Pelle the Conqueror, vol 4 | Page 8

the word "father."
He could distinctly see them all three sitting happily round the lamp;
and when some turn in the conversation threatened to lead it to the
subject of himself, a coldness and stillness as of death suddenly fell
upon them. He mercilessly filled his existence with icy
acknowledgment on all points, and believed he revenged himself by
breathing in the deadly cold.
After a prolonged period of this he was attacked with frenzy, dashed
himself blindly against the walls, and shouted that he wanted to get out.
To quiet him he was put into a strait-waistcoat and removed to a
pitch-dark cell. On the whole he was one of the so-called defiant
prisoners, who meant to kick against the pricks, and he was treated
accordingly.
But one night when he lay groaning after a punishment, and saw the
angry face of God in the darkness, he suddenly became silent. "Are you

a human being?" it said, "and cannot even bear a little suffering?" Pelle
was startled. He had never known that there was anything particularly
human in suffering. But from that night he behaved quietly, with a
listening expression, as if he heard something through the walls. "Now
he's become quiet," said the gaoler, who was looking at him through
the peep-hole. "It won't be long before he's an idiot!"
But Pelle had only come out on the other side; he was staring bravely
into the darkness to see God's face once more, but in a gentler guise.
The first thing he saw was Ellen again, sitting there beautiful,
exculpated, made more desirable by all his accusations. How great and
fateful all petty things became here! What was the good of defending
himself? She was his fate, and he would have to surrender
unconditionally. He still did not comprehend her, but he had a
consciousness of greater laws for life, laws that raised her and made
him small. She and hers passed undefiled through places where he
stuck fast in the surface mire.
She seemed to him to grow in here, and led his thoughts behind the
surface, where they had never been before. Her unfailing mother-love
was like a beating pulse that rose from the invisible and revealed
hidden mystical forces--the perceptible rhythm of a great heart which
beat in concealment behind everything. Her care resembled that of God
Himself; she was nearer to the springs of life than he.
The springs of life! Through her the expression for the first time
acquired a meaning for him. It was on the whole as if she re-created
him, and by occupying himself with her ever enigmatical nature, his
thoughts were turned further and further inward. He suspected the
presence of strong currents which bore the whole thing; and sometimes
in the silence of his cell he seemed to hear his existence flowing,
flowing like a broad stream, and emptying itself out there where his
thoughts had never ventured to roam. What became of the days and the
years with all that they had held? The ever present Ellen, who had
never herself given a thought to the unseen, brought Pelle face to face
with infinity.
While all this was going on within him, they sang one Sunday during
the prison service Grundtvig's hymn, "The former days have passed
away." The hymn expressed all that he had himself vaguely thought,
and touched him deeply; the verses came to him in his narrow pen like

waves from a mighty ocean, which rolled ages in to the shore in
monotonous power. He suddenly and strongly realized the passage of
generations of human beings over the earth, and boldly grasped what he
had until now only dimly suspected, namely, his own connection with
them all, both those who were living then and all those who had gone
before. How small his own idea of union had been when measured by
this immense community of souls, and what a responsibility was
connected with each one! He understood now how fatal it was to act
recklessly, then break off and leave everything. In reality you could
never leave anything; the very smallest thing you shirked would be
waiting for you as your fate at the next milestone. And who, indeed,
was able to overlook an action? You had to be lenient continually, and
at last it would turn out that you had been lenient to yourself.
Pelle was taking in wisdom, and his own heart confirmed it. The
thought of Ellen filled his mind more and more; he had lost her, and yet
he could not get beyond her. Did she still love him? This question
pursued him day and night with ever increasing vehemence, until even
his life seemed to depend upon it. He felt, as he gazed questioningly
into his solitude, that he would