taken the lord and thrashed him to death, even if it did come a hundred years too late!”
“Why—but that was Actor West, who comes to our workshop every day.”
“Is that so? Actor West, eh? Then you are Actor Codfish, to let yourself be imposed on like that! I have met people before now who had the gift of falling asleep and conjuring up long dead people in their place—but not so real as here, you understand. If you had been behind the curtain you would have seen West lying there like dead, while he, the other one—the Devil—was carrying on and ordering everybody about. It’s a gift I’d rather not have; a dangerous game! If the others forget the word of command that brings him back into the body it would be all up with him, and the other would take his place.”
“But that is all superstition! When I know it’s West in a play—why, I recognized him at once!”
“Oh, of course! You are always the cleverer! You’d like a dispute with the devil himself every day! So it was only a show? When he was rolling the whites of his eyes in his frantic lust! You believe me—if she hadn’t had that knife he would have fallen on her and satisfied his desire in front of everybody! Because if you conjure up long bygone times the action has to have its way, however many there are to see. But that they should do it for money—for money —ugh! And now I’m going home!” Lasse would say nothing more, but had the horses harnessed.
“You had best not go there again,” he said at parting. “But if it has got hold of you already, at least put a knife in your pocket. Yes, and we’ll send you your washing by Butcher Jensen, one Saturday, soon.”
Pelle went to the theater as before; he had a shrewd idea that it was only a play, but there was something mysterious about it; people must have a supernatural gift who evening after evening could so entirely alter their appearance and so completely enter into the people they represented. Pelle thought he would like to become an actor if he could only climb high enough.
The players created a considerable excitement when they strolled through the streets with their napping clothes and queer head-gear; people ran to their windows to see them, the old folk peeping over their shoulders. The town was as though transformed as long as they were in it.
Every mind had taken a perverse direction. The girls cried out in their sleep and dreamed of abductions; they even left their windows a little open; and every young fellow was ready to run away with the players. Those who were not theater-mad attended religious meetings in order to combat the evil.
And one day the players disappeared—as they had come—and left a cloud of debts behind them. “Devil’s trash!” said the master with his despondent expression. “They’ve tricked us! But, all the same, they were fine fellows in their way, and they had seen the world!”
But after these happenings he could by no means get warm again. He crawled into bed and spent the best part of the month lying there.