“Then shan’t we go there to-night and have supper? Otherwise I’m afraid we shan’t get anything.”
“Yes, we will! It’s true we were there the day before yesterday—but what does that matter? We must go somewhere, and at least it’s sticking to the family!”
The cold had no effect on Pelle; the blood ran swiftly through his veins. He was always warm. Privation he accepted as an admonition, and merely felt the stronger for it; and he made use of his involuntary holiday to work for the Cause.
It was no time for public meetings and sounding words—many had not even clothes with which to go to meetings. The movement had lost its impetus through the cold; people had their work cut out to keep the little they already had. Pelle made it his business to encourage the hopes of the rejected, and was always on the run; he came into contact with many people. Misery stripped them bare and developed his knowledge of humanity.
Wherever a trade was at a standstill, and want had made its appearance, he and others were at hand to prevent demoralization and to make the prevailing conditions the subject of agitation. He saw how want propagates itself like the plague, and gradually conquers all—a callous accomplice in the fate of the poor man. In a week to a fortnight unemployment would take all comfort from a home that represented the scraping and saving of many years—so crying was the disproportion. Here was enough to stamp a lasting comprehension upon the minds of all, and enough to challenge agitation. All but persons of feeble mind could see now what they were aiming at.
And there were people here like those at home. Want made them even more submissive. They could hardly believe that they were so favored as to be permitted to walk the earth and go hungry. With them there was nothing to be done. They were born slaves, born with slavery deep in their hearts, pitiful and cur-like.
They were people of a certain age—of an older generation than his. The younger folk were of another and a harder stuff; and he often was amazed to find how vigorously their minds echoed his ideas. They were ready to dare, ready to meet force with force. These must be held back lest they should prejudice the movement—for them its progress was never sufficiently rapid.
His mind was young and intact and worked well in the cold weather; he restlessly drew comparisons and formed conclusions in respect of everything he came into contact with. The individual did not seem to change. The agitation was especially directed to awakening what was actually existent. For the rest, they must live their day and be replaced by a younger generation in whom demands for compensation came more readily to the tongue. So far as he could survey the evolution of the movement, it did not proceed through the generations, but in some amazing fashion grew out of the empty space between them. So youth, even at the beginning, was further ahead than age had been where it left off.
The movements of the mind had an obscure and mystical effect upon him, as had the movement of his blood in childhood; sometimes he felt a mysterious shudder run through him, and he began to understand what Morten had meant when he said that humanity was sacred. It was terrible that human beings should suffer such need, and Pelle’s resentment grew deeper.