The violent language used by the young men frightened him too. He had rebelled against the old conditions just as they had done, but he met with different experiences. From the time he could crawl he had struggled to accommodate himself to the great connection of things; even the life of the prison had not placed him outside it, but had only united him the more closely with the whole. He had no inclination to cut the knot, but demanded that it should be untied.
“You’re no good,” said Morten and the others when they tried to rouse him, “for you can’t hate.” No, the cold in his mind was like the night- frost; it melted at the first sunbeam. When he looked back there were redeeming ties that held the whole together in spite of all the evil; and now the old librarian had brought him close up to the good in the other side of the cleft too. He had settled down to his shoemaking again and refused to be roused by the others’ impatience; but he looked as if he had an eternity in which to unravel his affairs.
Sister was often down with him and filled the workshop with her chatter. At about eight, when it began to grow light, he heard her staggering step on the stair, and she remained with him until Ellen took her up in the evening by main force to put her to bed. She dragged all the tools together and piled them up in front of Pelle on the bench so that he could hardly move, and called it helping. Then she rested, standing with her hands upon the edge of the bench and talking to him. “Sister’s clever!” she said appreciatively, pointing with satisfaction to her work. “Big girl!” And if he did not answer she repeated it and did not leave off until he had praised her.
“Yes, you’re very clever!” he said, “but can you put the things back in their places?”
The child shook her head. “Sister’s tired,” she declared with decision, and immediately after brought another tool and pushed it slowly up onto the heap while she kept her eyes upon his face to see whether she might do it. “Sister’s helping!” she repeated in explanation; but Pelle pretended not to hear.
For a time she was quiet, but then came to him with her pinafore full of old boots and shoes that she had pulled out from behind the stove. He tried to look stern, but had to bend down over his work. It made the little girl feel uncertain. She emptied her pinafore onto the platform, and sitting on her heels with her hands on her little knees, she tried to see what his expression was. It was not satisfactory, so she got up and, putting her hands on his knee, said, with an ingratiating look into his face: “You’re so clever, father! You can do everything! You’re the cleverest in the whole world!” And after a little pause—“We’re both clever, aren’t we, father?”
“Oh, that’s it, is it!” exclaimed Pelle. “One of us is very conceited at any rate!”
“It’s not me!” answered the child confidently, shaking her head.
“You seem to be very happy together,” said Ellen when she came down with Boy Comfort on her arm to fetch Anna. The child did not want to go up with her, and pushed round into the corner behind Pelle’s chair; and Boy Comfort struggled to be put down onto the floor to play with the lasts. “Well, then,” said Ellen, sitting down, “we’ll all stay here together.”
She looked quiet and resigned; her defeat had told upon her. She no longer spoke of the future, but was glad that they had escaped from the clutches of the money-lender; the thought of it filled her with a quiet but not altogether unspoiled happiness. She no longer dreamed of anything better, but was grateful for what she possessed; and it seemed to Pelle that something had died within her together with the dissatisfaction. It was as though she had at last given everything she had; her resignation to the gray everyday life made her dull and ordinary. “She needs sunshine,” he thought.