Morten lived in a small two-roomed flat in the attics. While they sat talking, a sound came now and then from the other room, and each time a nervous look came into Morten’s face, and he glanced in annoyance at the closed door. Gradually he became quite restless and his attention was fixed on these sounds. Pelle wondered at it, but asked no questions.
Suddenly there came the sound of a chair being overturned. Morten rose quickly and went in, shutting the door carefully behind him. Pelle heard low voices—Morten’s admonishing, and a thin, refractory, girlish voice. “He’s got a girl hidden in there,” thought Pelle. “I’d better be off.”
He rose and looked out of the large attic window. How everything had changed since he first came to the capital and looked out over it from Morten’s old lodging! In those days he had had dreams of conquering it, and had carried out his plan too; and now he could begin from the beginning! An entirely new city lay spread out beneath him. Where he had once run about among wharves and coal-bunkers, there now stood a row of palatial buildings with a fine boulevard. And everything outside was new; a large working-men’s district had sprung up where there had once been timber-yards or water. Below him engines were drawing rows of trucks filled with ballast across the site for the new goods-station yard; and on the opposite side of the harbor a new residential and business quarter had grown up on the Iceland Quay. And behind it all lay the water and the green land of Amager. Morten had had the sense to select a high branch for himself like the nightingales.
He had got together a good number of books again, and on his writing- table stood photographs of well-known men with autograph inscriptions. To all appearances he seemed to make his way in the world of books. Pelle took down some of Morten’s own works, and turned over their leaves with interest. He seemed to hear Morten’s earnest voice behind the printed words. He would begin to read him now!
Morten came in. “You’re not going, are you?” he asked, drawing his hand across his forehead. “Do stay a little while and we’ll have a good talk. You can’t think how I’ve missed you!” He looked tired.
“I’m looking forward tremendously to reading your books,” said Pelle enthusiastically. “What a lot you’ve written! You haven’t given that up.”