Pelle the Conqueror Part 57

"Dampe!" said Jeppe scornfully, "he has turned both your heads!"

"That's a lie!" stammered Bjerregrav. "Anker went wrong later than that--after King Frederick granted us liberty. And it's only that I'm not very capable; I have my wits, thank G.o.d!" Bjerregrav solemnly raised the fingers of his right hand to his lips, a gesture which had all the appearance of a surviving vestige of the sign of the cross.

"You and your wits!" hissed Jeppe contemptuously. "You, who throw your money away over the first tramp you meet! And you defend an abominable agitator, who never goes out by daylight like other people, but goes gallivanting about at night!"

"Yes, because he's ashamed of humanity; he wants to make the world more beautiful!" Bjerregrav blushed with embarra.s.sment when he had said this.

But Jeppe was beside himself with contempt. "So gaol-birds are ashamed of honest people! So that's why he takes his walks at night! Well, the world would of course be a more beautiful place if it were filled with people like you and Dampe!"

The pitiful thing about Anker was that he was such a good craftsman. He had inherited the watchmaker's trade from his father and grandfather, and his Bornholm striking-clocks were known all over the world; orders came to him from Funen as well as from the capital. But when the Const.i.tution was granted he behaved like a child--as though people had not always been free on Bornholm! Now, he said, the new time had begun, and in its honor he intended, in his insane rejoicing, to make an ingenious clock which should show the moon and the date and the month and year. Being an excellent craftsman, he completed it successfully, but then it entered his head that the clock ought to show the weather as well. Like so many whom G.o.d had endowed with His gifts, he ventured too far and sought to rival G.o.d Himself. But here the brakes were clapped on, and the whole project was nearly derailed. For a long time he took it greatly to heart, but when the work was completed he rejoiced. He was offered a large price for his masterpiece, and Jeppe bade him close with the offer, but he answered crazily--for he was now definitely insane--"This cannot be bought with money. Everything I made formerly had its value in money, but not this. Can any one buy _me_?"

For a long time he was in a dilemma as to what he should do with his work, but then one day he came to Jeppe, saying: "Now I know; the best ought to have the clock. I shall send it to the King. He has given us the new time, and this clock will tell the new time." Anker sent the clock away, and after some time he received two hundred thalers, paid him through the Treasury.

This was a large sum of money, but Anker was not satisfied; he had expected a letter of thanks from the King's own hand. He behaved very oddly about this, and everything went wrong with him; over and over again trouble built its nest with him. The money he gave to the poor, and he lamented that the new time had not yet arrived. So he sank even deeper into his madness, and however hard Jeppe scolded him and lectured him it did no good. Finally he went so far as to fancy that he was appointed to create the new time, and then he became cheerful once more.

Three or four families of the town--very poor people, so demoralized that the sects would have nothing to do with them--gathered around Anker, and heard the voice of G.o.d in his message. "_They_ lose nothing by sitting under a crazy man," saw Jeppe scornfully. Anker himself paid no attention to them, but went his own way. Presently he was a king's son in disguise, and was betrothed to the eldest daughter of the King--and the new time was coming. Or when his mood was quieter, he would sit and work at an infallible clock which would not show the time; it would _be_ the time--the new time itself.

He went to and fro in the workshop, in order to let Master Andres see the progress of his invention; he had conceived a blind affection for the young master. Every year, about the first of January, Master Andres had to write a letter for him, a love-letter to the king's daughter, and had also to take it upon him to despatch it to the proper quarter; and from time to time Anker would run in to ask whether an answer had yet arrived; and at the New Year a fresh love-letter was sent off. Master Andres had them all put away.

One evening--it was nearly time to knock off--there was a thundering knock on the workshop door, and the sound of some one humming a march drifted in from the entry. "Can you not open?" cried a solemn voice: "the Prince is here!"

"Pelle, open the door quick!" said the master. Pelle flung the door wide open, and Anker marched in. He wore a paper hat with a waving plume, and epaulettes made out of paper frills; his face was beaming, and he stood there with his hand to his hat as he allowed the march to die away. The young master rose gaily and shouldered arms with his stick.

"Your Majesty," he said, "how goes it with the new time?"

"Not at all well!" replied Anker, becoming serious. "The pendulums that should keep the whole in motion are failing me." He stood still, gazing at the door; his brain was working mysteriously.

"Ought they to be made of gold?" The master's eyes were twinkling, but he was earnestness personified.

"They ought to be made of eternity," said Anker unwillingly, "and first it has got to be invented."

For a long time he stood there, staring in front of him with his gray, empty eyes, without speaking a word. He did not move; only his temples went on working as though some worm was gnawing at them and seeking its way out.

Suddenly it became uncomfortable; his silence was sometimes like a living darkness that surrounded those about him. Pelle sat there with palpitating heart.

Then the lunatic came forward and bent over the young master's ear. "Has an answer come from the king?" he asked, in a penetrating whisper.

