At seven o'clock the next morning Jurgis was let out to get water to
wash his cell--a duty which he performed faithfully, but which most
of the prisoners were accustomed to shirk, until their cells became so
filthy that the guards interposed. Then he had more "duffers and
dope," and afterward was allowed three hours for exercise, in a long,
cement-walked court roofed with glass. Here were all the inmates of
the jail crowded together. At one side of the court was a place for
visitors, cut off by two heavy wire screens, a foot apart, so that
nothing could be passed in to the prisoners; here Jurgis watched
anxiously, but there came no one to see him.

Soon after he went back to his cell, a keeper opened the door to let
in another prisoner. He was a dapper young fellow, with a light brown
mustache and blue eyes, and a graceful figure. He nodded to Jurgis, and
then, as the keeper closed the door upon him, began gazing critically
about him.

"Well, pal," he said, as his glance encountered Jurgis again, "good
morning."

"Good morning," said Jurgis.

"A rum go for Christmas, eh?" added the other.

Jurgis nodded.

The newcomer went to the bunks and inspected the blankets; he lifted
up the mattress, and then dropped it with an exclamation. "My God!" he
said, "that's the worst yet."

He glanced at Jurgis again. "Looks as if it hadn't been slept in last
night. Couldn't stand it, eh?"

"I didn't want to sleep last night," said Jurgis.

"When did you come in?"

"Yesterday."

The other had another look around, and then wrinkled up his nose.
"There's the devil of a stink in here," he said, suddenly. "What is it?"

"It's me," said Jurgis.

"You?"

"Yes, me."

"Didn't they make you wash?"

"Yes, but this don't wash."

"What is it?"

"Fertilizer."

"Fertilizer! The deuce! What are you?"

"I work in the stockyards--at least I did until the other day. It's in
my clothes."

"That's a new one on me," said the newcomer. "I thought I'd been up
against 'em all. What are you in for?"

"I hit my boss."

"Oh--that's it. What did he do?"

"He--he treated me mean."

"I see. You're what's called an honest workingman!"

"What are you?" Jurgis asked.

"I?" The other laughed. "They say I'm a cracksman," he said.

"What's that?" asked Jurgis.

"Safes, and such things," answered the other.

"Oh," said Jurgis, wonderingly, and stared at the speaker in awe. "You
mean you break into them--you--you--"

"Yes," laughed the other, "that's what they say."

He did not look to be over twenty-two or three, though, as Jurgis found
afterward, he was thirty. He spoke like a man of education, like what
the world calls a "gentleman."

"Is that what you're here for?" Jurgis inquired.

"No," was the answer. "I'm here for disorderly conduct. They were mad
because they couldn't get any evidence.

"What's your name?" the young fellow continued after a pause. "My name's
Duane--Jack Duane. I've more than a dozen, but that's my company one."
He seated himself on the floor with his back to the wall and his legs
crossed, and went on talking easily; he soon put Jurgis on a friendly
footing--he was evidently a man of the world, used to getting on, and
not too proud to hold conversation with a mere laboring man. He drew
Jurgis out, and heard all about his life all but the one unmentionable
thing; and then he told stories about his own life. He was a great
one for stories, not always of the choicest. Being sent to jail had
apparently not disturbed his cheerfulness; he had "done time" twice
before, it seemed, and he took it all with a frolic welcome. What with
women and wine and the excitement of his vocation, a man could afford to
rest now and then.

Naturally, the aspect of prison life was changed for Jurgis by the
arrival of a cell mate. He could not turn his face to the wall and
sulk, he had to speak when he was spoken to; nor could he help being
interested in the conversation of Duane--the first educated man with
whom he had ever talked. How could he help listening with wonder while
the other told of midnight ventures and perilous escapes, of feastings
and orgies, of fortunes squandered in a night? The young fellow had an
amused contempt for Jurgis, as a sort of working mule; he, too, had
felt the world's injustice, but instead of bearing it patiently, he had
struck back, and struck hard. He was striking all the time--there was
war between him and society. He was a genial freebooter, living off the
enemy, without fear or shame. He was not always victorious, but then
defeat did not mean annihilation, and need not break his spirit.

Withal he was a goodhearted fellow--too much so, it appeared. His story
came out, not in the first day, nor the second, but in the long hours
that dragged by, in which they had nothing to do but talk and nothing
to talk of but themselves. Jack Duane was from the East; he was a
college-bred man--had been studying electrical engineering. Then his
father had met with misfortune in business and killed himself; and there
had been his mother and a younger brother and sister. Also, there was an
invention of Duane's; Jurgis could not understand it clearly, but it had
to do with telegraphing, and it was a very important thing--there were
fortunes in it, millions upon millions of dollars. And Duane had been
robbed of it by a great company, and got tangled up in lawsuits and lost
all his money. Then somebody had given him a tip on a horse race, and he
had tried to retrieve his fortune with another person's money, and had
to run away, and all the rest had come from that. The other asked
him what had led him to safe-breaking--to Jurgis a wild and appalling
occupation to think about. A man he had met, his cell mate had
replied--one thing leads to another. Didn't he ever wonder about his
family, Jurgis asked. Sometimes, the other answered, but not often--he
didn't allow it. Thinking about it would make it no better. This wasn't
a world in which a man had any business with a family; sooner or later
Jurgis would find that out also, and give up the fight and shift for
himself.

Jurgis was so transparently what he pretended to be that his cell mate
was as open with him as a child; it was pleasant to tell him adventures,
he was so full of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways of
the country. Duane did not even bother to keep back names and places--he
told all his triumphs and his failures, his loves and his griefs. Also
he introduced Jurgis to many of the other prisoners, nearly half of whom
he knew by name. The crowd had already given Jurgis a name--they called
him "the stinker." This was cruel, but they meant no harm by it, and he
took it with a good-natured grin.

Our friend had caught now and then a whiff from the sewers over which
he lived, but this was the first time that he had ever been splashed by
their filth. This jail was a Noah's ark of the city's crime--there were
murderers, "hold-up men" and burglars, embezzlers, counterfeiters and
forgers, bigamists, "shoplifters," "confidence men," petty thieves
and pickpockets, gamblers and procurers, brawlers, beggars, tramps
and drunkards; they were black and white, old and young, Americans and
natives of every nation under the sun. There were hardened criminals and
innocent men too poor to give bail; old men, and boys literally not yet
in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of
society; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to. All life
had turned to rottenness and stench in them--love was a beastliness, joy
was a snare, and God was an imprecation. They strolled here and there
about the courtyard, and Jurgis listened to them. He was ignorant and
they were wise; they had been everywhere and tried everything. They
could tell the whole hateful story of it, set forth the inner soul of
a city in which justice and honor, women's bodies and men's souls, were
for sale in the marketplace, and human beings writhed and fought and
fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; in which lusts were raging
fires, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering and stewing and
wallowing in its own corruption. Into this wild-beast tangle these men
had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because
they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to
them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. They were
swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped
and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of
dollars.

To most of this Jurgis tried not to listen. They frightened him with
their savage mockery; and all the while his heart was far away, where
his loved ones were calling. Now and then in the midst of it his
thoughts would take flight; and then the tears would come into his
eyes--and he would be called back by the jeering laughter of his
companions.

He spent a week in this company, and during all that time he had no word
from his home. He paid one of his fifteen cents for a postal card, and
his companion wrote a note to the family, telling them where he was
and when he would be tried. There came no answer to it, however, and at
last, the day before New Year's, Jurgis bade good-by to Jack Duane. The
latter gave him his address, or rather the address of his mistress, and
made Jurgis promise to look him up. "Maybe I could help you out of a
hole some day," he said, and added that he was sorry to have him go.
Jurgis rode in the patrol wagon back to Justice Callahan's court for
trial.

One of the first things he made out as he entered the room was Teta
Elzbieta and little Kotrina, looking pale and frightened, seated far in
the rear. His heart began to pound, but he did not dare to try to signal
to them, and neither did Elzbieta. He took his seat in the prisoners'
pen and sat gazing at them in helpless agony. He saw that Ona was not
with them, and was full of foreboding as to what that might mean. He
spent half an hour brooding over this--and then suddenly he straightened
up and the blood rushed into his face. A man had come in--Jurgis could
not see his features for the bandages that swathed him, but he knew the
burly figure. It was Connor! A trembling seized him, and his limbs bent
as if for a spring. Then suddenly he felt a hand on his collar, and
heard a voice behind him: "Sit down, you son of a--!"

He subsided, but he never took his eyes off his enemy. The fellow was
still alive, which was a disappointment, in one way; and yet it was
pleasant to see him, all in penitential plasters. He and the company
lawyer, who was with him, came and took seats within the judge's
railing; and a minute later the clerk called Jurgis' name, and the
policeman jerked him to his feet and led him before the bar, gripping
him tightly by the arm, lest he should spring upon the boss.

Jurgis listened while the man entered the witness chair, took the oath,
and told his story. The wife of the prisoner had been employed in a
department near him, and had been discharged for impudence to him. Half
an hour later he had been violently attacked, knocked down, and almost
choked to death. He had brought witnesses--

"They will probably not be necessary," observed the judge and he turned
to Jurgis. "You admit attacking the plaintiff?" he asked.

"Him?" inquired Jurgis, pointing at the boss.

"Yes," said the judge. "I hit him, sir," said Jurgis.

"Say 'your Honor,'" said the officer, pinching his arm hard.

"Your Honor," said Jurgis, obediently.

"You tried to choke him?"

"Yes, sir, your Honor."

"Ever been arrested before?"

"No, sir, your Honor."

"What have you to say for yourself?"

Jurgis hesitated. What had he to say? In two years and a half he had
learned to speak English for practical purposes, but these had never
included the statement that some one had intimidated and seduced his
wife. He tried once or twice, stammering and balking, to the annoyance
of the judge, who was gasping from the odor of fertilizer. Finally,
the prisoner made it understood that his vocabulary was inadequate, and
there stepped up a dapper young man with waxed mustaches, bidding him
speak in any language he knew.

