The beginning of these perplexing things was in the summer; and each
time Ona would promise him with terror in her voice that it would not
happen again--but in vain. Each crisis would leave Jurgis more and more
frightened, more disposed to distrust Elzbieta's consolations, and to
believe that there was some terrible thing about all this that he was
not allowed to know. Once or twice in these outbreaks he caught Ona's
eye, and it seemed to him like the eye of a hunted animal; there were
broken phrases of anguish and despair now and then, amid her frantic
weeping. It was only because he was so numb and beaten himself that
Jurgis did not worry more about this. But he never thought of it, except
when he was dragged to it--he lived like a dumb beast of burden, knowing
only the moment in which he was.

The winter was coming on again, more menacing and cruel than ever. It
was October, and the holiday rush had begun. It was necessary for the
packing machines to grind till late at night to provide food that would
be eaten at Christmas breakfasts; and Marija and Elzbieta and Ona, as
part of the machine, began working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. There
was no choice about this--whatever work there was to be done they had to
do, if they wished to keep their places; besides that, it added another
pittance to their incomes. So they staggered on with the awful load.
They would start work every morning at seven, and eat their dinners
at noon, and then work until ten or eleven at night without another
mouthful of food. Jurgis wanted to wait for them, to help them home at
night, but they would not think of this; the fertilizer mill was not
running overtime, and there was no place for him to wait save in a
saloon. Each would stagger out into the darkness, and make her way to
the corner, where they met; or if the others had already gone, would get
into a car, and begin a painful struggle to keep awake. When they got
home they were always too tired either to eat or to undress; they would
crawl into bed with their shoes on, and lie like logs. If they should
fail, they would certainly be lost; if they held out, they might have
enough coal for the winter.

A day or two before Thanksgiving Day there came a snowstorm. It began
in the afternoon, and by evening two inches had fallen. Jurgis tried
to wait for the women, but went into a saloon to get warm, and took two
drinks, and came out and ran home to escape from the demon; there he
lay down to wait for them, and instantly fell asleep. When he opened
his eyes again he was in the midst of a nightmare, and found Elzbieta
shaking him and crying out. At first he could not realize what she
was saying--Ona had not come home. What time was it, he asked. It was
morning--time to be up. Ona had not been home that night! And it was
bitter cold, and a foot of snow on the ground.

Jurgis sat up with a start. Marija was crying with fright and the
children were wailing in sympathy--little Stanislovas in addition,
because the terror of the snow was upon him. Jurgis had nothing to put
on but his shoes and his coat, and in half a minute he was out of the
door. Then, however, he realized that there was no need of haste, that
he had no idea where to go. It was still dark as midnight, and the thick
snowflakes were sifting down--everything was so silent that he could
hear the rustle of them as they fell. In the few seconds that he stood
there hesitating he was covered white.

He set off at a run for the yards, stopping by the way to inquire in the
saloons that were open. Ona might have been overcome on the way; or else
she might have met with an accident in the machines. When he got to the
place where she worked he inquired of one of the watchmen--there had
not been any accident, so far as the man had heard. At the time office,
which he found already open, the clerk told him that Ona's check had
been turned in the night before, showing that she had left her work.

After that there was nothing for him to do but wait, pacing back and
forth in the snow, meantime, to keep from freezing. Already the yards
were full of activity; cattle were being unloaded from the cars in the
distance, and across the way the "beef-luggers" were toiling in the
darkness, carrying two-hundred-pound quarters of bullocks into the
refrigerator cars. Before the first streaks of daylight there came the
crowding throngs of workingmen, shivering, and swinging their dinner
pails as they hurried by. Jurgis took up his stand by the time-office
window, where alone there was light enough for him to see; the snow fell
so quick that it was only by peering closely that he could make sure
that Ona did not pass him.

