balance of his money he hired himself a place in a tene~
ment-room, where he slept upon a big home-made straw
mattress along with four other working-men. This was
one dollar a week, and for four more he got his food in a
boarding-house near his work. This would leave him four
dollars extra each week, an unthinkable sum for him.
At the outset he had to pay for his digging tools, and also
to buy a pair of heavy boots, since his shoes were falling
to pieces, and a flannel shirt, since the one he had worn all
summer was in shreds. He spent a week meditating
whether or not he should also buy an overcoat. There
was one belonging to a Hebrew collar-button peddlar, who
had died in the room next to him, and which the landlady
was holding for her rent; in the end, however, Jurgis
decided to do without it, as he was to be underground by
day and in bed at night.

This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove
him more quickly than ever into the saloons. From now
on Jurgis worked from seven o'clock until half-past five,
with half an hour for dinner; which meant that he never
saw the sunlight on week-days. In the evenings there
was no place for him to go except a bar-room; no place
where there was light and warmth, where he could hear a
little music or sit with a companion and talk. He had
now no home to go to; he had no affection left in his life
-- only the pitiful mockery of it in the _camaraderie_ of
vice. On Sundays the churches were open -- but where was
there a church in which an ill-smelling working-man, with
vermin crawling upon his neck, could sit without seeing
people edge away and look annoyed? He had, of course,
his corner in a close though unheated room, with a window
opening upon a blank wall two feet away; and also he had
the bare streets, with the winter gales sweeping through
them; besides this he had only the saloons -- and, of
course, he had to drink to stay in them. If he drank now
and then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble
with dice or a pack of greasy cards, to play at a dingy
pool-table for money, or to look at a beer-stained pink
"sporting paper," with pictures of murderers and half-

[[268]]

p267 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p268w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p269

v?