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Pelle the Conqueror, Vol 3

M >> Martin Anderson Nexo >> Pelle the Conqueror, Vol 3




He did not get the place as messenger--some one stole a march on him;
but he received permission to go back to his old work! With the remains
of his right hand he could hold the sheet of tin-plate on the table,
while the left hand had to accustom itself to moving among the
threatening knives. This only demanded time and a little extra
watchfulness.

This accident was branded on Pelle's soul, and it aroused his slumbering
resentment. Chance had given him the three orphans in the place of
brothers and sisters, and he felt Peter's fate as keenly as if it had
been his own. It was a scandal that young children should be forced to
earn their living by work that endangered their lives, in order to keep
the detested Poor Law guardians at bay. What sort of a social order was
this? He felt a suffocating desire to strike out, to attack it.

The burden of Due's fate, aggravated by this fresh misfortune, was once
more visible in his face; Ellen's gentle hand, could not smooth it away.
"Don't look so angry, now--you frighten the child so!" she would say,
reaching him the boy. And Pelle would try to smile; but it was only a
grim sort of smile.

He did not feel that it was necessary to allow Ellen to look into his
bleeding soul; he conversed with her about indifferent things. At other
times he sat gazing into the distance, peering watchfully at every sign;
he was once more full of the feeling that he was appointed to some
particular purpose. He was certain that tidings of some kind were on the
way to him.

And then Shoemaker Petersen died, and he was again asked to take over
the management of the Union.

"What do you say to that?" he asked Ellen, although his mind was
irrevocably made up.

"You must know that yourself," she replied reservedly. "But if it gives
you pleasure, why, of course!"

"I am not doing it to please myself," said Pelle gloomily. "I am not a
woman!"

He regretted his words, and went over to Ellen and kissed her. She had
tears in her eyes, and looked at him in astonishment.




XIX


There was plenty to be done. The renegades must be shepherded back to
the organization--shepherded or driven; Pelle took the most willing
first, allowing numbers to impress the rest. Those who were quite
stubborn he left to their own devices for the time being; when they were
isolated and marked men into the bargain, they could do no further
mischief.

He felt well rested, and went very methodically to work. The feeling
that his strength would hold out to the very end lent him a quiet
courage that inspired confidence. He was not over-hasty, but saw to
everything from the foundations upward; individual questions he
postponed until the conditions for solving them should be at hand. He
knew from previous experience that nothing could be accomplished unless
the ranks were tightly knit together.

So passed the remainder of the summer. And then the organization was
complete; it looked as though it could stand a tussle. And the first
question was the tariff. This was bad and antiquated; thoroughly behind
the times in all respects; the trade was groaning under a low rate of
wages, which had not kept step with the general development and the
augmentation of prices. But Pelle allowed his practical common sense to
prevail. The moment was not favorable for a demand for higher wages. The
organization could not lend the demand sufficient support; they must for
the time being content themselves with causing the current tariff to be
respected. Many of the large employers did not observe it, although they
themselves had introduced it. Meyer was a particularly hard case; he
made use of every possible shift and evasion to beat down the clearest
wages bill.

Complaints were continually coming in, and one day Pelle went to him in
order to discuss the situation and come to some agreement. He was
prepared to fight for the inviolability of the tariff, otherwise Meyer
would make big promises and afterward break them. He had really expected
Meyer to show him the door; however, he did not do so, but treated him
with a sort of polite effrontery. Hatred of his old enemy awaked in
Pelle anew, and it was all he could do to control himself. "The embargo
will be declared against you if you don't come to an arrangement with
your workers within a week," he said threateningly.

Meyer laughed contemptuously. "What's that you say? Oh, yes, your
embargo, we know something about that! But then the employers will
declare a lock-out for the whole trade--what do you think of that? Old
hats will be selling cheap!"

Pelle was silent, and withdrew; it was the only way in which he could
succeed in keeping cool. He had said what had to be said, and he was no
diplomat, to smile quietly with a devil lurking in the corners of his
eyes.

Meyer obligingly accompanied him to the door. "Can I oblige you in any
other way--with work, for example? I could very well find room for a
worker who will make children's boots and shoes."

