"Vere is de dollar und a quarter?" persisted Madame
Haupt, relentlessly.

Jurgis put the money on the table and the woman
counted it and stowed it away. Then she wiped her
greasy hands again and proceeded to get ready, complain~
ing all the time; she was so fat that it was painful for her
to move, and she grunted and gasped at every step. She
took off her wrapper without even taking the trouble to
turn her back to Jurgis, and put on her corsets and dress.
Then there was a black bonnet which had to be adjusted
carefully, and an umbrella which was mislaid, and a bag
full of necessaries which had to be collected from here and
there -- the man being nearly crazy with anxiety in the
meantime. When they were on the street he kept about
four paces ahead of her, turning now and then, as if he
could hurry her on by the force of his desire. But
Madame Haupt could only go so far at a step, and it took
all her attention to get the needed breath for that.

They came at last to the house, and to the group of
frightened women in the kitchen. It was not over yet,
Jurgis learned -- he heard Ona crying still; and mean~
time Madame Haupt removed her bonnet and laid it on
the mantelpiece, and got out of her bag, first an old dress
and then a saucer of goose-grease, which she proceeded to
rub upon her hands. The more cases this goose-grease is
used in, the better luck it brings to the midwife, and so she
keeps it upon her kitchen mantelpiece or stowed away in
a cupboard with her dirty clothes, for months, and some~
times even for years.

Then they escorted her to the ladder, and Jurgis heard
her give an exclamation of dismay. "Gott in Himmel,
vot for haf you brought me to a place like dis? I could
not climb up dot ladder. I could not git troo a trap door!
I vill not try it -- vy, I might kill myself already. Vot
sort of a place is dot for a woman to bear a child in
-- up in a garret, mit only a ladder to it? You ought
to be ashamed of yourselves!" Jurgis stood in the door~
way and listened to her scolding, half drowning out the
horrible moans and screams of Ona.

[[221]]

p220 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p221w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p222

v?