He tightened his grip, in his frenzy, and only when he saw her eyes
closing did he realize that he was choking her. Then he relaxed his
fingers, and crouched, waiting, until she opened her lids again. His
breath beat hot into her face.

"Tell me," he whispered, at last, "tell me about it."

She lay perfectly motionless, and he had to hold his breath to catch her
words. "I did not want--to do it," she said; "I tried--I tried not to do
it. I only did it--to save us. It was our only chance."

Again, for a space, there was no sound but his panting. Ona's eyes
closed and when she spoke again she did not open them. "He told me--he
would have me turned off. He told me he would--we would all of us lose
our places. We could never get anything to do--here--again. He--he meant
it--he would have ruined us."

Jurgis' arms were shaking so that he could scarcely hold himself up,
and lurched forward now and then as he listened. "When--when did this
begin?" he gasped.

"At the very first," she said. She spoke as if in a trance. "It was
all--it was their plot--Miss Henderson's plot. She hated me. And he--he
wanted me. He used to speak to me--out on the platform. Then he began
to--to make love to me. He offered me money. He begged me--he said he
loved me. Then he threatened me. He knew all about us, he knew we would
starve. He knew your boss--he knew Marija's. He would hound us to death,
he said--then he said if I would--if I--we would all of us be sure
of work--always. Then one day he caught hold of me--he would not let
go--he--he--"

"Where was this?"

"In the hallway--at night--after every one had gone. I could not help
it. I thought of you--of the baby--of mother and the children. I was
afraid of him--afraid to cry out."

A moment ago her face had been ashen gray, now it was scarlet. She was
beginning to breathe hard again. Jurgis made not a sound.

"That was two months ago. Then he wanted me to come--to that house. He
wanted me to stay there. He said all of us--that we would not have to
work. He made me come there--in the evenings. I told you--you thought I
was at the factory. Then--one night it snowed, and I couldn't get back.
And last night--the cars were stopped. It was such a little thing--to
ruin us all. I tried to walk, but I couldn't. I didn't want you to know.
It would have--it would have been all right. We could have gone on--just
the same--you need never have known about it. He was getting tired of
me--he would have let me alone soon. I am going to have a baby--I am
getting ugly. He told me that--twice, he told me, last night. He kicked
me--last night--too. And now you will kill him--you--you will kill
him--and we shall die."

All this she had said without a quiver; she lay still as death, not an
eyelid moving. And Jurgis, too, said not a word. He lifted himself by
the bed, and stood up. He did not stop for another glance at her, but
went to the door and opened it. He did not see Elzbieta, crouching
terrified in the corner. He went out, hatless, leaving the street door
open behind him. The instant his feet were on the sidewalk he broke into
a run.


He ran like one possessed, blindly, furiously, looking neither to the
right nor left. He was on Ashland Avenue before exhaustion compelled him
to slow down, and then, noticing a car, he made a dart for it and drew
himself aboard. His eyes were wild and his hair flying, and he was
breathing hoarsely, like a wounded bull; but the people on the car did
not notice this particularly--perhaps it seemed natural to them that
a man who smelled as Jurgis smelled should exhibit an aspect to
correspond. They began to give way before him as usual. The conductor
took his nickel gingerly, with the tips of his fingers, and then left
him with the platform to himself. Jurgis did not even notice it--his
thoughts were far away. Within his soul it was like a roaring furnace;
he stood waiting, waiting, crouching as if for a spring.

He had some of his breath back when the car came to the entrance of the
yards, and so he leaped off and started again, racing at full speed.
People turned and stared at him, but he saw no one--there was the
factory, and he bounded through the doorway and down the corridor. He
knew the room where Ona worked, and he knew Connor, the boss of the
loading-gang outside. He looked for the man as he sprang into the room.

The truckmen were hard at work, loading the freshly packed boxes and
barrels upon the cars. Jurgis shot one swift glance up and down the
platform--the man was not on it. But then suddenly he heard a voice in
the corridor, and started for it with a bound. In an instant more he
fronted the boss.

He was a big, red-faced Irishman, coarse-featured, and smelling of
liquor. He saw Jurgis as he crossed the threshold, and turned white.
He hesitated one second, as if meaning to run; and in the next his
assailant was upon him. He put up his hands to protect his face, but
Jurgis, lunging with all the power of his arm and body, struck him
fairly between the eyes and knocked him backward. The next moment he was
on top of him, burying his fingers in his throat.

To Jurgis this man's whole presence reeked of the crime he had
committed; the touch of his body was madness to him--it set every nerve
of him atremble, it aroused all the demon in his soul. It had worked its
will upon Ona, this great beast--and now he had it, he had it! It was
his turn now! Things swam blood before him, and he screamed aloud in his
fury, lifting his victim and smashing his head upon the floor.

The place, of course, was in an uproar; women fainting and shrieking,
and men rushing in. Jurgis was so bent upon his task that he knew
nothing of this, and scarcely realized that people were trying to
interfere with him; it was only when half a dozen men had seized him by
the legs and shoulders and were pulling at him, that he understood that
he was losing his prey. In a flash he had bent down and sunk his teeth
into the man's cheek; and when they tore him away he was dripping with
blood, and little ribbons of skin were hanging in his mouth.