When Pelle reached the street he drew a long breath. Poof! That was
tough work; a little more insolence and he'd have given him one on the
jaw! That would have been the natural answer to the fellow's effrontery!
Well, it was a fine test for his hot temper, and he had stood it all
right! He could always be master of the situation if he held his tongue.

"Now suppose we do put an embargo on Meyer," he thought, as he went down
the street. "What then? Why, then he'll hit back and declare a lock-out.
Could we hold out? Not very long, but the employers don't know that--and
then their businesses would be ruined. But then they would introduce
workers from abroad--or, if that didn't answer, they would get the work
done elsewhere; or they would import whole cargoes of machinery, as they
have already begun to do on a small scale."

Pelle stood still in the middle of the street. Damn it all, this
wouldn't do! He must take care that he didn't make a hash of the whole
affair. If these foreign workers and machines were introduced, a whole
host of men would in a moment be deprived of their living. But he wanted
to have a go at Meyer; there must be some means of giving the
bloodsucker a blow that he would feel in his purse!

Next morning he went as usual to Beck's. Beck looked at him from over
his spectacles. "I've nothing more to do with you, Pelle," he said, in a
low voice.

"What!" cried Pelle, startled. "But we've such a lot of work on hand,
master!"

"Yes, but I can't employ you any longer. I'm not doing this of my own
free will; I have always been very well pleased with you; but that's how
it stands. There are so many things one has to take into consideration;
a shoemaker can do nothing without leather, and one can't very well do
without credit with the leather merchants."

He would not say anything further.

But Pelle had sufficiently grasped the situation. He was the president
of the Shoemakers' Union; Master Beck had been compelled to dismiss him,
by the threat of stopping his source of supplies. Pelle was a marked man
because he was at the head of the organization--although the latter was
now recognized. This was an offence against the right of combination.
Still there was nothing to be done about the matter; one had the right
to dismiss a man if one had no further need of him. Meyer was a cunning
fellow!

For a time Pelle drifted about dejectedly. He was by no means inclined
to go home to Ellen with this melancholy news; so he went to see various
employers in order to ask them for work. But as soon as they heard who
he was they found they had nothing for him to do. He saw that a black
mark had been set against his name.

So he must confine himself to home work, and must try to hunt up more
acquaintances of his acquaintances. And he must be ready day and night
lest some small shoemaker who muddled along without assistance should
suddenly have more to do than he could manage.

Ellen took things as they came, and did not complain. But she was mutely
hostile to the cause of their troubles. Pelle received no help from her
in his campaign; whatever he engaged in, he had to fight it out alone.
This did not alter his plans, but it engendered a greater obstinacy in
him. There was one side of his nature that Ellen's character was unable
to reach; well, she was only a woman, after all. One must be indulgent
with her! He was kind to her, and in his thoughts he more and more set
her on a level with little Lasse. In that way he avoided considering her
opinion concerning serious matters--and thereby felt more of a man.

Thanks to his small salary as president of his Union, they suffered no
actual privation. Pelle did not like the idea of accepting this salary;
he felt greatly inclined to refuse the few hundred kroner. There was not
a drop of bureaucratic blood in his veins, and he did not feel that a
man should receive payment for that which he accomplished for the
general good. But now this money came in very conveniently; and he had
other things to do than to make mountains out of molehills. He had given
up the embargo; but he was always racking his brains for some way of
getting at Meyer; it occupied him day and night.

One day his thoughts blundered upon Meyer's own tactics. Although he was
quite innocent, they had driven him away from his work. How would it be
if he were to employ the same method and, quite secretly, take Meyer's
workmen away from him? Meyer was the evil spirit of the shoemaker's
craft. He sat there like a tyrant, thanks to his omnipotence, and
oppressed the whole body of workers. It would not be so impossible to
set a black mark against his name! And Pelle did not mean to be too
particular as to the means.

He talked the matter over with his father-in-law, whose confidence in
him was now restored. Stolpe, who was an old experienced tactician,
advised him not to convoke any meeting on this occasion, but to settle
the matter with each man face to face, so that the Union could not be
attacked. "You've got plenty of time," he said. "Go first of all to the
trustworthy fellows, and make them understand what sort of a man Karl
Meyer is; take his best people away first of all; it won't do him much
good to keep the bad ones. You can put the fear of God into your mates
when you want to! Do your business so well that no one will have the
courage any longer to take the place of those that leave him. He must be
branded as what he is--but between man and man."

