They moved restlessly about the room and spoke of the bad times and the increasing need. “Yes, it’s terrible that there isn’t enough for everybody,” said Otto’s wife.
“But the hard winter and the misery will come to an end and then things will be better again.”
“You mean we shall come to an end first?” said Otto, laughing despairingly.
“No, not we—this poverty, of course. Ach, you know well enough what I mean. But he’s always like that,” she said, turning to Pelle.
“Curious, how you women still go about in the pious belief that there’s not enough for all!” said Pelle. “Yet the harbor is full of stacks of coal, and there’s no lack of eatables in the shops. On the contrary— there is more than usual, because so many are having to do without—and you can see, too, that everything in the city is cheaper. But what good is that when there’s no money? It’s the distribution that’s all wrong.”
“Yes, you are quite right!” said Otto Stolpe. “It’s really damnable that no one has the courage to help himself!”
Pelle heard Ellen go out through the kitchen door, and presently she came back with firing in her apron. She had borrowed it. “I’ve scraped together just a last little bit of coal,” she said, going down on her knees before the stove. “In any case it’s enough to heat the water for a cup of coffee.”
Otto and his wife begged her urgently not to give herself any trouble; they had had some coffee before they left home—after a good solid breakfast. “On Sundays we always have a solid breakfast,” said young Madam Stolpe; “it does one such a lot of good!” While she was speaking her eyes involuntarily followed Ellen’s every moment, as though she could tell thereby how soon the coffee would be ready.
Ellen chatted as she lit the fire. But of course they must have a cup of coffee; they weren’t to go away with dry throats!
Pelle sat by listening in melancholy surprise; her innocent boasting only made their poverty more glaring. He could see that Ellen was desperately perplexed, and he followed her into the kitchen.