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

been to sea, and Bornholmers sail on all the seas, as far as a ship can go. And I have met people who had never been on the sea, and yet they were as though it was their home. When I sailed the brig Clara for Skipper Andersen, I had such a lad on board as ordinary seaman. He had never bathed in the sea; but one day, as we were lying at anchor, and the others were swimming around, he jumped into the water too⁠—now this is God’s truth⁠—as though he were tumbling into his mother’s arms; he thought that swimming came of its own accord. He went straight to the bottom, and was half dead before we fished him up again.”

“The devil may understand the sea!” cried Master Andres breathlessly. “It is curved like an arch everywhere, and it can get up on its hind legs and stand like a wall, although it’s a fluid! And I have read in a book that there is so much silver in the sea that every man in the whole world might be rich.”

“Thou righteous God!” cried Bjerregrav, “such a thing I have never heard. Now does that come from all the ships that have gone down? Yes, the sea⁠—that, curse it, is the greatest power!”

“It’s ten o’clock,” said Jeppe. “And the lamp is going out⁠—that devil’s contrivance!” They broke up hastily, and Pelle turned the lamp out.

But long after he had laid his head on his pillow everything was going round inside it. He had swallowed everything, and imaginary pictures thronged in his brain like young birds in an overfull nest, pushing and wriggling to find a place wherein to rest. The sea was strong; now in the wintertime the surging of the billows against the cliffs was continually in his ear. Pelle was not sure whether it would stand aside for him! He had an unconscious reluctance to set himself limits, and as for the power about which they had all been disputing, it certainly had its seat in Pelle himself, like a vague consciousness that he was, despite all his defeats, invincible.

At times this feeling manifested itself visibly and helped him through the day. One afternoon they were sitting and working, after having swallowed their food in five minutes, as their custom was; the journeyman was the only one who did not grudge himself a brief midday rest, and he sat reading the newspaper. Suddenly he raised his head and looked wonderingly at Pelle. “Now what’s this? Lasse Karlson⁠—isn’t that your father?”

“Yes,” answered Pelle, with a paralyzed tongue, and the blood rushed to his cheeks. Was Father Lasse in the news? Not among the accidents? He must have made himself remarkable in one way or another through his farming! Pelle was nearly choking with excitement, but he did not venture to ask, and Little Nikas simply sat there and looked secretive. He had assumed the expression peculiar to the young master.

But then he read aloud: “Lost! A louse with three tails has escaped, and may be left, in return for a good tip, with the landowner Lasse Karlson, Heath Farm. Broken black bread may also be brought there.”

The others burst into a shout of laughter, but Pelle turned an ashen gray. With a leap he was across the table and had pulled little Nikas to the ground underneath him; there he lay, squeezing the man’s throat with his fingers, trying to throttle him, until he was overpowered. Emil and Peter had to hold him while the knee-strap put in its work.

And yet he was proud of the occurrence; what did a miserable thrashing signify as against the feat of throwing the journeyman to the ground and overcoming the slavish respect he had felt for him! Let them dare to get at him again with their lying allusions, or to make sport of Father Lasse! Pelle was not inclined to adopt circuitous methods.

And the circumstances justified him. After this he received more consideration; no one felt anxious to bring Pelle and his cobbler’s tools on top of him, even although the boy could be thrashed afterward.

XI

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