Pelle did not spare himself; he went from one comrade to another, fiery
and energetic. And what had proved impossible three years before he was
now able to accomplish; the resentment of Meyer's injustice had sunk
into the minds of all.

Meyer had been in the habit of letting his workers run about to no
purpose; if the work was not quite ready for them they could call again.
And when the work was given out to them they had, as a rule, to finish
it with a rush; there was intention in this; it made the people humble
and submissive.

But now the boot was on the other leg. The workers did not call; they
did not deliver urgent commissions at the appointed time; Meyer had to
send to them, and got his own words as answer; they were not quite ready
yet, but they would see what they could do for him! He had to run after
his own workers in order not to offend his rich customers. In the first
instances he settled the matter, as a rule, by dismissal. But that did
not help him at all; the devil of arrogance had entered into the simple
journeymen! It looked as though they had got their ideas of master and
subordinate reversed! He had to give up trusting to the hard hand on the
rein; he must seek them out with fair words! His business had the whole
fashionable world as customer, and always required a staff of the very
best workers. But not even friendly approaches availed. Scarcely did he
find a good journeyman-worker but he was off again, and if he asked the
reason he always received the same jeering answer: they didn't feel
inclined to work. He offered high wages, and at great expense engaged
qualified men from outside; but Pelle was at once informed and
immediately sought them out. When they had been subjected to his
influence only for a few days they went back to the place they came
from, or found other masters, who, now that Meyer's business was
failing, were getting more orders. People who went to the warehouse said
that Meyer was raging about upstairs, abusing innocent people and
driving them away from him.

Meyer was conscious of a hand behind all this, and he demanded that the
Employers' Union should declare a lock-out. But the other masters
scented a move for his benefit in this.

His own business was moribund, so he wanted to bring theirs to a
standstill also. They had no fundamental objection to the new state of
affairs; in any case they could see no real occasion for a lock-out.

So he was forced to give in, and wrote to Pelle requesting him to enter
into negotiations--in order to put an end to the unrest affecting the
craft. Pelle, who as yet possessed no skill in negotiations, answered
Meyer in a very casual manner, practically sending him about his
business. He showed his reply to his father-in-law before dispatching
it.

"No, deuce take it, that won't do!" said Stolpe. "Look you, my lad,
everything depends on the tone you take, if you are dealing with labor
politics! These big folks think such a damn lot about the way a thing is
wrapped up! If I were setting about this business I'd come out with the
truth and chuck it in their faces--but that won't answer; they'd be so
wild there'd be no dealing with them. Just a nice little lie--that
answers much better! Yes, yes, one has to be a diplomatist and set a fox
to catch a fox. Now you write what I tell you! I'll give you an example.
Now--"

Stolpe paced up and down the room a while, with a thoughtful expression;
he was in shirt-sleeves and slippers and had thrust both his forefingers
in his waistcoat pockets. "Are you ready, son-in-law? Then we'll begin!"

"To the President of the Employers' Union, Herre H. Meyer, Shoemaker to
the Court.

"Being in receipt of your honored favor of yesterday's date hereby
acknowledged, I take the liberty of remarking that so far as is known to
me complete quiet and the most orderly conditions prevail throughout the
trade. There appears therefore to be no motive for negotiation.

"For the Shoemakers' Union,

"Your obedient servant,

"PELLE."

"There, that's to the point, eh? Napoleon himself might have put his
name to that! And there's enough sting to it, too!" said Stolpe, much
gratified. "Now write that out nicely, and then get a big envelope."

Pelle felt quite important when he had written this out on a big sheet
of paper; it was like an order of the day issued by a sheriff or
burgomaster at home. Only in respect of its maliciousness he entertained
a certain doubt.

One morning, a few days later, he was sitting at home working. In the
meantime he had been obliged to undertake casual jobs for sailors in the
harbor, and now he was soling a pair of sea-boots for a seaman on board
a collier. On the other side of the bench sat little Lasse, chattering
and aping his movements, and every time Pelle drove a peg home the
youngster knocked his rattle against the edge of the table, and Pelle
smiled at him. Ellen was running in and out between the living-room and
the kitchen. She was serious and silent.

