Pelle the Conqueror, vol 4 | Page 7

the old days, and
forgetting all that the prison cell had taught him so bitterly! The others'
good indeed! He had been busily concerned for the homes of others,
and had not even succeeded in building his own! What humbug! Down
there were three neglected beings who would bring accusations against
him, and what was the use of his sheltering himself behind the welfare

of the many? What was the good of receiving praise from tens of
thousands and being called benefactor by the whole world, if those
three whose welfare had been entrusted to him accused him of having
failed them? He had often enough tried to stifle their accusing voices,
but in there it was not possible to stifle anything into silence.
Pelle still had no doubt that he was chosen to accomplish something for
the masses, but it had become of such secondary importance when he
recollected that he had neglected his share of that which was the duty of
every one. He had mistaken small for great, and believed that when he
accomplished something that no one else could do, he might in return
pay less attention to ordinary every-day duties; but the fates ordained
that the burden of life should be laid just where every one could help.
And now he was coming back like a poor beggar, who had conquered
everything except the actual, and therefore possessed nothing, and had
to beg for mercy. Branded as a criminal, he must now begin at the
beginning, and accomplish that which he had not been able to do in the
days of his power. It would be difficult to build his home under these
circumstances, and who was there to help him? Those three who could
have spoken for him he had left to their own devices as punishment for
an offence which in reality was his own.
He had never before set out in such a poverty-stricken state. He did not
even come like one who had something to forgive: his prison-cell had
left him nothing. He had had time enough there to go carefully over the
whole matter, and everything about Ellen that he had before been too
much occupied to notice or had felt like a silent opposition to his
projects, now stood out clearly, and formed itself, against his will, into
the picture of a woman who never thought of herself, but only of the
care of her little world and how she could sacrifice herself. He could
not afford to give up any of his right here, and marshalled all his
accusations against her, bringing forward laws and morals; but it all
failed completely to shake the image, and only emphasized yet more
the strength of her nature. She had sacrificed everything for him and the
children, her one desire being to see them happy. Each of his attacks
only washed away a fresh layer of obstructing mire, and made the
sacrifice in her action stand out more clearly. It was because she was so
unsensual and chaste that she could act as she had done. Alas! she had
had to pay dearly for his remissness; it was the mother who, in their

extreme want, gave her own body to nourish her offspring.
Pelle would not yield, but fought fiercely against conviction. He had
been robbed of freedom and the right to be a human being like others,
and now solitude was about to take from him all that remained to
sustain him. Even if everything joined together against him, he was not
wrong, he would not be wrong. It was he who had brought the great
conflict to an end at the cost of his own--and he had found Ellen to be a
prostitute! His thoughts clung to this word, and shouted it hoarsely,
unceasingly--prostitute! prostitute! He did not connect it with anything,
but only wanted to drown the clamor of accusations on all sides which
were making him still more naked and miserable.
At first letters now and then came to him, probably from old
companions- in-arms, perhaps too from Ellen: he did not know, for he
refused to take them. He hated Ellen because she was the stronger,
hated in impotent defiance everything and everybody. Neither she nor
any one else should have the satisfaction of being any comfort to him;
since he had been shut up as an unclean person, he had better keep
himself quite apart from them. He would make his punishment still
more hard, and purposely increased his forlornness, kept out of his
thoughts everything that was near and dear to him, and dragged the
painful things into the foreground. Ellen had of course forgotten him
for some one else, and had perhaps turned the children's thoughts from
him; they would certainly be forbidden to mention