Jurgis began; supposing that he would be given time, he explained how
the boss had taken advantage of his wife's position to make advances
to her and had threatened her with the loss of her place. When the
interpreter had translated this, the judge, whose calendar was crowded,
and whose automobile was ordered for a certain hour, interrupted with
the remark: "Oh, I see. Well, if he made love to your wife, why didn't
she complain to the superintendent or leave the place?"

Jurgis hesitated, somewhat taken aback; he began to explain that they
were very poor--that work was hard to get--

"I see," said Justice Callahan; "so instead you thought you would knock
him down." He turned to the plaintiff, inquiring, "Is there any truth in
this story, Mr. Connor?"

"Not a particle, your Honor," said the boss. "It is very
unpleasant--they tell some such tale every time you have to discharge a
woman--"

"Yes, I know," said the judge. "I hear it often enough. The fellow seems
to have handled you pretty roughly. Thirty days and costs. Next case."

Jurgis had been listening in perplexity. It was only when the policeman
who had him by the arm turned and started to lead him away that he
realized that sentence had been passed. He gazed round him wildly.
"Thirty days!" he panted and then he whirled upon the judge. "What will
my family do?" he cried frantically. "I have a wife and baby, sir, and
they have no money--my God, they will starve to death!"

"You would have done well to think about them before you committed
the assault," said the judge dryly, as he turned to look at the next
prisoner.

Jurgis would have spoken again, but the policeman had seized him by the
collar and was twisting it, and a second policeman was making for him
with evidently hostile intentions. So he let them lead him away. Far
down the room he saw Elzbieta and Kotrina, risen from their seats,
staring in fright; he made one effort to go to them, and then, brought
back by another twist at his throat, he bowed his head and gave up the
struggle. They thrust him into a cell room, where other prisoners were
waiting; and as soon as court had adjourned they led him down with them
into the "Black Maria," and drove him away.

This time Jurgis was bound for the "Bridewell," a petty jail where Cook
County prisoners serve their time. It was even filthier and more crowded
than the county jail; all the smaller fry out of the latter had been
sifted into it--the petty thieves and swindlers, the brawlers and
vagrants. For his cell mate Jurgis had an Italian fruit seller who
had refused to pay his graft to the policeman, and been arrested for
carrying a large pocketknife; as he did not understand a word of English
our friend was glad when he left. He gave place to a Norwegian sailor,
who had lost half an ear in a drunken brawl, and who proved to be
quarrelsome, cursing Jurgis because he moved in his bunk and caused
the roaches to drop upon the lower one. It would have been quite
intolerable, staying in a cell with this wild beast, but for the fact
that all day long the prisoners were put at work breaking stone.

Ten days of his thirty Jurgis spent thus, without hearing a word from
his family; then one day a keeper came and informed him that there was
a visitor to see him. Jurgis turned white, and so weak at the knees that
he could hardly leave his cell.

The man led him down the corridor and a flight of steps to the visitors'
room, which was barred like a cell. Through the grating Jurgis could
see some one sitting in a chair; and as he came into the room the person
started up, and he saw that it was little Stanislovas. At the sight
of some one from home the big fellow nearly went to pieces--he had to
steady himself by a chair, and he put his other hand to his forehead, as
if to clear away a mist. "Well?" he said, weakly.

Little Stanislovas was also trembling, and all but too frightened to
speak. "They--they sent me to tell you--" he said, with a gulp.

"Well?" Jurgis repeated. He followed the boy's glance to where the
keeper was standing watching them. "Never mind that," Jurgis cried,
wildly. "How are they?"

"Ona is very sick," Stanislovas said; "and we are almost starving. We
can't get along; we thought you might be able to help us."

Jurgis gripped the chair tighter; there were beads of perspiration on
his forehead, and his hand shook. "I--can't help you," he said.

"Ona lies in her room all day," the boy went on, breathlessly. "She
won't eat anything, and she cries all the time. She won't tell what is
the matter and she won't go to work at all. Then a long time ago the man
came for the rent. He was very cross. He came again last week. He said
he would turn us out of the house. And then Marija--"

A sob choked Stanislovas, and he stopped. "What's the matter with
Marija?" cried Jurgis.

"She's cut her hand!" said the boy. "She's cut it bad, this time, worse
than before. She can't work and it's all turning green, and the company
doctor says she may--she may have to have it cut off. And Marija cries
all the time--her money is nearly all gone, too, and we can't pay the
rent and the interest on the house; and we have no coal and nothing more
to eat, and the man at the store, he says--"

The little fellow stopped again, beginning to whimper. "Go on!" the
other panted in frenzy--"Go on!"

"I--I will," sobbed Stanislovas. "It's so--so cold all the time. And
last Sunday it snowed again--a deep, deep snow--and I couldn't--couldn't
get to work."

"God!" Jurgis half shouted, and he took a step toward the child. There
was an old hatred between them because of the snow--ever since that
dreadful morning when the boy had had his fingers frozen and Jurgis had
had to beat him to send him to work. Now he clenched his hands, looking
as if he would try to break through the grating. "You little villain,"
he cried, "you didn't try!"

"I did--I did!" wailed Stanislovas, shrinking from him in terror. "I
tried all day--two days. Elzbieta was with me, and she couldn't either.
We couldn't walk at all, it was so deep. And we had nothing to eat, and
oh, it was so cold! I tried, and then the third day Ona went with me--"

"Ona!"

"Yes. She tried to get to work, too. She had to. We were all starving.
But she had lost her place--"

Jurgis reeled, and gave a gasp. "She went back to that place?" he
screamed. "She tried to," said Stanislovas, gazing at him in perplexity.
"Why not, Jurgis?"

The man breathed hard, three or four times. "Go--on," he panted,
finally.

"I went with her," said Stanislovas, "but Miss Henderson wouldn't take
her back. And Connor saw her and cursed her. He was still bandaged
up--why did you hit him, Jurgis?" (There was some fascinating mystery
about this, the little fellow knew; but he could get no satisfaction.)

Jurgis could not speak; he could only stare, his eyes starting out. "She
has been trying to get other work," the boy went on; "but she's so weak
she can't keep up. And my boss would not take me back, either--Ona says
he knows Connor, and that's the reason; they've all got a grudge against
us now. So I've got to go downtown and sell papers with the rest of the
boys and Kotrina--"

"Kotrina!"

"Yes, she's been selling papers, too. She does best, because she's
a girl. Only the cold is so bad--it's terrible coming home at night,
Jurgis. Sometimes they can't come home at all--I'm going to try to find
them tonight and sleep where they do, it's so late and it's such a long
ways home. I've had to walk, and I didn't know where it was--I don't
know how to get back, either. Only mother said I must come, because you
would want to know, and maybe somebody would help your family when they
had put you in jail so you couldn't work. And I walked all day to get
here--and I only had a piece of bread for breakfast, Jurgis. Mother
hasn't any work either, because the sausage department is shut down;
and she goes and begs at houses with a basket, and people give her food.
Only she didn't get much yesterday; it was too cold for her fingers, and
today she was crying--"

So little Stanislovas went on, sobbing as he talked; and Jurgis stood,
gripping the table tightly, saying not a word, but feeling that his
head would burst; it was like having weights piled upon him, one after
another, crushing the life out of him. He struggled and fought within
himself--as if in some terrible nightmare, in which a man suffers an
agony, and cannot lift his hand, nor cry out, but feels that he is going
mad, that his brain is on fire--

Just when it seemed to him that another turn of the screw would kill
him, little Stanislovas stopped. "You cannot help us?" he said weakly.

Jurgis shook his head.

"They won't give you anything here?"

He shook it again.

"When are you coming out?"

"Three weeks yet," Jurgis answered.

And the boy gazed around him uncertainly. "Then I might as well go," he
said.

Jurgis nodded. Then, suddenly recollecting, he put his hand into his
pocket and drew it out, shaking. "Here," he said, holding out the
fourteen cents. "Take this to them."

And Stanislovas took it, and after a little more hesitation, started
for the door. "Good-by, Jurgis," he said, and the other noticed that he
walked unsteadily as he passed out of sight.

For a minute or so Jurgis stood clinging to his chair, reeling and
swaying; then the keeper touched him on the arm, and he turned and went
back to breaking stone.

A man named Jack Duane joins Jurgis in his cell. Duane is an educated man who has seen much of the world. He is a professional safecracker, though he is in jail for being a public nuisance. His arrest had been because the police could gather no evidence against him for safe-cracking crimes, according to Duane. Jurgis and Duane converse about the situations that put them behind bars. Jurgis listens with wonder to Duane's stories "of midnight ventures and perilous escapes, of feastings and orgies, of fortunes squandered in a night. Jurgis finds it pleasant to talk with such a man and Duane introduces him to all the other prisoners whom he knows by name. Jurgis's jail is "a Noah's ark of the city's crime. It holds all the petty thieves and vice criminals. In these criminals, Jurgis sees the worst in society and he sees how they have been beaten down by the world. Into this wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. Jurgis arrives back in Justice Callahan's courtroom. Teta Elzbieta and Kotrina are there in the courtroom, but Jurgis does not speak to them. Jurgis sees Connor come in wrapped in bandages. He wants to jump up and attack the man again, but he is held back by the guards. Jurgis goes before the judge, who asks him if he had beaten this man. Jurgis admits to the whole thing and, through a translator, gives the reasons why. When the judge asks Connor if it is true that he had raped Jurgis's wife, Connor denies it. The judge sentences Jurgis to thirty days in prison. He tries to cry out for his family, but the judge only tells him, "'You would have done well to think about them before you committed the assault. Jurgis goes to Bridewell, a prison even more filthy than the city prison. Jurgis is put to work, cracking stones to make gravel. One day, Jurgis goes to a room where he meets Stanislovas. Stanislovas tells Jurgis that Ona is very sick. She cannot go to work and lost her place at the factory. Marija has also cut her hand very badly and the doctor tells her that she might lose it. Because of a snowstorm, Stanislovas tells Jurgis that even he lost his job and now has to go sell papers with the other children. He tells Jurgis that the family is starving and that their landlords are threatening to kick them out if they do not pay the rent. He asks Jurgis for help, but Jurgis tells him there is nothing he can do while in jail. It will be three more weeks before he can return to them. Stanislovas leaves, taking Jurgis's fourteen cents, and Jurgis reels and sways before going back to work breaking stone

