Chapter XX

But a big man cannot stay drunk very long on three
dollars. That was Sunday morning, and Monday night
Jurgis came home, sober and sick, realizing that he had
spent every cent the family owned, and had not bought a
single instant's forgetfulness with it.

Ona was not yet buried; but the police had been noti~
fied, and on the morrow they would put the body in a pine
coffin and take it to the potter's field. Elzbieta was out
begging now, a few pennies from each of the neighbors, to
get enough to pay for a mass for her; and the children
were upstairs starving to death, while he, good-for-nothing
rascal, had been spending their money on drink. So spoke
Aniele, scornfully, and when he started toward the fire
she added the information that her kitchen was no longer
for him to fill with his phosphate stinks. She had crowded
all her boarders into one room on Ona's account, but now
he could go up in the garret where he belonged -- and not
there much longer, either, if he did not pay her some
rent.

Jurgis went without a word, and, stepping over half a
dozen sleeping boarders in the next room, ascended the
ladder. It was dark up above; they could not afford any
light; also it was nearly as cold as outdoors. In a corner,
as far away from the corpse as possible, sat Marija, holding
little Antanas in her one good arm and trying to soothe
him to sleep. In another corner crouched poor little
Juozapas, wailing because he had had nothing to eat all
day. Marija said not a word to Jurgis; he crept in
like a whipped cur, and went and sat down by the
body.

[[229]]

p228 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p229w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p230

v?