Pelle the Conqueror
APPRENTICESHIP
by Martin Andersen Nexö
Translated from the Danish by Bernard Miall.
Pelle the Conqueror
II. APPRENTICESHIP
I
On that windy May-day morning when Pelle tumbled out of the nest, it so happened that old Klaus Hermann was clattering into town with his manure-cart, in order to fetch a load of dung. And this trifling circumstance decided the boy’s position in life. There was no more pother than this about the question: What was Pelle to be?
He had never put that question to himself. He had simply gone onward at hazard, as the meaning of the radiant world unfolded itself. As to what he should make of himself when he was really out in the world —well, the matter was so incomprehensible that it was mere folly to think about it. So he just went on.