“No, I can’t do that, but I give them a vent for their grievances, and get them to rise and protest. It’s something at any rate, that they no longer keep silence and submit.”
“And if to-morrow they get something to eat, the whole turmoil’s forgotten; but they’re no further on than they were. Isn’t it a matter of indifference whether they suffer want today, as compared with the question whether they will do so eternally?”
“If you can put the responsibility upon those poor creatures, you must be a hard-hearted brute!” said Peter angrily.
Well, it was necessary now to harden one’s heart, for nothing would be accomplished with sympathy only! The man with eyes that watered would not do for a driver through the darkness.
It was a dull time, and men were glad when they could keep their situations. There was no question of new undertakings before the spring. But Pelle worked hard to gain adherents to his idea. He had started a discussion in the labor party press, and gave lectures. He chose the quiet trade unions, disdained all agitation eloquence, and put forward his idea with the clearness of an expert, building it up from his own experience until, without any fuss, by the mere power of the facts, it embraced the world. It was the slow ones he wanted to get hold of, those who had been the firm nucleus of the Movement through all these years, and steadfastly continued to walk in the old foot-prints, although they led nowhere. It was the picked troops from the great conflict that must first of all be called upon! He knew that if he got them to go into fire for his idea with their unyielding discipline, much would be gained.
It was high time for a new idea to come and take them on; they had grown weary of this perpetual goose-step; the Movement was running away from them. But now he had come with an idea of which they would never grow weary, and which would carry them right through. No one would be able to say that he could not understand it, for it was the simple idea of the home carried out so as to include everything. Ellen had taught it to him, and if they did not know it themselves, they must go home to their wives and learn it. They did not brood over the question as to which of the family paid least or ate most, but gave to each one according to his needs, and took the will for the deed. The world would be like a good, loving home, where no one oppressed the other—nothing more complicated than that.
Pelle was at work early and late. Scarcely a day passed on which he did not give a lecture or write about his coöperation idea. He was frequently summoned into the provinces to speak. People wanted to see and hear the remarkable manufacturer who earned no more than his work- people.
In these journeys he came to know the country, and saw that much of his idea had been anticipated out there. The peasant, who stiffened with horror at the word “socialist,” put the ideas of the Movement into practice on a large scale. He had arranged matters on the coöperative system, and had knitted the country into supply associations.
“We must join on there when we get our business into better order,” said Pelle to Brun.
“Yes, if the farmers will work with us,” said Brun doubtfully. “They’re conservative, you know.”