machines wedged themselves quietly but inexorably in between the workmen
and the work, and threw more and more men out of employment. The hours
of labor were not greatly shortened. Society did not seem to care to
protect the workers, but it interested itself more in disabled workmen
than before, and provision for the poor was well organized. Pelle could
not discover _any_ law that had a regulating effect, but found a
whole number of laws that plastered up the existing conditions. A great
deal of help was given, always just on the borders of starvation; and
more and more men had to apply for it. It did not rob them of their
rights as citizens, but made them a kind of politically _kept_
proletariat.

It was thus that the world of adventure which Pelle had helped to
conquer appeared now when he returned and looked at it with new eyes.
The world had not been created anew, and the Movement did not seem to
have produced anything strong and humanly supporting. It seemed as if
the workmen would quietly allow themselves to be left out of the game,
if only they received money for doing nothing! What had become of their
former pride? They must have acquired the morals of citizens, since they
willingly agreed to accept a pension for rights surrendered. They were
not deficient in power; they could make the whole world wither and die
without shedding a drop of blood, only by holding together. It was a
sense of responsibility that they lacked; they had lost the fundamental
idea of the Movement.

Pelle looked at the question from all sides while he trudged up and down
in his vain search. The prospect obtruded itself upon him, and there
were forces at work, both within and without, trying to push him into
the Movement and into the front rank among the leaders, but he repelled
the idea: he was going to work for his home now.