Seven o'clock came, the hour when the great packing machine began to
move. Jurgis ought to have been at his place in the fertilizer mill;
but instead he was waiting, in an agony of fear, for Ona. It was fifteen
minutes after the hour when he saw a form emerge from the snow mist,
and sprang toward it with a cry. It was she, running swiftly; as she saw
him, she staggered forward, and half fell into his outstretched arms.

"What has been the matter?" he cried, anxiously. "Where have you been?"

It was several seconds before she could get breath to answer him. "I
couldn't get home," she exclaimed. "The snow--the cars had stopped."

"But where were you then?" he demanded.

"I had to go home with a friend," she panted--"with Jadvyga."

Jurgis drew a deep breath; but then he noticed that she was sobbing and
trembling--as if in one of those nervous crises that he dreaded so. "But
what's the matter?" he cried. "What has happened?"

"Oh, Jurgis, I was so frightened!" she said, clinging to him wildly. "I
have been so worried!"

They were near the time station window, and people were staring at them.
Jurgis led her away. "How do you mean?" he asked, in perplexity.

"I was afraid--I was just afraid!" sobbed Ona. "I knew you wouldn't know
where I was, and I didn't know what you might do. I tried to get home,
but I was so tired. Oh, Jurgis, Jurgis!"

He was so glad to get her back that he could not think clearly about
anything else. It did not seem strange to him that she should be so very
much upset; all her fright and incoherent protestations did not matter
since he had her back. He let her cry away her tears; and then, because
it was nearly eight o'clock, and they would lose another hour if they
delayed, he left her at the packing house door, with her ghastly white
face and her haunted eyes of terror.

There was another brief interval. Christmas was almost come; and because
the snow still held, and the searching cold, morning after morning
Jurgis half carried his wife to her post, staggering with her through
the darkness; until at last, one night, came the end.

It lacked but three days of the holidays. About midnight Marija and
Elzbieta came home, exclaiming in alarm when they found that Ona had not
come. The two had agreed to meet her; and, after waiting, had gone to
the room where she worked; only to find that the ham-wrapping girls had
quit work an hour before, and left. There was no snow that night, nor
was it especially cold; and still Ona had not come! Something more
serious must be wrong this time.

They aroused Jurgis, and he sat up and listened crossly to the story.
She must have gone home again with Jadvyga, he said; Jadvyga lived only
two blocks from the yards, and perhaps she had been tired. Nothing could
have happened to her--and even if there had, there was nothing could
be done about it until morning. Jurgis turned over in his bed, and was
snoring again before the two had closed the door.

In the morning, however, he was up and out nearly an hour before the
usual time. Jadvyga Marcinkus lived on the other side of the yards,
beyond Halsted Street, with her mother and sisters, in a single basement
room--for Mikolas had recently lost one hand from blood poisoning, and
their marriage had been put off forever. The door of the room was in the
rear, reached by a narrow court, and Jurgis saw a light in the window
and heard something frying as he passed; he knocked, half expecting that
Ona would answer.

Instead there was one of Jadvyga's little sisters, who gazed at him
through a crack in the door. "Where's Ona?" he demanded; and the child
looked at him in perplexity. "Ona?" she said.

"Yes," said Jurgis, "isn't she here?"

"No," said the child, and Jurgis gave a start. A moment later came
Jadvyga, peering over the child's head. When she saw who it was, she
slid around out of sight, for she was not quite dressed. Jurgis must
excuse her, she began, her mother was very ill--

"Ona isn't here?" Jurgis demanded, too alarmed to wait for her to
finish.

"Why, no," said Jadvyga. "What made you think she would be here? Had she
said she was coming?"

"No," he answered. "But she hasn't come home--and I thought she would be
here the same as before."

"As before?" echoed Jadvyga, in perplexity.

"The time she spent the night here," said Jurgis.

"There must be some mistake," she answered, quickly. "Ona has never
spent the night here."

He was only half able to realize the words. "Why--why--" he exclaimed.
"Two weeks ago. Jadvyga! She told me so the night it snowed, and she
could not get home."

