Pelle wrinkled his forehead. “You don’t understand, Marie.”
“Oh, so you think I don’t know all about it? But do you know what the women say about you? They say you’re no man, or you would have managed to clip Hanne’s feathers.”
Pelle gazed at her, wondering; he said nothing, but looked at her and shook his head.
“What are you staring at me for?” she said, placing herself aggressively in front of him. “Perhaps you think I’m afraid to say what I like to you? Don’t you stare at me with that face, or you’ll get one in the mouth!” She was burning red with shame. “Shall I say something still worse? with you staring at me with that face? Eh? No one need think I’m ashamed to say what I like!” Her voice was hard and hoarse; she was quite beside herself with rage.
Pelle was perfectly conscious that it was shame that was working in her. She must be allowed to run down. He was silent, but did not avert his reproachful gaze. Suddenly she spat in his face and ran into her own room with a malicious laugh.
There she was very busy for a time.
There for a time she worked with extreme vigor, but presently grew quieter. Through the stillness Pelle could hear her gently sobbing. He did not go in to her. Such scenes had occurred between them before, and he knew that for the rest of the day she would be ashamed of herself, and it would he misery for her to look him in the face. He did not wish to lessen that feeling.
He dressed himself and went out.
VIII
The “Ark” now showed as a clumsy gray mass. It was always dark; the autumn daylight was unable to penetrate it. In the interior of the mass the pitch-black night brooded continually; those who lived there had to grope their way like moles. In the darkness sounds rose to the surface which failed to make themselves noticeable in the radiance of summer. Innumerable sounds of creatures that lived in the half-darkness were heard. When sleep had laid silence upon it all, the stillness of night unveiled yet another world: then the death-watches audibly bored their way beneath the old wall-papers, while rats and mice and the larvae of wood-beetles vied with one another in their efforts. The darkness was full of the aromatic fragrance of the falling worm-dust. All through this old box of a building dissolution was at work, with thousands of tiny creatures to aid it. At times the sound of it all rose to a tremendous crash which awoke Pelle from sleep, when some old worm-eaten timber was undermined and sagged in a fresh place. Then he would turn over on the other side.