often to ride to her work, in spite of the expense; she was
getting paler every day, and sometimes, in spite of her
good resolutions, it pained her that Jurgis did not notice
it. She wondered if he cared for her as much as ever, if
all this misery was not wearing out his love. She had
to be away from him all the time, and bear her own
troubles while he was bearing his; and then, when she
came home, she was so worn out; and whenever they
talked they had only their worries to talk of -- truly it
was hard, in such a life, to keep any sentiment alive. The
woe of this would flame up in Ona sometimes -- at night
she would suddenly clasp her big husband in her arms and
break into passionate weeping, demanding to know if he
really loved her. Poor Jurgis, who had in truth grown
more matter-of-fact, under the endless pressure of penury,
would not know what to make of these things, and could
only try to recollect when he had last been cross; and so
Ona would have to forgive him and sob herself to sleep.

The latter part of April Jurgis went to see the doctor,
and was given a bandage to lace about his ankle, and told
that he might go back to work. It needed more than the
permission of the doctor, however, for when he showed up
on the killing-floor of Brown's, he was told by the foreman
that it had not been possible to keep his job for him.
Jurgis knew that this meant simply that the foreman had
found someone else to do the work as well and did not want
to bother to make a change. He stood in the doorway,
looking mournfully on, seeing his friends and companions
at work, and feeling like an outcast. Then he went out
and took his place with the mob of the unemployed.

This time, however, Jurgis did not have the same fine con~
fidence, nor the same reason for it. He was no longer the
finest-looking man in the throng, and the bosses no longer
made for him; he was thin and haggard, and his clothes
were seedy, and he looked miserable. And there were
hundreds who looked and felt just like him, and who had
been wandering about Packingtown for months begging
for work. This was a critical time in Jurgis's life, and if
he had been a weaker man he would have gone the way

[[146]]

p145 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p146w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p147

v?