Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4

king for employment, and to Ellen it appeared as if he had given up all hope of getting any. But he was only waitin

th shoemaker's ink, "Come to me with your shoes, and we will help one another to stand on our feet." When Lasse Frederik was not at work or at school, he was generally to be found downst

ith them?" he asked, when the boys of the neighborhood rushed shouting past the basement window; but Lasse Frederik shook his head. He had played at being everyth

ver for extras. This was a sorrow to Ellen especially; Pelle did not seem to think much about i

an beings. Ellen did not understand it, but she saw that his mind was turned in another direction; he who had hitherto always fallen asleep over books would now become so absorbed in them that he did not hear the children playing round him. She had actually to rouse him

in far-off regions where she had never been. What was he looking for? He tried to tell her, but could not explain it. "I'

world. She no longer directly opposed anything; she meant to go with him and be

ith a desire for development in her too. For the present the intellectual world resembled

t it was all about things that did not concern their own little well-being. She took great pains to comprehend this

me mending or other, and Lasse Frederik, his ears standing out from his head, hung over a chair-back with his eyes fixed upon his f

d see a connection between things that seemed to Ellen to be as far apart as the poles; she could not help thinking that he might very well have studied to be a pastor. It suited him, however; his eyes became quite black when he was explaining some subject that he wa

loved me either: that's why!" he thought despondently. Perhaps that explained why she took Boy Comfort as calmly as if he were her own child: she was not jealous! Pe

oned without him, as if he had a weakness of which it was always well

*

ceived very little consideration. She now wanted to let lodgings to artistes. She knew of more than one woman in their street who made a nice living by taking in artistes. "If I'd only got

. He had seen a good deal of them from his basement window, and had mended shoes for some of them: they were rather a soleless tribe. She said no more abou

might be obtained, if in no other way, by giving security in his furniture and tools. If th

se the money. It was late when he came home, and Ellen was

nted out into her hand a hundred and eighty krones (￡10) in notes. Ellen gazed

t all that money fro

cheerfully, "and at last I was directed to a man in Blaagaard

one hundred and

twenty krones (￡1 2_s_.) a month for fifteen months. I had to sign a statement that I had

eighty, Pelle!" But she suddenly threw her arms round his neck and kissed him passionate

it, but he would not hear of going to any expense. Ellen at last succeeded, however, in getting him to agree to pay half the repairs on condition that she took the room for a year and payed the ren

the room into a number of small compartments each provided with a second-hand bed and hay mattress, and a washing-stand. "Artistes are not so particular," she said, "and I'm sure they'll be glad to have the room to

re her cleverness in making a little go a long way. The only thing now left to do was to catch the birds, but here Ellen's pra

re goodness knows where on railways and steamers! "What shall we do then?" she

self. He had cards printed, and left them in the artistes' tavern at the corner of Vesterbro Street, went there himself two or three times after midnight when the artistes gathered there when their work w

ad all at once grown frightened, and followed

other side of the world where they walk with their heads down-fakirs and magicians from India and Japan, snake-charmers from Tetuan, people with shaven heads or a long black pigtail, with oblique, sorrowful eyes, loose hips and skin that resembled the greenish leather that Pelle used for ladies' boots. Sister was afraid of them, but it was the t

selves, and goodness knows what they lived on. Some of them simply lighted a fire on a sheet of iron on the floor and made a mixture of rice or something of the sort. They could not eat Danish food, Pelle said. Sometimes they went away without paying, and occasionally took something with them; and they often broke things. There was no

to Pelle there was not much left of them. "Say no to it!" said Ellen. "It's far too hardly earned for you! And we shall get on now without having to take everything." In the kindness of her heart she wanted him to be able to read his books, since he had a weakness for them. Her intention

anything new and strange in himself; and one day he chanced upon the mistiness of his own being, and discovered that it consisted of experience that others had gone through before him. The Bible, which always lay on the prisoner's table for company,

t and felt exactly as they did. That was crumbling away too now; he was being isolated distinctly, bit by bit, and he was interested in discovering a plan in it. He had made Nature subject to him even as a child, and had afterward won the masses! It was solitude now that had to be taken, and he himself was going about in the midst of it, large and wonderful! It was alread

ked wonderingly at everything that he had formerly passed by as commonplace, and saw it all in a new, brilliant light. He had to go all over it from the beginning, look at every detail. How wonderfully everything was connected, sorrow and joy and apparent trifles, to make him, Pelle, who had ruled

f the poor man to create worlds out of the void, beautiful mirages which suddenly broke and threw him back even poorer and more desolate. But this lasted. All the threads of life seemed to be joined together in

elt that something greater and finer than himself had taken u

an introspective expression as though he were weighing everything: there was so much that was not permissible because it might injure it! There were alwa

e right. They were made up, too! He needed real stuff, facts. There were great spaces in his brain that longed to be filled with a tangible knowledge of things. His favorite reading was historical works, esp

t now he took it off his night's sleep instead. This was at any rate a field out of which they need not try to keep him; he would have his share in the knowledge of the times. He felt it was a weapon. The poor man had long enough retired willingly into the corner for want of enlightenment, and whenever he put out hi

nd found himself once more deep in the question of the welfare of the multitude. His practical sense required this confirmation of the conditions. There were also outward results. Even now history could no longer be u

basement window and have a chat with him in their broken Danish. His domestic circumstances were somewhat straitened; the instalments in repayment of the loan, and the debt on the furniture still swallowed a

uietly. He felt himself to be greater than she in t