The Jungle
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!”