The Jungle
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 XVII
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 stared 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 safe-breaking—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 “the stinker.” This was cruel, but they meant no
harm by it, and he took it with a good-natured 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