"There must be some mistake," declared the girl, again; "she didn't come
here."

He steadied himself by the door-sill; and Jadvyga in her anxiety--for
she was fond of Ona--opened the door wide, holding her jacket across
her throat. "Are you sure you didn't misunderstand her?" she cried. "She
must have meant somewhere else. She--"

"She said here," insisted Jurgis. "She told me all about you, and how
you were, and what you said. Are you sure? You haven't forgotten? You
weren't away?"

"No, no!" she exclaimed--and then came a peevish voice--"Jadvyga, you
are giving the baby a cold. Shut the door!" Jurgis stood for half a
minute more, stammering his perplexity through an eighth of an inch of
crack; and then, as there was really nothing more to be said, he excused
himself and went away.

He walked on half dazed, without knowing where he went. Ona had deceived
him! She had lied to him! And what could it mean--where had she been?
Where was she now? He could hardly grasp the thing--much less try to
solve it; but a hundred wild surmises came to him, a sense of impending
calamity overwhelmed him.

Because there was nothing else to do, he went back to the time office to
watch again. He waited until nearly an hour after seven, and then went
to the room where Ona worked to make inquiries of Ona's "forelady." The
"forelady," he found, had not yet come; all the lines of cars that
came from downtown were stalled--there had been an accident in the
powerhouse, and no cars had been running since last night. Meantime,
however, the ham-wrappers were working away, with some one else in
charge of them. The girl who answered Jurgis was busy, and as she
talked she looked to see if she were being watched. Then a man came
up, wheeling a truck; he knew Jurgis for Ona's husband, and was curious
about the mystery.

"Maybe the cars had something to do with it," he suggested--"maybe she
had gone down-town."

"No," said Jurgis, "she never went down-town."

"Perhaps not," said the man. Jurgis thought he saw him exchange a swift
glance with the girl as he spoke, and he demanded quickly. "What do you
know about it?"

But the man had seen that the boss was watching him; he started on
again, pushing his truck. "I don't know anything about it," he said,
over his shoulder. "How should I know where your wife goes?"

Then Jurgis went out again and paced up and down before the building.
All the morning he stayed there, with no thought of his work. About
noon he went to the police station to make inquiries, and then came
back again for another anxious vigil. Finally, toward the middle of the
afternoon, he set out for home once more.

He was walking out Ashland Avenue. The streetcars had begun running
again, and several passed him, packed to the steps with people. The
sight of them set Jurgis to thinking again of the man's sarcastic
remark; and half involuntarily he found himself watching the cars--with
the result that he gave a sudden startled exclamation, and stopped short
in his tracks.

Then he broke into a run. For a whole block he tore after the car, only
a little ways behind. That rusty black hat with the drooping red flower,
it might not be Ona's, but there was very little likelihood of it.
He would know for certain very soon, for she would get out two blocks
ahead. He slowed down, and let the car go on.

She got out: and as soon as she was out of sight on the side street
Jurgis broke into a run. Suspicion was rife in him now, and he was not
ashamed to shadow her: he saw her turn the corner near their home, and
then he ran again, and saw her as she went up the porch steps of the
house. After that he turned back, and for five minutes paced up and
down, his hands clenched tightly and his lips set, his mind in a
turmoil. Then he went home and entered.

As he opened the door, he saw Elzbieta, who had also been looking for
Ona, and had come home again. She was now on tiptoe, and had a finger on
her lips. Jurgis waited until she was close to him.

"Don't make any noise," she whispered, hurriedly.

"What's the matter'?" he asked. "Ona is asleep," she panted. "She's been
very ill. I'm afraid her mind's been wandering, Jurgis. She was lost
on the street all night, and I've only just succeeded in getting her
quiet."

"When did she come in?" he asked.

"Soon after you left this morning," said Elzbieta.

"And has she been out since?"

