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

with the sturdy Munck at their head, as standard-bearer, the same who struck the three blows of doom that summoned five and forty thousand men to the battle for the right of combination! Hurrah for Munck! Here are the house-painters, the printers, the glove-makers, the tinsmiths, the cork-cutters, the leather-dressers, and a group of seamen with bandy legs. At the head of these last marches Howling Peter, the giant transfigured! The coppersmiths, the coal-miners, the carpenters, the journeymen bakers, and the coach-builders! A queer sort of procession this! But here are the girdlers and there the plasterers, the stucco-workers, and the goldsmiths, and even the sandblasters are here! The tailors and the shoemakers are easy to recognize. And there, God bless me, are the slipper-makers, close at their heels; they wouldn’t be left in the cold! The gilders, the tanners, the weavers, and the tobacco-workers! The file-cutters, the bricklayers’-laborers, the pattern-makers, the coopers, the bookbinders, the joiners and shipbuilders! What, is there no end to them? Hi, make way for the journeymen glaziers! Yes, you may well smile⁠—they are all their own masters! And here come the gasworkers, and the water-company’s men, and the cabinetmakers, who turn in their toes like the blacksmiths, and march just in front of them, as though these had anything to learn from them! Those are the skilful ivory-turners, and those the brush-makers; spectacled these, and with brushes growing out of their noses⁠—that is, when they are old. Well, so it is all over at last! The tail consists of a swarm of frolicsome youngsters.

But no⁠—these are the milk-boys, these young vagabonds! And behind them come the factory-girls and behind them it all begins again⁠—the pianoforte-makers, the millers, the saddlers, and the paperhangers⁠—banners as far as one can see! How big and how gay the world is, after all! How many callings men pursue, so that work shall never fail them! Ah, here are the masons, with all the old veterans at their head⁠—those have been in the movement since the beginning! Look, how steady on his leg is old Stolpe! And the slaters, with the Vanishing Man at their head⁠—they look as if they don’t much care about walking on the level earth! And here are the sawyers, and the brewers, and the chair-makers! Year by year their wages have been beaten down so that at the beginning of the struggle they were earning only half as much as ten years ago; but see how cheerful they look! Now there will be food in the larder once more. Those faded-looking women there are weavers; they have no banner; eight öre the hour won’t run to flags. And finally a handful of newspaperwomen from The Working Man. God how weary they look! Their legs are like lead from going up and down so many stairs. Each has a bundle of papers under her arm, as a sign of her calling.

Trapp, trapp, trapp, trapp! On they go, with a slow, deliberate step. Whither? Where Pelle wills. “Brother, soon will dawn the day!” One hears the song over and over again; when one division has finished it the next takes it up. The side-streets are spewing their contents out upon the procession; shrunken creatures that against their will were singed in the struggle, and cannot recover their feet again. But they follow the procession with big eyes and break into fanatical explanations.

A young fellow stands on the sidewalk yonder; he has hidden himself behind some women, and is stretching his neck to see. For his own Union is coming now, to which he was faithless in the conflict. Remorse has brought him hither. But the rhythm of the marching feet carries him away, so that he forgets all and marches off beside them. He imagines himself in the ranks, singing and proud of the victory. And suddenly some of his comrades seize him and drag him into the ranks; they lift him up and march away with him. A trophy, a trophy! A pity he can’t be stuck on a pole and carried high overhead!

Pelle is still at the head of the procession, at the side of the sturdy Munck. His aspect is quiet and smiling, but inwardly he is full of unruly energy; never before has he felt so strong! On the sidewalks the police keep step with him, silent and fateful. He leads the procession diagonally across the King’s New Market, and suddenly a shiver runs through the whole; he is going to make a demonstration in front of Schloss Amalienborg! No one has thought of that! Only the police are too clever for them the streets leading to the castle are held by troops.

Gradually the procession widens out until it fills the entire marketplace. A hundred and fifty trades unions, each with its waving standard! A tremendous spectacle! Every banner has its motto or device. Red is the color of all those banners which wave above the societies which were established in the days of Socialism, and among them are many national flags⁠—blue, red, and white⁠—the standards of the old guilds and corporations. Those belong to ancient societies which have gradually joined the movement. Over all waves the standard of the millers, which is some hundreds of years old! It displays a curious-looking scrawl which is the monogram of the first absolute king!

But the real standard is not here, the red banner of the International, which led the movement through the first troubled years. The old men would speedily recognize it, and the young men too, they have heard so many legends attaching to it. If it still exists it is well hidden; it would have too great an effect on the authorities⁠—would be like a red rag to a bull.

And as they stand staring it suddenly rises in the air⁠—slashed and tattered, imperishable as to color. Pelle stands on the box of a carriage, solemnly raising it in the air. For a moment they are taken by surprise; then they begin to