Pelle the Conqueror Martin Andersen Nexø (readict books TXT) 📖

the provinces to speak. People wanted to see and hear the remarkable manufacturer who earned no more than his work-people.

In these journeys he came to know the country, and saw that much of his idea had been anticipated out there. The peasant, who stiffened with horror at the word “socialist,” put the ideas of the Movement into practice on a large scale. He had arranged matters on the cooperative system, and had knitted the country into supply associations.

“We must join on there when we get our business into better order,” said Pelle to Brun.

“Yes, if the farmers will work with us,” said Brun doubtfully. “They’re conservative, you know.”

This was now almost revolutionary. As far as Pelle could see, there would soon be no place as big as his thumbnail for capital to feed upon out there. The farmers went about things so quickly! Pelle came of peasant stock himself, and did not doubt that he would be able to get in touch with the country when the time came.

The development was preparing on several sides; they would not break with that if they wanted to attain anything.

It was like a fixed law relating to growth in existence, an inviolable divine idea running through it all. It was now leading him and his fellows into the fire, and when they advanced, no one must stay behind. No class of the community had yet advanced with so bright and great a call; they were going to put an end forever to the infamy of human genius sitting and weighing the spheres in space, but forgetting to weigh the bread justly.

He was not tired of the awakening discontent with the old condition of things; it opened up the overgrown minds, and created possibility for the new. At present he had no great number of adherents; various new currents were fighting over the minds, which, in their faltering search, were drawn now to one side, now to the other. But he had a buoyant feeling of serving a world-idea, and did not lose courage.

Unemployment and the awakening ego-feeling brought many to join Peter Dreyer. They rebelled against the conditions, and now saw no alternative but to break with everything. They sprang naked out of nothing, and demanded that their personality should be respected, but were unable as yet to bear its burdens; and their hopeless view of their misery threatened to stifle them. Then they made obstruction, their own broken-down condition making them want to break down the whole. They were Pelle’s most troublesome opponents.

Up to the present they had unfortunately been right, but now he could not comprehend their desperate impatience. He had given them an idea now, with which they could conquer the world just by preserving their coherence, and if they did not accept this, there must be something wrong with them. Taking this view of the matter, he looked upon their disintegrating agitation with composure; the healthy mind would be victorious!

Peter Dreyer was at present agitating for a mass-meeting of the unemployed. He wanted the twenty thousand men, with wives and children, to take up their position on the Council House Square or Amalienborg Palace Square, and refuse to move away until the community took charge of them.

“Then the authorities can choose between listening to their demands, and driving up horses and cannon,” he said. Perhaps that would open up the question.

“Take care then that the police don’t arrest you,” said Pelle, in a warning voice; “or your people will be left without a head, and you will have enticed them into a ridiculous situation which can only end in defeat.”

“Let them take care, the curs!” answered Peter threateningly. “I shall strike at the first hand that attempts to seize me!”

“And what then? What do you gain by striking the policemen? They are only the tool, and there are plenty of them!”

Peter laughed bitterly. “No,” he said, “it’s not the policemen, nor the assistant, nor the chief of police! It’s no one! That’s so convenient, no one can help it! They’ve always stolen a march upon us in that way; the evil always dives and disappears when you want to catch it. ‘It wasn’t me!’ Now the workman’s demanding his right, the employer finds it to his advantage to disappear, and the impersonal joint stock company appears. Oh, this confounded sneaking out of a thing! Where is one to apply? There’s no one to take the blame! But something shall be done now! If I hit the hand, I hit what stands behind it too; you must hit what you can see. I’ve got a revolver to use against the police; to carry arms against one’s own people shall not be made a harmless means of livelihood unchallenged.”

XVII

One Saturday evening Pelle came home by train from a provincial town where he had been helping to start a cooperative undertaking.

It was late, but many shops were still open and sent their brilliant light out into the drizzling rain, through which the black stream of the streets flowed as fast as ever. It was the time when the working women came from the center of the city⁠—pale typists, cashiers with the excitement of the cheap novel still in their eyes, seamstresses from the large businesses. Some hurried along looking straight before them without taking any notice of the solitary street-wanderers; they had something waiting for them⁠—a little child perhaps. Others had nothing to hurry for, and looked weariedly about them as they walked, until perhaps they suddenly brightened up at sight of a young man in the throng.

Charwomen were on their way home with their basket on their arm. They had had a long day, and dragged their heavy feet along. The street was full of women workers⁠—a changed world! The bad times had called the women out and left the men at home. On their way home they made their purchases for Sunday. In the butchers’ and provision-dealers’ they stood waiting like tired horses for their turn.