While the Christmas Eve bells symbolized a future salvation for Jurgis, that salvation has not come yet. In the opening of Chapter Seventeen, the reader sees Jurgis beginning to descend into new depths. Though he is in jail for attacking a man, Sinclair suggests that such violence is understandable, if not honorable, in the situation of poverty that Jurgis and his family find themselves. In the character of Jack Duane, however, the reader sees a new temptation for Jurgis. The seeds are planted in Jurgis's mind for a life of crime that is not so honorable, though he still has enough of his innocence and dignity left to not act on such impulses. A theme throughout the novel, which is apparent here, is the way in which Sinclair uses themes of American Naturalist tradition in the novel. In the American Naturalist tradition of literature, characters are driven not by any internal struggle or thought. Instead, characters lives are solely reactionary to the environment around them. They have little agency and, instead, are subject to systems of control found outside of themselves. In Sinclair's novel, this natural world includes both nature and systems of economy, government, etc. created by human thought and activity. This is evident in the way that Sinclair describes the prisoners in Bridewell. He describes how men are born "without their consent" and are then thrust into poverty and hardship by the world around them. This Naturalist tradition is an important part of the sustained attack Sinclair wishes to wage on capitalist systems of economy. Sinclair's descriptions of Jurgis's time in prison are another example of the ways in which Sinclair uncovers the unspoken injustices of "normal" society. Sinclair does not use much explicit irony in the novel since he attempts to maintain a political and social seriousness to the work, but the reader is allowed to make inferences about the ironic nature of society. Bridewell Prison is such an example. Though prison life is harsh, Jurgis is given food, clothing, and a place to sleep inside from the cold. Prison, thus, offers a better life than does the world outside. Perhaps the most wrenching scene in the novel is Ona's death. Sinclair makes the connection here between the horrors of the killing beds and the horrors of natural life forced upon the residents of Packingtown. It is in this scene, following Jurgis's moment of understanding of the way in which the natural world destines some people for lives of poverty, where Jurgis understands and comes to hate the natural systems of the world. Jurgis comes to understand the "horrible nature of nature." Critics have used this scene in the novel to argue for Sinclair's gynophobic tendencies in the novel. The obesity, smell, and bad teeth of Madame Haupt symbolize the distaste for the female body. In the birth room, Ona's body, which had been slowly breaking down since her last experience of childbirth, is tormented and broken completely. The blood on Madame Haupt suggests the horror of childbirth and the indecency of the natural bodily functions of the woman.

Jurgis spends the morning hoping for visitors, but no one comes. Another prisoner is let into his cell a bit later on. The prisoner is a lively young guy who comments on the awful state of the mattress and the smell in the cell. Jurgis admits that the smell is coming from him - the reek of fertilizer doesn't wash off, and it's gotten into his clothes. The prisoner is surprised; he's never had a cellmate from the stockyards before. Jurgis explains that he's in jail because he hit his boss. His boss "treated mean" . The prisoner responds that he's a "cracksman" - someone who brakes into safes. But he's actually in jail for disturbing the peace, since the cops haven't found any evidence against him. Jurgis is astonished: the guy looks young, well put-together, and gentlemanly. The prisoner introduces himself as Jack Duane. Jurgis has never spoken to an educated man before, and he is interested in spite of himself. Jack Duane was a college kid studying electrical engineering when his father killed himself because of some business failure. Duane tried to help his mother and family by selling an invention of his, but he was cheated out of the patent by a big company and ended up losing everything. So Duane wound up skipping town, having learned that family is mostly a burden on a man. Jack Duane introduces Jurgis to all of his fellow prisoners. These criminals are outcasts, but they are also the products of a society that thrives on inequality and exploitation of other people. Jurgis doesn't hear from his family before his trial a week later. Jack Duane gives Jurgis an address where he can be reached, and promises he'll help Jurgis out one day if he can. When Jurgis arrives at the courtroom, he sees Teta Elzbieta and Kotrina but not Ona, and he doesn't know what her absence means. Connor walks into the room and Jurgis almost leaps for him again, but a cop holds him back. Connor testifies that he fired Jurgis's wife for rudeness, and half an hour later, Jurgis attacked him. Jurgis tries to explain through an interpreter that Connor sexually harassed and raped his wife. Judge Callahan cuts him off and won't listen; he asks why Jurgis's wife didn't complain if she didn't want to have sex with Connor. Judge Callahan turns to Connor and asks if this story is true. Connor says that it's not true at all. Judge Callahan believes Connor and sentences Jurgis to thirty days in jail plus costs. Jurgis is sent to a prison for smalltime offenders and spends his days breaking rocks. After ten days, he finally gets a visitor from his family. It's Stanislovas, and he comes bearing awful news: Ona is in bed and can't go to work. Marija has cut her hand badly and it's getting infected. The company doctor has told her she may have to have her hand amputated. They are starving, they can't get credit at the local store anymore, and they have missed the rent and interest payment for their house. The Sunday before, there was a heavy blizzard, and Stanislovas couldn't go to work. Jurgis accuses Stanislovas of not even trying to get to work because of his fear of the cold. Stanslovas promises that he did try, but neither he nor Elzbieta could walk through the snow. In desperation, Ona also tried to struggle through the snow to her old job, but Miss Henderson refuses to employ Ona any more. And Ona is so weak that she can't find anything else. Stanislovas's boss also won't take him back because Stanislovas's boss is friends with Connor. So Stanislovas and the two younger boys all go into the city to sell newspapers - along with Kotrina, who is new to the workforce. Teta Elzbieta has also lost her job, because the sausage factory has shut down for the slow season. So Teta Elzbieta has been begging from house to house. Jurgis cannot help them, and he cannot get out of prison for another three weeks. So Stanislovas has to walk away. Jurgis reels at all of this terrible news.

In the morning, Jack Duane joins Jurgis in the cell. Duane's attitude about the necessary war against society appeals to Jurgis, who is in the beginning of his rebellious stage. Jurgis' trial is a farce, as the judge readily believes Connor's false testimony and sentences Jurgis to 30 days in prison. While there, Stanislovas visits Jurgis, begging for money and telling Jurgis of the continued troubles affecting the family.

Jurgis' sham of a trial should surprise no one. The judge is bought and sold like any other tangible good, so even though Connor is the guilty predator, the victim is penalized. The judge does not care that his ruling may force Jurgis' family into starvation. Jurgis' family suffers a variety of problems during his incarceration marking the beginning of the end. Now all able-bodied children are forced to work, which is precisely what Jurgis and Elzbieta wanted to avoid. Marija becomes the latest worker to sustain an on-the-job injury, which, of course, is not the responsibility of her employer. Yet again, laborers suffer permanent damage as a result of their employment; they are butchered in a manner similar to the other animals in Packingtown. In Packingtown, capitalism is as destructive as the weather and disease. The introduction of Jack Duane is important as Jurgis begins to enter a new stage in his life. Jurgis' relationship with Duane illustrates how circumstances can force a man into a life of crime. Trying to be a law-abiding, hard-working citizen does Jurgis little good. For his family's sake, Jurgis demonstrates hard work, self-reliance, and values, but when he loses his family, he loses all desire to do the "right" thing. Glossary the deuce the devil; a mild oath or exclamation of annoyance, surprise, or frustration. freebooter a plunderer. bigamist a person who marries a second time while a previous marriage is still legally in effect. confidence men swindlers who try to gain the confidence of victims in order to defraud. imprecation a curse. Black Maria a patrol wagon.

While Jurgis awaits his trial, he becomes friends with his cellmate, Jack Duane. Jack claims to be an educated man from the east. He says that his father committed suicide after failing in business. He adds that a big company later cheated him out of a lucrative invention. His misfortunes led Jack to become a safe breaker. Before Jurgis's trial, Jack gives Jurgis his mistress's address and encourages him to seek his help should the need arise. Jurgis's trial is a farce. Kotrina and Teta Elzbieta attend it. Phil Connor testifies that he fired Ona fairly and that Jurgis attacked him for revenge. Jurgis tells his side of the story through an interpreter, but the judge is not sympathetic. He sentences Jurgis to thirty days in prison. Jurgis begs for clemency on the ground that his family will starve if he cannot work, but the judge remains firm. In Bridewell Prison, Jurgis and the other prisoners spend the greater portion of their time breaking stone. He writes a postcard to his family to let them know where he is. Ten days later, Stanislovas visits to tell him that he, Ona, Marija, and Teta Elzbieta have all lost their jobs and that they are unable to pay rent or buy food. Marija is suffering blood poisoning because she cut her hand at work. Ona lies in bed, crying all day. Teta Elzbieta's sausage factory shut down. Stanislovas lost his job after a snowstorm prevented him from going to work for three days. They cannot obtain other jobs because they are too sick and weak and because Connor is scheming to prevent them from finding work. Stanislovas asks if Jurgis can help them. Jurgis has no more than fourteen cents to give. Kotrina, Stanislovas, and the children earn money selling papers. Their only other income comes from begging


Jurgis did not get out of the Bridewell quite as soon as he had
expected. To his sentence there were added "court costs" of a dollar and
a half--he was supposed to pay for the trouble of putting him in jail,
and not having the money, was obliged to work it off by three days
more of toil. Nobody had taken the trouble to tell him this--only
after counting the days and looking forward to the end in an agony of
impatience, when the hour came that he expected to be free he found
himself still set at the stone heap, and laughed at when he ventured to
protest. Then he concluded he must have counted wrong; but as another
day passed, he gave up all hope--and was sunk in the depths of despair,
when one morning after breakfast a keeper came to him with the word that
his time was up at last. So he doffed his prison garb, and put on his
old fertilizer clothing, and heard the door of the prison clang behind
him.