They got him down upon the floor, clinging to him by his arms and legs,
and still they could hardly hold him. He fought like a tiger,
writhing and twisting, half flinging them off, and starting toward his
unconscious enemy. But yet others rushed in, until there was a little
mountain of twisted limbs and bodies, heaving and tossing, and working
its way about the room. In the end, by their sheer weight, they choked
the breath out of him, and then they carried him to the company police
station, where he lay still until they had summoned a patrol wagon to
take him away.



Chapter 16


When Jurgis got up again he went quietly enough. He was exhausted and
half-dazed, and besides he saw the blue uniforms of the policemen. He
drove in a patrol wagon with half a dozen of them watching him; keeping
as far away as possible, however, on account of the fertilizer. Then he
stood before the sergeant's desk and gave his name and address, and saw
a charge of assault and battery entered against him. On his way to his
cell a burly policeman cursed him because he started down the
wrong corridor, and then added a kick when he was not quick enough;
nevertheless, Jurgis did not even lift his eyes--he had lived two years
and a half in Packingtown, and he knew what the police were. It was as
much as a man's very life was worth to anger them, here in their inmost
lair; like as not a dozen would pile on to him at once, and pound
his face into a pulp. It would be nothing unusual if he got his skull
cracked in the melee--in which case they would report that he had
been drunk and had fallen down, and there would be no one to know the
difference or to care.

So a barred door clanged upon Jurgis and he sat down upon a bench and
buried his face in his hands. He was alone; he had the afternoon and all
of the night to himself.

At first he was like a wild beast that has glutted itself; he was in
a dull stupor of satisfaction. He had done up the scoundrel pretty
well--not as well as he would have if they had given him a minute
more, but pretty well, all the same; the ends of his fingers were still
tingling from their contact with the fellow's throat. But then, little
by little, as his strength came back and his senses cleared, he began
to see beyond his momentary gratification; that he had nearly killed
the boss would not help Ona--not the horrors that she had borne, nor the
memory that would haunt her all her days. It would not help to feed her
and her child; she would certainly lose her place, while he--what was to
happen to him God only knew.

Half the night he paced the floor, wrestling with this nightmare; and
when he was exhausted he lay down, trying to sleep, but finding instead,
for the first time in his life, that his brain was too much for him. In
the cell next to him was a drunken wife-beater and in the one beyond
a yelling maniac. At midnight they opened the station house to the
homeless wanderers who were crowded about the door, shivering in the
winter blast, and they thronged into the corridor outside of the cells.
Some of them stretched themselves out on the bare stone floor and fell
to snoring, others sat up, laughing and talking, cursing and quarreling.
The air was fetid with their breath, yet in spite of this some of them
smelled Jurgis and called down the torments of hell upon him, while he
lay in a far corner of his cell, counting the throbbings of the blood in
his forehead.

They had brought him his supper, which was "duffers and dope"--being
hunks of dry bread on a tin plate, and coffee, called "dope" because it
was drugged to keep the prisoners quiet. Jurgis had not known this, or
he would have swallowed the stuff in desperation; as it was, every nerve
of him was aquiver with shame and rage. Toward morning the place fell
silent, and he got up and began to pace his cell; and then within the
soul of him there rose up a fiend, red-eyed and cruel, and tore out the
strings of his heart.

It was not for himself that he suffered--what did a man who worked in
Durham's fertilizer mill care about anything that the world might do
to him! What was any tyranny of prison compared with the tyranny of the
past, of the thing that had happened and could not be recalled, of the
memory that could never be effaced! The horror of it drove him mad;
he stretched out his arms to heaven, crying out for deliverance from
it--and there was no deliverance, there was no power even in heaven that
could undo the past. It was a ghost that would not drown; it followed
him, it seized upon him and beat him to the ground. Ah, if only he could
have foreseen it--but then, he would have foreseen it, if he had not
been a fool! He smote his hands upon his forehead, cursing himself
because he had ever allowed Ona to work where she had, because he had
not stood between her and a fate which every one knew to be so common.
He should have taken her away, even if it were to lie down and die of
starvation in the gutters of Chicago's streets! And now--oh, it could
not be true; it was too monstrous, too horrible.

It was a thing that could not be faced; a new shuddering seized him
every time he tried to think of it. No, there was no bearing the load of
it, there was no living under it. There would be none for her--he knew
that he might pardon her, might plead with her on his knees, but she
would never look him in the face again, she would never be his
wife again. The shame of it would kill her--there could be no other
deliverance, and it was best that she should die.

This was simple and clear, and yet, with cruel inconsistency, whenever
he escaped from this nightmare it was to suffer and cry out at the
vision of Ona starving. They had put him in jail, and they would keep
him here a long time, years maybe. And Ona would surely not go to work
again, broken and crushed as she was. And Elzbieta and Marija, too,
might lose their places--if that hell fiend Connor chose to set to work
to ruin them, they would all be turned out. And even if he did not, they
could not live--even if the boys left school again, they could surely
not pay all the bills without him and Ona. They had only a few dollars
now--they had just paid the rent of the house a week ago, and that after
it was two weeks overdue. So it would be due again in a week! They would
have no money to pay it then--and they would lose the house, after all
their long, heartbreaking struggle. Three times now the agent had warned
him that he would not tolerate another delay. Perhaps it was very
base of Jurgis to be thinking about the house when he had the other
unspeakable thing to fill his mind; yet, how much he had suffered for
this house, how much they had all of them suffered! It was their one
hope of respite, as long as they lived; they had put all their money
into it--and they were working people, poor people, whose money was
their strength, the very substance of them, body and soul, the thing by
which they lived and for lack of which they died.

