Pelle the Conqueror — Volume 04

Martin Andersen Nexø

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• Publié par: irkio
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 33
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4, by Martin Anderson Nexo #4 in our series by Martin Anderson Nexo Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Pelle the Conqueror, Vol. 4 Author: Martin Anderson Nexo Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7794] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 17, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PELLE THE CONQUEROR, VOL. 4 *** Produced by Eric Eldred, Jerry Fairbanks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. PELLE THE CONQUEROR PART IV.—DAYBREAK. BY MARTIN ANDERSON NEXO TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH By Jessie Muir. IV. DAYBREAK I Out in the middle of the open, fertile country, where the plough was busy turning up the soil round the numerous cheerful little houses, stood a gloomy building that on every side turned bare walls toward the smiling world. No panes of glasscaught the ruddy glow of the morning and evening sun and threw back its quivering reflection; three rows of barred apertures drank in all the light of day with insatiable avidity. They were always gaping greedily, and seen against the background of blue spring sky, looked like holes leading into the everlasting darkness. In its heavy gloom the mass of masonry towered above the many smiling homes, but their peaceable inhabitants did not seem to feel oppressed. They ploughed their fields right up to the bare walls, and wherever the building was visible, eyes were turned toward it with an expression that told of the feeling of security that its strong walls gave. Like a landmark the huge building towered above everything else. It might very well have been a temple raised to God's glory by a grateful humanity, so imposing was it; but if so, it must have been in by-gone ages, for no dwellings—even for the Almighty—are built nowadays in so barbaric a style, as if the one object were to keep out light and air! The massive walls were saturated with the dank darkness within, and the centuries had weathered their surface and made on it luxuriant cultures of fungus and mould, and yet they still seemed as if they could stand for an eternity. The building was no fortress, however, nor yet a temple whose dim recesses were the abode of the unknown God. If you went up to the great, heavy door, which was always closed you could read above the arch the one word Prison in large letters and below it a simple Latin verse that with no little pretentiousness proclaimed: "I am the threshold to all virtue and wisdom; Justice flourishes solely for my sake." One day in the middle of spring, the little door in the prison gate opened, and a tall man stepped out and looked about him with eyes blinking at the light which fell upon his ashen-white face. His step faltered and he had to lean for support against the wall; he looked as if he were about to go back again, but he drew a deep breath and went out on to the open ground. The spring breeze made a playful assault upon him, tried to ruffle his prison-clipped, slightly gray hair, which had been curly and fair when last it had done so, and penetrated gently to his bare body like a soft, cool hand. "Welcome, Pelle!" said the sun, as it peeped into his distended pupils in which the darkness of the prison-cell still lay brooding. Not a muscle of his face moved, however; it was as though hewn out of stone. Only the pupils of his eyes contracted so violently as to be almost painful, but he continued to look earnestly before him. Whenever he saw any one, he stopped and gazed eagerly, perhaps in the hope that it was some one coming to meet him. As he turned into the King's Road some one called to him. He turned round in sudden, intense joy, but then his head dropped and he went on without answering. It was only a tramp, who was standing half out of a ditch in a field a little way off, beckoning to him. He came running over the ploughed field, crying hoarsely: "Wait a little, can't you? Here have I been waiting for company all day, so you might as well wait a little!" He was a broad-shouldered, rather puffy-looking fellow, with a flat back and the nape of his neck broad and straight and running right up into his cap without forming any projection for the back of his head, making one involuntarily think of the scaffold. The bone of his nose had sunk into his purple face, giving a bull-dog mixture of brutality and stupid curiosity to its expression. "How long have you been in?" he asked, as he joined him, breathless. There was a malicious look in his eyes. "I went in when Pontius Pilate was a little boy, so you can reckon it out for yourself," said Pelle shortly. "My goodness! That was a good spell! And what were you copped for?" "Oh, there happened to be an empty place, so they took me and put me in —so that it shouldn't stand empty, you know!" The tramp scowled at him. "You're laying it on a little too thick! You won't get any one to believe that!" he said uncertainly. Suddenly he put himself in front of Pelle, and pushed his bull-like forehead close to the other's face. "Now, I'll just tell you something, my boy!" he said. "I don't want to touch any one the first day I'm out, but you'd better take yourself and your confounded uppishness somewhere else; for I've been lying here waiting for company all day." "I didn't mean to offend any one," said Pelle absently. He looked as if he had not come back to earth, and appeared to have no intention of doing anything. "Oh, didn't you! That's fortunate for you, or I might have taken a color-print of your doleful face, however unwillingly. By the way, mother said I was to give you her love." "Are you Ferdinand?" asked Pelle, raising his head. "Oh, don't pretend!" said Ferdinand. "Being in gaol seems to