He stood upon the steps, bewildered; he could hardly believe that it was
true,--that the sky was above him again and the open street before him;
that he was a free man. But then the cold began to strike through his
clothes, and he started quickly away.

There had been a heavy snow, and now a thaw had set in; fine sleety rain
was falling, driven by a wind that pierced Jurgis to the bone. He had
not stopped for his-overcoat when he set out to "do up" Connor, and so
his rides in the patrol wagons had been cruel experiences; his clothing
was old and worn thin, and it never had been very warm. Now as he
trudged on the rain soon wet it through; there were six inches of watery
slush on the sidewalks, so that his feet would soon have been soaked,
even had there been no holes in his shoes.

Jurgis had had enough to eat in the jail, and the work had been the
least trying of any that he had done since he came to Chicago; but even
so, he had not grown strong--the fear and grief that had preyed upon his
mind had worn him thin. Now he shivered and shrunk from the rain,
hiding his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders together.
The Bridewell grounds were on the outskirts of the city and the country
around them was unsettled and wild--on one side was the big drainage
canal, and on the other a maze of railroad tracks, and so the wind had
full sweep.

After walking a ways, Jurgis met a little ragamuffin whom he hailed:
"Hey, sonny!" The boy cocked one eye at him--he knew that Jurgis was a
"jailbird" by his shaven head. "Wot yer want?" he queried.

"How do you go to the stockyards?" Jurgis demanded.

"I don't go," replied the boy.

Jurgis hesitated a moment, nonplussed. Then he said, "I mean which is
the way?"

"Why don't yer say so then?" was the response, and the boy pointed to
the northwest, across the tracks. "That way."

"How far is it?" Jurgis asked. "I dunno," said the other. "Mebbe twenty
miles or so."

"Twenty miles!" Jurgis echoed, and his face fell. He had to walk every
foot of it, for they had turned him out of jail without a penny in his
pockets.

Yet, when he once got started, and his blood had warmed with walking,
he forgot everything in the fever of his thoughts. All the dreadful
imaginations that had haunted him in his cell now rushed into his mind
at once. The agony was almost over--he was going to find out; and he
clenched his hands in his pockets as he strode, following his flying
desire, almost at a run. Ona--the baby--the family--the house--he would
know the truth about them all! And he was coming to the rescue--he was
free again! His hands were his own, and he could help them, he could do
battle for them against the world.

For an hour or so he walked thus, and then he began to look about him.
He seemed to be leaving the city altogether. The street was turning into
a country road, leading out to the westward; there were snow-covered
fields on either side of him. Soon he met a farmer driving a two-horse
wagon loaded with straw, and he stopped him.

"Is this the way to the stockyards?" he asked.

The farmer scratched his head. "I dunno jest where they be," he said.
"But they're in the city somewhere, and you're going dead away from it
now."

Jurgis looked dazed. "I was told this was the way," he said.

"Who told you?"

"A boy."

"Well, mebbe he was playing a joke on ye. The best thing ye kin do is to
go back, and when ye git into town ask a policeman. I'd take ye in, only
I've come a long ways an' I'm loaded heavy. Git up!"

So Jurgis turned and followed, and toward the end of the morning he
began to see Chicago again. Past endless blocks of two-story shanties
he walked, along wooden sidewalks and unpaved pathways treacherous with
deep slush holes. Every few blocks there would be a railroad crossing
on the level with the sidewalk, a deathtrap for the unwary; long freight
trains would be passing, the cars clanking and crashing together, and
Jurgis would pace about waiting, burning up with a fever of impatience.
Occasionally the cars would stop for some minutes, and wagons and
streetcars would crowd together waiting, the drivers swearing at each
other, or hiding beneath umbrellas out of the rain; at such times Jurgis
would dodge under the gates and run across the tracks and between the
cars, taking his life into his hands.

He crossed a long bridge over a river frozen solid and 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' 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 sleeping
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 trampish-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 districts, 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 volcanoes 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 saloon 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!

He came a couple of steps nearer. Yes; it had been gray and now it was
yellow! The trimmings around the windows had been red, and now they were
green! It was all newly painted! How strange it made it seem!

Jurgis went closer yet, but keeping on the other side of the street.
A sudden and horrible spasm of fear had come over him. His knees were
shaking beneath him, and his mind was in a whirl. New paint on the
house, and new weatherboards, where the old had begun to rot off, and
the agent had got after them! New shingles over the hole in the roof,
too, the hole that had for six months been the bane of his soul--he
having no money to have it fixed and no time to fix it himself, and the
rain leaking in, and overflowing the pots and pans he put to catch it,
and flooding the attic and loosening the plaster. And now it was fixed!
And the broken windowpane replaced! And curtains in the windows! New,
white curtains, stiff and shiny!

Then suddenly the front door opened. Jurgis stood, his chest heaving as
he struggled to catch his breath. A boy had come out, a stranger to him;
a big, fat, rosy-cheeked youngster, such as had never been seen in his
home before.

Jurgis stared at the boy, fascinated. He came down the steps whistling,
kicking off the snow. He stopped at the foot, and picked up some, and
then leaned against the railing, making a snowball. A moment later
he looked around and saw Jurgis, and their eyes met; it was a hostile
glance, the boy evidently thinking that the other had suspicions of the
snowball. When Jurgis started slowly across the street toward him, he
gave a quick glance about, meditating retreat, but then he concluded to
stand his ground.

Jurgis took hold of the railing of the steps, for he was a little
unsteady. "What--what are you doing here?" he managed to gasp.

"Go on!" said the boy.

"You--" Jurgis tried again. "What do you want here?"

"Me?" answered the boy, angrily. "I live here."

"You live here!" Jurgis panted. He turned white and clung more tightly
to the railing. "You live here! Then where's my family?"

The boy looked surprised. "Your family!" he echoed.

And Jurgis started toward him. "I--this is my house!" he cried.

"Come off!" said the boy; then suddenly the door upstairs opened, and he
called: "Hey, ma! Here's a fellow says he owns this house."

A stout Irishwoman came to the top of the steps. "What's that?" she
demanded.

Jurgis turned toward her. "Where is my family?" he cried, wildly. "I
left them here! This is my home! What are you doing in my home?"

The woman stared at him in frightened wonder, she must have thought
she was dealing with a maniac--Jurgis looked like one. "Your home!" she
echoed.

"My home!" he half shrieked. "I lived here, I tell you."

"You must be mistaken," she answered him. "No one ever lived here. This
is a new house. They told us so. They--"

"What have they done with my family?" shouted Jurgis, frantically.

A light had begun to break upon the woman; perhaps she had had doubts of
what "they" had told her. "I don't know where your family is," she said.
"I bought the house only three days ago, and there was nobody here, and
they told me it was all new. Do you really mean you had ever rented it?"

"Rented it!" panted Jurgis. "I bought it! I paid for it! I own it! And
they--my God, can't you tell me where my people went?"

She made him understand at last that she knew nothing. Jurgis' brain
was so confused that he could not grasp the situation. It was as if his
family had been wiped out of existence; as if they were proving to be
dream people, who never had existed at all. He was quite lost--but then
suddenly he thought of Grandmother Majauszkiene, who lived in the next
block. She would know! He turned and started at a run.

Grandmother Majauszkiene came to the door herself. She cried out when
she saw Jurgis, wild-eyed and shaking. Yes, yes, she could tell him. The
family had moved; they had not been able to pay the rent and they had
been turned out into the snow, and the house had been repainted and sold
again the next week. No, she had not heard how they were, but she could
tell him that they had gone back to Aniele Jukniene, with whom they had
stayed when they first came to the yards. Wouldn't Jurgis come in and
rest? It was certainly too bad--if only he had not got into jail--

And so Jurgis turned and staggered away. He did not go very far round
the corner he gave out completely, and sat down on the steps of a
saloon, and hid his face in his hands, and shook all over with dry,
racking sobs.

Their home! Their home! They had lost it! Grief, despair, rage,
overwhelmed him--what was any imagination of the thing to this
heartbreaking, crushing reality of it--to the sight of strange people
living in his house, hanging their curtains to his windows, staring at
him with hostile eyes! It was monstrous, it was unthinkable--they could
not do it--it could not be true! Only think what he had suffered for
that house--what miseries they had all suffered for it--the price they
had paid for it!

The whole long agony came back to him. Their sacrifices in the
beginning, their three hundred dollars that they had scraped together,
all they owned in the world, all that stood between them and starvation!
And then their toil, month by month, to get together the twelve dollars,
and the interest as well, and now and then the taxes, and the other
charges, and the repairs, and what not! Why, they had put their very
souls into their payments on that house, they had paid for it with their
sweat and tears--yes, more, with their very lifeblood. Dede Antanas had
died of the struggle to earn that money--he would have been alive and
strong today if he had not had to work in Durham's dark cellars to earn
his share. And Ona, too, had given her health and strength to pay for
it--she was wrecked and ruined because of it; and so was he, who had
been a big, strong man three years ago, and now sat here shivering,
broken, cowed, weeping like a hysterical child. Ah! they had cast their
all into the fight; and they had lost, they had lost! All that they had
paid was gone--every cent of it. And their house was gone--they were
back where they had started from, flung out into the cold to starve and
freeze!

Jurgis could see all the truth now--could see himself, through the whole
long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn
into his vitals and devoured him; of fiends that had racked and tortured
him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, God, the horror
of it, the monstrous, hideous, demoniacal wickedness of it! He and his
family, helpless women and children, struggling to live, ignorant and
defenseless and forlorn as they were--and the enemies that had been
lurking for them, crouching upon their trail and thirsting for their
blood! That first lying circular, that smooth-tongued slippery agent!
That trap of the extra payments, the interest, and all the other charges
that they had not the means to pay, and would never have attempted to
pay! And then all the tricks of the packers, their masters, the tyrants
who ruled them--the shutdowns and the scarcity of work, the irregular
hours and the cruel speeding-up, the lowering of wages, the raising of
prices! The mercilessness of nature about them, of heat and cold, rain
and snow; the mercilessness of the city, of the country in which they
lived, of its laws and customs that they did not understand! All of
these things had worked together for the company that had marked them
for its prey and was waiting for its chance. And now, with this last
hideous injustice, its time had come, and it had turned them out bag
and baggage, and taken their house and sold it again! And they could
do nothing, they were tied hand and foot--the law was against them, the
whole machinery of society was at their oppressors' command! If Jurgis
so much as raised a hand against them, back he would go into that
wild-beast pen from which he had just escaped!

