The house was thus transformed into a nursing home. It was a hard hit at their careless happiness, but they took it as it came. Neither of them demanded more of life than it was capable of.

Ellen was with the sick girl day and night until the worst was over; she neglected both Pelle and the children to give all her care to Johanna.

“You’ve got far too much to do,” said Pelle anxiously. “It’ll end in your being ill too. Do let us have help!” And as Ellen would not hear of it, he took the matter into his own hands, and got “Queen Theresa” to be out there during the day.

In the course of a few days Morten arranged his affairs, got rid of his flat, and moved out to them. “You won’t be able to run away from me, after all,” he said to Johanna, who was sitting up in bed listening to the carrying upstairs of his things. “When you’re well enough you shall be moved up into the big attic; and then we two shall live upstairs and be jolly again, won’t we?”

She made no answer, but flushed with pleasure.

Ellen now received from Morten the amount he usually spent in a month on food and house-rent. She was quite disconcerted. What was she to do with all that money? It was far too much! Well, they need no longer be anxious about their rent.

Johanna was soon so far recovered as to be able to get up for a little. The country air had a beneficial effect upon her nerves, and Ellen knew how to keep her in good spirits. Old Brun made her a present of a beautiful red and yellow reclining chair of basket work; and when the sun shone she was carried out onto the grass, where she lay and watched the children’s play, sometimes joining in the game from her chair, and ordering them hither and thither. Boy Comfort submitted to it good-naturedly, but Sister was a little more reserved. She did not like this stranger to call Pelle “father”; and when she was in a teasing mood she would stand a little way off and repeat again and again: “He’s not your father, for he’s mine!” until Ellen took her away.

Johanna mostly lay, however, gazing into space with an expression of the utmost weariness. For a moment her attention would be attracted by anything new, but then her eyes wandered away again. She was never well enough to walk about; even when she felt well, her legs would not support her. Brun came out to “Daybreak” every afternoon to see her. The old man was deeply affected by her sad fate, and had given up his usual holiday trip in order to keep himself acquainted with her condition. “We must do something for her,” he said to the doctor, who paid a daily visit at his request. “Is there nothing that can be done?”

The doctor shook his head. “She couldn’t be better off anywhere than she is here,” he said.

They were all fond of her, and did what they could to please her. Brun always brought something with him, expensive things, such as beautiful silk blankets that she could have over her when she lay out in the garden, and a splendid coral necklace. He got her everything that he could imagine she would like. Her eyes sparkled whenever she received anything new, and she put everything on. “Now I’m a princess in all her finery,” she whispered, smiling at him; but a moment after she had forgotten all about it. She was very fond of the old man, made him sit beside her, and called him “grandfather” with a mournful attempt at roguishness. She did not listen to what he told her, however, and when the little ones crept up and wanted him to come with them to play in the field, he could quite well go, for she did not notice it.

Alas! nothing could reconcile her child’s soul to her poor, maltreated body, neither love nor trinkets. It was as though it were weary of its covering and had soared as far out as possible, held captive by a thin thread that would easily wear through. She grew more transparent every day; it could be clearly seen now that she had the other children beside her. They ate and throve for her as well as themselves! When Ellen was not on the watch, Boy Comfort would come and eat up Johanna’s invalid food, though goodness knew he wasn’t starved! Johanna herself looked on calmly; it was all a matter of such indifference to her.

It was an unusually fine summer, dry and sunny, and they could nearly always be in the garden. They generally gathered there toward evening; Ellen and “Queen Theresa” had finished their house work, and sat by Johanna with their sewing, Brun kept them company with his cheerful talk, and Johanna lay and dozed with her face toward the garden gate. They laughed and joked with her to keep her in good spirits. Brun had promised her a trip to the South if she would make haste to use her legs, and told her about the sun down there and the delicious grapes and oranges that she would be allowed to pick herself. She answered everything with her sad smile, as though she knew all too well what awaited her. Her thick, dark hair overshadowed more and more her pale face; it was as if night were closing over her. She seemed to be dozing slowly out of existence, with her large eyes turned toward the garden gate.

