Chapter VI

Jurgis and Ona were very much in love; they had
waited a long time -- it was now well into the second
year, and Jurgis judged everything by the criterion of its
helping or hindering their union. All his thoughts were
there; he accepted the family because it was a part of
Ona, and he was interested in the house because it was to
be Ona's home. Even the tricks and cruelties he saw at
Durham's had little meaning for him just then, save as
they might happen to affect his future with Ona.

The marriage would have been at once, if they had had
their way; but this would mean that they would have to
do without any wedding-feast, and when they suggested
this they came into conflict with the old people. To Teta
Elzbieta especially the very suggestion was an affliction.
What! she would cry. To be married on the roadside
like a parcel of beggars! No! No! -- Elzbieta had some
traditions behind her; she had been a person of impor~
tance in her girlhood -- had lived on a big estate and had
servants, and might have married well and been a lady,
but for the fact that there had been nine daughters and
no sons in the family. Even so, however, she knew what
was decent, and clung to her traditions with desperation.
They were not going to lose all caste, even if they had
come to be unskilled laborers in Packingtown; and that
Ona had even talked of omitting a _veselija_ was enough to
keep her stepmother lying awake all night. It was in
vain for them to say that they had so few friends; they
were bound to have friends in time, and then the friends
would talk about it. They must not give up what was
right for a little money -- if they did, the money would
never do them any good, they could depend upon that.

[[75]]

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v?