Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Andersen Nexø (great novels to read .TXT) 📕

dark around them, and its all-enveloping loneliness made it seem as if they two were floating alone in space.

“Well, we ought to be getting on,” exclaimed Pelle, taking a handle of the chest; but as Lasse did not move, he dropped it and sat down. They sat back to back, and neither could find the right words to utter, and the distance between them seemed to increase. Lasse shivered with the night cold. “If only we were at home in our good bed!” he sighed.

Pelle was almost wishing he had been alone, for then he would have gone on to the end. The old man was just as heavy to drag along as the chest.

“Do you know I think I’ll go back again!” said Lasse at last in crestfallen tone. “I’m afraid I’m not able to tread uncertain paths. And you’ll never be confirmed if we go on like this! Suppose we go back and get Kongstrup to put in a good word for us with the parson.” Lasse stood and held one handle of the chest.

Pelle sat on as if he had not heard, and then he silently took hold, and they toiled along on their weary way homeward across the fields. Every other minute Pelle was tired and had to rest; now that they were going home, Lasse was the more enduring. “I think I could carry it a little way alone, if you’d help me up with it,” he said; but Pelle would not hear of it.

“Pee-u-ah!” sighed Lasse with pleasure when they once more stood in the warmth of the cow-stable and heard the animals breathing in indolent well-being⁠—“it’s comfortable here. It’s just like coming into one’s old home. I think I should know this stable again by the air, if they led me into it blindfold anywhere in the world.”

And now they were home again, Pelle too could not help thinking that it really was pleasant.

XXIII

On Sunday morning, between watering and midday feed, Lasse and Pelle ascended the high stone steps. They took off their wooden shoes in the passage, and stood and shook themselves outside the door of the office; their gray stocking-feet were full of chaff and earth. Lasse raised his hand to knock, but drew it back. “Have you wiped your nose properly?” he asked in a whisper, with a look of anxiety on his face. Pelle performed the operation once more, and gave a final polish with the sleeve of his blouse.

Lasse lifted his hand again; he looked greatly oppressed. “You might keep quiet then!” he said irritably to Pelle, who was standing as still as a mouse. Lasse’s knuckles were poised in the air two or three times before they fell upon the door; and then he stood with his forehead close to the panel and listened. “There’s no one there,” he whispered irresolutely.

“Just go in!” exclaimed Pelle. “We can’t stand here all day.”

“Then you can go first, if you think you know better how to behave!” said Lasse, offended.

Pelle quickly opened the door and went in. There was no one in the office, but the door was open into the drawing-room, and the sound of Kongstrup’s comfortable breathing came thence.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

“It’s Lasse and Pelle,” answered Lasse in a voice that did not sound altogether brave.

“Will you come in here?”

Kongstrup was lying on the sofa reading a magazine, and on the table beside him stood a pile of old magazines and a plateful of little cakes. He did not raise his eyes from his book, not even while his hand went out to the plate for something to put in his mouth. He lay nibbling and swallowing while he read, and never looked at Lasse and Pelle, or asked them what they wanted, or said anything to give them a start. It was like being sent out to plough without knowing where. He must have been in the middle of something very exciting.

“Well, what do you want?” asked Kongstrup at last in slow tones.

“Well⁠—well, the master must excuse us for coming like this about something that doesn’t concern the farm; but as matters now stand, we’ve no one else to go to, and so I said to the laddie: ‘Master won’t be angry, I’m sure, for he’s many a time been kind to us poor beggars⁠—and that.’ Now it’s so in this world that even if you’re a poor soul that’s only fit to do others’ dirty work, the Almighty’s nevertheless given you a father’s heart, and it hurts you to see the father’s sin standing in the son’s way.”

Lasse came to a standstill. He had thought it all out beforehand, and so arranged it that it should lead up, in a shrewd, dignified way, to the matter itself. But now it was all in a muddle like a slattern’s pocket-handkerchief, and the farmer did not look as if he had understood a single word of it. He lay there, taking a cake now and then, and looking helplessly toward the door.

“It sometimes happens too, that a man gets tired of the single state,” began Lasse once more, but at once gave up trying to go on. No matter how he began, he went round and round the thing and got no hold anywhere! And now Kongstrup began to read again. A tiny question from him might have led to the very middle of it; but he only filled his mouth full and began munching quite hard.

Lasse was outwardly disheartened and inwardly angry, as he stood there and prepared to go. Pelle was staring about at the pictures and the old mahogany furniture, making up his mind about each thing.

Suddenly energetic steps sounded through the rooms; the ear could follow their course right up from the kitchen. Kongstrup’s eyes brightened, and Lasse straightened himself up.

“Is that you two?” said Fru Kongstrup in her decided way that indicated the manager. “But do sit down! Why didn’t you offer them a seat, old man?”

Lasse and Pelle