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

with their little children in their arms. Some were dragging valueless possessions⁠—the first things they could lay hands on. All that was left of the timber-work after the wreckage of the terrible winter was now brightly blazing. Pelle tried to run up the burning stairs, but fell through. The inmates were hanging half out of their windows, staring down with eyes full of madness; every moment they ran out onto the platforms in an effort to get down, but always ran shrieking back.

At her third-story window Widow Johnsen stood wailing, with her grandchild and the factory-girl’s little Paul in her arms. Hanne’s little daughter stared silently out of the window, with the deep, wondering gaze of her mother. “Don’t be afraid,” Pelle shouted to the old woman; “we are coming to help you now!” When little Paul caught sight of Pelle he wrenched himself away from Madam Johnsen and ran out onto the gallery. He jumped right down, lay for a moment on the flagstones, turned round and round, quite confused, and then, like a flash of lightning, he rushed by Pelle and out into the street.

Pelle sent a few of the men into the long corridor, to see whether all were out. “Break in the closed doors,” he said; “there may possibly be children or sick people inside.” The inmates of the first and second stories had saved themselves before the fire had got a hold on the woodwork.

Pelle himself ran up the main staircase up to the lofts and under the roof, in order to go to the assistance of the inmates of the outbuildings over the attics. But he was met by the inmates of the long roof-walk. “You can’t get through any longer,” said the old ragpicker; “Pipman’s whole garret is burning, and there are no more up here. God in heaven have mercy on the poor souls over there!”

In spite of this, Pelle tried to find a way over the attics, but was forced to turn back.

The men had fetched the fire-escape, and had with difficulty brought it through the entry and had set it up! The burning timbers were beginning to fall; fragments of burning woodwork lay all around, and at any moment the whole building might collapse with a crash. But there was no time to think of one’s self. The smoke was rolling out of Vinslev’s corridor and filling the yard. There was need of haste.

“Of course, it was the lunatic who started the fire,” said the men, as they held the ladder.

It reached only to the second story, but Pelle threw a rope up to Madam Johnsen, and she fastened it to the window-frame, so that he was able to clamber up. With the rope he lowered first the child and then the old woman to his comrades below, who were standing on the ladder to receive them. The smoke was smarting in his eyes and throat, and all but stifled him; he could see nothing, but he heard a horrible shrieking all about him.

Just above him a woman was wailing. “Oh, Pelle, help me!” she whimpered, half choking. It was the timid seamstress, who had moved thither; he recognized her emotional voice. “She loves me!” suddenly flashed upon his mind.

“Catch the rope and fasten it well to the window-frame, and I’ll come up and help you!” he said, and he swung the end of the rope up toward the fourth story. But at the same moment a wild shriek rang out. A dark mass flew past his head and struck the flagstones with a dull thud. The flames darted hissing from the window, as though to reach after her, and then drew back.

For a moment he hung stupefied over the windowsill. This was too horrible. Was it not her gentle voice that he now heard singing with him? And then the timbers fell with a long cracking sound, and a cloud of hot ashes rose in the air and filled the lungs as with fire. “Come down!” cried his comrades, “the ladder is burning!”

A deafening, long-drawn ringing told him that the fire-brigade was near at hand.

But in the midst of all the uproar Pelle’s ears had heard a faint, intermittent sound. With one leap he was in Madam Johnsen’s room; he stood there listening; the crying of a child reached him from the other side of the wall, where the rooms opened on to the inner corridor. It was horrible to hear it and to stand there and be able to do nothing. A wall lay between, and there was no thoroughfare on the other side. In the court below they were shouting his name. Devil take them, he would come when he was ready. There he stood, obstinate and apathetic, held there by that complaining, childish voice. A blind fury arose in him; sullenly he set his shoulder against that accursed wall, and prepared himself for the shock. But the wall was giving! Yet again he charged it⁠—a terrible blow⁠—and part of the barrier was down!

He was met by a rush of stifling heat and smoke; he had to hold his breath and cover his face with his hands as he pressed forward. A little child lay there in a cradle. He stumbled over to it and groped his way back to the wall. The fire, now that it had access to the air, suddenly leaped at him with an explosive force that made him stagger. He felt as though a thirsty bull had licked his cheek. It bellowed at his heels with a voice of thunder, but was silent when he slammed the door. Half choking he found his way to the window and tried to shout to those below, but he had no voice left; only a hoarse whisper came from his throat.

Well, there he stood, with a child in his arms, and he was going to die! But that didn’t matter⁠—he had got through the wall! Behind him the fire was pressing forward; it had eaten