“You’ll be put in the paper to-morrow,” said Pelle, hesitating. “I only wanted to tell you that.”
“Yes, and to write of me that I’m a swine and a bad comrade, and perhaps that I beat my wife as well. You know yourself it’s all lies; but what is that to me? Will you have a drink?”
No, Pelle wouldn’t take anything. “Then I will myself,” said the man, and he laughed angrily. “Now you can certify that I’m a hog—I drink out of the bottle! And another evening you can come and listen at the keyhole—perhaps then you’ll hear me beating my wife!”
The woman began to cry.
“Oh, damn it all, they might leave me in peace!” said the man defiantly.
Pelle had to go with nothing effected.
XXV
The “Ark” was now freezing in the north wind; all outward signs of life were stripped from it. The sounds that in summer bubbled up from its deep well-like shaft were silent now; the indistinguishable dripping of a hundred waste-pipes, that turned the court into a little well with green slimy walls, was silent too. The frost had fitted them all with stoppers; and where the toads had sat gorging themselves in the cavities of the walls—fantastic caverns of green moss and slimy filaments—a crust of ice hung over all; a grimy glacier, which extended from the attics right down to the floor of the court.
Where were they now, the grimy, joyful children? And what of the evening carouse of the hearse-driver, for which his wife would soundly thrash him? And the quarrelsome women’s voices, which would suddenly break out over this or that railing, criticizing the whole court, sharp as so many razors?
The frost was harder than ever! It had swept all these things away and had locked them up as closely as might be. The hurdy-gurdy man lay down below in his cellar, and had as visitor that good friend of the north wind, the gout; and down in the deserted court the draught went shuffling along the dripping walls. Whenever any one entered the tunnel- entry the draught clutched at his knees with icy fingers, so that the pain penetrated to the very heart.