And they would lose it all; they would be turned out into the streets,
and have to hide in some icy garret, and live or die as best they could!
Jurgis had all the night--and all of many more nights--to think about
this, and he saw the thing in its details; he lived it all, as if he
were there. They would sell their furniture, and then run into debt at
the stores, and then be refused credit; they would borrow a little from
the Szedvilases, whose delicatessen store was tottering on the brink
of ruin; the neighbors would come and help them a little--poor, sick
Jadvyga would bring a few spare pennies, as she always did when people
were starving, and Tamoszius Kuszleika would bring them the proceeds of
a night's fiddling. So they would struggle to hang on until he got out
of jail--or would they know that he was in jail, would they be able to
find out anything about him? Would they be allowed to see him--or was it
to be part of his punishment to be kept in ignorance about their fate?

His mind would hang upon the worst possibilities; he saw Ona ill and
tortured, Marija out of her place, little Stanislovas unable to get
to work for the snow, the whole family turned out on the street. God
Almighty! would they actually let them lie down in the street and die?
Would there be no help even then--would they wander about in the snow
till they froze? Jurgis had never seen any dead bodies in the streets,
but he had seen people evicted and disappear, no one knew where;
and though the city had a relief bureau, though there was a charity
organization society in the stockyards district, in all his life there
he had never heard of either of them. They did not advertise their
activities, having more calls than they could attend to without that.

--So on until morning. Then he had another ride in the patrol wagon,
along with the drunken wife-beater and the maniac, several "plain
drunks" and "saloon fighters," a burglar, and two men who had been
arrested for stealing meat from the packing houses. Along with them he
was driven into a large, white-walled room, stale-smelling and
crowded. In front, upon a raised platform behind a rail, sat a stout,
florid-faced personage, with a nose broken out in purple blotches.

Our friend realized vaguely that he was about to be tried. He wondered
what for--whether or not his victim might be dead, and if so, what they
would do with him. Hang him, perhaps, or beat him to death--nothing
would have surprised Jurgis, who knew little of the laws. Yet he had
picked up gossip enough to have it occur to him that the loud-voiced man
upon the bench might be the notorious Justice Callahan, about whom the
people of Packingtown spoke with bated breath.

"Pat" Callahan--"Growler" Pat, as he had been known before he ascended
the bench--had begun life as a butcher boy and a bruiser of local
reputation; he had gone into politics almost as soon as he had learned
to talk, and had held two offices at once before he was old enough to
vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan was the first finger of the
unseen hand whereby the packers held down the people of the district. No
politician in Chicago ranked higher in their confidence; he had been at
it a long time--had been the business agent in the city council of old
Durham, the self-made merchant, way back in the early days, when the
whole city of Chicago had been up at auction. "Growler" Pat had given
up holding city offices very early in his career--caring only for party
power, and giving the rest of his time to superintending his dives and
brothels. Of late years, however, since his children were growing up,
he had begun to value respectability, and had had himself made a
magistrate; a position for which he was admirably fitted, because of his
strong conservatism and his contempt for "foreigners."

Jurgis sat gazing about the room for an hour or two; he was in hopes
that some one of the family would come, but in this he was disappointed.
Finally, he was led before the bar, and a lawyer for the company
appeared against him. Connor was under the doctor's care, the lawyer
explained briefly, and if his Honor would hold the prisoner for a
week--"Three hundred dollars," said his Honor, promptly.

Jurgis was staring from the judge to the lawyer in perplexity. "Have you
any one to go on your bond?" demanded the judge, and then a clerk who
stood at Jurgis' elbow explained to him what this meant. The latter
shook his head, and before he realized what had happened the policemen
were leading him away again. They took him to a room where other
prisoners were waiting and here he stayed until court adjourned, when he
had another long and bitterly cold ride in a patrol wagon to the county
jail, which is on the north side of the city, and nine or ten miles from
the stockyards.

Here they searched Jurgis, leaving him only his money, which consisted
of fifteen cents. Then they led him to a room and told him to strip for
a bath; after which he had to walk down a long gallery, past the grated
cell doors of the inmates of the jail. This was a great event to the
latter--the daily review of the new arrivals, all stark naked, and many
and diverting were the comments. Jurgis was required to stay in the bath
longer than any one, in the vain hope of getting out of him a few of his
phosphates and acids. The prisoners roomed two in a cell, but that day
there was one left over, and he was the one.

The cells were in tiers, opening upon galleries. His cell was about five
feet by seven in size, with a stone floor and a heavy wooden bench built
into it. There was no window--the only light came from windows near the
roof at one end of the court outside. There were two bunks, one above
the other, each with a straw mattress and a pair of gray blankets--the
latter stiff as boards with filth, and alive with fleas, bedbugs, and
lice. When Jurgis lifted up the mattress he discovered beneath it a
layer of scurrying roaches, almost as badly frightened as himself.