To get up and go away was to give up, to acknowledge defeat, to leave
the strange family in possession; and Jurgis might have sat shivering
in the rain for hours before he could do that, had it not been for
the thought of his family. It might be that he had worse things yet to
learn--and so he got to his feet and started away, walking on, wearily,
half-dazed.

To Aniele's house, in back of the yards, was a good two miles; the
distance had never seemed longer to Jurgis, and when he saw the familiar
dingy-gray shanty his heart was beating fast. He ran up the steps and
began to hammer upon the door.

The old woman herself came to open it. She had shrunk all up with her
rheumatism since Jurgis had seen her last, and her yellow parchment face
stared up at him from a little above the level of the doorknob. She gave
a start when she saw him. "Is Ona here?" he cried, breathlessly.

"Yes," was the answer, "she's here."

"How--" Jurgis began, and then stopped short, clutching convulsively at
the side of the door. From somewhere within the house had come a sudden
cry, a wild, horrible scream of anguish. And the voice was Ona's. For a
moment Jurgis stood half-paralyzed with fright; then he bounded past the
old woman and into the room.

It was Aniele's kitchen, and huddled round the stove were half a dozen
women, pale and frightened. One of them started to her feet as Jurgis
entered; she was haggard and frightfully thin, with one arm tied up in
bandages--he hardly realized that it was Marija. He looked first for
Ona; then, not seeing her, he stared at the women, expecting them to
speak. But they sat dumb, gazing back at him, panic-stricken; and a
second later came another piercing scream.

It was from the rear of the house, and upstairs. Jurgis bounded to a
door of the room and flung it open; there was a ladder leading through
a trap door to the garret, and he was at the foot of it when suddenly he
heard a voice behind him, and saw Marija at his heels. She seized him by
the sleeve with her good hand, panting wildly, "No, no, Jurgis! Stop!"

"What do you mean?" he gasped.

"You mustn't go up," she cried.

Jurgis was half-crazed with bewilderment and fright. "What's the
matter?" he shouted. "What is it?"

Marija clung to him tightly; he could hear Ona sobbing and moaning
above, and he fought to get away and climb up, without waiting for her
reply. "No, no," she rushed on. "Jurgis! You mustn't go up! It's--it's
the child!"

"The child?" he echoed in perplexity. "Antanas?"

Marija answered him, in a whisper: "The new one!"

And then Jurgis went limp, and caught himself on the ladder. He stared
at her as if she were a ghost. "The new one!" he gasped. "But it isn't
time," he added, wildly.

Marija nodded. "I know," she said; "but it's come."

And then again came Ona's scream, smiting him like a blow in the face,
making him wince and turn white. Her voice died away into a wail--then
he heard her sobbing again, "My God--let me die, let me die!" And Marija
hung her arms about him, crying: "Come out! Come away!"

She dragged him back into the kitchen, half carrying him, for he had
gone all to pieces. It was as if the pillars of his soul had fallen
in--he was blasted with horror. In the room he sank into a chair,
trembling like a leaf, Marija still holding him, and the women staring
at him in dumb, helpless fright.

And then again Ona cried out; he could hear it nearly as plainly here,
and he staggered to his feet. "How long has this been going on?" he
panted.

"Not very long," Marija answered, and then, at a signal from Aniele, she
rushed on: "You go away, Jurgis you can't help--go away and come back
later. It's all right--it's--"

"Who's with her?" Jurgis demanded; and then, seeing Marija hesitating,
he cried again, "Who's with her?"

"She's--she's all right," she answered. "Elzbieta's with her."

"But the doctor!" he panted. "Some one who knows!"

He seized Marija by the arm; she trembled, and her voice sank beneath a
whisper as she replied, "We--we have no money." Then, frightened at
the look on his face, she exclaimed: "It's all right, Jurgis! You don't
understand--go away--go away! Ah, if you only had waited!"

Above her protests Jurgis heard Ona again; he was almost out of his
mind. It was all new to him, raw and horrible--it had fallen upon him
like a lightning stroke. When little Antanas was born he had been at
work, and had known nothing about it until it was over; and now he was
not to be controlled. The frightened women were at their wits' end; one
after another they tried to reason with him, to make him understand that
this was the lot of woman. In the end they half drove him out into
the rain, where he began to pace up and down, bareheaded and frantic.
Because he could hear Ona from the street, he would first go away to
escape the sounds, and then come back because he could not help it. At
the end of a quarter of an hour he rushed up the steps again, and for
fear that he would break in the door they had to open it and let him in.

There was no arguing with him. They could not tell him that all was
going well--how could they know, he cried--why, she was dying, she was
being torn to pieces! Listen to her--listen! Why, it was monstrous--it
could not be allowed--there must be some help for it! Had they tried to
get a doctor? They might pay him afterward--they could promise--

"We couldn't promise, Jurgis," protested Marija. "We had no money--we
have scarcely been able to keep alive."

"But I can work," Jurgis exclaimed. "I can earn money!"

"Yes," she answered--"but we thought you were in jail. How could we know
when you would return? They will not work for nothing."

Marija went on to tell how she had tried to find a midwife, and how they
had demanded ten, fifteen, even twenty-five dollars, and that in cash.
"And I had only a quarter," she said. "I have spent every cent of my
money--all that I had in the bank; and I owe the doctor who has been
coming to see me, and he has stopped because he thinks I don't mean
to pay him. And we owe Aniele for two weeks' rent, and she is nearly
starving, and is afraid of being turned out. We have been borrowing and
begging to keep alive, and there is nothing more we can do--"

"And the children?" cried Jurgis.

"The children have not been home for three days, the weather has been so
bad. They could not know what is happening--it came suddenly, two months
before we expected it."

Jurgis was standing by the table, and he caught himself with his hand;
his head sank and his arms shook--it looked as if he were going to
collapse. Then suddenly Aniele got up and came hobbling toward him,
fumbling in her skirt pocket. She drew out a dirty rag, in one corner of
which she had something tied.

"Here, Jurgis!" she said, "I have some money. Palauk! See!"

She unwrapped it and counted it out--thirty-four cents. "You go, now,"
she said, "and try and get somebody yourself. And maybe the rest can
help--give him some money, you; he will pay you back some day, and it
will do him good to have something to think about, even if he doesn't
succeed. When he comes back, maybe it will be over."

And so the other women turned out the contents of their pocketbooks;
most of them had only pennies and nickels, but they gave him all. Mrs.
Olszewski, who lived next door, and had a husband who was a skilled
cattle butcher, but a drinking man, gave nearly half a dollar, enough
to raise the whole sum to a dollar and a quarter. Then Jurgis thrust it
into his pocket, still holding it tightly in his fist, and started away
at a run.

The time for Jurgis's release from prison comes, but to pay off his court costs he must work in the prison for three more days. When he is released, he wanders out of the prison in the cold and snow and is immediately frozen to the bone because his fertilizer clothes are so thin. When he had been in jail he had gotten enough to eat and had been warm, but he does not remember this because he is consumed with "fear and grief" and wants only to go home and save his family. He stops a boy on the side of the road to get directions. The boy tells him that the stockyards are twenty miles away and Jurgis begins to walk. He realizes that he is headed away from the city and stops a farmer on a cart to ask directions again. The farmer tells him that he is headed in the wrong direction. The farmer does not offer him a ride. Jurgis turns around and begins to walk back into the city. As he gets closer to the city, he sees that the snow on the riverbeds is black with soot and smoke. In the city, downtown, the people are "all hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to look at anything nor at each other. None of them notices Jurgis. He finally reaches the stockyards and the slums. He comes to his house but is shocked to see that it no longer looks like his house. It has been painted, and the defects have been repaired. Jurgis must brace himself when a young boy he does not recognize comes out of the house. Jurgis asks the boy where his family is, and the boy gets his mother. The boy's mother tells Jurgis that they only recently bought the house new and that no one had lived in the house before them. Jurgis is horrified, feeling as though "his family had been wiped out of existence; as if they were proving to be a dream people, who never existed at all. He thinks of all the sweat and toil that had gone into paying for that house, how Dede Antanas "had died of the struggle to earn" his rent, and how Ona had given up her health and youth so that they could have a roof over their head. Jurgis could see the all the truth now. He understands how all of society, from the companies to the lying real estate agents to the laws, works against people like him and his family. He stumbles his way to Grandmother Majauszkiene's house and she tells him that his family was turned out because they could not pay the rent. They now lived with Aniele Jukniene. Jurgis staggers to her house and knocks on the door. When Aniele answers, Jurgis can hear the screams and moans of Ona in another room. He enters the house to find six women huddled around a stove. One is Marija, thin and bandaged on her arm, and she tells Jurgis that he must not go up to Ona. She is in labor. Jurgis tells her that this cannot be because it is two months early, but Marija tells her the baby is coming anyway. Jurgis is once again heartbroken. The women make him wait outside, but he cannot stand it and forces his way back in. He asks the women why they do not call a doctor, and they tell him that no doctor or midwife will come and work because none of them has any money. All the women then pool together all the money they have, only a dollar and quarter, so that Jurgis can go and find help for Ona

