their eyes he was infallible. Ellen too began to come to him with her
troubles; she no longer kept them to herself, but recognized that he had
the broader back.

It was all so undeserved--as if good spirits were working for him.
Shameful though it was that the wife should work to help to keep the
family, he had not been able to exempt her from it. And what had he done
for the children? It was not easy to build everything up at once from a
bare foundation, and he was sometimes tempted to leave something alone
so as to accomplish the rest the more quickly. As it was now, he was
really nothing! Neither the old Pelle nor the new, but something
indeterminate, in process of formation, something that was greatly in
need of indulgence! A removing van full of furniture on its way to a new
dwelling.

He often enough had occasion to feel this from outside; both old enemies
and old friends looked upon him as a man who had gone very much down in
the world. Their look said: "Is that really all that remains of that
stalwart fellow we once knew?" His own people, on the other hand, were
lenient in their judgment. "Father hasn't got time," Sister would say in
explanation to herself when she was playing about down in his work-room
--"but he will have some day!" And then she would picture to herself all
the delightful things that would happen then. It affected Pelle
strangely; he would try to get through this as quickly as possible.

It was a dark and pathless continent into which he had ventured, but he
was now beginning to find his way in it. There were ridges of hills that
constantly repeated themselves, and a mountain-top here and there that
was reached every time he emerged from the thicket. It was good to
travel there. Perhaps it was the land he and the others had looked for.