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

what they might have expected! When you moved you always had to clean two flats, the one you left and the one you went into. There had not been much done in the way of repairs either, but that too was what one was accustomed to. Landlords were the same all the world over. There was little use in making a fuss; they were there, and the agreement was signed. Pelle would have to see to it by degrees.

By evening the house was so far in order that it could be slept in. “Now we’ll stop for today,” said Ellen. “We mustn’t forget that it’s Sunday.” They carried chairs out into the garden and had their supper there, Pelle having laid an old door upon a barrel for a table. Every time “Queen Theresa” leaned forward with her elbows on the table, the whole thing threatened to upset, and then she screamed. She was a pastor’s daughter, and her surroundings now made her melancholy. “I haven’t sat like this and had supper out of doors since I ran away from home as a fifteen-year-old girl,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“Poor soul!” said Ellen, when they had gone with her along the road to the tram. “She’s certainly gone through a good deal. She’s got no one to care about her except us.”

“Is she really a pastor’s daughter?” asked Pelle. “Women of that kind always pretend to be somebody of a better class who has been unfortunate.”

“Oh, yes, it’s true enough. She ran away from home because she couldn’t stand it. She wasn’t allowed to laugh, but had to be always praying and thinking about God. Her parents have cursed her.”

They went for a little walk behind the farm to see the evening sky. Ellen was very talkative, and already had a thousand plans in her head. She was going to plant a great many fruit-bushes and make a kitchen-garden; and they would keep a number of fowls and rabbits. Next summer she would have early vegetables that could be sold in town.

Pelle was only half attending as he walked beside her and gazed at the glowing evening sky, which, with its long fiery lines, resembled a distant prairie-fire. There was quiet happiness within him and around him. He was in a solemn mood, and felt as though, after an absence of many years, he had once more entered the land of his childhood. There was a familiar feeling in the soft pressure of the earth beneath his feet; it was like a caress that made him strong and gave him new life. Here, with his feet on the soil, he felt himself invincible.

“You’re so silent!” said Ellen, taking his arm so as to walk beside him upon the dike.

“I feel as if you had just become my bride,” he said, taking her into his arms.

XI

Brun came in every morning before he went to the library to see how the work was progressing; he was greatly interested in it, and began to look younger. He was always urging Pelle on, and suggesting plans for extensions. “If money’s wanted, just let me know,” he said. He longed to see the effect of this new system, and was always asking Pelle whether he noticed anything. When he heard that the boot and shoe manufacturers had held a meeting to decide what should be their attitude to the undertaking, he laughed and wanted to turn on more steam, quite indifferent to what it might cost. The old philosopher had become as impatient as a child; an interest had come into his old-man’s existence, and he was afraid of not getting the whole of it. “It’s all very well for you to take your time,” he said, “but remember that I’m old and sickly into the bargain.”

He treated Pelle as a son, and generally said “thou” to him.

Pelle held back. So much depended upon the success of this venture, and he watched it anxiously; it was as though he had been chosen to question the future. Within the Movement his undertaking was followed with attention; the workingmen’s papers wrote about it, but awaited results. There were opinions for and against.

He wanted to give a good answer, and decided on his measures with much care; he immediately dismissed such workmen as were not suited to the plan. It made bad blood, but there was no help for that. He was busy everywhere, and where he could not go himself, Lasse Frederik went, for the boy had given up his other occupations and helped in the shop and ran errands. Ellen wanted to help too. “We can keep a servant, and then I’ll learn bookkeeping and keep the accounts and mind the shop.”

Pelle would not agree to this, however. He was not going to have her working for their maintenance any more. A woman’s place was with her children!

“Nowadays the women take part in all kinds of work,” Ellen urged.

It did not matter; he had his own opinion on the subject. It was enough that the men should do the producing. Would she have them stand on the pavement and watch the women doing the work? It was very possible it did not sound liberal-minded, but he did not care. Women were like beautiful flowers, whatever people said about their being man’s equal. They wore their happiness off when they had to work for their living; he had seen enough to know that.

She did not like standing and looking on while the two men were so busy, so she attacked the garden, and sowed herbs and planted cabbage in the beds that lay like thick down quilts upon the earth; and when it happened that things came up, she was happy. She had bought a gardening book, and puzzled her head about the various kinds and their treatment. Pelle came to her assistance after working hours, and everything that he handled flourished. This made Ellen a little angry. She did exactly what he