Pelle the Conqueror — Complete

by Martin Andersen Nexø

Morten sat silent for a little while, and then suddenly lifted his head.

“But you must, Pelle!” he said. “You say you’re not the right man, but there’s simply no one but you. Have you forgotten that you fired the Movement, that you were its simple faith? They one and all believed in you blindly like children, and were capable of nothing when you gave up. Why, it’s not you, but the others—the whole Movement— who’ve been imprisoned! How glad I am that you’ve come back full of the strength gained there! You were smaller than you are now, Pelle, and even then something happened; now you may be successful even in great things.”

Pelle sat and listened in the deepening twilight, wondering with a pleased embarrassment. It was Morten who was nominating him—the severe, incorruptible Morten, who had always before been after him like his evil conscience.

“No, I’m going to be careful now,” he said, “and it’s your own fault, Morten. You’ve gone and pricked my soul, and I’m awake now; I shan’t go at anything blindly again. I have a feeling that what we two are joining in is the greatest thing the world has ever seen. It reaches further into the future than I can see, and so I’m working on myself. I study the books now—I got into the way of that in prison—and I must try to get a view out over the world. Something strange too has happened to me: I understand now what you meant when you said that man was holy! I’m no longer satisfied with being a small part of the whole, but think I must try to become a whole world by myself. It sounds foolish, but I feel as if I were in one of the scales and the rest of the world in the other; and until I can send the other scale up, I can’t think of putting myself at the head of the multitude.”

Evening had closed in before they were aware of it. The electric light from the railway-station yard threw its gleam upon the ceiling of the attic room and was reflected thence onto the two men who sat leaning forward in the half-darkness, talking quietly. Neither of them noticed that the door to the other room had opened, and a tall, thin girl stood on the threshold gazing at them with dilated pupils. She was in her chemise only, and it had slipped from one thin shoulder; and her feet were bare. The chemise reached only to her knees, leaving exposed a pair of sadly emaciated legs. A wheezing sound accompanied her breathing.

Pelle had raised his head to say something, but was silent at sight of the lean, white figure, which stood looking at him with great eyes that seemed to draw the darkness into them. The meeting with Morten had put him into an expectant frame of mind. He still had the call sounding in his ears, and gazed in amazement at the ghostly apparition. The delicate lines, spoiled by want, the expression of childlike terror of the dark— all this twofold picture of wanness stamped with the stamp of death, and of an unfulfilled promise of beauty—was it not the ghost of poverty, of wrong and oppression, a tortured apparition sent to admonish him? Was his brain failing? Were the horrible visions of the darkness of his cell returning? “Morten!” he whispered, touching his arm.

Morten sprang up. “Why, Johanna! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” he exclaimed reproachfully. He tried to make the girl go back into the other room, and to close the door; but she pushed past him out into the room.

“I will see him!” she cried excitedly. “If you don’t let me, I shall run away! He’s hidden my clothes,” she said to Pelle, gazing at him with her sunken eyes. “But I can easily run away in my chemise. I don’t care!” Her voice was rough and coarse from the damp air of the back yards.

“Now go back to bed, Johanna!” said Morten more gently. “Remember what the doctor said. You’ll catch cold and it’ll all be wasted.”

“What do I care!” she answered, breaking into a coarse laugh. “You needn’t waste anything on me; I’ve had no children by you.” She was trembling with cold, but remained obstinately standing, and answered Morten’s remonstrances with a torrent of abusive epithets. At last he gave it up and sat down wearily. The two men sat and looked at her in silence.