Here they brought him more "duffers and dope," with the addition of a
bowl of soup. Many of the prisoners had their meals brought in from a
restaurant, but Jurgis had no money for that. Some had books to read and
cards to play, with candles to burn by night, but Jurgis was all alone
in darkness and silence. He could not sleep again; there was the same
maddening procession of thoughts that lashed him like whips upon his
naked back. When night fell he was pacing up and down his cell like a
wild beast that breaks its teeth upon the bars of its cage. Now and then
in his frenzy he would fling himself against the walls of the place,
beating his hands upon them. They cut him and bruised him--they were
cold and merciless as the men who had built them.

In the distance there was a church-tower bell that tolled the hours one
by one. When it came to midnight Jurgis was lying upon the floor with
his head in his arms, listening. Instead of falling silent at the end,
the bell broke into a sudden clangor. Jurgis raised his head; what could
that mean--a fire? God! Suppose there were to be a fire in this jail!
But then he made out a melody in the ringing; there were chimes. And
they seemed to waken the city--all around, far and near, there were
bells, ringing wild music; for fully a minute Jurgis lay lost in wonder,
before, all at once, the meaning of it broke over him--that this was
Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve--he had forgotten it entirely! There was a breaking of
floodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his
mind. In far Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas; and it came to
him as if it had been yesterday--himself a little child, with his lost
brother and his dead father in the cabin--in the deep black forest,
where the snow fell all day and all night and buried them from the
world. It was too far off for Santa Claus in Lithuania, but it was not
too far for peace and good will to men, for the wonder-bearing vision
of the Christ Child. And even in Packingtown they had not forgotten
it--some gleam of it had never failed to break their darkness. Last
Christmas Eve and all Christmas Day Jurgis had toiled on the killing
beds, and Ona at wrapping hams, and still they had found strength
enough to take the children for a walk upon the avenue, to see the store
windows all decorated with Christmas trees and ablaze with electric
lights. In one window there would be live geese, in another marvels in
sugar--pink and white canes big enough for ogres, and cakes with
cherubs upon them; in a third there would be rows of fat yellow turkeys,
decorated with rosettes, and rabbits and squirrels hanging; in a fourth
would be a fairyland of toys--lovely dolls with pink dresses, and woolly
sheep and drums and soldier hats. Nor did they have to go without their
share of all this, either. The last time they had had a big basket with
them and all their Christmas marketing to do--a roast of pork and a
cabbage and some rye bread, and a pair of mittens for Ona, and a rubber
doll that squeaked, and a little green cornucopia full of candy to be
hung from the gas jet and gazed at by half a dozen pairs of longing
eyes.

Even half a year of the sausage machines and the fertilizer mill had not
been able to kill the thought of Christmas in them; there was a choking
in Jurgis' throat as he recalled that the very night Ona had not come
home Teta Elzbieta had taken him aside and shown him an old valentine
that she had picked up in a paper store for three cents--dingy and
shopworn, but with bright colors, and figures of angels and doves.
She had wiped all the specks off this, and was going to set it on the
mantel, where the children could see it. Great sobs shook Jurgis at this
memory--they would spend their Christmas in misery and despair, with
him in prison and Ona ill and their home in desolation. Ah, it was too
cruel! Why at least had they not left him alone--why, after they had
shut him in jail, must they be ringing Christmas chimes in his ears!

But no, their bells were not ringing for him--their Christmas was not
meant for him, they were simply not counting him at all. He was of no
consequence--he was flung aside, like a bit of trash, the carcass of
some animal. It was horrible, horrible! His wife might be dying, his
baby might be starving, his whole family might be perishing in the
cold--and all the while they were ringing their Christmas chimes! And
the bitter mockery of it--all this was punishment for him! They put him
in a place where the snow could not beat in, where the cold could not
eat through his bones; they brought him food and drink--why, in the name
of heaven, if they must punish him, did they not put his family in jail
and leave him outside--why could they find no better way to punish him
than to leave three weak women and six helpless children to starve and
freeze? That was their law, that was their justice!

Jurgis stood upright; trembling with passion, his hands clenched and
his arms upraised, his whole soul ablaze with hatred and defiance. Ten
thousand curses upon them and their law! Their justice--it was a lie, it
was a lie, a hideous, brutal lie, a thing too black and hateful for any
world but a world of nightmares. It was a sham and a loathsome mockery.
There was no justice, there was no right, anywhere in it--it was
only force, it was tyranny, the will and the power, reckless and
unrestrained! They had ground him beneath their heel, they had devoured
all his substance; they had murdered his old father, they had broken and
wrecked his wife, they had crushed and cowed his whole family; and now
they were through with him, they had no further use for him--and because
he had interfered with them, had gotten in their way, this was what they
had done to him! They had put him behind bars, as if he had been a
wild beast, a thing without sense or reason, without rights, without
affections, without feelings. Nay, they would not even have treated a
beast as they had treated him! Would any man in his senses have trapped
a wild thing in its lair, and left its young behind to die?

These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in them was the
beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief. He had no
wit to trace back the social crime to its far sources--he could not say
that it was the thing men have called "the system" that was crushing him
to the earth that it was the packers, his masters, who had bought up
the law of the land, and had dealt out their brutal will to him from the
seat of justice. He only knew that he was wronged, and that the world
had wronged him; that the law, that society, with all its powers, had
declared itself his foe. And every hour his soul grew blacker, every
hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, of raging,
frenzied hate.