"No, not yet; but I expect it every day. You can be quite easy," the master whispered back. Anker stood for a few moments in silence; he looked as though he must be meditating, but after his own fas.h.i.+on. Then he turned round and marched out of the workshop.

"Go after him and see he gets home all right," said the young master.

His voice sounded mournful now. Pelle followed the clockmaker up the street.

It was a Sat.u.r.day evening, and the workers were on their way homeward from the great quarries and the potteries which lay about half a mile beyond the town. They pa.s.sed in large groups, their dinner-boxes on their back, with a beer-bottle hung in front as a counter-weight. Their sticks struck loudly on the flagstones, and the iron heel-pieces of their wooden shoes struck out sparks as they pa.s.sed. Pelle knew that weary homecoming; it was as though weariness in person had invaded the town. And he knew the sound of this taciturn procession; the snarling sound when this man or that made an unexpected and involuntary movement with his stiffened limbs, and was forced to groan with the pain of it.

But to-night they gave him a different impression, and something like a smile broke through the encrusted stone-dust on their faces; it was the reflection of the bright new kroner that lay in their pockets after the exhausting labor of the week. Some of them had to visit the post-office to renew their lottery tickets or to ask for a postponement, and here and there one was about to enter a tavern, but at the last moment would be captured by his wife, leading a child by the hand.

Anker stood motionless on the sidewalk, his face turned toward the pa.s.sing workers. He had bared his head, and the great plume of his hat drooped to the ground behind him; he looked agitated, as though something were fermenting within him, which could not find utterance, save in an odd, unintelligible noise. The workers shook their heads sadly as they trudged onward; one solitary young fellow threw him a playful remark. "Keep your hat on--it's not a funeral!" he cried. A few foreign seamen came strolling over the hill from the harbor; they came zigzagging down the street, peeping in at all the street doors, and laughing immoderately as they did so. One of them made straight for Anker with outstretched arms, knocked off his hat, and went on with his arm in the air as though nothing had happened. Suddenly he wheeled about. "What, are you giving yourself airs?" he cried, and therewith he attacked the lunatic, who timidly set about resisting him. Then another sailor ran up and struck Anker behind the knees, so that he fell. He lay on the ground shouting and kicking with fright, and the whole party flung itself upon him.

The boys scattered in all directions, in order to gather stones and come to Anker's a.s.sistance. Pelle stood still, his body jerking convulsively, as though the old sickness were about to attack him. Once he sprang forward toward Anker, but something within him told him that sickness had deprived him of his blind courage.

There was one pale, slender youth who was not afraid. He went right among the sailors, in order to drag them off the lunatic, who was becoming quite frantic under their treatment of him.

"He isn't in his right mind!" cried the boy, but he was hurled back with a bleeding face.

This was Morten, the brother of Jens the apprentice. He was so angry that he was sobbing.

Then a tall man came forward out of the darkness, with a rolling gait; he came forward muttering to himself. "Hurrah!" cried the boys. "Here comes the 'Great Power.'" But the man did not hear; he came to a standstill by the fighting group and stood there, still muttering. His giant figure swayed to and fro above them. "Help him, father!" cried Morten. The man laughed foolishly, and began slowly to pull his coat off. "Help him, then!" bellowed the boy, quite beside himself, shaking his father's arm. Jorgensen stretched out his hand to pat the boy's cheek, when he saw the blood on his face. "Knock them down!" cried the boy, like one possessed. Then a sudden shock ran through the giant's body--somewhat as when a heavy load is suddenly set in motion; he bowed himself a little, shook himself, and began to throw the sailors aside.

One after another they stood still for a moment, feeling the place where he had seized them, and then they set off running as hard as they could toward the harbor.

Jorgensen set the madman on his legs again and escorted him home.

Pelle and Morten followed them hand-in-hand. A peculiar feeling of satisfaction thrilled Pelle through; he had seen strength personified in action, and he had made a friend.

After that they were inseparable. Their friends.h.i.+p did not grow to full strength; it overshadowed them suddenly, magically conjured out of their hearts. In Morten's pale, handsome face there was something indescribable that made Pelle's heart throb in his breast, and a gentler note came into the voices of all who spoke to him. Pelle did not clearly understand what there could be attractive about himself; but he steeped himself in this friends.h.i.+p, which fell upon his ravaged soul like a beneficent rain. Morten would come up into the workshop as soon as work was over, or wait for Pelle at the corner. They always ran when they were going to meet. If Pelle had to work overtime, Morten did not go out, but sat in the workshop and amused him. He was very fond of reading, and told Pelle about the contents of many books.

Through Morten, Pelle drew nearer to Jens, and found that he had many good qualities under his warped exterior. Jens had just that broken, despondent manner which makes a child instinctively suspect a miserable home. Pelle had at first supposed that Jens and Morten must have been supported by the poor-box; he could not understand how a boy could bear his father to be a giant of whom the whole town went in terror. Jens seemed hard of hearing when any one spoke to him. "He has had so many beatings," said Morten. "Father can't endure him, because he is stupid."

