Little old men, who commonly lay in their dark corners waiting for death, came hobbling out on the galleries, lifted their noses toward the blazing speck of sky overhead, and sneezed three times. “That’s the sun!” they told one another, delighted. “Artishu! One don’t catch cold so easy in winter!”
High up, out of Pipman’s garret, a young man stepped out onto the platform. He stood there a moment turning his smiling face toward the bright heavens overhead. Then he lowered his head and ran down the break-neck stairs, without holding on by the rope. Under his arm he carried something wrapped in a blue cloth.
“Just look at the clown! Laughing right into the face of the sun as though there was no such thing as blindness!” said the women, thrusting their heads out of window. “But then, of course, he’s from the country. And now he’s going to deliver his work. Lord, how long is he going to squat up there and earn bread for that sweater? The red’ll soon go from his cheeks if he stops there much longer!” And they looked after him anxiously.
The children down in the courtyard raised their heads when they heard his steps above them.
“Have you got some nice leather for us to-day, Pelle?” they cried, clutching at his legs.
He brought out of his pockets some little bits of patent-leather and red imitation morocco.
“That’s from the Emperor’s new slippers,” he said, as he shared the pieces among the children. Then the youngsters laughed until their throats began to wheeze.
Pelle was just the same as of old, except that he was more upright and elastic in his walk, and had grown a little fair moustache. His protruding ears had withdrawn themselves a little, as though they were no longer worked so hard. His blue eyes still accepted everything as good coin, though they now had a faint expression that seemed to say that all that happened was no longer to their liking. His “lucky curls” still shone with a golden light.
The narrow streets lay always brooding in a dense, unbearable atmosphere that never seemed to renew itself. The houses were grimy and crazy; where a patch of sunlight touched a window there were stained bed- clothes hung out to dry. Up one of the side streets was an ambulance wagon, surrounded by women and children who were waiting excitedly for the bearers to appear with their uneasy burden, and Pelle joined them; he always had to take part in everything.