"No, of course not. She's so weak, Jurgis, she--"

And he set his teeth hard together. "You are lying to me," he said.

Elzbieta started, and turned pale. "Why!" she gasped. "What do you
mean?"

But Jurgis did not answer. He pushed her aside, and strode to the
bedroom door and opened it.

Ona was sitting on the bed. She turned a startled look upon him as he
entered. He closed the door in Elzbieta's face, and went toward his
wife. "Where have you been?" he demanded.

She had her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and he saw that her face
was as white as paper, and drawn with pain. She gasped once or twice
as she tried to answer him, and then began, speaking low, and swiftly.
"Jurgis, I--I think I have been out of my mind. I started to come last
night, and I could not find the way. I walked--I walked all night, I
think, and--and I only got home--this morning."

"You needed a rest," he said, in a hard tone. "Why did you go out
again?"

He was looking her fairly in the face, and he could read the sudden fear
and wild uncertainty that leaped into her eyes. "I--I had to go to--to
the store," she gasped, almost in a whisper, "I had to go--"

"You are lying to me," said Jurgis. Then he clenched his hands and took
a step toward her. "Why do you lie to me?" he cried, fiercely. "What are
you doing that you have to lie to me?"

"Jurgis!" she exclaimed, starting up in fright. "Oh, Jurgis, how can
you?"

"You have lied to me, I say!" he cried. "You told me you had been to
Jadvyga's house that other night, and you hadn't. You had been where
you were last night--somewheres downtown, for I saw you get off the car.
Where were you?"

It was as if he had struck a knife into her. She seemed to go all to
pieces. For half a second she stood, reeling and swaying, staring at
him with horror in her eyes; then, with a cry of anguish, she tottered
forward, stretching out her arms to him. But he stepped aside,
deliberately, and let her fall. She caught herself at the side of the
bed, and then sank down, burying her face in her hands and bursting into
frantic weeping.

There came one of those hysterical crises that had so often dismayed
him. Ona sobbed and wept, her fear and anguish building themselves up
into long climaxes. Furious gusts of emotion would come sweeping over
her, shaking her as the tempest shakes the trees upon the hills; all her
frame would quiver and throb with them--it was as if some dreadful thing
rose up within her and took possession of her, torturing her, tearing
her. This thing had been wont to set Jurgis quite beside himself; but
now he stood with his lips set tightly and his hands clenched--she might
weep till she killed herself, but she should not move him this time--not
an inch, not an inch. Because the sounds she made set his blood to
running cold and his lips to quivering in spite of himself, he was glad
of the diversion when Teta Elzbieta, pale with fright, opened the door
and rushed in; yet he turned upon her with an oath. "Go out!" he cried,
"go out!" And then, as she stood hesitating, about to speak, he seized
her by the arm, and half flung her from the room, slamming the door
and barring it with a table. Then he turned again and faced Ona,
crying--"Now, answer me!"

Yet she did not hear him--she was still in the grip of the fiend. Jurgis
could see her outstretched hands, shaking and twitching, roaming
here and there over the bed at will, like living things; he could see
convulsive shudderings start in her body and run through her limbs. She
was sobbing and choking--it was as if there were too many sounds for one
throat, they came chasing each other, like waves upon the sea. Then her
voice would begin to rise into screams, louder and louder until it broke
in wild, horrible peals of laughter. Jurgis bore it until he could bear
it no longer, and then he sprang at her, seizing her by the shoulders
and shaking her, shouting into her ear: "Stop it, I say! Stop it!"

She looked up at him, out of her agony; then she fell forward at his
feet. She caught them in her hands, in spite of his efforts to step
aside, and with her face upon the floor lay writhing. It made a choking
in Jurgis' throat to hear her, and he cried again, more savagely than
before: "Stop it, I say!"

This time she heeded him, and caught her breath and lay silent, save for
the gasping sobs that wrenched all her frame. For a long minute she
lay there, perfectly motionless, until a cold fear seized her husband,
thinking that she was dying. Suddenly, however, he heard her voice,
faintly: "Jurgis! Jurgis!"