There was a knock at the door. She ran to the stove, snatching away some
of the child's linen which was drying there, ran out, and opened the
door.

A dark, corpulent gentleman in a fur overcoat entered, bowing, holding
his tall hat before him, together with his gloves and stick. Pelle could
not believe his eyes--it was the Court shoemaker! "He's come to have it
out!" thought Pelle, and prepared himself for a tussle. His heart began
to thump, there was a sudden sinking inside him; his old submissiveness
was on the point of coming to the surface and mastering him. But that
was only for a moment; then he was himself again. Quietly he offered his
guest a chair.

Meyer sat down, looking about the neat, simple room as though he wanted
to compare his enemy's means with his own before he made a move. Pelle
gathered something from his wandering glance, and suddenly found himself
considerably richer in his knowledge of human nature. "He's sitting
there staring about him to see if something has gone to the pawnshop,"
he thought indignantly.

"H'm! I have received your favor of the other day," began Meyer. "You
are of opinion that there is no occasion for a discussion of the
situation; but--however--ah--I think--"

"That is certainly my opinion," answered Pelle, who had resolved to
adhere to the tone of the letter. "The most perfect order prevails
everywhere. But generally speaking it would seem that matters ought to
go smoothly now, when we each have our Union and can discuss affairs
impartially." He gazed innocently at Meyer.

"Ah, you think so too! It cannot be unknown to you that my workers have
left me one after another--not to say that they were taken away from me.
Even to please you I can't call those orderly conditions."

Pelle sat there getting angrier and angrier at his finicking tone. Why
the devil couldn't he bluster like a proper man instead of sitting there
and making his damned allusions? But if he wanted that sort of foolery
he should have it! "Ah! your people are leaving you?" he said, in an
interested manner.

"They are," said Meyer, and he looked surprised. Pelle's tone made him
feel uncertain. "And they are playing tricks on me; they don't keep to
their engagements, and they keep my messengers running about to no
purpose. Formerly every man came to get his work and to deliver it, but
now I have to keep messengers for that; the business can't stand it."

"The journeymen have had to run about to no purpose--I myself have
worked for you," replied Pelle. "But you are perhaps of opinion that we
can better bear the loss of time?"

Meyer shrugged his shoulders. "That's a condition of your livelihood--
its conditions are naturally based on order. But if only I could at
least depend on getting hands! Man, this can't go on!" he cried
suddenly, "damn and blast it all, it can't go on, it's not honorable!"

Little Lasse gave a jump and began to bellow. Ellen came hurrying in and
took him into the bedroom.

Pelle's mouth was hard. "If your people are leaving you, they must
surely have some reason for it," he replied; he would far rather have
told Meyer to his face that he was a sweater! "The Union can't compel
its members to work for an employer with whom perhaps they can't agree.
I myself even have been dismissed from a workshop--but we can't bother
two Unions on those grounds!" He looked steadily at his opponent as he
made this thrust; his features were quivering slightly.

"Aha!" Meyer responded, and he rubbed his hands with an expression that
seemed to say that--now at last he felt firm ground under his feet.
"Aha--so it's out at last! So you're a diplomatist into the bargain--a
great diplomatist! You have a clever husband, little lady!" He turned to
Ellen, who was busying herself at the sideboard. "Now just listen, Herre
Pelle! You are just the man for me, and we must come to an arrangement.
When two capable men get talking together something always comes of it--
it couldn't be otherwise! I have room for a capable and intelligent
expert who understands fitting and cutting. The place is well paid, and
you can have a written contract for a term of years. What do you say to
that?"

Pelle raised his head with a start. Ellen's eyes began to sparkle, and
then became mysteriously dark; they rested on him compellingly, as
though they would burn their purpose into him. For a moment he gazed
before him, bewildered. The offer was so overpowering, so surprising;
and then he laughed. What, what, was he to sell himself to be the
understrapper of a sweater!

"That won't do for me," he replied.

"You must naturally consider my offer," said Meyer, rising. "Shall we
say three days?"

