Chapter 16

by Upton Sinclair

　　When Jurgis got up again he went quietly enough. He was exhaustedand 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 hisway to his cell a burly policeman cursed him because he started downthe 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 yearsand a half in Packingtown, and he knew what the police were. It wasas much as a man's very life was worth to anger them, here in theirinmost lair; like as not a dozen would pile on to him at once, and poundhis face into a pulp. It would be nothing unusual if he got his skullcracked in the melee--in which case they would report that he had beendrunk and had fallen down, and there would be no one to know thedifference or to care. So a barred door clanged upon Jurgis and he sat down upon a bench andburied his face in his hands. He was alone; he had the afternoon andall of the night to himself. At first he was like a wild beast that has glutted itself; he was ina dull stupor of satisfaction. He had done up the scoundrel prettywell--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 stilltingling 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 nearlykilled 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 helpto feed her and her child; she would certainly lose her place, whilehe--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 findinginstead, for the first time in his life, that his brain was too muchfor him. In the cell next to him was a drunken wife-beater and inthe one beyond a yelling maniac. At midnight they opened the stationhouse to the homeless wanderers who were crowded about the door,shivering in the winter blast, and they thronged into the corridoroutside of the cells. Some of them stretched themselves out on thebare stone floor and fell to snoring, others sat up, laughing andtalking, cursing and quarreling. The air was fetid with their breath,yet in spite of this some of them smelled Jurgis and called down thetorments 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"--beinghunks of dry bread on a tin plate, and coffee, called "dope" becauseit 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 morningthe 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 andcruel, and tore out the strings of his heart.It was not for himself that he suffered--what did a man who workedin Durham's fertilizer mill care about anything that the world mightdo to him! What was any tyranny of prison compared with the tyrannyof 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 drovehim mad; he stretched out his arms to heaven, crying out for deliverancefrom it--and there was no deliverance, there was no power even inheaven 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 haveforeseen it, if he had not been a fool! He smote his hands uponhis forehead, cursing himself because he had ever allowed Ona to workwhere she had, because he had not stood between her and a fate whichevery one knew to be so common. He should have taken her away, even ifit were to lie down and die of starvation in the gutters of Chicago'sstreets! 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 himevery time he tried to think of it. No, there was no bearing theload of it, there was no living under it. There would be none forher--he knew that he might pardon her, might plead with her on hisknees, but she would never look him in the face again, she wouldnever be his wife again. The shame of it would kill her--therecould 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 outat the vision of Ona starving. They had put him in jail, and theywould keep him here a long time, years maybe. And Ona would surelynot go to work again, broken and crushed as she was. And Elzbietaand Marija, too, might lose their places--if that hell fiend Connorchose 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 leftschool again, they could surely not pay all the bills without himand Ona. They had only a few dollars now--they had just paid the rentof 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 payit then--and they would lose the house, after all their long,heartbreaking struggle. Three times now the agent had warned himthat he would not tolerate another delay. Perhaps it was very baseof Jurgis to be thinking about the house when he had the otherunspeakable thing to fill his mind; yet, how much he had sufferedfor this house, how much they had all of them suffered! It was theirone hope of respite, as long as they lived; they had put all theirmoney into it--and they were working people, poor people, whose moneywas 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 aboutthis, and he saw the thing in its details; he lived it all, as if hewere there. They would sell their furniture, and then run into debtat the stores, and then be refused credit; they would borrow a littlefrom the Szedvilases, whose delicatessen store was tottering on thebrink of ruin; the neighbors would come and help them a little--poor,sick Jadvyga would bring a few spare pennies, as she always did whenpeople were starving, and Tamoszius Kuszleika would bring them theproceeds of a night's fiddling. So they would struggle to hang onuntil 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 