Pelle went up to him. “Things aren’t going well with you, comrade,” he said, laying his hand on the other’s shoulder. “And you are much too good for what you are doing. You had better come with me and re-enter the organization.”
The man slowly turned his head. “Oh, it’s you!” he said, shaking Pelle’s hand away with a jerk. “And you seem as cool and impudent as ever. Poverty hasn’t dealt hardly with you! It’s not at all a bad business, growing fat on the pence of the workers, eh?”
Pelle grew crimson with anger, but he controlled himself. “Your insults don’t hurt me,” he said. “I have gone hungry for the Cause while you have been playing the turncoat. But that will be forgotten if you’ll come with me.”
The man laughed bitterly, pointing at the tenement-house. “You’d better go and give them a medal. Three months now they’ve tormented me and made hell hot for my wife and children, in order to drive us away. And as that didn’t answer, they went to the landlord and forced him to give me notice. But Hansen is obstinate—he wouldn’t be shown the door. So now they’ve got the bailiffs to turn me out, see?” He gave a hollow laugh. “But these few sticks, why, we can soon carry them up again, damn it all! Shall we begin, mother?”
“I’ll willingly speak to the landlord. Remember, you are an old unionist.”
“An old—yes, I was in it from the very beginning.” The man drew himself proudly erect. “But for all that I don’t let my wife and children starve. So you want to go begging favors for me, eh? You be gone—at once, will you? Be off, to the devil, or I’ll beat you to a jelly with this!” He seized a table-leg; his eyes were quite blood-shot. His young wife went up to him and took his hand. “Hansen!” she said quietly. He let his weapon fall. Pelle felt the woman’s pleading eyes upon him, and went.
XXXI
When Pelle, tired to death, made his way homeward in the evening, he had lost the feeling of invincibility and his thoughts turned to Ellen.
In the daytime he felt neither hesitation nor certainty. When he set to work it was always with thousands behind him. He felt the great body of workers at his back, whether he was fighting in the open or waiting with close-buttoned coat to deal with the leaders of the opposing camp. But when he went home to Ellen he had only himself to rely on for support. And he could not get near her. Strongly as he was drawn by the life away from home, she still held the secret of his life in her hands. She was strong and would not be swept aside. He was forced to ponder over her nature and to search for a solution.
Pelle had to deal with countless numbers of families, and what he saw was not always edifying. Home was a conception which was only now forcing its way downward from the middle classes. Even in periods of normal employment the workers earned little enough when it came to providing a decent family life, and the women knew nothing of making a comfortable home. The man might be tidy and well-dressed when one met him out of doors, but if you went to his home it was always the same thing; a dark, grimy den and a worn-out wife, who moved about scolding amidst a swarm of children. Wages were enough for one only to live in comfort. The man represented the household out of doors. He must take sandwiches to his work, and he must have something decent too when he got home. The others managed with a little bread and coffee; it was of no use to talk of regular family meals. And the man must have clothes; he was the visible portion of the household, and he supported it. It was of no use to look for anything further in the way of ideas from these women; they saw nothing but unemployment and the want at home, and when the husband showed himself they drove him out of the house with their scolding ways. “You go out and meddle with everything you can think of that doesn’t concern us—politics and big talk—instead of doing your work properly and leaving the fools to squabble among themselves!” The result was that they did their work for the organization in the taverns. Many of them held positions of confidence, and Pelle went to the taverns to confer with them. They were dejected, when they arrived, and had before all else to be thawed out.