          The vilest deeds, like poison weeds,
            Bloom well in prison air;
          It is only what is good in Man
            That wastes and withers there;
          Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
            And the Warder is Despair.

So wrote a poet, to whom the world had dealt its justice--

           I know not whether Laws be right,
            Or whether Laws be wrong;
          All that we know who lie in gaol
            Is that the wall is strong.
          And they do well to hide their hell,
            For in it things are done
          That Son of God nor son of Man
            Ever should look upon!



Chapter 17


At seven o'clock the next morning Jurgis was let out to get water to
wash his cell--a duty which he performed faithfully, but which most
of the prisoners were accustomed to shirk, until their cells became so
filthy that the guards interposed. Then he had more "duffers and
dope," and afterward was allowed three hours for exercise, in a long,
cement-walked court roofed with glass. Here were all the inmates of
the jail crowded together. At one side of the court was a place for
visitors, cut off by two heavy wire screens, a foot apart, so that
nothing could be passed in to the prisoners; here Jurgis watched
anxiously, but there came no one to see him.

Soon after he went back to his cell, a keeper opened the door to let
in another prisoner. He was a dapper young fellow, with a light brown
mustache and blue eyes, and a graceful figure. He nodded to Jurgis, and
then, as the keeper closed the door upon him, began gazing critically
about him.

"Well, pal," he said, as his glance encountered Jurgis again, "good
morning."

"Good morning," said Jurgis.

"A rum go for Christmas, eh?" added the other.

Jurgis nodded.

The newcomer went to the bunks and inspected the blankets; he lifted
up the mattress, and then dropped it with an exclamation. "My God!" he
said, "that's the worst yet."

He glanced at Jurgis again. "Looks as if it hadn't been slept in last
night. Couldn't stand it, eh?"

"I didn't want to sleep last night," said Jurgis.

"When did you come in?"

"Yesterday."

The other had another look around, and then wrinkled up his nose.
"There's the devil of a stink in here," he said, suddenly. "What is it?"

"It's me," said Jurgis.

"You?"

"Yes, me."

"Didn't they make you wash?"

"Yes, but this don't wash."

"What is it?"

"Fertilizer."

"Fertilizer! The deuce! What are you?"

"I work in the stockyards--at least I did until the other day. It's in
my clothes."

"That's a new one on me," said the newcomer. "I thought I'd been up
against 'em all. What are you in for?"

"I hit my boss." "Oh--that's it. What did he do?"

"He--he treated me mean."

"I see. You're what's called an honest workingman!"

"What are you?" Jurgis asked.

"I?" The other laughed. "They say I'm a cracksman," he said.

"What's that?" asked Jurgis.

"Safes, and such things," answered the other.

"Oh," said Jurgis, wonderingly, and stated at the speaker in awe. "You
mean you break into them--you--you--"

"Yes," laughed the other, "that's what they say."

He did not look to be over twenty-two or three, though, as Jurgis found
afterward, he was thirty. He spoke like a man of education, like what
the world calls a "gentleman."

"Is that what you're here for?" Jurgis inquired.

"No," was the answer. "I'm here for disorderly conduct. They were mad
because they couldn't get any evidence.

"What's your name?" the young fellow continued after a pause. "My name's
Duane--Jack Duane. I've more than a dozen, but that's my company one."
He seated himself on the floor with his back to the wall and his legs
crossed, and went on talking easily; he soon put Jurgis on a friendly
footing--he was evidently a man of the world, used to getting on, and
not too proud to hold conversation with a mere laboring man. He drew
Jurgis out, and heard all about his life all but the one unmentionable
thing; and then he told stories about his own life. He was a great
one for stories, not always of the choicest. Being sent to jail had
apparently not disturbed his cheerfulness; he had "done time" twice
before, it seemed, and he took it all with a frolic welcome. What with
women and wine and the excitement of his vocation, a man could afford to
rest now and then.

Naturally, the aspect of prison life was changed for Jurgis by the
arrival of a cell mate. He could not turn his face to the wall and
sulk, he had to speak when he was spoken to; nor could he help being
interested in the conversation of Duane--the first educated man with
whom he had ever talked. How could he help listening with wonder while
the other told of midnight ventures and perilous escapes, of feastings
and orgies, of fortunes squandered in a night? The young fellow had an
amused contempt for Jurgis, as a sort of working mule; he, too, had
felt the world's injustice, but instead of bearing it patiently, he had
struck back, and struck hard. He was striking all the time--there was
war between him and society. He was a genial freebooter, living off the
enemy, without fear or shame. He was not always victorious, but then
defeat did not mean annihilation, and need not break his spirit.