beallowed to see him--or was it to be part of his punishment to be keptin ignorance about their fate?His mind would hang upon the worst possibilities; he saw Ona ill andtortured, Marija out of her place, little Stanislovas unable to getto work for the snow, the whole family turned out on the street.God Almighty! would they actually let them lie down in the streetand die? Would there be no help even then--would they wander aboutin the snow till they froze? Jurgis had never seen any dead bodiesin the streets, but he had seen people evicted and disappear, no oneknew where; and though the city had a relief bureau, though therewas a charity organization society in the stockyards district, in allhis life there he had never heard of either of them. They did notadvertise their activities, having more calls than they could attendto without that.--So on until morning. Then he had another ride in the patrolwagon, along with the drunken wife-beater and the maniac, several"plain drunks" and "saloon fighters," a burglar, and two men who hadbeen arrested for stealing meat from the packing houses. Along withthem he was driven into a large, white-walled room, stale-smellingand crowded. In front, upon a raised platform behind a rail, sat astout, florid-faced personage, with a nose broken out in purple blotches.Our friend realized vaguely that he was about to be tried. He wonderedwhat for--whether or not his victim might be dead, and if so, whatthey 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 thatthe loud-voiced man upon the bench might be the notorious JusticeCallahan, about whom the people of Packingtown spoke with bated breath."Pat" Callahan--"Growler" Pat, as he had been known before heascended the bench--had begun life as a butcher boy and a bruiserof local reputation; he had gone into politics almost as soon ashe had learned to talk, and had held two offices at once beforehe was old enough to vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahanwas the first finger of the unseen hand whereby the packers helddown the people of the district. No politician in Chicago rankedhigher in their confidence; he had been at it a long time--had beenthe business agent in the city council of old Durham, the self-mademerchant, way back in the early days, when the whole city of Chicagohad been up at auction. "Growler" Pat had given up holding cityoffices very early in his career--caring only for party power,and giving the rest of his time to superintending his dives andbrothels. Of late years, however, since his children were growing up,he had begun to value respectability, and had had himself made amagistrate; a position for which he was admirably fitted, becauseof his strong conservatism and his contempt for "foreigners."Jurgis sat gazing about the room for an hour or two; he was inhopes that some one of the family would come, but in this he wasdisappointed. Finally, he was led before the bar, and a lawyer forthe company appeared against him. Connor was under the doctor's care,the lawyer explained briefly, and if his Honor would hold the prisonerfor 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 thena clerk who stood at Jurgis' elbow explained to him what this meant.The latter shook his head, and before he realized what had happenedthe policemen were leading him away again. They took him to a roomwhere other prisoners were waiting and here he stayed until courtadjourned, when he had another long and bitterly cold ride in apatrol wagon to the county jail, which is on the north side ofthe city, and nine or ten miles from the stockyards.Here they searched Jurgis, leaving him only his money, whichconsisted of fifteen cents. Then they led him to a room and toldhim to strip for a bath; after which he had to walk down a longgallery, past the grated cell doors of the inmates of the jail.This was a great event to the latter--the daily review of the newarrivals, all stark naked, and many and diverting were the comments.Jurgis was required to stay in the bath longer than any one, in thevain 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 oneleft over, and he was the one.The cells were in tiers, opening upon galleries. His cell was aboutfive feet by seven in size, with a stone floor and a heavy woodenbench built into it. There was no window--the only light came fromwindows near the roof at one end of the court outside. There weretwo bunks, one above the other, each with a straw mattress and a pairof gray blankets--the latter stiff as boards with filth, and alivewith fleas, bedbugs, and lice. When Jurgis lifted up the mattresshe discovered beneath it a layer of scurrying roaches, almost asbadly frightened as himself.Here they brought him more "duffers and dope," with the addition ofa bowl of soup. Many of the prisoners had their meals brought infrom a restaurant, but Jurgis had no money for that. Some had booksto read and cards to play, with candles to burn by night, but Jurgiswas all alone in darkness and silence. He could not sleep again;there was the same maddening procession of thoughts that lashed himlike whips upon his naked back. When night fell he was pacing upand down his cell like a wild beast that breaks its