Clever he was not, but he could produce the most wonderful melodies by whistling merely with his lips, so that people would stand still and listen to him.

After his illness Pelle had a more delicate ear for everything. He no longer let the waves pa.s.s over him, careless as a child, but sent out tentacles--he was seeking for something. Everything had appeared to him as simpler than it was, and his dream of fortune had been too crudely conceived; it was easily shattered, and there was nothing behind it for him to rest on. Now he felt that he must build a better foundation, now he demanded nourishment from a wider radius, and his soul was on the alert for wider ventures; he dropped his anchors in unfamiliar seas.

The goal of his desires receded into the unknown; he now overcame his aversion from the great and mysterious Beyond, where the outlines of the face of G.o.d lay hidden. The G.o.d of Bible history and the sects had for Pelle been only a man, equipped with a beard, and uprightness, and mercy, and all the rest; he was not to be despised, but the "Great Power" was certainly stronger. Hitherto Pelle had not felt the want of a G.o.d; he had only obscurely felt his members.h.i.+p in that all-loving G.o.d who will arise from the lowest and foulest and overshadow heaven; in that frenzied dream of the poor, who see, in a thousand bitter privations, the pilgrimage to the beloved land. But now he was seeking for that which no words can express; now the words, "the millennium,"

had a peculiar sound in his ears.

Anker, of course, was crazy, because the others said so; when they laughed at him, Pelle laughed with them, but there was still something in him that filled Pelle with remorse for having laughed at him. Pelle himself would have liked to scramble money from the top of his high steps if he had been rich; and if Anker talked strangely, in curious phrases, of a time of happiness for all the poor, why, Father La.s.se's lamentations had dealt with the same subject, as far back as he could remember. The foundation of the boy's nature felt a touch of the same pious awe which had forbidden La.s.se and the others, out in the country, to laugh at the insane, for G.o.d's finger had touched them, so that their souls wandered in places to which no other could attain. Pelle felt the face of the unknown G.o.d gazing at him out of the mist.

He had become another being since his illness; his movements were more deliberate, and the features of his round childish face had become more marked and prominent. Those two weeks of illness had dislodged his cares, but they were imprinted on his character, to which they lent a certain gravity. He still roamed about alone, encompa.s.sing himself with solitude, and he observed the young master in his own a.s.siduous way. He had an impression that the master was putting him to the proof, and this wounded him. He himself knew that that which lay behind his illness would never be repeated, and he writhed uneasily under suspicion.

One day he could bear it no longer. He took the ten kroner which La.s.se had given him so that he might buy a much-needed winter overcoat, and went in to the master, who was in the cutting-out room, and laid them on the table. The master looked at him with a wondering expression, but there was a light in his eyes.

"What the devil is that?" he asked, drawling.

"That's master's money," said Pelle, with averted face.

Master Andres gazed at him with dreamy eyes, and then he seemed to return, as though from another world, and Pelle all at once understood what every one said--that the young master was going to die. Then he burst into tears.

But the master himself could not understand.

"What the deuce. But that means nothing!" he cried, and he tossed the ten kroner in the air. "Lord o' me! what a lot of money! Well, you aren't poor!" He stood there, not knowing what to believe, his hand resting on Pelle's shoulder.

"It's right," whispered Pelle. "I've reckoned it up exactly. And the master mustn't suspect me--I'll never do it again."

Master Andres made a gesture of refusal with his hand, and wanted to speak, but at that very moment he was attacked by a paroxysm of coughing. "You young devil!" he groaned, and leaned heavily on Pelle; his face was purple. Then came a fit of sickness, and the sweat beaded his face. He stood there for a little, gasping for breath while his strength returned, and then he slipped the money into Pelle's hand and pushed him out of the room.

Pelle was greatly dejected. His uprightness was unrewarded, and what had become of his vindication? He had been so glad to think that he would shake himself free of all the disgrace. But late in the afternoon the master called him into the cutting-out room. "Here, Pelle," he said confidentially, "I want to renew my lottery ticket; but I've no money.

Can you lend me those ten kroner for a week?" So it was all as it should be; his one object was to put the whole disgrace away from him.

Jens and Morten helped him in that. There were three of them now; and Pelle had a feeling that he had a whole army at his back. The world had grown no smaller, no less attractive, by reason of the endless humiliations of the year. And Pelle knew down to the ground exactly where he stood, and that knowledge was bitter enough. Below him lay the misty void, and the bubbles which now and again rose to the surface and broke did not produce in him any feeling of mystical wonder as to the depths. But he did not feel oppressed thereby; what was, was so because it must be. And over him the other half of the round world revolved in the mystery of the blue heavens, and again and again he heard its joyous _Forward! On!_

IX