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

the door. She ran to the stove, snatching away some of the child’s linen which was drying there, ran out, and opened the door.

A dark, corpulent gentleman in a fur overcoat entered, bowing, holding his tall hat before him, together with his gloves and stick. Pelle could not believe his eyes⁠—it was the Court shoemaker! “He’s come to have it out!” thought Pelle, and prepared himself for a tussle. His heart began to thump, there was a sudden sinking inside him; his old submissiveness was on the point of coming to the surface and mastering him. But that was only for a moment; then he was himself again. Quietly he offered his guest a chair.

Meyer sat down, looking about the neat, simple room as though he wanted to compare his enemy’s means with his own before he made a move. Pelle gathered something from his wandering glance, and suddenly found himself considerably richer in his knowledge of human nature. “He’s sitting there staring about him to see if something has gone to the pawnshop,” he thought indignantly.

“H’m! I have received your favor of the other day,” began Meyer. “You are of opinion that there is no occasion for a discussion of the situation; but⁠—however⁠—ah⁠—I think⁠—”

“That is certainly my opinion,” answered Pelle, who had resolved to adhere to the tone of the letter. “The most perfect order prevails everywhere. But generally speaking it would seem that matters ought to go smoothly now, when we each have our Union and can discuss affairs impartially.” He gazed innocently at Meyer.

“Ah, you think so too! It cannot be unknown to you that my workers have left me one after another⁠—not to say that they were taken away from me. Even to please you I can’t call those orderly conditions.”

Pelle sat there getting angrier and angrier at his finicking tone. Why the devil couldn’t he bluster like a proper man instead of sitting there and making his damned allusions? But if he wanted that sort of foolery he should have it! “Ah! your people are leaving you?” he said, in an interested manner.

“They are,” said Meyer, and he looked surprised. Pelle’s tone made him feel uncertain. “And they are playing tricks on me; they don’t keep to their engagements, and they keep my messengers running about to no purpose. Formerly every man came to get his work and to deliver it, but now I have to keep messengers for that; the business can’t stand it.”

“The journeymen have had to run about to no purpose⁠—I myself have worked for you,” replied Pelle. “But you are perhaps of opinion that we can better bear the loss of time?”

Meyer shrugged his shoulders. “That’s a condition of your livelihood⁠—its conditions are naturally based on order. But if only I could at least depend on getting hands! Man, this can’t go on!” he cried suddenly, “damn and blast it all, it can’t go on, it’s not honorable!”

Little Lasse gave a jump and began to bellow. Ellen came hurrying in and took him into the bedroom.

Pelle’s mouth was hard. “If your people are leaving you, they must surely have some reason for it,” he replied; he would far rather have told Meyer to his face that he was a sweater! “The Union can’t compel its members to work for an employer with whom perhaps they can’t agree. I myself even have been dismissed from a workshop⁠—but we can’t bother two Unions on those grounds!” He looked steadily at his opponent as he made this thrust; his features were quivering slightly.

“Aha!” Meyer responded, and he rubbed his hands with an expression that seemed to say that⁠—now at last he felt firm ground under his feet. “Aha⁠—so it’s out at last! So you’re a diplomatist into the bargain⁠—a great diplomatist! You have a clever husband, little lady!” He turned to Ellen, who was busying herself at the sideboard. “Now just listen, Herre Pelle! You are just the man for me, and we must come to an arrangement. When two capable men get talking together something always comes of it⁠—it couldn’t be otherwise! I have room for a capable and intelligent expert who understands fitting and cutting. The place is well paid, and you can have a written contract for a term of years. What do you say to that?”

Pelle raised his head with a start. Ellen’s eyes began to sparkle, and then became mysteriously dark; they rested on him compellingly, as though they would burn their purpose into him. For a moment he gazed before him, bewildered. The offer was so overpowering, so surprising; and then he laughed. What, what, was he to sell himself to be the understrapper of a sweater!

“That won’t do for me,” he replied.

“You must naturally consider my offer,” said Meyer, rising. “Shall we say three days?”

When the Court shoemaker had gone, Ellen came slowly back and laid her arm round Pelle’s shoulders. “What a clever, capable man you are, then!” she said, in a low voice, playing with his hair; there was something apologetic in her manner. She said nothing to call attention to the offer, but she began to sing at her work. It was a long time since Pelle had heard her sing; and the song was to him like a radiant assurance that this time he would be the victor.

XX

Pelle continued the struggle indefatigably, contending with opposing circumstances and with disloyalty, but always returning more boldly to the charge. Many times in the course of the conflict he found himself back at the same place; Meyer obtained a new lot of workers from abroad, and he had to begin all over again; he had to work on them until they went away again, or to make their position among their housemates so impossible that they resigned. The later winter was hard and came to Meyer’s assistance. He paid his workers well now, and had brought together a crowd of nonunion hands; for a time it looked as though he would get