Jurgis has to stay in jail for longer than his thirty days to work off "court costs": a dollar and a half. Jurgis walks out of jail in the fertilizer clothes he came in with. He didn't grab his jacket when he ran out of the house to strangle Connor, so he is freezing as he is walking home. Jurgis's prison is just outside Chicago, so Jurgis has to ask for directions to the stockyards. They are twenty miles away! And Jurgis has to walk the whole distance. He gets lost on the way, having received bad directions. Eventually, he reaches his own street and runs towards his house. But Jurgis finds that the house is a different color. The broken window has been repaired. He is completely confused. The front door opens and a boy Jurgis has never seen before comes out. Jurgis asks the boy where Jurgis's family is. The boy is shocked: this is his family's house. The boy's mother comes out the door and agrees that they have just bought this house, which she believes is new. Jurgis runs to Grandmother Majauszkiene's house to find out where his family has gone. Grandmother Majauszkiene explains that, in Jurgis's absence, his family had been evicted. The company then refit the house and sold it to another family the next week. Jurgis rushes out again to Mrs. Jukniene's boarding house, where his family is staying. Jurgis weeps with grief and despair: he remembers all of the sacrifices they made to buy that house, just to lose it in the end! Jurgis arrives at Mrs. Jukniene's apartment and knocks on the door. He asks Mrs. Jukniene if Ona is there. Suddenly, Jurgis hears Ona scream. He pushes past Mrs. Jukniene into the apartment. Marija Berczynskas is there. Marija warns Jurgis not to go upstairs. Ona is in the middle of delivering her second child, but it is way, way premature. Ona keeps screaming and begging to die. Marija tells Jurgis to go away. Teta Elzbieta is with Ona, and there is nothing Jurgis can do. Marija protests that she tried to find a midwife, but they all charge much too much. Marija only has a quarter left, the family is starving, and they owe Mrs. Jukniene two weeks of rent. Meanwhile, the children have all been unable to come back in from downtown Chicago because the weather has been so bad. So the children don't know what further disasters have hit the family. Jurgis looks like he is about to collapse. Mrs. Jukniene gets up and hands him thirty-four cents. Their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Olszewski, gives Jurgis enough for a total of a buck twenty-five. Jurgis runs out to find a midwife.

After serving additional time in prison to cover the court costs, Jurgis is released. He returns to his house to find it painted and someone else living there. An Irishwoman tells him that she recently bought the house. Grandmother Majauszkiene tells Jurgis that his family has returned to the Widow Jukniene's. He races there, finding many women huddled in the kitchen, and is assailed by Ona's screams. Marija explains that her baby has come early and they have no money for a midwife. The women together scrounge up their money, give it to Jurgis, and tell him to search for someone.

Jurgis and his family are just one of many in the vicious cycle of abuse which comprises life in Packingtown. Chapter 18 exists mostly to bridge one part of Jurgis' life to the next. Walking the wrong way after being released from prison illustrates the fact that Jurgis is directionless and clueless, yet still does not know to whom he should listen. Arriving at his house, he finds that what he considered his own is, in reality, not his. Another family has been swindled, just as Jurgis had been. Both his house and his family are gone. Losing his house not only symbolizes the lost American dream, it foreshadows Jurgis' loss of Ona. When he arrives to find Ona having an early and difficult delivery, readers know that this birth will not be a happy occasion and that Ona will probably die. Glossary vitals organs necessary for human life, such as the heart, brain, and lungs, etc.

Jurgis has to stay in prison for three extra days because he lacks the money to pay the cost of his trial. When he is released, he walks twenty miles to his home in Packingtown. He discovers a new family living in his home. He visits Grandmother Majauszkiene, who informs him that his family could not pay the rent. The agent evicted them and sold the house within a week. She gives him the address of the boarding house where they stayed when they first arrived in Chicago. Jurgis trudges off toward the old boarding house, feeling defeated and reflecting on how he and his family have been unjustly treated. As the widow stands in the open door, Jurgis hears Ona screaming, and he tears through the house. He hears her in a garret; as he is about to ascend the ladder to the garret, however, Marija tries to stop him. She tells him that the Ona's baby is coming--Ona has gone into premature labor. Unable to stand Ona's horrible cries, Jurgis scrounges together a dollar and a quarter from the widow and other women in her kitchen in order to get help for Ona

The narrative shape of The Jungle is extremely simple: it exposes the fallacy of the American Dream by portraying the gradual destruction of the immigrant family at the hands of the forces of capitalism. Every section, every chapter, and nearly every individual event throughout most of the book operates according to this plan. In this section, not surprisingly, the family continues to suffer greater and greater misfortunes. Their home, the symbol of family life, has been taken from them; the building looks as if the family never even lived there. Jurgis's return to his home is a metaphor for the cyclical nature of generations of immigrants. These waves of immigrants pass through Packingtown and its misery--the only constant in their lives. Moreover, the second- and third-generation children of earlier waves of immigrants seem to forget that their ancestors suffered the very same abuses that they now perpetrate on the newer generations of immigrants. As theories about eugenics  arose in the late nineteenth century, making claims about the inherent inferiority of nonwhite peoples and white peoples of certain descent, Americans became hostile toward the waves of immigrants whom they perceived as infiltrators spoiling the purity of the American people. The first waves were constituted largely of northern and western Europeans. The Irish, then, stereotyped as potato-eating drunks, were among the early targets of ridicule. With the arrival of later waves of immigrants, largely from southern and eastern Europe, these earlier immigrants sought to take advantage of these new immigrants. Phil Connor, for example, an Irishman, takes part in the abuse and degradation that, a few decades earlier, the Irish suffered at the hands of more powerful ethnic groups. Historical memory is short if not nonexistent in The Jungle.  These chapters also function as the next stage of Sinclair's attack on capitalism. Earlier, he shows that child labor laws do nothing to stop child labor, implying that it is not possible to improve working conditions and labor practices from within the structures of capitalism. Jurgis's job at the harvester factory expounds upon the same idea. The factory supposedly functions according to philanthropic values, and the facilities are cleaner and the working conditions more pleasant. Nevertheless, the factory shuts down periodically after the rush season just like other factories, leaving thousands of laborers without the income necessary to survive. The factory's philanthropic values do nothing to change the essentially precarious existence of wage laborers. Again, working from within capitalism fails to provide wage laborers with a secure, decent living. The young woman who secures Jurgis a job with her recommendation shows compassion in an otherwise cruel world. However, her actions do nothing to change the dangerous working conditions in the steel factory where her fiance is a superintendent--Jurgis witnesses several men suffer horrendous, disabling accidents in the steel mill. Neither does her kind action make a difference in the dangerous conditions in the slums where wage laborers live. She helps Jurgis secure an income, but Antanas still drowns in the unpaved, muddy streets outside the boarding house. Through this example, Sinclair argues, pessimistically, that individual philanthropists working within the structures of capitalism are likewise ineffective at changing the lives of wage laborers for the better.


"Madame Haupt Hebamme", ran a sign, swinging from a second-story window
over a saloon on the avenue; at a side door was another sign, with a
hand pointing up a dingy flight of stairs. Jurgis went up them, three at
a time.

Madame Haupt was frying pork and onions, and had her door half open to
let out the smoke. When he tried to knock upon it, it swung open the
rest of the way, and he had a glimpse of her, with a black bottle turned
up to her lips. Then he knocked louder, and she started and put it away.
She was a Dutchwoman, enormously fat--when she walked she rolled like
a small boat on the ocean, and the dishes in the cupboard jostled each
other. She wore a filthy blue wrapper, and her teeth were black.

"Vot is it?" she said, when she saw Jurgis.

He had run like mad all the way and was so out of breath he could hardly
speak. His hair was flying and his eyes wild--he looked like a man that
had risen from the tomb. "My wife!" he panted. "Come quickly!" Madame
Haupt set the frying pan to one side and wiped her hands on her wrapper.

"You vant me to come for a case?" she inquired.

"Yes," gasped Jurgis.

"I haf yust come back from a case," she said. "I haf had no time to eat
my dinner. Still--if it is so bad--"

"Yes--it is!" cried he.

"Vell, den, perhaps--vot you pay?"

"I--I--how much do you want?" Jurgis stammered.

"Tventy-five dollars." His face fell. "I can't pay that," he said.

The woman was watching him narrowly. "How much do you pay?" she
demanded.

"Must I pay now--right away?"

"Yes; all my customers do."

"I--I haven't much money," Jurgis began in an agony of dread. "I've been
in--in trouble--and my money is gone. But I'll pay you--every cent--just
as soon as I can; I can work--"

"Vot is your work?"

"I have no place now. I must get one. But I--"

"How much haf you got now?"

He could hardly bring himself to reply. When he said "A dollar and a
quarter," the woman laughed in his face.

"I vould not put on my hat for a dollar and a quarter," she said.

"It's all I've got," he pleaded, his voice breaking. "I must get some
one--my wife will die. I can't help it--I--"

Madame Haupt had put back her pork and onions on the stove. She turned
to him and answered, out of the steam and noise: "Git me ten dollars
cash, und so you can pay me the rest next mont'."

"I can't do it--I haven't got it!" Jurgis protested. "I tell you I have
only a dollar and a quarter."

The woman turned to her work. "I don't believe you," she said. "Dot is
all to try to sheat me. Vot is de reason a big man like you has got only
a dollar und a quarter?"

"I've just been in jail," Jurgis cried--he was ready to get down upon
his knees to the woman--"and I had no money before, and my family has
almost starved."

"Vere is your friends, dot ought to help you?"

"They are all poor," he answered. "They gave me this. I have done
everything I can--"

"Haven't you got notting you can sell?"

"I have nothing, I tell you--I have nothing," he cried, frantically.

"Can't you borrow it, den? Don't your store people trust you?" Then, as
he shook his head, she went on: "Listen to me--if you git me you vill be
glad of it. I vill save your wife und baby for you, and it vill not seem
like mooch to you in de end. If you loose dem now how you tink you feel
den? Und here is a lady dot knows her business--I could send you to
people in dis block, und dey vould tell you--"

Madame Haupt was pointing her cooking-fork at Jurgis persuasively; but
her words were more than he could bear. He flung up his hands with
a gesture of despair and turned and started away. "It's no use," he
exclaimed--but suddenly he heard the woman's voice behind him again--

"I vill make it five dollars for you."

