The Jungle
poisoning, and their marriage had been put off forever. The door of the
room was in the rear, reached by a narrow court, and Jurgis saw a light
in the window and heard something frying as he passed; he knocked, half
expecting that Ona would answer.
Instead there was one of Jadvyga’s little sisters, who gazed at him
through a crack in the door. “Where’s Ona?” he demanded; and the child
looked at him in perplexity. “Ona?” she said.
“Yes,” said Jurgis, “isn’t she here?”
“No,” said the child, and Jurgis gave a start. A moment later came
Jadvyga, peering over the child’s head. When she saw who it was, she
slid around out of sight, for she was not quite dressed. Jurgis must
excuse her, she began, her mother was very ill—
“Ona isn’t here?” Jurgis demanded, too alarmed to wait for her to
finish.
“Why, no,” said Jadvyga. “What made you think she would be here? Had
she said she was coming?”
“No,” he answered. “But she hasn’t come home—and I thought she would be
here the same as before.”
“As before?” echoed Jadvyga, in perplexity.
“The time she spent the night here,” said Jurgis.
“There must be some mistake,” she answered, quickly. “Ona has never
spent the night here.”
He was only half able to realize the words. “Why—why—” he exclaimed.
“Two weeks ago. Jadvyga! She told me so the night it snowed, and she
could not get home.”
“There must be some mistake,” declared the girl, again; “she didn’t
come here.”
He steadied himself by the door-sill; and Jadvyga in her anxiety—for
she was fond of Ona—opened the door wide, holding her jacket across her
throat. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand her?” she cried. “She
must have meant somewhere else. She—”
“She said here,” insisted Jurgis. “She told me all about you, and how
you were, and what you said. Are you sure? You haven’t forgotten? You
weren’t away?”
“No, no!” she exclaimed—and then came a peevish voice—“Jadvyga, you are
giving the baby a cold. Shut the door!” Jurgis stood for half a minute
more, stammering his perplexity through an eighth of an inch of crack;
and then, as there was really nothing more to be said, he excused
himself and went away.
He walked on half dazed, without knowing where he went. Ona had
deceived him! She had lied to him! And what could it mean—where had she
been? Where was she now? He could hardly grasp the thing—much less try
to solve it; but a hundred wild surmises came to him, a sense of
impending calamity overwhelmed him.
Because there was nothing else to do, he went back to the time office
to watch again. He waited until nearly an hour after seven, and then
went to the room where Ona worked to make inquiries of Ona’s
“forelady.” The “forelady,” he found, had not yet come; all the lines
of cars that came from downtown were stalled—there had been an accident
in the powerhouse, and no cars had been running since last night.
Meantime, however, the ham-wrappers were working away, with some one
else in charge of them. The girl who answered Jurgis was busy, and as
she talked she looked to see if she were being watched. Then a man came
up, wheeling a truck; he knew Jurgis for Ona’s husband, and was curious
about the mystery.
“Maybe the cars had something to do with it,” he suggested—“maybe she
had gone down-town.”
“No,” said Jurgis, “she never went down-town.”
“Perhaps not,” said the man. Jurgis thought he saw him exchange a swift
glance with the girl as he spoke, and he demanded quickly. “What do you
know about it?”
But the man had seen that the boss was watching him; he started on
again, pushing his truck. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said,
over his shoulder. “How should I know where your wife goes?”
Then Jurgis went out again and paced up and down before the building.
All the morning he stayed there, with no thought of his work. About
noon he went to the police station to make inquiries, and then came
back again for another anxious vigil. Finally, toward the middle of the
afternoon, he set out for home once more.
He was walking out Ashland Avenue. The streetcars had begun running
again, and several passed him, packed to the steps with people. The
sight of them set Jurgis to thinking again of the man’s sarcastic
remark; and half involuntarily he found himself watching the cars—with
the result that he gave a sudden startled exclamation, and stopped
short in his tracks.
Then he broke into a run. For a whole block he tore after the car, only
a little ways behind. That rusty black hat with the drooping red
flower, it might not be Ona’s, but there was very little likelihood of
it. He would know for certain very soon, for she would get out two
blocks ahead. He slowed down, and let the car go on.
She got out: and as soon as she was out of sight on the side street
Jurgis broke into a run. Suspicion was rife in him now, and he was not
ashamed to shadow her: he saw her turn the corner near their home, and
then he ran again, and saw her as she went up the porch steps of the
house. After that he turned back, and for five minutes paced up and
down, his hands clenched tightly and his lips set, his mind in a
turmoil. Then he went home and entered.
As he opened the door, he saw Elzbieta, who had also been looking for
Ona, and had come home again. She was now on tiptoe, and had a finger
on her lips. Jurgis waited until she was close to him.
“Don’t make any noise,” she whispered, hurriedly.
“What’s the matter’?” he asked. “Ona is asleep,” she panted. “She’s
been very ill. I’m afraid her mind’s been wandering, Jurgis. She was
lost on the street all night, and I’ve only just succeeded in getting
her quiet.”
“When did she come in?” he asked.
“Soon after you left this morning,” said Elzbieta.
“And has she been out since?”
“No, of course not. She’s so weak, Jurgis, she—”
And he set his teeth hard together. “You are lying to me,” he said.
Elzbieta started, and turned pale. “Why!” she gasped. “What do you
mean?”
