The Jungle
She sank down upon the floor, beginning to cry again. It was like
listening to the moan of a damned soul, and Jurgis could not stand it.
He smote his fist upon the table by his side, and shouted again at her,
“Answer me!”
She began to scream aloud, her voice like the voice of some wild beast:
“Ah! Ah! I can’t! I can’t do it!”
“Why can’t you do it?” he shouted.
“I don’t know how!”
He sprang and caught her by the arm, lifting her up, and glaring into
her face. “Tell me where you were last night!” he panted. “Quick, out
with it!”
Then she began to whisper, one word at a time: “I—was in—a
house—downtown—”
“What house? What do you mean?”
She tried to hide her eyes away, but he held her. “Miss Henderson’s
house,” she gasped. He did not understand at first. “Miss Henderson’s
house,” he echoed. And then suddenly, as in an explosion, the horrible
truth burst over him, and he reeled and staggered back with a scream.
He caught himself against the wall, and put his hand to his forehead,
staring about him, and whispering, “Jesus! Jesus!”
An instant later he leaped at her, as she lay groveling at his feet. He
seized her by the throat. “Tell me!” he gasped, hoarsely. “Quick! Who
took you to that place?”
She tried to get away, making him furious; he thought it was fear, of
the pain of his clutch—he did not understand that it was the agony of
her shame. Still she answered him, “Connor.”
“Connor,” he gasped. “Who is Connor?”
“The boss,” she answered. “The man—”
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 a-tremble, 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 XVI
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 mêlée—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 a-quiver 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