Morten was often away on lecturing tours, sometimes for several days at a time. When at last he entered the gate, life flashed into her face. He was the only one who could recall her spirit to its surroundings; it was as though it only lingered on for him. She was no longer capricious with him. When she had the strength for it, she sat up and threw her arms round his neck; her tears flowed silently, and her longing found free vent. Ellen understood the child’s feelings, and signed to the others to leave the two together. Morten would then sit for hours beside her, telling her all that he had been doing; she never seemed to grow weary, but lay and listened to him with shining eyes, her transparent hand resting upon his arm. Every step he took interested her; sometimes a peculiar expression came into her eyes, and she fell suspiciously upon some detail or other. Her senses were morbidly keen; the very scent of strange people about him made her sullen and suspicious.

“The poor, poor child! She loves him!” said Ellen one day to Pelle, and suddenly burst into tears. “And there she lies dying!” Her own happiness made her so fully conscious of the child’s condition.

“But dearest Ellen!” exclaimed Pelle in protest. “Don’t you think I can see? That’s of course why she’s always been so strange to him. How sad it is!”

The child’s sad fate cast a shadow over the others, but the sun rose high in the heavens and became still stronger.

“Pelle,” said Ellen, stroking his hair, “the light nights will soon be over!”

Morten continued obstinately to believe that little Johanna would recover, but every one else could see distinctly what the end was to be. Her life oozed away with the departing summer. She became gentler and more manageable every day. The hatred in her was extinguished; she accepted all their kindness with a tired smile. Through her spoiled being there radiated a strange charm, bearing the stamp of death, which seemed to unfold itself the more as she drew nearer to the grave.

Later in the autumn her nature changed. Suddenly, when Pelle or Morten approached, her eyes would fill with horror and she would open her mouth to cry out; but when she recognized them, she nestled down in their arms, crying pitifully. She could no longer go into the garden, but always kept her bed. She could not bear the noise of the children; it tortured her and carried her thoughts back to the narrow streets: they had to keep out of doors all day. Delirious attacks became more frequent, and her thin, languid voice became once more rough and hoarse. She lay fighting with boys and roughs and high hats, defended herself with nicknames and abusive epithets, and snarled at every one, until she at last gave in and asked for brandy, and lay crying softly to herself. Old Brun never dared show himself at her bedside; she took him for an old chamberlain that the street-boys had set onto her, and received him with coarse demands.

This insight into the child’s terrible existence among the timber-stacks affected them all. It seemed as if the malignity of life would not relax its hold on this innocent victim, but would persecute her as long as life remained, and made all their love useless. Morten stayed with her during the days in which she fought her battle with death; he sat watching her from a corner, only venturing nearer when she dozed. Ellen was the only one who had the strength to meet it. She was with Johanna night and day, and tried to make death easier for her by her unwearying care; and when the fits came over the child, she held her in her arms and sought to calm her with a mother’s love.

She had never been in a death-chamber before, but did not quail; and the child died upon her breast.

Johanna’s death had completely paralyzed Morten. As long as he possibly could he had clung to the belief that her life might be saved; if not, it would be so unreasonably unjust; and when her hopeless condition became apparent to him, he collapsed. He did nothing, but wandered about dully, spoke to no one and ate very little. It was as though he had received a blow on the head from a heavy hand.

After the funeral he and Pelle walked home together while the others drove. Pelle talked of indifferent matters in order to draw Morten’s thoughts away from the child, but Morten did not listen to him.

“My dear fellow, you can’t go on like this,” said Pelle suddenly, putting his arm through Morten’s. “You’ve accompanied the poor child along the road as far as you could, and the living have some claim on you too.”

Morten raised his head. “What does it matter whether I write a few pages more or less?” he said wearily.

“Your pen was given you to defend the defenceless with; you mustn’t give up,” said Pelle.