"What is it?" he said.

He had to bend down to her, she was so weak. She was pleading with him,
in broken phrases, painfully uttered: "Have faith in me! Believe me!"

"Believe what?" he cried.

"Believe that I--that I know best--that I love you! And do not ask
me--what you did. Oh, Jurgis, please, please! It is for the best--it
is--"

He started to speak again, but she rushed on frantically, heading him
off. "If you will only do it! If you will only--only believe me!
It wasn't my fault--I couldn't help it--it will be all right--it is
nothing--it is no harm. Oh, Jurgis--please, please!"

She had hold of him, and was trying to raise herself to look at him; he
could feel the palsied shaking of her hands and the heaving of the
bosom she pressed against him. She managed to catch one of his hands and
gripped it convulsively, drawing it to her face, and bathing it in her
tears. "Oh, believe me, believe me!" she wailed again; and he shouted in
fury, "I will not!"

But still she clung to him, wailing aloud in her despair: "Oh, Jurgis,
think what you are doing! It will ruin us--it will ruin us! Oh, no,
you must not do it! No, don't, don't do it. You must not do it! It
will drive me mad--it will kill me--no, no, Jurgis, I am crazy--it is
nothing. You do not really need to know. We can be happy--we can love
each other just the same. Oh, please, please, believe me!"

Her words fairly drove him wild. He tore his hands loose, and flung her
off. "Answer me," he cried. "God damn it, I say--answer me!"

She sank down upon the floor, beginning to cry again. It was like
listening to the moan of a damned soul, and Jurgis could not stand it.
He smote his fist upon the table by his side, and shouted again at her,
"Answer me!"

She began to scream aloud, her voice like the voice of some wild beast:
"Ah! Ah! I can't! I can't do it!"

"Why can't you do it?" he shouted.

"I don't know how!"

He sprang and caught her by the arm, lifting her up, and glaring into
her face. "Tell me where you were last night!" he panted. "Quick, out
with it!"

Then she began to whisper, one word at a time: "I--was in--a
house--downtown--"

"What house? What do you mean?"

She tried to hide her eyes away, but he held her. "Miss Henderson's
house," she gasped. He did not understand at first. "Miss Henderson's
house," he echoed. And then suddenly, as in an explosion, the horrible
truth burst over him, and he reeled and staggered back with a scream.
He caught himself against the wall, and put his hand to his forehead,
staring about him, and whispering, "Jesus! Jesus!"

An instant later he leaped at her, as she lay groveling at his feet.
He seized her by the throat. "Tell me!" he gasped, hoarsely. "Quick!
Who took you to that place?"

She tried to get away, making him furious; he thought it was fear, of
the pain of his clutch--he did not understand that it was the agony of
her shame. Still she answered him, "Connor."

"Connor," he gasped. "Who is Connor?"

"The boss," she answered. "The man--"

He tightened his grip, in his frenzy, and only when he saw her eyes
closing did he realize that he was choking her. Then he relaxed his
fingers, and crouched, waiting, until she opened her lids again. His
breath beat hot into her face.

"Tell me," he whispered, at last, "tell me about it."

She lay perfectly motionless, and he had to hold his breath to catch her
words. "I did not want--to do it," she said; "I tried--I tried not to do
it. I only did it--to save us. It was our only chance."

Again, for a space, there was no sound but his panting. Ona's eyes
closed and when she spoke again she did not open them. "He told me--he
would have me turned off. He told me he would--we would all of us lose
our places. We could never get anything to do--here--again. He--he meant
it--he would have ruined us."

Jurgis' arms were shaking so that he could scarcely hold himself up,
and lurched forward now and then as he listened. "When--when did this
begin?" he gasped.

