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

“She’s never really loved me either: that’s why!” he thought despondently. Perhaps that explained why she took Boy Comfort as calmly as if he were her own child: she was not jealous! Pelle would willingly have submitted to a shower of reproaches if afterward she had given him a kiss wetted with hot tears; but Ellen was never thrown off her balance.

Happy though they were, he noticed that she, to a certain extent, reckoned without him, as if he had a weakness of which it was always well to take account. Her earlier experiences had left their mark upon her.

Ellen had been making plans with regard to the old room and the two small anterooms at the end of it. She was tired of washing; it paid wretchedly and gave a great deal of work, and she received very little consideration. She now wanted to let lodgings to artistes. She knew of more than one woman in their street who made a nice living by taking in artistes. “If I’d only got a couple of hundred krones to start it with, I’m sure I should make it pay,” she said. “And then you’d have more time and quiet for reading your books,” she added coaxingly.

Pelle was against the plan. The better class of artistes took rooms at the artiste hotels, and the people they might expect to get had not much to pay with. He had seen a good deal of them from his basement window, and had mended shoes for some of them: they were rather a soleless tribe. She said no more about it, but he could see that she was not convinced. She only dropped the subject because he was against it and it was he who would have to procure the money.

He could not bear to think this; he had become cautious about deciding for others. The money might be obtained, if in no other way, by giving security in his furniture and tools. If the plan did not succeed, it would be certain ruin; but perhaps Ellen thought him a wet blanket.

One day he threw down his leather apron and went out to raise the money. It was late when he came home, and Ellen was standing at the door waiting for him with a face of anxiety.

“Here’s the money, my dear! What’ll you give me for it?” he said gaily, and counted out into her hand a hundred and eighty krones in notes. Ellen gazed in surprise at the money; she had never held so large a sum in her hands before.

“Wherever did you get all that money from?” she asked at last.

“Well, I’ve trudged all day from place to place,” said Pelle cheerfully, “and at last I was directed to a man in Blaagaard Street. He gave me two hundred krones on the furniture.”

“But there’s only one hundred and eighty here!”

“Oh, well, he took off twenty krones. The loan’s to be repaid in instalments of twenty krones a month for fifteen months. I had to sign a statement that I had borrowed three hundred krones, but then we shan’t have to pay any interest.”

Ellen stared at him in amazement. “Three hundred krones, and we’ve only got a hundred and eighty, Pelle!” But she suddenly threw her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately. “Thank you!” she whispered. He felt quite dazed; it was not like her to be so vehement.

She had plenty to do, after hiring the room, in putting it in order. The loose beams had to be fixed up, and the walls plastered and whitewashed a little. The old peasant was willing enough to let it, but he would not hear of going to any expense. Ellen at last succeeded, however, in getting him to agree to pay half the repairs on condition that she took the room for a year and payed the rent in advance. “We can get my brother Frederik to do some of the repairs on Sunday morning,” she said to Pelle, “and then perhaps we shall get it done for nothing.” She was altogether very energetic.

There was need for it too. The rent swallowed up the hundred krones, and then there were all the things that had to be got. She bought a quantity of cheap print, and hung it up so as to divide one side of the room into a number of small compartments each provided with a secondhand bed and hay mattress, and a washing-stand. “Artistes are not so particular,” she said, “and I’m sure they’ll be glad to have the room to practise in.” Finally there were the two little anterooms, which were to be furnished a little better for more particular artistes. There was not nearly enough money, and some of the things had to be taken on credit.

At last it was all ready to receive the guests. It looked quite smart for the amount spent on it, and Pelle could not but admire her cleverness in making a little go a long way. The only thing now left to do was to catch the birds, but here Ellen’s practical sense ceased to act; she had no idea how to proceed. “We must advertise,” she said, and counted up her remaining pence.

Pelle laughed at her. A lot of good it would be to advertise for people who were goodness knows where on railways and steamers! “What shall we do then?” she said, looking anxiously to him for help. After all, he was the man for it all.

Well, first of all there must be a German placard down on the street-door, and then they must make the rooms known. Pelle had studied both German and English in the prison, and he made up the placard himself. He had cards printed, and left them in the artistes’ tavern at the corner of Vesterbro Street, went there himself two or three times after midnight when the artistes gathered there when their work was finished, and stationed himself at the stage-entrances of the music-halls.