promiscuous dances once more begin. It is now after mid
night, however, and things are not as they were before.
The dancers are dull and heavy -- most of them have been
drinking hard, and have long ago passed the stage of ex~
hilaration. They dance in monotonous measure, round
after round, hour after hour, with eyes fixed upon vacancy,
as if they were only half conscious, in a constantly growing
stupor. The men grasp the women very tightly, but there
will be half an hour together when neither will see the
other's face. Some couples do not care to dance, and have
retired to the corners, where they sit with their arms en~
laced. Others, who have been drinking still more, wander
about the room, bumping into everything; some are in
groups of two or three, singing, each group its own song.
As time goes on there is a variety of drunkenness, among
the younger men especially. Some stagger about in each
other's arms, whispering maudlin words -- others start quar~
rels upon the slightest pretext, and come to blows and have
to be pulled apart. Now the fat policeman wakens defi~
nitely, and feels of his club to see that it is ready for
business. He has to be prompt -- for these two-o'clock-
in-the-morning fights, if they once get out of hand, are
like a forest fire, and may mean the whole reserves at
the station. The thing to do is to crack every fighting
head that you see, before there are so many fighting
heads that you cannot crack any of them. There is but
scant account kept of cracked heads in back of the yards,
for men who have to crack the heads of animals all day
seem to get into the habit, and to practice on their friends,
and even on their families, between times. This makes it
a cause for congratulation that by modern methods a very
few men can do the painfully necessary work of head-
cracking for the whole of the cultured world.

There is no fight that night -- perhaps because Jurgis,
too, is watchful -- even more so than the policeman.
Jurgis has drunk a great deal, as any one naturally would
on an occasion when it all has to be paid for, whether it is
drunk or not; but he is a very steady man, and does not
easily lose his temper. Only once there is a tight shave --

[[20]]

p019 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p020w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p021

v?