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

within him; he felt a sudden need to lay about him; to fight a good stiff battle and shake the warm domesticity out of his bones.

Down by the canal they were engaged cutting the ice in order to clear the water. It was already spring tide, and the ice-cakes were drifting toward the sea, but with unbelievable slowness. After all, that’s the work for you, he told himself as he turned away. He was conscious of that which lay beneath the surface, but he would not let it rise.

As soon as he was between four walls again he grew calmer. Ellen sat by the stove busied with little Lasse, who lay sprawling on his belly in her lap.

“Only look what a sweet little roly-poly he is! There isn’t a trace of chafing anywhere!”

XVII

From his place at the window Pelle could look out over the canal and the bridge by the prison, where the prisoners lay on the rafts, washing wool. He recognized Ferdinand’s tall, powerful figure; shortly after Christmas they had captured him in an underground vault in the cemetery, where he had established himself; the snow had betrayed his hiding-place. And now he lay yonder, so near the “Ark” and his mother! From time to time he raised his closely-shorn head and looked thither.

Beyond the bridge toward the market, was the potter with his barge; he had piled up his Jutland wares on the quay, and the women from Kristianshavn came to deal with him. And behind at the back of all rose the mass of the “Ark.”

It was so huge that it did not give the impression of a barracks, but had rather the character of a fantastic village⁠—as though a hundred hamlets had been swept together in one inextricable heap. Originally it had been a little frame building of one story with a gabled roof. Then it had gradually become an embryo town; it budded in all directions, upward as well, kaleidoscopically increasing to a vast mass of little bits of façade, high-pitched roofs, deep bays, and overhanging gables, all mingled together in an endless confusion, till in the middle it was five stories high. And there a bluish ring of vapor always hovered, revealing the presence of the well, that hidden ventilating shaft for the thronging inmates of the “Ark.” One could recognize Madam Frandsen’s garret with its chimney-cowl, and farther back, in a deep recess, which ran far into the mass of the building, Pelle could distinguish Hanne’s window. Otherwise he could not place many of the little windows. They stared like failing eyes. Even the coal-dealer, who was the deputy landlord of the “Ark,” was imperfectly acquainted with all its holes and corners.

He could see the inmates of the “Ark” running to and fro across the bridge, careless and myopic; they always rushed along, having started at the last moment. There was something tranquilizing about their negligence, which was evoked by privation; in the “Ark” a man began to worry about his food only when he sat down to table and discovered there wasn’t any!

And among them little groups of workmen wandered in and out across the bridge; that steady march from the North Bridge had travelled hither, as though seeking him out.

The masses were now no longer vaguely fermenting; a mighty will was in process of formation. Amid the confusion, the chaotic hubbub, definite lines became visible; a common consciousness came into being and assumed a direction; the thousands of workers controlled themselves in a remarkable way, and were now progressing, slowly and prudently, with the ideal of closing up the ranks. One whose hearing was a little dull might have received the impression that nothing was happening⁠—that they were reconciled with their lot; but Pelle knew what was going on. He himself had put his shoulder to the wheel, and was secretly one of their number.

He was happy in Ellen’s divided love, and all he undertook had reference to her and the child.

But now again the sound of footsteps echoed through his brain; and it would not be silenced. They had penetrated further than he himself could go. It was as though a deadening screen had suddenly been removed and whether he wished it or not, he heard every step of the wanderers outside.

The hard times forced them to proceed quietly, but work was being done in secret. The new ideas were in process of becoming current, the newspapers introduced them into the bosom of the family, and they were uttered from the speaker’s platform, or discussed at mealtimes in workshop and factory. The contagion ran up staircases and went from door to door. Organizations which more than once had been created and broken up were created afresh⁠—and this time to endure. The employers fought them, but could not defeat them; there was an inward law working upon the masses, making a structure behind which they must defend themselves.

They taxed themselves and stole the bread out of their own mouths in order to increase the funds of their organization, in the blind conviction that eventually something miraculous would come of it all. The poor achieved power by means of privation, tears, and self-denial, and had the satisfaction of feeling that they were rich through their organization. When many united together they tasted of the sweets of wealth; and, grateful as they were, they regarded that already as a result. A sense of well-being lifted them above the unorganized, and they felt themselves socially superior to the latter. To join the trades unions now signified a rise in the social scale. This affected many, and others were driven into the movement by the strong representations of their housemates. The big tenement buildings were gradually leavened by the new ideas; those who would not join the Union must clear out. They were treated as the scum of society, and could only settle down in certain quarters of the city. It no longer seemed impossible to establish the organization of labor