When the Court shoemaker had gone, Ellen came slowly back and laid her
arm round Pelle's shoulders. "What a clever, capable man you are, then!"
she said, in a low voice, playing with his hair; there was something
apologetic in her manner. She said nothing to call attention to the
offer, but she began to sing at her work. It was a long time since Pelle
had heard her sing; and the song was to him like a radiant assurance
that this time he would be the victor.




XX


Pelle continued the struggle indefatigably, contending with opposing
circumstances and with disloyalty, but always returning more boldly to
the charge. Many times in the course of the conflict he found himself
back at the same place; Meyer obtained a new lot of workers from abroad,
and he had to begin all over again; he had to work on them until they
went away again, or to make their position among their housemates so
impossible that they resigned. The later winter was hard and came to
Meyer's assistance. He paid his workers well now, and had brought
together a crowd of non-union hands; for a time it looked as though he
would get his business going again. But Pelle had left the non-unionists
alone only through lack of time; now he began to seek them out, and he
spoke with more authority than before. Already people were remarking on
his strength of will; and most of them surrendered beforehand. "The
devil couldn't stand up against him!" they said. He never wavered in his
faith in an ultimate victory, but went straight ahead; he did not
philosophize about the other aspect of the result, but devoted all his
energies to achieving it. He was actuated by sheer robust energy, and it
led him the shortest way. The members of the Union followed him
willingly, and willingly accepted the privations involved in the
emptying of the workshops. He possessed their confidence, and they found
that it was, after all, glorious sport to turn the tables, when for once
in a way they could bring the grievance home to its point of departure!
They knew by bitter experience what it was to run about to no purpose,
to beg for work, and to beg for their wages, and to haggle over them--in
short, to be the underdog. It was amusing to reverse the roles. Now the
mouse was playing with the cat and having a rattling good time of it--
although the claws did get home now and again! Pelle felt their
confidence, the trust of one and all, in the readiness with which they
followed him, as though he were only the expression of their own
convictions. And when he stood up at the general meetings or
conferences, in order to make a report or to conduct an agitation, and
the applause of his comrades fell upon his ears, he felt an influx of
sheer power. He was like the ram of a ship; the weight of the whole was
behind him. He began to feel that he was the expression of something
great; that there was a purpose within him.

The Pelle who dealt so quietly and cleverly with Meyer and achieved
precisely what he willed was not the usual Pelle. A greater nature was
working within him, with more responsibility, according to his old
presentiment. He tested himself, in order to assimilate this as a
conviction, and he felt that there was virtue in the idea.

This higher nature stood in mystical connection with so much in his
life; far back into his childhood he could trace it, as an abundant
promise. So many had involuntarily expected something from him; he had
listened to them with wonder, but now their expectation was proving
prophetic.

He paid strict attention to his words in his personal relations, now
that their illimitable importance had been revealed to him. But in his
agitator's work the strongest words came to him most naturally; came
like an echo out of the illimitable void that lay behind him. He busied
himself with his personality. All that had hitherto had free and
careless play must now be circumscribed and made to serve an end. He
examined his relations with Ellen, was indulgent to her, and took pains
to understand her demand for happiness. He was kind and gentle to her,
but inflexible in his resolve.

He had no conscientious scruples in respect of the Court shoemaker.
Meyer had in all respects misused his omnipotence long enough; owing to
his huge business he had made conditions and ruled them; and the evil of
those conditions must be brought home to him. It was now summer and a
good time for the workers, and his business was rapidly failing. Pelle
foresaw his fall, and felt himself to be a righteous avenger.

The year-long conflict absorbed his whole mind. He was always on his
feet; came rushing home to the work that lay there waiting for him,
threw it aside like a maniac, and hurried off again. He did not see much
of Ellen and little Lasse these days; they lived their own life without
him.

He dared not rest on what he had accomplished, now that the cohesion of
the Union was so powerful. He was always seeking means to strengthen and
to undermine; he did not wish to fall a sacrifice to the unforeseen. His
indefatigability infected his comrades, they became more eager the
longer the struggle lasted. The conflict was magnified by the sacrifice
it demanded, and by the strength of the opposition; Meyer gradually
became a colossus whom all must stake their welfare to hew down.
Families were ruined thereby, but the more sacrifice the struggle
demanded the more recklessly they struggled on. And they were full of
jubilation on the day when the colossus fell, and buried some of them in
his fall!

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