PELLE THE CONQUEROR

PART II.--APPRENTICESHIP


BY MARTIN ANDERSON NEXO



TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH
By Bernard Miall.




II. APPRENTICESHIP


I

On that windy May-morning when Pelle tumbled out of the nest, it so
happened that old Klaus Hermann was clattering into town with his
manure-cart, in order to fetch a load of dung. And this trifling
circumstance decided the boy's position in life. There was no more
pother than this about the question: What was Pelle to be?

He had never put that question to himself. He had simply gone onward
at hazard, as the meaning of the radiant world unfolded itself. As to
what he should make of himself when he was really out in the world
--well, the matter was so incomprehensible that it was mere folly to