Pelle the Conqueror Part 159

Pelle had turned his coat-collar up about his ears, and was in a comfortable frame of mind. He liked walking alone in the dark. Formerly its yawning emptiness had filled him with a panic of fear, but the prison had made his mind familiar with it. He used to look forward to these lonely night walks home across the fields. The noises of the city died away behind him, and he breathed the pure air that seemed to come straight to him out of s.p.a.ce. All that a man cannot impart to others arose in him in these walks. In the daily struggle he often had a depressing feeling that the result depended upon pure chance. It was not easy to obtain a hearing through the thousand-voiced noise. A sensation was needed in order to attract attention, and he had presented himself with only quite an ordinary idea, and declared that without stopping a wheel it could remodel the world. No one took the trouble to oppose him, and even the manufacturers in his trade took his enterprise calmly and seemed to have given up the war against him. He had expected great opposition, and had looked forward to overcoming it, and this indifference sometimes made him doubt himself. His invincible idea would simply disappear in the motley confusion of life!

But out here in the country, where night lay upon the earth like great rest, his strength returned to him. All the indifference fell away, and he saw that like the piers of a bridge, his reality lay beneath the surface. Insignificant though he appeared, he rested upon an immense foundation. The solitude around him revealed it to him and made him feel his own power. While they overlooked his enterprise he would make it so strong that they would run their head against it when they awoke.

Pelle was glad he lived in the country, and it was a dream of his to move the workmen out there again some day. He disliked the town more and more, and never became quite familiar with it. It was always just as strange to go about in this humming hive, where each seemed to buzz on his own account, and yet all were subject to one great will--that of hunger. The town exerted a dull power over men's minds, it drew the poor to it with lies about happiness, and when it once had them, held them fiendishly fast. The poisonous air was like opium; the most miserable beings dream they are happy in it; and when they have once got a taste for it, they had not the strength of mind to go back to the uneventful everyday life again. There was always something dreadful behind the town's physiognomy, as though it were lying in wait to drag men into its net and fleece them. In the daytime it might be concealed by the mult.i.tudinous noises, but the darkness brought it out.

Every evening before Pelle went to bed he went out to the end of the house and gazed out into the night. It was an old peasant-custom that he had inherited from Father La.s.se and his father before him. His inquiring gaze sought the town where his thoughts already were. On sunny days there was only smoke and mist to be seen, but on a dark night like this there was a cheerful glow above it. The town had a peculiar power of shedding darkness round about it, and lighting white artificial light in it. It lay low, like a bog with the land sloping down to it on all sides, and all water running into it. Its luminous mist seemed to reach to the uttermost borders of the land; everything came this way. Large dragon-flies hovered over the bog in metallic splendor; gnats danced above it like careless shadows. A ceaseless hum rose from it, and below lay the depth that had fostered them, seething so that he could hear it where he stood.

Sometimes the light of the town flickered up over the sky like the reflection from a gigantic forge-fire. It was like an enormous heart throbbing in panic in the darkness down there; his own caught the infection and contracted in vague terror. Cries would suddenly rise from down there, and one almost wished for them; a loud exclamation was a relief from the everlasting latent excitement. Down there beneath the walls of the city the darkness was always alive; it glided along like a heavy life-stream, flowing slowly among taverns and low music-halls and barracks, with their fateful contents of want and imprecations.

Its secret doings inspired him with horror; he hated the town for its darkness which hid so much.

He had stopped in front of his house, and stood gazing downward.

Suddenly he heard a sound from within that made him start, and he quickly let himself in. Ellen came out into the pa.s.sage looking disturbed.

"Thank goodness you've come!" she exclaimed, quite forgetting to greet him. "Anna's so ill!"

"Is it anything serious?" asked Pelle, hurriedly removing his coat.

"It's the old story. I got a carriage from the farm to drive in for the doctor. It was dear, but Brun said I must. She's to have hot milk with Ems salts and soda water. You must warm yourself at the stove before you go up to her, but make haste! She keeps on asking for you."

The sick-room was in semi-darkness, Ellen having put a red shade over the lamp, so that the light should not annoy the child. Brun was sitting on a chair by her bed, watching her intently as she lay muttering in a feverish doze. He made a sign to Pelle to walk quietly. "She's asleep!"

he whispered. The old man looked unhappy.

Pelle bent silently over her. She lay with closed eyes, but was not asleep. Her hot breath came in short gasps. As he was about to raise himself again, she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

"What's the matter with Sister? Is she going to be ill again?" he said softly. "I thought the sun had sent that naughty bronchitis away."

The child shook her head resignedly. "Listen to the cellarman!" she whispered. He was whistling as hard as he could down in her windpipe, and she listened to him with a serious expression. Then her hand stole up and she stroked her father's face as though to comfort him.

Brun, however, put her hand down again immediately and covered her up close. "We very nearly lost that doll!" he said seriously. He had promised her a large doll if she would keep covered up.

