He slipped into a side-street; he had buttoned his thin jacket tightly about him, and turned up his collar. In the half-darkness of the doorways stood young men and girls, in familiar, whispered conversation. Warmth radiated from the girls, and their bibbed aprons shone in the darkness. Pelle crept along in the cold, and knew less than ever what to do with himself; he ranged about to find a sweetheart for himself.
In the market he met Alfred, arm-in-arm with Lau’s daughter. He carried a smart walking-stick, and wore brown gloves and a tall hat. “The scamp—he still owes me two and a half kroner, and I shall never get it out of him!” thought Pelle, and for a moment he felt a real desire to spring upon him and to roll all his finery in the mud. Alfred turned his head the other way. “He only knows me when he wants to do something and has no money!” said Pelle bitterly.
He ran down the street at a jog-trot, in order to keep himself warm, turning his eyes toward the windows. The bookbinder and his wife were sitting at home, singing pious songs. The man drank when at home; that one could see plainly on the blind. At the wool-merchant’s they were having supper.
Farther on, at the Sow’s, there was life, as always. A mist of tobacco smoke and a great deal of noise were escaping through the open window. The Sow kept a house for idle seamen, and made a great deal of money. Pelle had often been invited to visit her, but had always considered himself too good; moreover, he could not bear Rud. But this evening he seized greedily upon the memory of this invitation, and went in. Perhaps a mouthful of food would come his way.
At a round table sat a few tipsy seamen, shouting at one another, and making a deafening row. The Sow sat on a young fellow’s knee; she lay half over the table and dabbled her fingers in a puddle of spilt beer; from time to time she shouted right in the face of those who were making the most noise. The last few years had not reduced her circumference.
“Now look at that! Is that you, Pelle?” she said, and she stood up to give him her hand. She was not quite sober, and had some difficulty in taking his. “That’s nice of you to come, now—I really thought we weren’t good enough for you! Now, sit down and have a drop; it won’t cost you anything.” She motioned to him to take a seat.
The sailors were out of humor; they sat staring sleepily at Pelle. Their heavy heads wagged helplessly. “That’s surely a new customer?” asked one, and the others laughed.
The Sow laughed too, but all at once became serious. “Then you can leave him out of your games, for he’s far too good to be dragged into anything; one knows what you are!” She sank into a chair next to Pelle, and sat looking at him, while she rubbed her own greasy countenance. “How tall and fine you’ve grown—but you aren’t well-off for clothes! And you don’t look to be overfed…. Ah, I’ve known you from the time when you and your father came into the country; a little fellow you were then, and Lasse brought me my mother’s hymn-book!” She was suddenly silent, and her eyes filled with tears.
One of the sailors whispered to the rest, and they began to laugh.
“Stop laughing, you swine!” she cried angrily, and she crossed over to them. “You aren’t going to play any of your nonsense with him—he comes like a memory of the times when I was respectable, too. His father is the only creature living who can prove that I was once a pretty, innocent little maid, who got into bad company. He’s had me on his lap and sung lullabies to me.” She looked about her defiantly, and her red face quivered.