She followed behind him, arguing with him. "You vill be foolish not to
take such an offer," she said. "You von't find nobody go out on a rainy
day like dis for less. Vy, I haf never took a case in my life so sheap
as dot. I couldn't pay mine room rent--"

Jurgis interrupted her with an oath of rage. "If I haven't got it," he
shouted, "how can I pay it? Damn it, I would pay you if I could, but I
tell you I haven't got it. I haven't got it! Do you hear me I haven't
got it!"

He turned and started away again. He was halfway down the stairs before
Madame Haupt could shout to him: "Vait! I vill go mit you! Come back!"

He went back into the room again.

"It is not goot to tink of anybody suffering," she said, in a melancholy
voice. "I might as vell go mit you for noffing as vot you offer me, but
I vill try to help you. How far is it?"

"Three or four blocks from here."

"Tree or four! Und so I shall get soaked! Gott in Himmel, it ought to
be vorth more! Vun dollar und a quarter, und a day like dis!--But you
understand now--you vill pay me de rest of twenty-five dollars soon?"

"As soon as I can."

"Some time dis mont'?"

"Yes, within a month," said poor Jurgis. "Anything! Hurry up!"

"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,
complaining 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 meantime 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 sometimes
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 doorway and listened to her scolding, half drowning out the
horrible moans and screams of Ona.

At last Aniele succeeded in pacifying her, and she essayed the ascent;
then, however, she had to be stopped while the old woman cautioned her
about the floor of the garret. They had no real floor--they had laid old
boards in one part to make a place for the family to live; it was all
right and safe there, but the other part of the garret had only the
joists of the floor, and the lath and plaster of the ceiling below, and
if one stepped on this there would be a catastrophe. As it was half dark
up above, perhaps one of the others had best go up first with a candle.
Then there were more outcries and threatening, until at last Jurgis had
a vision of a pair of elephantine legs disappearing through the trap
door, and felt the house shake as Madame Haupt started to walk. Then
suddenly Aniele came to him and took him by the arm.

"Now," she said, "you go away. Do as I tell you--you have done all you
can, and you are only in the way. Go away and stay away."

"But where shall I go?" Jurgis asked, helplessly.

"I don't know where," she answered. "Go on the street, if there is no
other place--only go! And stay all night!"

In the end she and Marija pushed him out of the door and shut it behind
him. It was just about sundown, and it was turning cold--the rain had
changed to snow, and the slush was freezing. Jurgis shivered in his thin
clothing, and put his hands into his pockets and started away. He had
not eaten since morning, and he felt weak and ill; with a sudden throb
of hope he recollected he was only a few blocks from the saloon where he
had been wont to eat his dinner. They might have mercy on him there,
or he might meet a friend. He set out for the place as fast as he could
walk.

"Hello, Jack," said the saloon-keeper, when he entered--they call all
foreigners and unskilled men "Jack" in Packingtown. "Where've you been?"

Jurgis went straight to the bar. "I've been in jail," he said, "and I've
just got out. I walked home all the way, and I've not a cent, and had
nothing to eat since this morning. And I've lost my home, and my wife's
ill, and I'm done up."

The saloon-keeper gazed at him, with his haggard white face and his blue
trembling lips. Then he pushed a big bottle toward him. "Fill her up!"
he said.

Jurgis could hardly hold the bottle, his hands shook so.

"Don't be afraid," said the saloon-keeper, "fill her up!"

So Jurgis drank a large glass of whisky, and then turned to the lunch
counter, in obedience to the other's suggestion. He ate all he dared,
stuffing it in as fast as he could; and then, after trying to speak his
gratitude, he went and sat down by the big red stove in the middle of
the room.

It was too good to last, however--like all things in this hard
world. His soaked clothing began to steam, and the horrible stench of
fertilizer to fill the room. In an hour or so the packing houses would
be closing and the men coming in from their work; and they would not
come into a place that smelt of Jurgis. Also it was Saturday night, and
in a couple of hours would come a violin and a cornet, and in the rear
part of the saloon the families of the neighborhood would dance and
feast upon wienerwurst and lager, until two or three o'clock in the
morning. The saloon-keeper coughed once or twice, and then remarked,
"Say, Jack, I'm afraid you'll have to quit."

He was used to the sight of human wrecks, this saloon-keeper; he "fired"
dozens of them every night, just as haggard and cold and forlorn as this
one. But they were all men who had given up and been counted out, while
Jurgis was still in the fight, and had reminders of decency about him.
As he got up meekly, the other reflected that he had always been a
steady man, and might soon be a good customer again. "You've been up
against it, I see," he said. "Come this way."

In the rear of the saloon were the cellar stairs. There was a door above
and another below, both safely padlocked, making the stairs an admirable
place to stow away a customer who might still chance to have money, or a
political light whom it was not advisable to kick out of doors.

So Jurgis spent the night. The whisky had only half warmed him, and he
could not sleep, exhausted as he was; he would nod forward, and then
start up, shivering with the cold, and begin to remember again. Hour
after hour passed, until he could only persuade himself that it was not
morning by the sounds of music and laughter and singing that were to
be heard from the room. When at last these ceased, he expected that he
would be turned out into the street; as this did not happen, he fell to
wondering whether the man had forgotten him.

In the end, when the silence and suspense were no longer to be borne,
he got up and hammered on the door; and the proprietor came, yawning
and rubbing his eyes. He was keeping open all night, and dozing between
customers.

"I want to go home," Jurgis said. "I'm worried about my wife--I can't
wait any longer."

"Why the hell didn't you say so before?" said the man. "I thought you
didn't have any home to go to." Jurgis went outside. It was four o'clock
in the morning, and as black as night. There were three or four inches
of fresh snow on the ground, and the flakes were falling thick and fast.
He turned toward Aniele's and started at a run.

There was a light burning in the kitchen window and the blinds were
drawn. The door was unlocked and Jurgis rushed in.

Aniele, Marija, and the rest of the women were huddled about the
stove, exactly as before; with them were several newcomers, Jurgis
noticed--also he noticed that the house was silent.

"Well?" he said.

No one answered him, they sat staring at him with their pale faces. He
cried again: "Well?"

And then, by the light of the smoky lamp, he saw Marija who sat nearest
him, shaking her head slowly. "Not yet," she said.

And Jurgis gave a cry of dismay. "Not yet?"

Again Marija's head shook. The poor fellow stood dumfounded. "I don't
hear her," he gasped.

"She's been quiet a long time," replied the other.

There was another pause--broken suddenly by a voice from the attic:
"Hello, there!"

Several of the women ran into the next room, while Marija sprang toward
Jurgis. "Wait here!" she cried, and the two stood, pale and trembling,
listening. In a few moments it became clear that Madame Haupt was
engaged in descending the ladder, scolding and exhorting again, while
the ladder creaked in protest. In a moment or two she reached the
ground, angry and breathless, and they heard her coming into the room.
Jurgis gave one glance at her, and then turned white and reeled. She had
her jacket off, like one of the workers on the killing beds. Her hands
and arms were smeared with blood, and blood was splashed upon her
clothing and her face.

She stood breathing hard, and gazing about her; no one made a sound. "I
haf done my best," she began suddenly. "I can do noffing more--dere is
no use to try."

Again there was silence.

"It ain't my fault," she said. "You had ought to haf had a doctor, und
not vaited so long--it vas too late already ven I come." Once more there
was deathlike stillness. Marija was clutching Jurgis with all the power
of her one well arm.

Then suddenly Madame Haupt turned to Aniele. "You haf not got something
to drink, hey?" she queried. "Some brandy?"

Aniele shook her head.

"Herr Gott!" exclaimed Madame Haupt. "Such people! Perhaps you vill give
me someting to eat den--I haf had noffing since yesterday morning, und
I haf vorked myself near to death here. If I could haf known it vas
like dis, I vould never haf come for such money as you gif me." At this
moment she chanced to look round, and saw Jurgis: She shook her finger
at him. "You understand me," she said, "you pays me dot money yust de
same! It is not my fault dat you send for me so late I can't help your
vife. It is not my fault if der baby comes mit one arm first, so dot I
can't save it. I haf tried all night, und in dot place vere it is not
fit for dogs to be born, und mit notting to eat only vot I brings in
mine own pockets."

Here Madame Haupt paused for a moment to get her breath; and Marija,
seeing the beads of sweat on Jurgis's forehead, and feeling the
quivering of his frame, broke out in a low voice: "How is Ona?"

"How is she?" echoed Madame Haupt. "How do you tink she can be ven
you leave her to kill herself so? I told dem dot ven they send for de
priest. She is young, und she might haf got over it, und been vell und
strong, if she had been treated right. She fight hard, dot girl--she is
not yet quite dead."

And Jurgis gave a frantic scream. "Dead!"

"She vill die, of course," said the other angrily. "Der baby is dead
now."

The garret was lighted by a candle stuck upon a board; it had almost
burned itself out, and was sputtering and smoking as Jurgis rushed up
the ladder. He could make out dimly in one corner a pallet of rags and
old blankets, spread upon the floor; at the foot of it was a crucifix,
and near it a priest muttering a prayer. In a far corner crouched
Elzbieta, moaning and wailing. Upon the pallet lay Ona.

She was covered with a blanket, but he could see her shoulders and
one arm lying bare; she was so shrunken he would scarcely have known
her--she was all but a skeleton, and as white as a piece of chalk. Her
eyelids were closed, and she lay still as death. He staggered toward her
and fell upon his knees with a cry of anguish: "Ona! Ona!"

She did not stir. He caught her hand in his, and began to clasp
it frantically, calling: "Look at me! Answer me! It is Jurgis come
back--don't you hear me?"

There was the faintest quivering of the eyelids, and he called again in
frenzy: "Ona! Ona!"

Then suddenly her eyes opened one instant. One instant she looked at
him--there was a flash of recognition between them, he saw her afar off,
as through a dim vista, standing forlorn. He stretched out his arms to
her, he called her in wild despair; a fearful yearning surged up in him,
hunger for her that was agony, desire that was a new being born
within him, tearing his heartstrings, torturing him. But it was all in
vain--she faded from him, she slipped back and was gone. And a wail of
anguish burst from him, great sobs shook all his frame, and hot tears
ran down his cheeks and fell upon her. He clutched her hands, he shook
her, he caught her in his arms and pressed her to him but she lay cold
and still--she was gone--she was gone!

