“They’d soon do that!” said Pelle convincingly. “If we only hold together, they’ll have to respect the individual as well, and listen to his demands. The poor man must have his say with the rest.”
Peter made an impatient movement. “What good can it do me to club folks on the head till they look at me? It don’t matter a damn to me! But perhaps they’d look at me of their own accord—and say, of their own accord—‘Look, there goes a man made in God’s image, who thinks and feels in his heart just as I do!’ That’s what I want!”
“I honestly don’t understand what you mean with your ‘man,’” said Pelle irritably. “What’s the good of running your head against a wall when there are reasonable things in store for us? We want to organize ourselves and see if we can’t escape from slavery. Afterward every man can amuse himself as he likes.”
“Well, well, if it’s so easy to escape from slavery! Why not? Put down my name for one!” said Peter, with a slightly ironical expression.
“Thanks, comrade!” cried Pelle, joyfully shaking his hand. “But you’ll do something for the cause?”
Peter looked about him forlornly. “Horrible weather for you to be out in,” he said, and he lighted Pelle down the stairs.
Pelle went northward along Chapel Street. He wanted to look up Morten. The wind was chasing the leaves along by the cemetery, driving the rain in his face. He kept close against the cemetery wall in order to get shelter, and charged against the wind, head down. He was in the best of humors. That was two new members he had won over; he was getting on by degrees! What an odd fish Peter had become; the word, “man, man,” sounded meaningless to Pelle’s ears. Well, anyhow, he had got him on the list.
Suddenly he heard light, running steps behind him. The figure of a man reached his side, and pushed a little packet under Pelle’s arm without stopping for a moment. At a short distance he disappeared. It seemed to Pelle as though he disappeared over the cemetery wall.
Under one of the street lamps he stopped and wonderingly examined the parcel; it was bound tightly with tape. “For mother” was written upon it in an awkward hand. Pelle was not long in doubt—in that word “mother” he seemed plainly to hear Ferdinand’s hoarse voice. “Now Madam Frandsen will be delighted,” he thought, and he put it in his pocket. During the past week she had had no news of Ferdinand. He dared no longer venture through Kristianshavn. Pelle could not understand how Ferdinand had lit upon him. Was he living out here in the Rabarber ward?
Morten was sitting down, writing in a thick copybook. He closed it hastily as Pelle entered.