He went down the King’s New Market and into the fashionable quarter. It was bright and gay here, with the arc-lamps hanging like a row of light- birds above the asphalt, now and then beating their wings to keep themselves poised. They seemed to sweep down the darkness of night, and great shadows flickered through the street and disappeared. In the narrow side streets darkness lay, and insistent sounds forced their way out of it—a girl’s laugh, the crying of a lonely child, the ceaseless bickering of a cowed woman. But people strolled, quietly conversing, along the pavement in couples and heard nothing. They had got out their winter coats, and were luxuriating in the first cold weather.
Music sounded from the large cafés, which were filled to overflowing. People were sitting close together in small select companies, and looked gay and happy. On the tables round which they sat, stood the wine-cooler with the champagne bottle pointing obliquely upward as though it were going to shoot down heaven itself to them. How secure they appeared to feel! Had they no suspicion that they were sitting upon a thin crust, with the hell of poverty right beneath them? Or was that perhaps why they were enjoying themselves—to-day your turn, to-morrow mine? Perhaps they had become reconciled to the idea, and took what they could get without listening too carefully to the hoarse protests of the back streets!
Under one of the electric lamp-posts on the Town Hall Square a man was standing selling papers. He held one out to Pelle, saying: “A halfpenny if you can afford it, if not you can have it for nothing!” He was pale, with dark shadows under his eyes, and he had a dark beard. He looked as if he were suffering from some internal complaint which was slowly consuming him. Pelle looked at him, and saw to his surprise that it was Peter Dreyer, his comrade of long ago!
“Do you go about selling newspapers?” he exclaimed in astonishment, holding out his hand.
Peter Dreyer quietly returned his greeting. He had the same heavy, introspective look that he had had when Pelle met him in the garret in Jager Street, but looked even more perplexed.
“Yes, I’ve become a newspaper man,” he said, “but only after working hours. It’s a little paper that I write and print myself. It may perhaps do you good to read it.”
“What’s it about?”
“About you and me.”
“It’s anarchistic, I suppose?” said Pelle, looking at the title of the paper. “You were so strange last time I met you.”
“Well, you can read it. A halfpenny if you can afford it, if not gratis!” he cried, holding out a copy to the passers-by. A policeman was standing a little way off observing him. He gradually drew nearer.