Withal he was a goodhearted fellow--too much so, it appeared. His story
came out, not in the first day, nor the second, but in the long hours
that dragged by, in which they had nothing to do but talk and nothing
to talk of but themselves. Jack Duane was from the East; he was a
college-bred man--had been studying electrical engineering. Then his
father had met with misfortune in business and killed himself; and there
had been his mother and a younger brother and sister. Also, there was an
invention of Duane's; Jurgis could not understand it clearly, but it had
to do with telegraphing, and it was a very important thing--there were
fortunes in it, millions upon millions of dollars. And Duane had been
robbed of it by a great company, and got tangled up in lawsuits and lost
all his money. Then somebody had given him a tip on a horse race, and he
had tried to retrieve his fortune with another person's money, and had
to run away, and all the rest had come from that. The other asked
him what had led him to safebreaking--to Jurgis a wild and appalling
occupation to think about. A man he had met, his cell mate had
replied--one thing leads to another. Didn't he ever wonder about his
family, Jurgis asked. Sometimes, the other answered, but not often--he
didn't allow it. Thinking about it would make it no better. This wasn't
a world in which a man had any business with a family; sooner or later
Jurgis would find that out also, and give up the fight and shift for
himself.

Jurgis was so transparently what he pretended to be that his cell mate
was as open with him as a child; it was pleasant to tell him adventures,
he was so full of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways of
the country. Duane did not even bother to keep back names and places--he
told all his triumphs and his failures, his loves and his griefs. Also
he introduced Jurgis to many of the other prisoners, nearly half of whom
he knew by name. The crowd had already given Jurgis a name--they called
him "he stinker." This was cruel, but they meant no harm by it, and he
took it with a goodnatured grin.

Our friend had caught now and then a whiff from the sewers over which
he lived, but this was the first time that he had ever been splashed by
their filth. This jail was a Noah's ark of the city's crime--there were
murderers, "hold-up men" and burglars, embezzlers, counterfeiters and
forgers, bigamists, "shoplifters," "confidence men," petty thieves
and pickpockets, gamblers and procurers, brawlers, beggars, tramps
and drunkards; they were black and white, old and young, Americans and
natives of every nation under the sun. There were hardened criminals and
innocent men too poor to give bail; old men, and boys literally not yet
in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of
society; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to. All life
had turned to rottenness and stench in them--love was a beastliness, joy
was a snare, and God was an imprecation. They strolled here and there
about the courtyard, and Jurgis listened to them. He was ignorant and
they were wise; they had been everywhere and tried everything. They
could tell the whole hateful story of it, set forth the inner soul of
a city in which justice and honor, women's bodies and men's souls, were
for sale in the marketplace, and human beings writhed and fought and
fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; in which lusts were raging
fires, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering and stewing and
wallowing in its own corruption. Into this wild-beast tangle these men
had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because
they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to
them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. They were
swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped
and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of
dollars.


To most of this Jurgis tried not to listen. They frightened him with
their savage mockery; and all the while his heart was far away, where
his loved ones were calling. Now and then in the midst of it his
thoughts would take flight; and then the tears would come into his
eyes--and he would be called back by the jeering laughter of his
companions.

He spent a week in this company, and during all that time he had no word
from his home. He paid one of his fifteen cents for a postal card, and
his companion wrote a note to the family, telling them where he was
and when he would be tried. There came no answer to it, however, and at
last, the day before New Year's, Jurgis bade good-by to Jack Duane. The
latter gave him his address, or rather the address of his mistress, and
made Jurgis promise to look him up. "Maybe I could help you out of a
hole some day," he said, and added that he was sorry to have him go.
Jurgis rode in the patrol wagon back to Justice Callahan's court for
trial.

One of the first things he made out as he entered the room was Teta
Elzbieta and little Kotrina, looking pale and frightened, seated far in
the rear. His heart began to pound, but he did not dare to try to signal
to them, and neither did Elzbieta. He took his seat in the prisoners'
pen and sat gazing at them in helpless agony. He saw that Ona was not
with them, and was full of foreboding as to what that might mean. He
spent half an hour brooding over this--and then suddenly he straightened
up and the blood rushed into his face. A man had come in--Jurgis could
not see his features for the bandages that swathed him, but he knew the
burly figure. It was Connor! A trembling seized him, and his limbs bent
as if for a spring. Then suddenly he felt a hand on his collar, and
heard a voice behind him: "Sit down, you son of a--!"

He subsided, but he never took his eyes off his enemy. The fellow was
still alive, which was a disappointment, in one way; and yet it was
pleasant to see him, all in penitential plasters. He and the company
lawyer, who was with him, came and took seats within the judge's
railing; and a minute later the clerk called Jurgis' name, and the
policeman jerked him to his feet and led him before the bar, gripping
him tightly by the arm, lest he should spring upon the boss.

Jurgis listened while the man entered the witness chair, took the oath,
and told his story. The wife of the prisoner had been employed in a
department near him, and had been discharged for impudence to him. Half
an hour later he had been violently attacked, knocked down, and almost
choked to death. He had brought witnesses--

"They will probably not be necessary," observed the judge and he turned
to Jurgis. "You admit attacking the plaintiff?" he asked.

"Him?" inquired Jurgis, pointing at the boss.

"Yes," said the judge. "I hit him, sir," said Jurgis.

"Say 'your Honor,'" said the officer, pinching his arm hard.

"Your Honor," said Jurgis, obediently.

"You tried to choke him?"

"Yes, sir, your Honor."

"Ever been arrested before?"

"No, sir, your Honor."

"What have you to say for yourself?"

