Chapter XXVIII

After breakfast Jurgis was driven to the court, which
was crowded with the prisoners and those who had come
out of curiosity or in the hope of recognizing one of the
men and getting a case for blackmail. The men were called
up first, and reprimanded in a bunch, and then dismissed;
but Jurgis, to his terror, was called separately, as being a
suspicious-looking case. It was in this very same court
that he had been tried, that time when his sentence had
been "suspended"; it was the same judge, and the same
clerk. The latter now stared at Jurgis, as if he half thought
that he knew him; but the judge had no suspicions -- just
then his thoughts were upon a telephone message he was
expecting from a friend of the police captain of the dis~
trict, telling what disposition he should make of the case
of "Polly" Simpson, as the "madame" of the house was
known. Meantime, he listened to the story of how Jurgis
had been looking for his sister, and advised him dryly to
keep his sister in a better place; then he let him go, and
proceeded to fine each of the girls five dollars, which fines
were paid in a bunch from a wad of bills which Madame
Polly extracted from her stocking.

Jurgis waited outside and walked home with Marija.
The police had left the house, and already there were a few
visitors; by evening the place would be running again,
exactly as if nothing had happened. Meantime, Marija
took Jurgis upstairs to her room, and they sat and talked.
By daylight, Jurgis was able to observe that the color on
her cheeks was not the old natural one of abounding
health; her complexion was in reality a parchment yellow,
and there were black rings under her eyes.

"Have you been sick?" he asked.

[[351]]

p350 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p351w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p352

v?