"Shall I still get it?" she asked in gasps, gazing at him in dismay.

"Yes, of course you'll get it, and if you make haste and get well, you shall have a carriage too with india rubber tires."

Here Ellen came in. "Mr. Brun," she said, "I've made your room all ready for you." She laid a quieting hand upon the child's anxious face.

The librarian rose unwillingly. "That's to say Mr. Brun is to go to bed," he said half in displeasure. "Well, well, goodnight then! I rely upon your waking me if things become worse."

"How good he is!" said Ellen softly. "He's been sitting here all the time to see that she kept covered up. He's made us afraid to move because she's to be kept quiet; but he can't help chattering to her himself whenever she opens her eyes."

Ellen had moved La.s.se Frederik's bed down into their bedroom and put up her own here so as to watch over the child. "Now you should go to bed," she said softly to Pelle. "You must be tired to death after your journey, and you can't have slept last night in the train either."

He looked tired, but she could not persuade him; he meant to stay up there. "I can't sleep anyhow as things are," he whispered, "and to-morrow's Sunday."

"Then lie down on my bed! It'll rest you a little."

He lay down to please her, and stared up at the ceiling while he listened to the child's short, rattling respiration. He could hear that she was not asleep. She lay and played with the rattling sound, making the cellar-man speak sometimes with a deep voice, sometimes with a high one. She seemed quite familiar with this dangerous chatter, which had already cost her many hours of illness and sounded so painful to Pelle's ear. She bore her illness with the wonderful resignation that belonged to the dwellers in the back streets. She did not become unreasonable or exacting, but generally lay and entertained herself. It was as though she felt grateful for her bed; she was always in the best spirits when she was in it. The sun out here had made her very brown, but there must be something in her that it had not prevailed against. It was not so easy to move away from the bad air of the back streets.

Whenever she had a fit of coughing, Pelle raised her into a sitting posture and helped her to get rid of the phlegm. She was purple in the face with coughing, and looked at him with eyes that were almost starting out of her head with the violent exertion. Then Ellen brought her the hot milk and Ems salts, and she drank it with a resigned expression and lay down again.

"It's never been so bad before," whispered Ellen, "so what can be the use? Perhaps the country air isn't good for her."

"It ought to be though," said Pelle, "or else she's a poor little poisoned thing."

Ellen's voice rang with the possibility of their moving back again to the town for the sake of the child. To her the town air was not bad, but simply milder than out here. Through several generations she had become accustomed to it and had overcome its injurious effects; to her it seemed good as only the air of home can be. She could live anywhere, but nothing must be said against her childhood's home. Then she became eager.

The child had wakened with their whispering, and lay and looked at them.

"I shan't die, shall I?" she asked.

They bent over her. "Now you must cover yourself up and not think about such things," said Ellen anxiously.

But the child continued obstinately. "If I die, will you be as sorry about me as you were about Johanna?" she asked anxiously, with her eyes fixed upon them.

Pelle nodded. It was impossible for him to speak.

"Will you paint the ceiling black to show you're sorry about me? Will you, father?" she continued inexorably, looking at him.

"Yes, yes!" said Ellen desperately, kissing her lips to make her stop talking. The child turned over contentedly, and in another moment she was asleep.

"She's not hot now," whispered Pelle. "I think the fever's gone." His face was very grave. Death had pa.s.sed its cold hand over it; he knew it was only in jest, but he could not shake off the impression it had made.

They sat silent, listening to the child's breathing, which was now quiet. Ellen had put her hand into Pelle's, and every now and then she shuddered. They did not move, but simply sat and listened, while the time ran singing on. Then the c.o.c.k crew below, and roused Pelle. It was three o'clock, and the child had slept for two hours. The lamp had almost burned dry, and he could scarcely see Ellen's profile in the semi-darkness. She looked tired.

He rose noiselessly and kissed her forehead. "Go downstairs and go to bed," he whispered, leading her toward the door.

Stealthy footsteps were heard outside. It was Brun who had been down to listen at the door. He had not been to bed at all. The lamp was burning in his sitting-room, and the table was covered with papers. He had been writing.

He became very cheerful when he heard that the attack was over. "I think you ought rather to treat us to a cup of coffee," he answered, when Ellen scolded him because he was not asleep.

Ellen went down and made the coffee, and they drank it in Brun's room.

The doors were left ajar so that they could hear the child.

"It's been a long night," said Pelle, pa.s.sing his hand across his forehead.

"Yes, if there are going to be more like it, we shall certainly have to move back into town," said Ellen obstinately.

"It would be a better plan to begin giving her a cold bath in the morning as soon as she's well again, and try to get her hardened," said Pelle.

"Do you know," said Ellen, turning to Brun, "Pelle thinks it's the bad air and the good air fighting for the child, and that's the only reason why she's worse here than in town."

"So it is," said Brun gravely; "and a sick child like that gives one something to think about."

XVIII