"At the very first," she said. She spoke as if in a trance. "It was
all--it was their plot--Miss Henderson's plot. She hated me. And he--he
wanted me. He used to speak to me--out on the platform. Then he began
to--to make love to me. He offered me money. He begged me--he said he
loved me. Then he threatened me. He knew all about us, he knew we would
starve. He knew your boss--he knew Marija's. He would hound us to death,
he said--then he said if I would--if I--we would all of us be sure
of work--always. Then one day he caught hold of me--he would not let
go--he--he--"

"Where was this?"

"In the hallway--at night--after every one had gone. I could not help
it. I thought of you--of the baby--of mother and the children. I was
afraid of him--afraid to cry out."

A moment ago her face had been ashen gray, now it was scarlet. She was
beginning to breathe hard again. Jurgis made not a sound.

"That was two months ago. Then he wanted me to come--to that house. He
wanted me to stay there. He said all of us--that we would not have to
work. He made me come there--in the evenings. I told you--you thought I
was at the factory. Then--one night it snowed, and I couldn't get back.
And last night--the cars were stopped. It was such a little thing--to
ruin us all. I tried to walk, but I couldn't. I didn't want you to know.
It would have--it would have been all right. We could have gone on--just
the same--you need never have known about it. He was getting tired of
me--he would have let me alone soon. I am going to have a baby--I am
getting ugly. He told me that--twice, he told me, last night. He kicked
me--last night--too. And now you will kill him--you--you will kill
him--and we shall die."

All this she had said without a quiver; she lay still as death, not an
eyelid moving. And Jurgis, too, said not a word. He lifted himself by
the bed, and stood up. He did not stop for another glance at her, but
went to the door and opened it. He did not see Elzbieta, crouching
terrified in the corner. He went out, hatless, leaving the street door
open behind him. The instant his feet were on the sidewalk he broke into
a run.

He ran like one possessed, blindly, furiously, looking neither to the
right nor left. He was on Ashland Avenue before exhaustion compelled him
to slow down, and then, noticing a car, he made a dart for it and drew
himself aboard. His eyes were wild and his hair flying, and he was
breathing hoarsely, like a wounded bull; but the people on the car did
not notice this particularly--perhaps it seemed natural to them that
a man who smelled as Jurgis smelled should exhibit an aspect to
correspond. They began to give way before him as usual. The conductor
took his nickel gingerly, with the tips of his fingers, and then left
him with the platform to himself. Jurgis did not even notice it--his
thoughts were far away. Within his soul it was like a roaring furnace;
he stood waiting, waiting, crouching as if for a spring.

He had some of his breath back when the car came to the entrance of the
yards, and so he leaped off and started again, racing at full speed.
People turned and stared at him, but he saw no one--there was the
factory, and he bounded through the doorway and down the corridor. He
knew the room where Ona worked, and he knew Connor, the boss of the
loading-gang outside. He looked for the man as he sprang into the room.

The truckmen were hard at work, loading the freshly packed boxes and
barrels upon the cars. Jurgis shot one swift glance up and down the
platform--the man was not on it. But then suddenly he heard a voice in
the corridor, and started for it with a bound. In an instant more he
fronted the boss.

He was a big, red-faced Irishman, coarse-featured, and smelling of
liquor. He saw Jurgis as he crossed the threshold, and turned white.
He hesitated one second, as if meaning to run; and in the next his
assailant was upon him. He put up his hands to protect his face, but
Jurgis, lunging with all the power of his arm and body, struck him
fairly between the eyes and knocked him backward. The next moment he was
on top of him, burying his fingers in his throat.

To Jurgis this man's whole presence reeked of the crime he had
committed; the touch of his body was madness to him--it set every nerve
of him a-tremble, it aroused all the demon in his soul. It had worked its
will upon Ona, this great beast--and now he had it, he had it! It was
his turn now! Things swam blood before him, and he screamed aloud in his
fury, lifting his victim and smashing his head upon the floor.