But Jurgis did not answer. He pushed her aside, and strode to the
bedroom door and opened it.
Ona was sitting on the bed. She turned a startled look upon him as he
entered. He closed the door in Elzbieta’s face, and went toward his
wife. “Where have you been?” he demanded.
She had her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and he saw that her face
was as white as paper, and drawn with pain. She gasped once or twice as
she tried to answer him, and then began, speaking low, and swiftly.
“Jurgis, I—I think I have been out of my mind. I started to come last
night, and I could not find the way. I walked—I walked all night, I
think, and—and I only got home—this morning.”
“You needed a rest,” he said, in a hard tone. “Why did you go out
again?”
He was looking her fairly in the face, and he could read the sudden
fear and wild uncertainty that leaped into her eyes. “I—I had to go
to—to the store,” she gasped, almost in a whisper, “I had to go—”
“You are lying to me,” said Jurgis. Then he clenched his hands and took
a step toward her. “Why do you lie to me?” he cried, fiercely. “What
are you doing that you have to lie to me?”
“Jurgis!” she exclaimed, starting up in fright. “Oh, Jurgis, how can
you?”
“You have lied to me, I say!” he cried. “You told me you had been to
Jadvyga’s house that other night, and you hadn’t. You had been where
you were last night—somewheres downtown, for I saw you get off the car.
Where were you?”
It was as if he had struck a knife into her. She seemed to go all to
pieces. For half a second she stood, reeling and swaying, staring at
him with horror in her eyes; then, with a cry of anguish, she tottered
forward, stretching out her arms to him. But he stepped aside,
deliberately, and let her fall. She caught herself at the side of the
bed, and then sank down, burying her face in her hands and bursting
into frantic weeping.
There came one of those hysterical crises that had so often dismayed
him. Ona sobbed and wept, her fear and anguish building themselves up
into long climaxes. Furious gusts of emotion would come sweeping over
her, shaking her as the tempest shakes the trees upon the hills; all
her frame would quiver and throb with them—it was as if some dreadful
thing rose up within her and took possession of her, torturing her,
tearing her. This thing had been wont to set Jurgis quite beside
himself; but now he stood with his lips set tightly and his hands
clenched—she might weep till she killed herself, but she should not
move him this time—not an inch, not an inch. Because the sounds she
made set his blood to running cold and his lips to quivering in spite
of himself, he was glad of the diversion when Teta Elzbieta, pale with
fright, opened the door and rushed in; yet he turned upon her with an
oath. “Go out!” he cried, “go out!” And then, as she stood hesitating,
about to speak, he seized her by the arm, and half flung her from the
room, slamming the door and barring it with a table. Then he turned
again and faced Ona, crying—“Now, answer me!”
Yet she did not hear him—she was still in the grip of the fiend. Jurgis
could see her outstretched hands, shaking and twitching, roaming here
and there over the bed at will, like living things; he could see
convulsive shudderings start in her body and run through her limbs. She
was sobbing and choking—it was as if there were too many sounds for one
throat, they came chasing each other, like waves upon the sea. Then her
voice would begin to rise into screams, louder and louder until it
broke in wild, horrible peals of laughter. Jurgis bore it until he
could bear it no longer, and then he sprang at her, seizing her by the
shoulders and shaking her, shouting into her ear: “Stop it, I say! Stop
it!”
She looked up at him, out of her agony; then she fell forward at his
feet. She caught them in her hands, in spite of his efforts to step
aside, and with her face upon the floor lay writhing. It made a choking
in Jurgis’ throat to hear her, and he cried again, more savagely than
before: “Stop it, I say!”
This time she heeded him, and caught her breath and lay silent, save
for the gasping sobs that wrenched all her frame. For a long minute she
lay there, perfectly motionless, until a cold fear seized her husband,
thinking that she was dying. Suddenly, however, he heard her voice,
faintly: “Jurgis! Jurgis!”
“What is it?” he said.
He had to bend down to her, she was so weak. She was pleading with him,
in broken phrases, painfully uttered: “Have faith in me! Believe me!”
“Believe what?” he cried.
“Believe that I—that I know best—that I love you! And do not ask
me—what you did. Oh, Jurgis, please, please! It is for the best—it is—”
He started to speak again, but she rushed on frantically, heading him
off. “If you will only do it! If you will only—only believe me! It
wasn’t my fault—I couldn’t help it—it will be all right—it is
nothing—it is no harm. Oh, Jurgis—please, please!”
She had hold of him, and was trying to raise herself to look at him; he
could feel the palsied shaking of her hands and the heaving of the
bosom she pressed against him. She managed to catch one of his hands
and gripped it convulsively, drawing it to her face, and bathing it in
her tears. “Oh, believe me, believe me!” she wailed again; and he
shouted in fury, “I will not!”
But still she clung to him, wailing aloud in her despair: “Oh, Jurgis,
think what you are doing! It will ruin us—it will ruin us! Oh, no, you
must not do it! No, don’t, don’t do it. You must not do it! It will
drive me mad—it will kill me—no, no, Jurgis, I am crazy—it is nothing.
You do not really need to know. We can be happy—we can love each other
just the same. Oh, please, please, believe me!”
Her words fairly drove him wild. He tore his hands loose, and flung her
off. “Answer me,” he cried. “God damn it, I say—answer me!”