teeth upon thebars of its cage. Now and then in his frenzy he would fling himselfagainst the walls of the place, beating his hands upon them. They cuthim and bruised him--they were cold and merciless as the men who hadbuilt them.In the distance there was a church-tower bell that tolled the hoursone by one. When it came to midnight Jurgis was lying upon the floorwith his head in his arms, listening. Instead of falling silent atthe 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 firein 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 minuteJurgis lay lost in wonder, before, all at once, the meaning of itbroke over him--that this was Christmas Eve!Christmas Eve--he had forgotten it entirely! There was a breakingof floodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing intohis mind. In far Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas; and itcame 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 deepblack forest, where the snow fell all day and all night and buriedthem 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 thewonder-bearing vision of the Christ Child. And even in Packingtownthey had not forgotten it--some gleam of it had never failed to breaktheir darkness. Last Christmas Eve and all Christmas Day Jurgishad toiled on the killing beds, and Ona at wrapping hams, and stillthey had found strength enough to take the children for a walk uponthe avenue, to see the store windows all decorated with Christmas treesand ablaze with electric lights. In one window there would be livegeese, in another marvels in sugar--pink and white canes big enoughfor ogres, and cakes with cherubs upon them; in a third there would berows of fat yellow turkeys, decorated with rosettes, and rabbits andsquirrels hanging; in a fourth would be a fairyland of toys--lovelydolls 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 theirChristmas marketing to do--a roast of pork and a cabbage and somerye bread, and a pair of mittens for Ona, and a rubber doll thatsqueaked, and a little green cornucopia full of candy to be hungfrom 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 hadnot been able to kill the thought of Christmas in them; there wasa choking in Jurgis' throat as he recalled that the very night Onahad not come home Teta Elzbieta had taken him aside and shown himan old valentine that she had picked up in a paper store for threecents--dingy and shopworn, but with bright colors, and figures ofangels and doves. She had wiped all the specks off this, and wasgoing to set it on the mantel, where the children could see it.Great sobs shook Jurgis at this memory--they would spend theirChristmas in misery and despair, with him in prison and Ona illand their home in desolation. Ah, it was too cruel! Why at leasthad 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 notmeant for him, they were simply not counting him at all. He was ofno consequence--he was flung aside, like a bit of trash, the carcassof some animal. It was horrible, horrible! His wife might be dying,his baby might be starving, his whole family might be perishing inthe 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 thecold could not eat through his bones; they brought him food anddrink--why, in the name of heaven, if they must punish him, did theynot put his family in jail and leave him outside--why could they findno better way to punish him than to leave three weak women and sixhelpless children to starve and freeze? That was their law, that wastheir justice!Jurgis stood upright; trembling with passion, his hands clenched andhis arms upraised, his whole soul ablaze with hatred and defiance.Ten thousand curses upon them and their law! Their justice--it wasa lie, it was a lie, a hideous, brutal lie, a thing too black andhateful for any world but a world of nightmares. It was a sham anda loathsome mockery. There was no justice, there was no right,anywhere in it--it was only force, it was tyranny, the will andthe power, reckless and unrestrained! They had ground him beneaththeir heel, they had devoured all his substance; they had murderedhis old father, they had broken and wrecked his wife, they had crushedand cowed his whole family; and now they were through with him,they had no further use for him--and because he had interferedwith them, had gotten in their way, this was what they had doneto him! They had put him behind bars, as if he had been a wildbeast, a thing without sense or reason, without rights, withoutaffections, without feelings. Nay, they would not even have treateda beast as they had treated him! Would any man in his senses havetrapped a wild thing in its lair, and left its young behind to die?These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in them wasthe 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 brutalwill 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 allits powers, had declared itself his foe. And every hour his soul grewblacker, 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 ManThat 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 gaolIs that the wall is strong.And they do well to hide their hell,For in it things are doneThat Son of God nor son of ManEver should look upon!