“Yes, in father’s time—then everything was so splendid!” said Master Andres. “That was when the angels ran about with white sticks in their mouths!”
In the course of the evening now one and another would drop in to hear and tell the news. And if the young master was in a good temper they would stay. He was the fire and soul of the party, as old Bjerregrav said; he could, thanks to his reading, give explanations of so many things.
When Pelle lifted his eyes from his work he was blind. Yonder, in the workshop, where Baker Jörgen and the rest sat and gossiped, he could see nothing but dancing specks of light, and his work swam round in the midst of them; and of his comrades he saw nothing but their aprons. But in the glass ball the light was like a living fire, in whose streams a world was laboring.
“Well, this evening there’s a capital light,” said Jeppe, if one of them looked to the lamp.
“You mean there’s no light at all!” retorted Master Andres, twisting the regulator.
But one day the ironmonger’s man brought something in a big basket —a hanging lamp with a round burner; and when it was dark the ironmonger himself came in order to light it for the first time, and to initiate Pelle into the management of the wonderful contrivance. He went to work very circumstantially and with much caution. “It can explode, I needn’t tell you,” he said, “but you’d have to treat the mechanism very badly first. If you only set to work with care and reason there is no danger whatever.”
Pelle stood close to him, holding the cylinder, but the others turned their heads away from the table, while the young master stood right at the back, and shuffled to and fro. “Devil knows I don’t want to go to heaven in my living body!” he said, with a comical expression; “but deuce take it, where did you get the courage, Pelle? You’re a saucy young spark!” And he looked at him with his wide, wondering gaze, which held in it both jest and earnest.
At last the lamp shone out; and even on the furthest shelf, high up under the ceiling, one could count every single last. “That’s a regular sun!” said the young master, and he put his hand to his face; “why, good Lord, I believe it warms the room!” He was quite flushed, and his eyes were sparkling.
The old master kept well away from the lamp until the ironmonger had gone; then he came rushing over to it. “Well, aren’t you blown sky-high?” he asked, in great astonishment. “It gives an ugly light —oh, a horrible light! Poof, I say! And it doesn’t shine properly; it catches you in the eyes. Well, well, you can spoil your sight as far as I’m concerned!”
But for the others the lamp was a renewal of life. Master Andres sunned himself in its rays. He was like a sun-intoxicated bird; as he sat there, quite at peace, a wave of joy would suddenly come over him. And to the neighbors who gathered round the lamp in order to discover its qualities he held forth in great style, so that the light was doubled. They came often and stayed readily; the master beamed and the lamp shone; they were like insects attracted by the light—the glorious light!