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

was so monstrously large and incalculable; it seemed to have undertaken the impossible; but there could be no doubt of such an obvious matter of course as that he should make his way. Here wealth was simply lying in great heaps, and the poor man too could win it if only he grasped at it boldly enough. Fortune here was a golden bird, which could be captured by a little adroitness; the endless chances were like a fairy tale. And one day Pelle would catch the bird; when and how he left confidingly to chance.

In one of the side streets which ran out of the Market Street there was a crowd; a swarm of people filled the whole street in front of the iron-foundry, shouting eagerly to the blackened ironworkers, who stood grouped together by the gateway, looking at one another irresolutely.

“What’s up here?” asked Pelle.

“This is up⁠—that they can’t earn enough to live on,” said an old man. “And the manufacturers won’t increase their pay. So they’ve taken to some newfangled fool’s trick which they say has been brought here from abroad, where they seem to have done well with it. That’s to say, they all suddenly chuck up their work and rush bareheaded into the street and make a noise, and then back to work again, just like school children in playtime. They’ve already been in and out two or three times, and now half of them’s outside and the others are at work, and the gate is locked. Nonsense! A lot that’s going to help their wages! No; in my time we used to ask for them prettily, and we always got something, too. But, anyhow, we’re only working-folks, and where’s it going to come from? And now, what’s more, they’ve lost their whole week’s wages!”

The workmen were at a loss as to what they should do; they stood there gazing mechanically up at the windows of the countinghouse, from which all decisions were commonly issued. Now and again an impatient shudder ran through the crowd, as it made threats toward the windows and demanded what was owing it. “He won’t give us the wages that we’ve honestly earned, the tyrant!” they cried. “A nice thing, truly, when one’s got a wife and kids at home, and on a Saturday afternoon, too! What a shark, to take the bread out of their mouths! Won’t the gracious gentleman give us an answer⁠—just his greeting, so that we can take it home with us?⁠—just his kind regards, or else they’ll have to go hungry to bed!” And they laughed, a low, snarling laugh, spat on the pavement, and once more turned their masterless faces up to the countinghouse windows.

Proposals were showered upon them, proposals of every kind; and they were as wise as they were before. “What the devil are we to do if there’s no one who can lead us?” they said dejectedly, and they stood staring again. That was the only thing they knew how to do.

“Choose a few of your comrades and send them in to negotiate with the manufacturer,” said a gentleman standing by.

“Hear, hear! Forward with Eriksen! He understands the deaf-and-dumb alphabet!” they shouted. The stranger shrugged his shoulders and departed.

A tall, powerful workman approached the group. “Have you got your killer with you, Eriksen?” cried one, and Eriksen turned on the staircase and exhibited his clenched fist.

“Look out!” they shouted at the windows. “Look out we don’t set fire to the place!” Then all was suddenly silent, and the heavy house-door was barred.

Pelle listened with open mouth. He did not know what they wanted, and they hardly knew, themselves; none the less, there was a new note in all this! These people didn’t beg for what they wanted; they preferred to use their fists in order to get it, and they didn’t get drunk first, like the strong man Eriksen and the rest at home. “This is the capital!” he thought, and again he congratulated himself for having come thither.

A squad of policemen came marching up. “Room there!” they cried, and began to hustle the crowd in order to disperse it. The workmen would not be driven away. “Not before we’ve got our wages!” they said, and they pressed back to the gates again. “This is where we work, and we’re going to have our rights, that we are!” Then the police began to drive the onlookers away; at each onset they fell back a few steps, hesitating, and then stood still, laughing. Pelle received a blow in the back; he turned quickly round, stared for a moment into the red face of a policeman, and went his way, muttering and feeling his back.

“Did he hit you?” asked an old woman. “Devil take him, the filthy lout! He’s the son of the mangling-woman what lives in the house here, and now he takes up the cudgels against his own people! Devil take him!”

“Move on!” ordered the policeman, winking, as he pushed her aside with his body. She retired to her cellar, and stood there using her tongue to such purpose that the saliva flew from her toothless mouth.

“Yes, you go about bullying old people who used to carry you in their arms and put dry clouts on you when you didn’t know enough to ask.⁠ ⁠… Are you going to use your truncheon on me, too? Wouldn’t you like to, Fredrik? Take your orders from the great folks, and then come yelping at us, because we aren’t fine enough for you!” She was shaking with rage; her yellowish gray hair had become loosened and was tumbling about her face; she was a perfect volcano.

The police marched across the Knippel Bridge, escorted by a swarm of street urchins, who yelled and whistled between their fingers. From time to time a policeman would turn round; then the whole swarm took to its heels, but next moment it was there again. The police were nervous: their fingers were opening and closing in their longing to strike out.