ing struggle. Three times now the agent had warned him
that he would not tolerate another delay. Perhaps it was
very base of Jurgis to be thinking about the house when
he had the other unspeakable thing to fill his mind; yet,
how much he had suffered for this house, how much they
had all of them suffered! It was their one hope of res~
pite, as long as they lived; they had put all their money
into it -- and they were working-people, poor people, whose
money was 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 about this, and
he saw the thing in its details; he lived it all, as if he
were there. They would sell their furniture, and then
run into debt at the stores, and then be refused credit;
they would borrow a little from the Szedvilases, whose deli~
catessen store was tottering on the brink of ruin; the
neighbors would come and help them a little -- poor, sick
Jadvyga would bring a few spare pennies, as she always
did when people were starving, and Tamoszius Kuszleika
would bring them the proceeds of a night's fiddling.
So they would struggle to hang on until 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 be
allowed to see him -- or was it to be part of his punish~
ment to be kept in ignorance about their fate?

His mind would hang upon the worst possibilities; he
saw Ona ill and tortured, Marija out of her place, little
Stanislovas unable to get to work for the snow, the whole
family turned out on the street. God Almighty! would
they actually let them lie down in the street and die?
Would there be no help even then -- would they wander
about in the snow till they froze? Jurgis had never seen
any dead bodies in the streets, but he had seen people
evicted and disappear, no one knew where; and though
the city had a relief-bureau, though there was a charity

[[186]]

p185 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p186w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p187

v?