Marie nodded.
“But then it’s worse here than at home—there at least we always have the stone-cutting when there is nothing else. And I had really believed that the good time had already begun over here!”
“Pelle says it will soon come,” said Marie consolingly.
“Yes, Pelle—he can well talk. He is young and healthy and has the time before him.”
Lasse was in a bad temper; nothing seemed right to him. In order to give him pleasure, Marie took him to see the guard changed, which cheered him a little.
“Those are smart fellows truly,” he said. “Hey, hey, how they hold themselves! And fine clothes too. But that they know well enough themselves! Yes—I’ve never been a king’s soldier. I went up for it when I was young and felt I’d like it; I was a smart fellow then, you can take my word for it! But they wouldn’t have me; my figure wouldn’t do, they said; I had worked too hard, from the time I was quite a child. They’d got it into their heads in those days that a man ought to be made just so and so. I think it’s to please the fine ladies. Otherwise I, too, might have defended my country.”
Down by the Exchange the roadway was broken up; a crowd of navvies were at work digging out the foundation for a conduit. Lasse grew quite excited, and hurried up to them.
“That would be the sort of thing for me,” he said, and he stood there and fell into a dream at the sight of the work. Every time the workers swung their picks he followed the movement with his old head. He drew closer and closer. “Hi,” he said to one of the workers, who was taking a breath, “can a man get taken on here?”
The man took a long look at him. “Get taken on here?” he cried, turning more to his comrades than to Lasse. “Ah, you’d like to, would you? Here you foreigners come running, from Funen and Middlefart, and want to take the bread out of the mouths of us natives. Get away with you, you Jutland carrion!” Laughing, he swung his pick over his head.
Lasse drew slowly hack. “But he was angry!” he said dejectedly to Marie.