But Pelle did not hear; he sat there gazing blindly in front of him. All at once the chair began to sail through air with him; he was almost fainting with hunger. “Give me just one drink—I’ve had not a mouthful of food to-day!” He smiled a shamefaced smile at the confession.
With one leap, Ström was out of bed. “No, then you shall have something to eat,” he said eagerly, and he fetched some food. “Did one ever see the like—such a desperate devil! To take brandy on an empty stomach! Eat now, and then you can drink yourself full elsewhere! Ström has enough on his conscience without that…. He can drink his brandy himself! Well, well, then, so you cried from hunger! It sounded like a child crying to me!”
Pelle often experienced such nights. They enlarged his world in the direction of the darkness. When he came home late and groped his way across the landing he always experienced a secret terror lest he should rub against Ström’s lifeless body; and he only breathed freely when he heard him snoring or ramping round his room. He liked to look in on him before he went to bed.
Ström was always delighted to see him, and gave him food; but brandy he would not give him. “It’s not for fellows as young as you! You’ll get the taste for it early enough, perhaps.”
“You drink, yourself,” said Pelle obstinately.
“Yes, I drink to deaden remorse. But that’s not necessary in your case.”
“I’m so empty inside,” said Pelle. “Really brandy might set me up a little. I feel as if I weren’t human at all, but a dead thing, a table, for instance.”
“You must do something—anything—or you’ll become a good-for- nothing. I’ve seen so many of our sort go to the dogs; we haven’t enough power of resistance!”
“It’s all the same to me what becomes of me!” replied Pelle drowsily. “I’m sick of the whole thing!”