and that is the fault of Marija Berczynskas. Marija has
apparently concluded about two hours ago that if the altar
in the corner, with the deity in soiled white, be not the
true home of the muses, it is, at any rate, the nearest sub~
stitute on earth attainable. And Marija is just fighting
drunk when there come to her ears the facts about the
villains who have not paid that night. Marija goes on
the warpath straight off, without even the preliminary of
a good cursing, and when she is pulled off it is with the
coat collars of two villains in her hands. Fortunately, the
policeman is disposed to be reasonable, and so it is not
Marija who is flung out of the place.

All this interrupts the music for not more than a minute
or two. Then again the merciless tune begins -- the tune
that has been played for the last half-hour without one
single change. It is an American tune this time, one
which they have picked up on the streets; all seem to
know the words of it -- or, at any rate, the first line of it,
which they hum to themselves, over and over again with~
out rest: "In the good old summer time -- in the good
old summer time! In the good old summer time -- in the
good old summer time!" There seems to be something
hypnotic about this, with its endlessly-recurring domi~
nant. It has put a stupor upon everyone who hears it,
as well as upon the men who are playing it. No one can
get away from it, or even think of getting away from it;
it is three o'clock in the morning, and they have danced
out all their joy, and danced out all their strength, and all
the strength that unlimited drink can lend them -- and
still there is no one among them who has the power to
think of stopping. Promptly at seven o'clock this same
Monday morning they will every one of them have to be
in their places at Durham's or Brown's or Jones's, each in
his working clothes. If one of them be a minute late, he
will be docked an hour's pay, and if he be many minutes
late, he will be apt to find his brass check turned to the
wall, which will send him out to join the hungry mob that
waits every morning at the gates of the packing-houses,
from six o'clock until nearly half-past eight. There is no

[[21]]

p020 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p021w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p022

v?