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

But the “Great Power” could not raise his; he lay there, staring up through the holes in the thatched roof. “It has been hard enough, certainly, to belong to the poor,” he said, “and it’s a good thing it’s all over. But you owe me no thanks. Why should I leave you in the lurch and take everything for myself⁠—would that be like the ‘Great Power’? Of course, the plan was mine! But could I have carried it out alone? No, money does everything. You’ve fairly deserved it! The ‘Great Power’ doesn’t want to have more than anyone else⁠—where we have all done an equal amount of work.” He raised his hand, painfully, and made a magnanimous gesture.

“There⁠—he believes he’s the engineer of the harbor works!” said Ström. “He’s wandering. Wouldn’t a cold application do him good?” Emil took the bucket in order to fetch fresh water. The “Great Power” lay with closed eyes and a faint smile on his face; he was like a blind man who is listening. “Do you understand,” he said, without opening his eyes, “how we have labored and labored, and yet have been barely able to earn our daily bread? The big people sat there and ate up everything that we could produce; when we laid down our tools and wanted to still our hunger there was nothing. They stole our thoughts, and if we had a pretty sweetheart or a young daughter they could do with her too⁠—they didn’t disdain our cripple even. But now that’s done with, and we will rejoice that we have lived to see it; it might have gone on for a long time. Mother wouldn’t believe what I told her at all⁠—that the bad days would soon be over. But now just see! Don’t I get just as much for my work as the doctor for his? Can’t I keep my wife and daughter neat and have books and get myself a piano, just as he can? Isn’t it a great thing to perform manual labor too? Karen has piano lessons now, just as I’ve always wished, for she’s weakly and can’t stand any hard work. You should just come home with me and hear her play⁠—she does it so easily too! Poor people’s children have talent too, it’s just that no one notices it.”

“God, how he talks!” said Ström, crying. “It’s almost as if he had the delirium.”

Pelle bent down over the “Great Power.” “Now you must be good and be quiet,” he said, and laid something wet on his forehead. The blood was trickling rapidly from behind his ear.

“Let him talk,” said Olsen. “He hasn’t spoken a word for months now; he must feel the need to clear his mind this once. It’ll be long before he speaks again, too!”

Now the “Great Power” was only weakly moving his lips. His life was slowly bleeding away. “Have you got wet, little Karen?” he murmured. “Ah, well, it’ll dry again! And now it’s all well with you, now you can’t complain. Is it fine to be a young lady? Only tell me everything you want. Why be modest? We’ve been that long enough! Gloves for the work-worn fingers, yes, yes. But you must play something for me too. Play that lovely song: ‘On the joyful journey through the lands of earth.⁠ ⁠…’ That about the Eternal Kingdom!”

Gently he began to hum it; he could no longer keep time by moving his head, but he blinked his eyes in time; and now his humming broke out into words.

Something irresistibly impelled the others to sing in concert with him; perhaps the fact that it was a religious song. Pelle led them with his clear young voice; and it was he who best knew the words by heart.

“Fair, fair is earth,
And glorious Heaven;
Fair is the spirit’s journey long;
Through all the lovely earthly kingdoms,
Go we to Paradise with song.”

The “Great Power” sang with increasing strength, as though he would outsing Pelle. One of his feet was moving now, beating the time of the song. He lay with closed eyes, blindly rocking his head in time with the voices, like one who, at a drunken orgy, must put in his last word before he slips under the table. The saliva was running from the corners of his mouth.

“The years they come,
The years they go,
And down the road to death we throng,
But ever sound the strains from heaven⁠—
The spirit’s joyful pilgrim song!”

The “Great Power” ceased; his head drooped to one side, and at the same moment the others ceased to sing.

They sat in the straw and gazed at him⁠—his last words still rang in their ears, like a crazy dream, which mingled oddly with the victorious notes of the hymn.

They were all sensible of the silent accusation of the dead, and in the solemnity of the moment they judged and condemned themselves.

“Yes, who knows what we might come to!” said one ragged fellow, thoughtfully chewing a length of straw.

“I shall never do any good,” said Emil dejectedly. “With me it’s always been from bad to worse. I was apprenticed, and when I became a journeyman they gave me the sack; I had wasted five years of my life and couldn’t do a thing. Pelle⁠—he’ll get on all right.”

Astonished, Pelle raised his head and gazed at Emil uncomprehendingly.

“What use is it if a poor devil tries to make his way up? He’ll always be pushed down again!” said Olsen. “Just look at the ‘Great Power’; could anyone have had a better claim than he? No, the big folks don’t allow us others to make our way up!”

“And have we allowed it ourselves?” muttered Ström. “We are always uneasy if one of our own people wants to fly over our heads!”

“I don’t understand why all the poor folk don’t make a stand together against the others,” said Bergendal. “We suffer the same wrongs. If we all acted together, and had nothing to