“Do you go about selling newspapers?” he exclaimed in astonishment, holding out his hand.
Peter Dreyer quietly returned his greeting. He had the same heavy, introspective look that he had had when Pelle met him in the garret in Jager Street, but looked even more perplexed.
“Yes, I’ve become a newspaper man,” he said, “but only after working hours. It’s a little paper that I write and print myself. It may perhaps do you good to read it.”
“It’s anarchistic, I suppose?” said Pelle, looking at the title of the paper. “You were so strange last time I met you.”
“Well, you can read it. A halfpenny if you can afford it, if not gratis!” he cried, holding out a copy to the passers-by. A policeman was standing a little way off observing him. He gradually drew nearer.
“I see you’re under observation!” said Pelle, drawing his attention to the policeman.
“I’m used to that. Once or twice they’ve seized my inoffensive little paper.”
“Then it can’t have been altogether inoffensive?” said Pelle, smiling.
“I only advise people to think for themselves.”
“That advice may be dangerous enough too, if it’s followed.”
“Oh, yes. The mean thing is that the police pursue me financially. As soon as I’ve got work with any master, a policeman appears and advises him to discharge me. It’s their usual tactics! They aim at the stomach, for that’s where they themselves have their heart.”
“Then it must be very hard for you to get on,” said Pelle sympathetically.
“Oh, I get along somehow. Now and then they put me in prison for no lawful reason, and when a certain time has passed they let me out again —the one with just as little reason as the other. They’ve lost their heads. It doesn’t say much for machinery that’s exclusively kept going to look after us. I’ve a feeling that they’d like to put me out of the way, if it could be done; but the country’s not large enough to let any one disappear in. But I’m not going to play the hunted animal any longer. Although I despise our laws, which are only a mask for brute force, I’m very careful to be on the right side; and if they use violence against me again, I’ll not submit to it.”
“The conditions are so unequal,” said Pelle, looking seriously at him.
“No one need put up with more than he himself likes. But there’s something wanting in us here at home—our own extreme consequence, self- respect; and so they treat us as ignominiously as they please.”