covered with slush. Not even on the river bank was the
snow white -- the rain which fell was a diluted solution
of smoke, and Jurgis's hands and face were streaked with
black. Then he came into the business part of the city,
where the streets were sewers of inky blackness, with
horses slipping and plunging, and women and children
flying across in panic-stricken droves. These streets
were huge canyons formed by towering black buildings,
echoing with the clang of car-gongs and the shouts of
drivers; the people who swarmed in them were as busy
as ants -- all hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to
look at anything nor at each other. The solitary tramp~
ish-looking foreigner, with water-soaked clothing and
haggard face and anxious eyes, was as much alone as he
hurried past them, as much unheeded and as lost, as if he
had been a thousand miles deep in a wilderness.

A policeman gave him his direction and told him that
he had five miles to go. He came again to the slum-dis~
tricts, to avenues of saloons and cheap stores, with long
dingy red factory buildings, and coal-yards and railroad-
tracks; and then Jurgis lifted up his head and began to
sniff the air like a startled animal -- scenting the far-off
odor of home. It was late afternoon then, and he was
hungry, but the dinner invitations hung out of the saloons
were not for him.

So he came at last to the stockyards, to the black vol~
canoes of smoke and the lowing cattle and the stench.
Then, seeing a crowded car, his impatience got the better
of him and he jumped aboard, hiding behind another man,
unnoticed by the conductor. In ten minutes more he had
reached his street, and home.

He was half running as he came round the corner.
There was the house, at any rate -- and then suddenly he
stopped and stared. What was the matter with the house?

Jurgis looked twice, bewildered; then he glanced at the
house next door and at the one beyond -- then at the sa~
loon on the corner. Yes, it was the right place, quite
certainly -- he had not made any mistake. But the house
-- the house was a different color!

[[208]]

p207 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p208w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p209

v?