Morten laughed bitterly. “And haven’t I pleaded the cause of the children as well as I could, and been innocent enough to believe that there, at any rate, it was only necessary to open people’s eyes in order to touch their hearts? And what has been gained? The addition, at the most, of one more volume to the so-called good literature. Men are practical beings; you can with the greatest ease get them to shed theater tears; they’re quite fond of sitting in the stalls and weeping with the unfortunate man; but woe to him if they meet him again in the street! The warmest words that have ever been spoken to me about my descriptions of children were from an old gentleman whom I afterward found to be trying to get hold of little children.”

“But what are you going to do?” said Pelle, looking at him with concern.

“Yes, what am I going to do—tell me that! You’re right in saying I’m indifferent, but can one go on taking part in a battle that doesn’t even spare the children? Do you remember my little sister Karen, who had to drown herself? How many thousand children are there not standing behind her and Johanna! They call this the children’s century, and the children’s blood is crying out from the earth! They’re happy when they can steal away. Fancy if Johanna had lived on with her burden! The shadows of childhood stretch over the whole of life.”

“Yes, and so does the sunshine of childhood!” exclaimed Pelle. “That’s why we mustn’t fail the poor little ones. We shall need a race with warm hearts.”

“That’s just what I’ve thought,” said Morten sadly. “Do you know, Pelle, I loved that child who came to me from the very lowest depth. She was everything to me; misery has never come so cruelly near to me before. It was a beautiful dream of mine—a foolish dream—that she would live. I was going to coax life and happiness into her again, and then I would have written a book about all that triumphs. I don’t know whether you understand me—about misery that becomes health and happiness beneath the sunshine of kindness. She was that; life could hardly be brought lower! But did you notice how much beauty and delicacy there was after all buried beneath the sewer-mud in her? I had looked forward to bringing it out, freed from all want and ugliness, and showing the world how beautiful we are down here when the mud is scraped off us. Perhaps it might have induced them to act justly. That’s what I dreamed, but it’s a bitter lot to have the unfortunates appointed to be one’s beloved. My only love is irretrievably dead, and now I cannot write about anything that triumphs. What have I to do with that?”

“I think it’s Victor Hugo who says that the heart is the only bird that carries its cage,” said Pelle, “but your heart refuses to take it when there is most use for it.”

“Oh, no!” said Morten with a little more energy. “I shan’t desert you; but this has been a hard blow for me. If only I had a little more of your clear faith! Well, I must be glad that I have you yourself,” he added, holding out his hand to Pelle with a bright smile.

The librarian came across the fields to meet them. “It’s taken you two Dioseuri a long time,” he said, looking at them attentively. “Ellen’s waiting with the dinner.”

The three men walked together up the bare stubblefield toward the house. “The best of the summer’s over now,” said Brun, looking about with a sigh. “The wheel has turned on one more cog!”

“Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to one,” answered Morten, who was still in a morbid mood.

“That’s the sort of thing one says while one’s young and prosperous—and doesn’t mean seriously. To-morrow life will have taken you and your sorrow into its service again. But I have never been young until now that I’ve learned to know you two, so I count every fleeting hour like a miser—and envy you who can walk so quickly,” he added with a smile.

They walked up more slowly, and as they followed the hedge up toward the house they heard a faint whimpering in the garden. In a hole in an empty bed, which the two children had dug with their spades, sat Boy Comfort, and Sister was busy covering him with earth; it was already up to his neck. He was making no resistance, but only whimpered a little when the mould began to get near his mouth.

Pelle gave the alarm and leaped the hedge, and Ellen at the same moment came running out. “You might have suffocated little brother!” she said with consternation, taking the boy in her arms.

“I was only planting him,” said Anna, offended at having her work destroyed. “He wanted to be, and of course he’d come up again in the spring!” The two children wanted a little brother, and had agreed that Boy Comfort should sacrifice himself.

“You mustn’t do such things,” said Ellen quietly. “You’ll get a little brother in the spring anyhow.” And she looked at Pelle with a loving glance.