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

found seats, and the mistress seated herself beside her husband, with her arm leaning upon his pillow. “How are you getting on, Kongstrup? Have you been resting?” she asked sympathetically, patting his shoulder. Kongstrup gave a little grunt, that might have meant yes, or no, or nothing at all.

“And what about you two? Are you in need of money?”

“No, it’s the lad. He’s to be dismissed from the confirmation-class,” answered Lasse simply. With the mistress you couldn’t help being decided.

“Are you to be dismissed?” she exclaimed, looking at Pelle as at an old acquaintance. “Then what have you been doing?”

“Oh, I kicked the parson’s son.”

“And what did you do that for?”

“Because he wouldn’t fight, but threw himself down.”

Fru Kongstrup laughed and nudged her husband. “Yes, of course. But what had he done to you?”

“He’d said bad things about Father Lasse.”

“What were the things?”

Pelle looked hard at her; she meant to get to the bottom of everything. “I won’t tell you!” he said firmly.

“Oh, very well! But then we can’t do anything about it either.”

“I may just as well tell you,” Lasse interrupted. “He called me Madam Olsen’s concubine⁠—from the Bible story, I suppose.”

Kongstrup tried to suppress a chuckle, as if someone had whispered a coarse joke in his ear, and he could not help it. The mistress herself was serious enough.

“I don’t think I understand,” she said, and laid a repressing hand upon her husband’s arm. “Lasse must explain.”

“It’s because I was engaged to Madam Olsen in the village, who everyone thought was a widow; and then her husband came home the other day. And so they’ve given me that nickname round about, I suppose.”

Kongstrup began his suppressed laughter again, and Lasse blinked in distress at it.

“Help yourselves to a cake!” said Fru Kongstrup in a very loud voice, pushing the plate toward them. This silenced Kongstrup, and he lay and watched their assault upon the cake-plate with an attentive eye.

Fru Kongstrup sat tapping the table with her middle finger while they ate. “So that good boy Pelle got angry and kicked out, did he?” she said suddenly, her eyes flashing.

“Yes, that’s what he never ought to have done!” answered Lasse plaintively.

Fru Kongstrup fixed her eyes upon him.

“No, for all that the poorer birds are for is to be pecked at! Well, I prefer the bird that pecks back again and defends its nest, no matter how poor it is. Well, well, we shall see! And is that boy going to be confirmed? Why, of course! To think that I should be so forgetful! Then we must begin to think about his clothes.”

“That’s two troubles got rid of!” said Lasse when they went down to the stable again. “And did you notice how nicely I let her know that you were going to be confirmed? It was almost as if she’d found it out for herself. Now you’ll see, you’ll be as fine as a shop-boy in your clothes; people like the master and mistress know what’s needed when once they’ve opened their purse. Well, they got the whole truth straight, but confound it! they’re no more than human beings. It’s always best to speak out straight.” Lasse could not forget how well it had turned out.

Pelle let the old man boast. “Do you think I shall get leather shoes of them too?” he asked.

“Yes, of course you will! And I shouldn’t wonder if they made a confirmation-party for you too. I say they, but it’s her that’s doing it all, and we may be thankful for that. Did you notice that she said we⁠—we shall, and so on⁠—always? It’s nice of her, for he only lies there and eats and leaves everything to her. But what a good time he has! I think she’d go through fire to please him; but upon my word, she’s master there. Well, well, I suppose we oughtn’t to speak evil of anyone; to you she’s like your own mother!”

Fru Kongstrup said nothing about the result of her drive to the parson; it was not her way to talk about things afterward. But Lasse and Pelle once more trod the earth with a feeling of security; when she took up a matter, it was as good as arranged.

One morning later in the week, the tailor came limping in with his scissors, tape-measure, and pressing-iron, and Pelle had to go down to the servants’ room, and was measured in every direction as if he had been a prize animal. Up to the present, he had always had his clothes made by guesswork. It was something new to have itinerant artisans at Stone Farm; since Kongstrup had come into power, neither shoemaker nor tailor had ever set foot in the servants’ room. This was a return to the good old farm-customs, and placed Stone Farm once more on a footing with the other farms. The people enjoyed it, and as often as they could went down into the servants’ room for a change of air and to hear one of the tailor’s yarns. “It’s the mistress who’s at the head of things now!” they said to one another. There was good peasant blood in her hands, and she brought things back into the good old ways. Pelle walked into the servants’ room like a gentleman; he was fitted several times a day.

He was fitted for two whole suits, one of which was for Rud, who was to be confirmed too. It would probably be the last thing that Rud and his mother would get at the farm, for Fru Kongstrup had carried her point, and they were to leave the cottage in May. They would never venture to set foot again in Stone Farm. Fru Kongstrup herself saw that they received what they were to have, but she did not give money if she could help it.

Pelle and Rud were never together now, and they seldom went to the parson together. It was Pelle who had drawn back, as he had grown tired of being on