Jurgis hesitated. What had he to say? In two years and a half he had
learned to speak English for practical purposes, but these had never
included the statement that some one had intimidated and seduced his
wife. He tried once or twice, stammering and balking, to the annoyance
of the judge, who was gasping from the odor of fertilizer. Finally,
the prisoner made it understood that his vocabulary was inadequate, and
there stepped up a dapper young man with waxed mustaches, bidding him
speak in any language he knew.

Jurgis began; supposing that he would be given time, he explained how
the boss had taken advantage of his wife's position to make advances
to her and had threatened her with the loss of her place. When the
interpreter had translated this, the judge, whose calendar was crowded,
and whose automobile was ordered for a certain hour, interrupted with
the remark: "Oh, I see. Well, if he made love to your wife, why didn't
she complain to the superintendent or leave the place?"

Jurgis hesitated, somewhat taken aback; he began to explain that they
were very poor--that work was hard to get--

"I see," said Justice Callahan; "so instead you thought you would knock
him down." He turned to the plaintiff, inquiring, "Is there any truth in
this story, Mr. Connor?"

"Not a particle, your Honor," said the boss. "It is very
unpleasant--they tell some such tale every time you have to discharge a
woman--"

"Yes, I know," said the judge. "I hear it often enough. The fellow seems
to have handled you pretty roughly. Thirty days and costs. Next case."

Jurgis had been listening in perplexity. It was only when the policeman
who had him by the arm turned and started to lead him away that he
realized that sentence had been passed. He gazed round him wildly.
"Thirty days!" he panted and then he whirled upon the judge. "What will
my family do?" he cried frantically. "I have a wife and baby, sir, and
they have no money--my God, they will starve to death!"

"You would have done well to think about them before you committed
the assault," said the judge dryly, as he turned to look at the next
prisoner.

Jurgis would have spoken again, but the policeman had seized him by the
collar and was twisting it, and a second policeman was making for him
with evidently hostile intentions. So he let them lead him away. Far
down the room he saw Elzbieta and Kotrina, risen from their seats,
staring in fright; he made one effort to go to them, and then, brought
back by another twist at his throat, he bowed his head and gave up the
struggle. They thrust him into a cell room, where other prisoners were
waiting; and as soon as court had adjourned they led him down with them
into the "Black Maria," and drove him away.

This time Jurgis was bound for the "Bridewell," a petty jail where Cook
County prisoners serve their time. It was even filthier and more crowded
than the county jail; all the smaller fry out of the latter had been
sifted into it--the petty thieves and swindlers, the brawlers and
vagrants. For his cell mate Jurgis had an Italian fruit seller who
had refused to pay his graft to the policeman, and been arrested for
carrying a large pocketknife; as he did not understand a word of English
our friend was glad when he left. He gave place to a Norwegian sailor,
who had lost half an ear in a drunken brawl, and who proved to be
quarrelsome, cursing Jurgis because he moved in his bunk and caused
the roaches to drop upon the lower one. It would have been quite
intolerable, staying in a cell with this wild beast, but for the fact
that all day long the prisoners were put at work breaking stone.

Ten days of his thirty Jurgis spent thus, without hearing a word from
his family; then one day a keeper came and informed him that there was
a visitor to see him. Jurgis turned white, and so weak at the knees that
he could hardly leave his cell.

The man led him down the corridor and a flight of steps to the visitors'
room, which was barred like a cell. Through the grating Jurgis could
see some one sitting in a chair; and as he came into the room the person
started up, and he saw that it was little Stanislovas. At the sight
of some one from home the big fellow nearly went to pieces--he had to
steady himself by a chair, and he put his other hand to his forehead, as
if to clear away a mist. "Well?" he said, weakly.

Little Stanislovas was also trembling, and all but too frightened to
speak. "They--they sent me to tell you--" he said, with a gulp.

"Well?" Jurgis repeated. He followed the boy's glance to where the
keeper was standing watching them. "Never mind that," Jurgis cried,
wildly. "How are they?"

"Ona is very sick," Stanislovas said; "and we are almost starving. We
can't get along; we thought you might be able to help us."

Jurgis gripped the chair tighter; there were beads of perspiration on
his forehead, and his hand shook. "I--can't help you," he said.

"Ona lies in her room all day," the boy went on, breathlessly. "She
won't eat anything, and she cries all the time. She won't tell what is
the matter and she won't go to work at all. Then a long time ago the man
came for the rent. He was very cross. He came again last week. He said
he would turn us out of the house. And then Marija--"

A sob choked Stanislovas, and he stopped. "What's the matter with
Marija?" cried Jurgis.

"She's cut her hand!" said the boy. "She's cut it bad, this time, worse
than before. She can't work and it's all turning green, and the company
doctor says she may--she may have to have it cut off. And Marija cries
all the time--her money is nearly all gone, too, and we can't pay the
rent and the interest on the house; and we have no coal and nothing more
to eat, and the man at the store, he says--"

The little fellow stopped again, beginning to whimper. "Go on!" the
other panted in frenzy--"Go on!"

"I--I will," sobbed Stanislovas. "It's so--so cold all the time. And
last Sunday it snowed again--a deep, deep snow--and I couldn't--couldn't
get to work."

"God!" Jurgis half shouted, and he took a step toward the child. There
was an old hatred between them because of the snow--ever since that
dreadful morning when the boy had had his fingers frozen and Jurgis had
had to beat him to send him to work. Now he clenched his hands, looking
as if he would try to break through the grating. "You little villain,"
he cried, "you didn't try!"