The word rang through him like the sound of a bell, echoing in the far
depths of him, making forgotten chords to vibrate, old shadowy fears to
stir--fears of the dark, fears of the void, fears of annihilation. She
was dead! She was dead! He would never see her again, never hear her
again! An icy horror of loneliness seized him; he saw himself standing
apart and watching all the world fade away from him--a world of shadows,
of fickle dreams. He was like a little child, in his fright and grief;
he called and called, and got no answer, and his cries of despair echoed
through the house, making the women downstairs draw nearer to each other
in fear. He was inconsolable, beside himself--the priest came and laid
his hand upon his shoulder and whispered to him, but he heard not a
sound. He was gone away himself, stumbling through the shadows, and
groping after the soul that had fled.

So he lay. The gray dawn came up and crept into the attic. The
priest left, the women left, and he was alone with the still, white
figure--quieter now, but moaning and shuddering, wrestling with the
grisly fiend. Now and then he would raise himself and stare at the white
mask before him, then hide his eyes because he could not bear it. Dead!
dead! And she was only a girl, she was barely eighteen! Her life had
hardly begun--and here she lay murdered--mangled, tortured to death!

It was morning when he rose up and came down into the kitchen--haggard
and ashen gray, reeling and dazed. More of the neighbors had come in,
and they stared at him in silence as he sank down upon a chair by the
table and buried his face in his arms.

A few minutes later the front door opened; a blast of cold and snow
rushed in, and behind it little Kotrina, breathless from running, and
blue with the cold. "I'm home again!" she exclaimed. "I could hardly--"

And then, seeing Jurgis, she stopped with an exclamation. Looking from
one to another she saw that something had happened, and she asked, in a
lower voice: "What's the matter?"

Before anyone could reply, Jurgis started up; he went toward her,
walking unsteadily. "Where have you been?" he demanded.

"Selling papers with the boys," she said. "The snow--"

"Have you any money?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"How much?"

"Nearly three dollars, Jurgis."

"Give it to me."

Kotrina, frightened by his manner, glanced at the others. "Give it to
me!" he commanded again, and she put her hand into her pocket and pulled
out a lump of coins tied in a bit of rag. Jurgis took it without a word,
and went out of the door and down the street.

Three doors away was a saloon. "Whisky," he said, as he entered, and as
the man pushed him some, he tore at the rag with his teeth and pulled
out half a dollar. "How much is the bottle?" he said. "I want to get
drunk."

Jurgis goes to Madame Haupt, a midwife. She is a fat Dutch woman, wearing a "filthy blue wrapper" with black teeth. Jurgis enters her room looking "like a man that had risen from the tomb. He begs Madame Haupt to come and save his wife, but she complains that she has not yet eaten her dinner. Jurgis tells her that he only has a dollar and a quarter to pay her. He begs with her and tells her that he will pay the twenty-five dollars that she asks as soon as he can. She laughs at him and tells him that she cannot do it for that small sum. They continue to barter, Madame Haupt telling him that she cannot work for such a small sum, but as Jurgis begins to leave her house, she stops him and tells him that she will work if he can borrow five dollars from someone. He is furious and tells her that he cannot get the money and Madame Haupt relents, saying that she cannot stand to think of anyone suffering, but that he will have to pay her the full twenty-five dollars within the month. When they arrive at the house, Madame Haupt complains that she must climb a ladder to get to the dark attic where Ona lays. She scolds them for keeping a sick woman in such conditions. There is no real floor in the attic, only boards laid across the house's supports. Aniele comes to Jurgis and tells him he must go away from the night. Jurgis leaves and goes to a saloon. He sits at the bar and tells the bartender that he has lost his home, that his wife is ill, and that "I'm done up. The saloonkeeper gives him a glass of whiskey and a meal and then offers him a room for the night. Jurgis cannot sleep, however, because he is so wracked with fear and worry. He leaves the saloon at four in the morning and returns to the home. When he arrives, there is no crying or noise. Marija tells him that there is no news yet. Madame Haupt comes down the ladder of the attic. She looks like "one of the workers on the killing-beds. Her hands and arms were smeared with blood, and blood was splashed up on her clothing and her face. She scolds Jurgis and the other women for leaving Ona in such a bad condition. She tells Jurgis that she has called for a priest and that there is nothing she can do for the woman. She is going to be dead in a short while, and the baby is stillborn. Jurgis rushes up to the attic and sits by Ona. He cries out for her and for a brief instant, she opens her eyes and recognizes him. She fades from him and dies. He cries out in agony, and the priest tries to comfort him, to no avail. He sleeps for only a while and then comes down. Kotrina comes in from being gone for three days selling papers, and Jurgis demands to know how much money she had made. She tells him three dollars and he demands that she give it to him. He takes the money and immediately goes to the nearest saloon where he orders a whole bottle of whiskey, telling the bartender that he wants to get drunk

Jurgis finds a sign that says "Madame Haupt Hebamme." "Hebamme" is German for midwife, and "Haupt" means top or boss. So, she's advertising herself as the top midwife. But the novel also uses her title like a name - this midwife is called Madame Haupt for the next chapter, i.e., Madame Boss. Jurgis finds Madame Haupt just about to eat dinner. She doesn't want to come out to see Ona. Madame Haupt demands $25 for her services. Jurgis insists that he has to have help, but he simply cannot pay more than $1.25. Madame Haupt keeps asking him for more cash, but Jurgis really has no other resources. Finally, Jurgis turns to find someone else. Madame Haupt calls him back and demands the $1.25 Jurgis has on him. She will also expect Jurgis to pay her $25 some time in the next month. Madame Haupt is quite fat, and so she protests about going up the ladder to Mrs. Jukniene's attic room. She also complains about the poverty of their surroundings and the lack of alcohol to drink. Still, Madame Haupt eventually goes up to help Ona. Mrs. Jukniene and Marija shove Jurgis out the apartment door once more. He decides to go to the saloon where he used to eat often in the hopes of some charity from its managers. Jurgis has a large whiskey and eats lunch before settling in next to the bar stove for warmth. As his clothes warm up, the fertilizer stench starts to roll of Jurgis. So the bartender almost boots Jurgis out the door. However, the bartender feels a flash of pity for Jurgis, who still seems like a decent enough guy. The bartender lets Jurgis spend the night in his back room. Jurgis leaves the bar late at night to check on Ona. Mrs. Jukniene, Marija, and several other women from the neighborhood are all huddled around the stove back in Mrs. Jukniene's apartment. Jurgis asks what has happened to Ona. No one answers. Madame Haupt slowly comes climbing down the ladder. Her arms are covered with blood. Madame Haupt complains once again that they have no food or drink to offer her. She says that the baby has already died and that Ona will die soon. Jurgis races upstairs and goes to Ona's side. Teta Elzbieta is crying in the corner. Ona is pale and thin - like a skeleton. Jurgis begs Ona to wake up. Ona opens her eyes for one moment, and then passes away. Jurgis is totally beside himself. He feels lonely and beyond consolation. The next morning, Kotrina comes in through the front door. There is snow falling outside. Kotrina asks Jurgis what's wrong. Jurgis demands to know where Kotrina has been. She's been selling papers in the city with the boys. She has made nearly$3. Jurgis makes Kotrina give him the money. Jurgis walks out the door and straight back into the local bar. He demands a bottle of whisky. He wants to get drunk.

Jurgis' search for a midwife leads him to Madame Haupt, who is reluctant to help because Jurgis has no money to pay. After much debate and Jurgis' leaving in frustration and anger, she agrees to help. The women again send Jurgis from the house. When he returns, he finds that the baby is dead and Ona is dying. Jurgis rushes to her; she opens her eyes for one brief instant of recognition and dies. He remains numb and shocked until Kotrina arrives home from selling papers. He takes her money and announces that he's going to get drunk.

Sinclair provides an excellent description of life in the slums as Jurgis searches for help and, after finally finding some, is dismissed from the scene. The death of Ona is the first of two central turning points in Jurgis' life . He was supposed to have been taking care of her, but was unable to do so. This entire chapter is a series of losses -- Jurgis loses his way, his house, and his wife. And all that he has lost has been the fault of the capitalistic society in which he lives. The same society has to depend on the Madame Haupts of the world. Madame Haupt, an enormously overweight and dirty woman, is one of the few minor characters who are realistically portrayed. Sinclair spends little time developing other minor characters, and as a result, most of them are stereotypes. She, however, is a multi-dimensional character who embodies life in Packingtown: She is the poor man's doctor, the necessary evil. Glossary wrapper a loose garment wrapped around the body; especially, a woman's dressing gown. wienerwurst a smoked sausage of beef or beef and pork, etc., enclosed in a membranous casing and made in cylindrical links a few inches long. lager a type of beer stored at a low temperature for aging after it has been brewed. vista a comprehensive mental view of a series of remembered or anticipated events. haggard having a wild, wasted, worn look, as from sleeplessness, grief, or illness.

Jurgis runs to the apartment of a Dutch midwife, Madame Haupt, and begs her to attend to Ona. She asks for twenty-five dollars; after trying unsuccessfully to make her understand that he has neither money nor friends with money, Jurgis heads down the stairs. Madame Haupt finally agrees to go for the dollar and a quarter that Jurgis does have. Marija and the widow turn Jurgis out for the night, telling him that he will only be in the way. He goes to a saloon that he used to frequent, and the saloonkeeper provides him food, drink, and a place to rest. At four o'clock in the morning, Jurgis returns to the boardinghouse and sees Madame Haupt descend from the garret covered in blood. She informs him that the baby is dead and that Ona is dying. Jurgis rushes up to find a priest praying near the withered Ona. She recognizes him for an instant and then dies. In the morning, Kotrina appears and Jurgis demands to know where she has been. She replies that she has been out selling papers with the boys. Jurgis takes three dollars from her and proceeds to a nearby bar to get drunk