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

ask her to hurry herself a little⁠—there’s something to be gained by that. A man ought to marry while he’s still young; what’s the good of going about and hankering after one another?”

Madam Stolpe was, as always, of his opinion. “We married and enjoyed the sweetness of it while our blood was still young. That’s why we have something now that we can depend on,” she said simply, looking at Pelle.

So it was determined that the wedding should be held that spring. In March the youngest son would complete his apprenticeship, so that the wedding feast and the journeyman’s feast could be celebrated simultaneously.

On the canal, just opposite the prison, a little two-roomed dwelling was standing vacant, and this they rented. Mason Stolpe wanted to have the young couple to live out by the North Bridge, “among respectable people,” but Pelle had become attached to this quarter. Moreover, he had a host of customers there, which would give him a foothold, and there, too, were the canals. For Pelle, the canals were a window opening on the outer world; they gave his mind a sense of liberty; he always felt oppressed among the stone walls by the North Bridge. Ellen let him choose⁠—it was indifferent to her where they lived. She would gladly have gone to the end of the world with him, in order to yield herself.

She had saved a little money in her situation, and Pelle also had a little put by; he was wise in his generation, and cut down all their necessities. When Ellen was free they rummaged about buying things for their home. Many things they bought secondhand, for cheapness, but not for the bedroom; there everything was to be brand-new!

It was a glorious time, in which every hour was full of its own rich significance; there was no room for brooding or for care. Ellen often came running in to drag him from his work; he must come with her and look at something or other⁠—one could get it so cheap⁠—but quickly, quickly, before it should be gone! On her “off” Sundays she would reduce the little home to order, and afterward they would walk arm in arm through the city, and visit the old people.

Pelle had had so much to do with the affairs of others, and had given so little thought to his own, that it was delightful, for once in a way, to be able to rest and think of himself. The crowded outer world went drifting far away from him; he barely glanced at it as he built his nest; he thought no more about social problems than the birds that nest in spring.

And one day Pelle carried his possessions to his new home, and for the last time lay down to sleep in the “Ark.” There was no future for anyone here; only the shipwrecked sought an abiding refuge within these walls. It was time for Pelle to move on. Yet from all this raggedness and overcrowding rose a voice which one did not hear elsewhere; a careless twittering, like that of unlucky birds that sit and plume their feathers when a little sunlight falls on them. He looked back on the time he had spent here with pensive melancholy.

On the night before his wedding he lay restlessly tossing to and fro. Something seemed to follow him in his sleep. At last he woke, and was sensible of a stifled moaning, that came and went with long intervals in between, as though the “Ark” itself were moaning in an evil dream. Suddenly he stood up, lit the lamp, and began to polish his wedding-boots, which were still on the lasts, so that they might retain their handsome shape. Lasse was still asleep, and the long gangway outside lay still in slumber.

The sound returned, louder and more long-drawn, and something about it reminded him of Stone Farm, and awaked the horror of his childish days. He sat and sweated at his work. Suddenly he heard someone outside⁠—someone who groped along the gangway and fumbled at his door. He sprang forward and opened it. Suspense ran through his body like an icy shudder. Outside stood Hanne’s mother, shivering in the morning cold.

“Pelle,” she whispered anxiously, “it’s so near now⁠—would you run and fetch Madam Blom from Market Street? I can’t leave Hanne. And I ought to be wishing you happiness, too.”

The errand was not precisely convenient, nevertheless, he ran oft. And then he sat listening, working still, but as quietly as possible, in order not to wake Father Lasse. But then it was time for the children to get up; for the last time he knocked on the wall and heard Marie’s sleepy “Ye⁠—es!” At the same moment the silence of night was broken; the inmates tumbled out and ran barefooted to the lavatories, slamming their doors. “The Princess is lamenting,” they told one another. “She’s lamenting because she’s lost what she’ll never get again.” Then the moaning rose to a loud shriek, and suddenly it was silent over there.

Poor Hanne! Now she had another to care for⁠—and who was its father? Hard times were in store for her.

Lasse was not going to work today, although the wedding-feast was not to be held until the afternoon. He was in a solemn mood, from the earliest morning, and admonished Pelle not to lay things crosswise, and the like. Pelle laughed every time.

“Yes, you laugh,” said Lasse, “but this is an important day⁠—perhaps the most important in your life. You ought to take care lest the first trifling thing you do should ruin everything.”

He pottered about, treating everything as an omen. He was delighted with the sun⁠—it rose out of a sack and grew brighter and brighter in the course of the day. It was never lucky for the sun to begin too blazing.

Marie went to and fro, considering Pelle with an expression of suppressed anxiety, like a mother who is sending her child into the world, and strives hard to seem cheerful,