“You say that so certainly, but poverty is not so easily dealt with—it has eaten its way in too deep! Young Lasse will perhaps be a grown man before that comes about. But now you must take the boy away, for it isn’t good that he should see how the old die. He looks so pale—does he get out into the sun properly?”
“The rich have borrowed the sun—and they’ve forgotten to pay it back,” said Pelle bitterly.
Lasse raised his head in the air, as though he were striving against something. “Yes, yes! It needs good eyes to look into the future, and mine won’t serve me any longer. But now you must go and take the boy with you. And you mustn’t neglect your affairs, you can’t outwit death, however clever you may be.” He laid his withered hand on Young Lasse’s head and turned his face to the wall.
Pelle got Madam Johnsen to take the boy home again, so that he himself could remain with the old man. Their paths had of late years lain so little together; they had forever been meeting and then leading far apart. He felt the need of a lingering farewell. While he moved to and fro, and lit a fire to warm up some food, and did what he could to make Father Lasse comfortable, he listened to the old man’s desultory speech and let himself drift hack into the careless days of childhood. Like a deep, tender murmur, like the voice of the earth itself, Lasse’s monotonous speech renewed his childhood; and as it continued, it became the never-silent speech of the many concerning the conditions of life. Now, in silence he turned again from the thousands to Father Lasse, and saw how great a world this tender-hearted old man had supported. He had always been old and worn-out so long as Pelle could remember. Labor so soon robs the poor man of his youth and makes his age so long! But this very frailty endowed him with a superhuman power—that of the father! He had borne his poverty greatly, without becoming wicked or self-seeking or narrow; his heart had always been full of the cheerfulness of sacrifice, and full of tenderness; he had been strong even in his impotence. Like the Heavenly Father Himself, he had encompassed Pelle’s whole existence with his warm affection, and it would be terrible indeed when his kindly speech was no longer audible at the back of everything.
His departing soul hovered in ever-expanding circles over the way along which he had travelled—like the doves when they migrate. Each time he had recovered a little strength he took up the tale of his life anew. “There has always been something to rejoice over, you know, but much of it has been only an aimless struggle. In the days when I knew no better I managed well enough; but from the moment when you were born my old mind began to look to the future, and I couldn’t feel at peace any more. There was something about you that seemed like an omen, and since then it has always stuck in my mind; and my intentions have been restless, like the Jerusalem shoemaker’s. It was as though something had suddenly given me—poor louse!—the promise of a more beautiful life; and the memory of that kept on running in my mind. Is it perhaps the longing for Paradise, out of which they drove us once?—I used to think. If you’ll believe me, I, poor old blunderer as I am, have had splendid dreams of a beautiful, care-free old age, when my son, with his wife and children, would come and visit me in my own cozy room, where I could entertain them a little with everything neat and tidy. I didn’t give up hoping for it even right at the end. I used to go about dreaming of a treasure which I should find out on the refuse-heaps. Ah, I did so want to be able to leave you something! I have been able to do so miserably little for you.”
“And you say that, who have been father and mother to me? During my whole childhood you stood behind everything, protecting me; if anything happened to me I always used to think; ‘Father Lasse will soon set that right!’ And when I grew up I found in everything that I undertook that you were helping me to raise myself. It would have gone but ill indeed with everything if you hadn’t given me such a good inheritance!”
“Do you say that?” cried Lasse proudly. “Shall I truly have done my share in what you have done for the Cause of the poor? Ah, that sounds good, in any case! No, but you have been my life, my boy, and I used to wonder, poor weak man as I was, to see how great my strength was in you! What I scarcely dared to think of even, you have had the power to do! And now here I lie, and have not even the strength to die. You must promise me that you won’t burden yourself on my account with anything that’s beyond your ability—you must leave the matter to the poor-law authorities. I’ve kept myself clear of them till now, but it was only my stupid pride. The poor man and the poor-laws belong together after all. I have learned lately to look at many things differently; and it is good that I am dying—otherwise I should soon be alive and thinking but have no power. If these ideas had come to me in the strength of my youth perhaps I should have done something violent. I hadn’t your prudence and intelligence, to be able to carry eggs in a hop-sack….”
On the morning of the third day there was a change in Lasse, although it was not easy to say where the alteration lay. Pelle sat at the bedside reading the last issue of The Working Man, when he noticed that Lasse was gazing at him. “Is there any news?” he asked faintly.
“The negotiations are proceeding,” said Pelle, “but it is difficult to agree upon a basis…. Several times everything has been on the point of breaking down.”
“It’s dragging out such a long time,” said Lasse dejectedly; “and I shall die to-day, Pelle. There is something restless inside me, although I should dearly like to rest a little. It is curious, how we wander about trying to obtain something different to what we have! As a little boy at home in Tommelilla I used to run round a well; I used to run like one possessed, and I believed if I only ran properly I should be able to catch my own heels! And now I’ve done it; for now there is always some one in front of me, so that I can’t go forward, and it’s old Lasse himself who is stopping the way! I am always thinking I must overtake him, but I can’t find my old views of the world again, they have altered so. On the night when the big employers declared the lock-out I was standing out there among the many thousands of other poor folks, listening. They were toasting the resolution with champagne, and cheering, and there my opinions were changed! It’s strange how things are in this world. Down in the granary cellar there lay a mason who had built one of the finest palaces in the capital, and he hadn’t even a roof over his head.”