Pelle the Conqueror, vol 3

Pelle the Conqueror, vol 3 [with
accents]

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Nexo #3 in our series by Martin Anderson Nexo
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Title: Pelle the Conqueror, Vol 3
Author: Martin Anderson Nexo
Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7793] [Yes, we are more than one
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PELLE THE CONQUEROR
PART III.--THE GREAT STRUGGLE.
BY MARTIN ANDERSON NEXO

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH By Bernard Miall.

III. THE GREAT STRUGGLE
I
A swarm of children was playing on the damp floor of the shaft. They
hung from the lower portions of the timber-work, or ran in and out
between the upright supports, humming tunes, with bread-and-dripping
in their hands; or they sat on the ground and pushed themselves
forward across the sticky flagstones. The air hung clammy and raw, as
it does in an old well, and already it had made the little voices husky,
and had marked their faces with the scars of scrofula. Yet out of the
tunnel- like passage which led to the street there blew now and again a
warm breath of air and the fragrance of budding trees--from the world
that lay behind those surrounding walls.
They had finished playing "Bro-bro-brille," for the last rider had
entered the black cauldron; and Hansel and Gretel had crept safely out
of the dwarf Vinslev's den, across the sewer-grating, and had reached
the pancake-house, which, marvelously enough, had also a grating in
front of the door, through which one could thrust a stick or a cabbage-
stalk, in order to stab the witch. Sticks of wood and cabbage-stalks

were to be found in plenty in the dustbins near the pancake-house, and
they knew very well who the witch was! Now and again she would pop
up out of the cellar and scatter the whole crowd with her kitchen tongs!
It was almost a little too lifelike; even the smell of pancakes came
drifting down from where the well-to-do Olsens lived, so that one could
hardly call it a real fairy tale. But then perhaps the dwarf Vinslev would
come out of his den, and would once again tell them the story of how
he had sailed off with the King's gold and sunk it out yonder, in the
King's Deep, when the Germans were in the land. A whole ship's crew
took out the King's treasure, but not one save Vinslev knew where it
was sunk, and even he did not know now. A terrible secret that, such as
well might make a man a bit queer in the head. He would explain the
whole chart on his double-breasted waistcoat; he had only to steer from
this button to that, and then down yonder, and he was close above the
treasure. But now some of the buttons had fallen off, and he could no
longer make out the chart. Day by day the children helped him to trace
it; this was an exciting bit of work, for the King was getting impatient!
There were other wonderful things to do; for instance, one could lie flat
down on the slippery flagstones and play Hanne's game--the "Glory"
game. You turned your eyes from the darkness down below, looking up
through the gloomy shaft at the sky overhead, which floated there
blazing with light, and then you suddenly looked down again, so that
everything was quite dark. And in the darkness floated blue and yellow
rings of color, where formerly there had been nothing but dustbins and
privies. This dizzy flux of colors before the eyes was the journey far
out to the land of happiness, in search of all the things that cannot be
told. "I can see