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

They threw themselves down in the grass and gazed up into the blue sky. It was a glorious morning; the birds twittered and flew busily to and fro, and the cattle were feeding in the dewy clover, leaving long streaks behind them as they moved.

“And in spite of that, you are always happy?” said Pelle. Sort had been telling him the sad story of his childhood.

“Yes, look you, it often vexes me that I take everything so easily⁠—but what if I can’t find anything to be sad about? If I once go into the matter thoroughly, I always hit on something or other that makes me still happier⁠—as, for instance, your society. You are young, and health beams out of your eyes. The girls become so friendly wherever we go, and it’s as though I myself were the cause of their pleasure!”

“Where do you really get your knowledge of everything?” asked Pelle.

“Do you find that I know so much?” Sort laughed gaily. “I go about so much, and I see so many different households, some where man and wife are as one, and others where they live like cat and dog. I come into contact with people of every kind. And I get to know a lot, too, because I’m not like other men⁠—more than one maiden has confided her miseries to me. And then in winter, when I sit alone, I think over everything⁠—and the Bible is a good book, a book a man can draw wisdom from. There a man learns to look behind things; and if you once realize that everything has its other side, then you learn to use your understanding. You can go behind everything if you want to, and they all lead in the same direction⁠—to God. And they all came from Him. He is the connection, do you see; and once a man grasps that, then he is always happy. It would be splendid to follow things up further⁠—right up to where they divide, and then to show, in spite of all, that they finally run together in God again! But that I’m not able to do.”

“We ought to see about getting on.” Pelle yawned, and he began to bestir himself.

“Why? We’re so comfortable here⁠—and we’ve already done what we undertook to do. What if there should be a pair of boots yonder which Sort and Pelle won’t get to sole before they’re done with? Someone else will get the job!”

Pelle threw himself on his back and again pulled his cap over his eyes⁠—he was in no hurry. He had now been travelling nearly a month with Sort, and had spent almost as much time on the road as sitting at his work. Sort could never rest when he had been a few days in one place; he must go on again! He loved the edge of the wood and the edge of the meadow, and could spend half the day there. And Pelle had many points of contact with this leisurely life in the open air; he had his whole childhood to draw upon. He could lie for hours, chewing a grass-stem, patient as a convalescent, while sun and air did their work upon him.

“Why do you never preach to me?” he said suddenly, and he peeped mischievously from tinder his cap.

“Why should I preach to you? Because I am religious? Well, so are you; everyone who rejoices and is content is religious.”

“But I’m not at all content!” retorted Pelle, and he rolled on his back with all four limbs in the air. “But you⁠—I don’t understand why you don’t get a congregation; you’ve got such a power over language.”

“Yes, if I were built as you are⁠—fast enough. But I’m humpbacked!”

“What does that matter? You don’t want to run after the women!”

“No, but one can’t get on without them; they bring the men and the children after them. And it’s really queer that they should⁠—for women don’t bother themselves about God! They haven’t the faculty of going behind things. They choose only according to the outside⁠—they want to hang everything on their bodies as finery⁠—and the men too, yes, and the dear God best of all⁠—they’ve got a use for the lot!”

Pelle lay still for a time, revolving his scattered experiences. “But Marie Nielsen wasn’t like that,” he said thoughtfully. “She’d willingly give the shirt off her body and ask nothing for herself. I’ve behaved badly to her⁠—I didn’t even say goodbye before I came away!”

“Then you must look her up when we come to town and confess your fault. There was no lovemaking between you?”

“She treated me like a child; I’ve told you.”

Sort was silent a while.

“If you would help me, we’d soon get a congregation! I can see it in your eyes, that you’ve got influence over them, if you only cared about it; for instance, the girl at Willow Farm. Thousands would come to us.”

Pelle did not answer. His thoughts were roaming back wonderingly to Willow Farm, where Sort and he had last been working; he was once more in that cold, damp room with the overlarge bed, on which the pale girl’s face was almost invisible. She lay there encircling her thick braids with her transparent hand, and gazed at him; and the door was gently closed behind him. “That was really a queer fancy,” he said, and he breathed deeply; “someone she’d never laid eyes on before; I could cry now when I think of it.”

“The old folks had told her we were there, and asked if she wouldn’t like me to read something from God’s word with her. But she’d rather see you. The father was angry and didn’t want to allow it. ‘She has never thought about young men before,’ he said, ‘and she shall stand before the throne of God and the Lamb quite pure.’ But I said, ‘Do you know so precisely that the good God cares anything for what you call purity, Ole Jensen? Let the two of them come together, if