Pelle the Conqueror — Complete

by Martin Andersen Nexø

Jacob was silent and hung his head; the once strong, bold fellow had become like a dog that any one might kick. If it were so dreadful to bear six times five among one’s own people, what could Pelle say? “How is your brother?” he asked, in order to divert Jacob’s thoughts to something brighter. “He was a splendid fellow.”

“He hung himself,” answered Jacob gloomily. “He couldn’t stand it any longer. We broke into a house together, so as to be equal about it; and the grocer owed the old man money—he’d worked for it—and they meant to cheat him out of it. So the two old things were starving, and had no fire either; and we got them what they’d a right to, and it was so splendidly done too. But afterward when there was a row at the works, agitation and election fuss and all that kind of thing, they just went and left him and me out. We weren’t the right sort, you see; we hadn’t the right to vote. He couldn’t get even with the business in any other way than by putting a rope over the lamp-hook in the ceiling. I’ve looked at the matter myself all round, you see, but I can’t make anything of it.” He walked on a little without speaking, and then said: “Would you hit out properly now? There’s need of a kind word.”

Pelle did not answer; it was all too sad. He did not even hear the question.

“It was chiefly what you said that made me believe in a better time coming,” Jacob continued persistently, “or perhaps my brother and me would have done differently and things might have gone better with both of us. Well, I suppose you believed it yourself, but what do you think now? Do you still believe in that about the better time? For I should like to be an honest man again.”

Of course Pelle still believed in it.

“For there aren’t many who’d give a brass farthing for that story now; but if you say so—I’ve got faith in you all the same. Others wouldn’t have the brains to think of anything for themselves, and it was like the cork going off, so to speak, for us poor people when you went away; everything went flat. If anything happens, it doesn’t do for a poor devil to look on; and every time any one wants to complain, he gets a voting-paper pushed into his hand and they say: Go and vote and things will be altered! But confound it, that can’t rouse a fellow who’s not learnt anything from the time he was small. They’d taken a lot of trouble about me now—whitewashing me so that I could use my right to vote; but they can’t make me so that no one looks down on me. And so I say, Thank you for nothing! But if you still believe in it, so will I, for I’ve got faith in you. Here’s my hand on it!”

Jacob was the same simple, good-hearted fellow that he had been in former days when he lived in the attic in the “Ark.” There might very well have been a little more evil in him. But his words warmed Pelle’s heart. Here was some one who needed him, and who still believed in him although he had been maimed in the fight. He was the first of the disabled ones, and Pelle was prepared to meet with more and to hear their accusations. Many of them would turn against him now that he was powerless, but he would have to put up with that. He felt as though he had the strength for it now.

Pelle went into the street again, letting his feet carry him where they would, while he thought of the past and the future. They had been so certain that a new age would dawn upon them at once! The new, great truth had been so self-evident that it seemed as if all the old conditions must fall before it as at a magic word; and now the everyday reality had worn the gloss off it. As far as he could see, nothing particular had happened, and what was there to happen? That was not the way to overturn systems. From Merry Jacob’s opinion he could draw his own, but he was no longer despondent, he did not mind what happened. He would have had no objection to challenge the opinion of his old comrades at once, and find out how he stood.

He had passed through several side streets when he suddenly found himself in front of a large, well-lighted building with a broad flight of steps, up which people were flocking. It was one of the working-men’s halls, and festivities were being held in it to celebrate the elections. Pelle went, by force of habit, with the stream.

He remained at the back of the hall, and used his eyes as though he had just dropped down from some other planet; strange feelings welled up within him when he found himself once more among the people. For a moment he felt a vehement desire to cry: Here I am! and stretch out his arms to them all; but he quickly controlled it, and his face regained its stony composure.