"I did--I did!" wailed Stanislovas, shrinking from him in terror. "I
tried all day--two days. Elzbieta was with me, and she couldn't either.
We couldn't walk at all, it was so deep. And we had nothing to eat, and
oh, it was so cold! I tried, and then the third day Ona went with me--"

"Ona!"

"Yes. She tried to get to work, too. She had to. We were all starving.
But she had lost her place--"

Jurgis reeled, and gave a gasp. "She went back to that place?" he
screamed. "She tried to," said Stanislovas, gazing at him in perplexity.
"Why not, Jurgis?"

The man breathed hard, three or four times. "Go--on," he panted,
finally.

"I went with her," said Stanislovas, "but Miss Henderson wouldn't take
her back. And Connor saw her and cursed her. He was still bandaged
up--why did you hit him, Jurgis?" (There was some fascinating mystery
about this, the little fellow knew; but he could get no satisfaction.)

Jurgis could not speak; he could only stare, his eyes starting out. "She
has been trying to get other work," the boy went on; "but she's so weak
she can't keep up. And my boss would not take me back, either--Ona says
he knows Connor, and that's the reason; they've all got a grudge against
us now. So I've got to go downtown and sell papers with the rest of the
boys and Kotrina--"

"Kotrina!"

"Yes, she's been selling papers, too. She does best, because she's
a girl. Only the cold is so bad--it's terrible coming home at night,
Jurgis. Sometimes they can't come home at all--I'm going to try to find
them tonight and sleep where they do, it's so late and it's such a long
ways home. I've had to walk, and I didn't know where it was--I don't
know how to get back, either. Only mother said I must come, because you
would want to know, and maybe somebody would help your family when they
had put you in jail so you couldn't work. And I walked all day to get
here--and I only had a piece of bread for breakfast, Jurgis. Mother
hasn't any work either, because the sausage department is shut down;
and she goes and begs at houses with a basket, and people give her food.
Only she didn't get much yesterday; it was too cold for her fingers, and
today she was crying--"

So little Stanislovas went on, sobbing as he talked; and Jurgis stood,
gripping the table tightly, saying not a word, but feeling that his
head would burst; it was like having weights piled upon him, one after
another, crushing the life out of him. He struggled and fought within
himself--as if in some terrible nightmare, in which a man suffers an
agony, and cannot lift his hand, nor cry out, but feels that he is going
mad, that his brain is on fire--

Just when it seemed to him that another turn of the screw would kill
him, little Stanislovas stopped. "You cannot help us?" he said weakly.

Jurgis shook his head.

"They won't give you anything here?"

He shook it again.

"When are you coming out?"

"Three weeks yet," Jurgis answered.

And the boy gazed around him uncertainly. "Then I might as well go," he
said.

Jurgis nodded. Then, suddenly recollecting, he put his hand into his
pocket and drew it out, shaking. "Here," he said, holding out the
fourteen cents. "Take this to them."

And Stanislovas took it, and after a little more hesitation, started
for the door. "Good-by, Jurgis," he said, and the other noticed that he
walked unsteadily as he passed out of sight.

For a minute or so Jurgis stood clinging to his chair, reeling and
swaying; then the keeper touched him on the arm, and he turned and went
back to breaking stone.



Chapter 18


Jurgis did not get out of the Bridewell quite as soon as he had
expected. To his sentence there were added "court costs" of a dollar and
a half--he was supposed to pay for the trouble of putting him in jail,
and not having the money, was obliged to work it off by three days
more of toil. Nobody had taken the trouble to tell him this--only
after counting the days and looking forward to the end in an agony of
impatience, when the hour came that he expected to be free he found
himself still set at the stone heap, and laughed at when he ventured to
protest. Then he concluded he must have counted wrong; but as another
day passed, he gave up all hope--and was sunk in the depths of despair,
when one morning after breakfast a keeper came to him with the word that
his time was up at last. So he doffed his prison garb, and put on his
old fertilizer clothing, and heard the door of the prison clang behind
him.

He stood upon the steps, bewildered; he could hardly believe that it was
true,--that the sky was above him again and the open street before him;
that he was a free man. But then the cold began to strike through his
clothes, and he started quickly away.

There had been a heavy snow, and now a thaw had set in; fine sleety rain
was falling, driven by a wind that pierced Jurgis to the bone. He had
not stopped for his-overcoat when he set out to "do up" Connor, and so
his rides in the patrol wagons had been cruel experiences; his clothing
was old and worn thin, and it never had been very warm. Now as he
trudged on the rain soon wet it through; there were six inches of watery
slush on the sidewalks, so that his feet would soon have been soaked,
even had there been no holes in his shoes.

Jurgis had had enough to eat in the jail, and the work had been the
least trying of any that he had done since he came to Chicago; but even
so, he had not grown strong--the fear and grief that had preyed upon his
mind had worn him thin. Now he shivered and shrunk from the rain,
hiding his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders together.
The Bridewell grounds were on the outskirts of the city and the country
around them was unsettled and wild--on one side was the big drainage
canal, and on the other a maze of railroad tracks, and so the wind had
full sweep.