The place, of course, was in an uproar; women fainting and shrieking,
and men rushing in. Jurgis was so bent upon his task that he knew
nothing of this, and scarcely realized that people were trying to
interfere with him; it was only when half a dozen men had seized him by
the legs and shoulders and were pulling at him, that he understood that
he was losing his prey. In a flash he had bent down and sunk his teeth
into the man's cheek; and when they tore him away he was dripping with
blood, and little ribbons of skin were hanging in his mouth.

They got him down upon the floor, clinging to him by his arms and legs,
and still they could hardly hold him. He fought like a tiger,
writhing and twisting, half flinging them off, and starting toward his
unconscious enemy. But yet others rushed in, until there was a little
mountain of twisted limbs and bodies, heaving and tossing, and working
its way about the room. In the end, by their sheer weight, they choked
the breath out of him, and then they carried him to the company police
station, where he lay still until they had summoned a patrol wagon to
take him away.

Ona continues to go through great crisis, which leaves her eyes looking "like the eyes of a hunted animal. Jurgis does not give any more considerable worry to Ona's situation, simply living "like a dumb beast of burden, knowing only the moment in which he was. In the late fall, the packinghouses become very busy in preparing meat for the Christmastime season. All the workers work long shifts in order to keep their places and add some small sum to their income. All of the members of the family start work at seven in the morning, get a short break for lunch at noon, and then work until ten or eleven at night without another break or bite to eat. They arrive home at night too tired even to take off their clothes to sleep. One morning, a few days before Thanksgiving, Marija wakes Jurgis with a fright. Ona did not come home the evening before. There was a snowstorm, and everyone is worried that Ona is freezing outside in the cold. Jurgis goes to the yards and finds Ona's part of the factory. He is told that she turned in her time card the night before and left. Fifteen minutes after seven, Jurgis finally sees Ona arriving for work. He rushes out to meet her, glad to see her alive but anxious to find out what had happened. She tells him that she had to go home with her friend Jadvyga the night before because she had been so tired. She was afraid because she knew he would worry. Jurgis is happy that Ona is okay, and he leaves her to her work and goes to the fertilizer factory. A month passes and, a few days before Christmas, Teta Elzbieta and Marija arrive home at midnight with the shocking news that Ona is once again missing. They worry that it could be serious this time. Jurgis tells the worried women that she is fine and probably staying at Jadvyga's house. He goes back to sleep. The next morning, however, he wakes early and goes to Jadvyga's house to check on Ona. The family there tells him that Ona is not there, nor had she ever stayed with them. Jurgis cannot believe this news or the fact that his wife had willfully deceived him. He goes to the factory and finds one of Ona's floor bosses. The man says that there must have been a mix-up with the cars and that maybe she had gone downtown. Jurgis is sure this is not the case and he notices some sly glances between the workers. Jurgis walks down Ashland Avenue towards his house when he thinks that he spots Ona's "rusty black hat with the drooping red flower" on one of the streetcars. He runs alongside it and watches as Ona exits the car and makes her way into their house. When Jurgis enters, Elzbieta tells him to be quiet because Ona is sleeping. She tells him that Ona was lost the night before and had only come home that morning. Jurgis knows that Elzbieta is lying to him and he opens the door and goes in to confront Ona. When Ona starts to explain what happened, Jurgis stops her and tells her that he knows she is lying. She tries to grab onto him, but he moves and lets her fall to the floor, where she goes into a sobbing fit of anguish, shaking and coughing. She yells out, her voice rising into "screams, louder and louder until it broke in wild, horrible peals of laughter. Jurgis yells at her to stop and answer him. She begs him to believe her and have faith that she is doing the right thing for the family. She tells him that she has been downtown at one of the brothels. Her floor boss, Connor, had taken her there telling her that if she did not go he would ruin her and her family and make sure they never worked again. Mrs. Henderson hates her, so they devised a plot. Connor offered her money. He begged her, threatened her, and told her that he loved her. Finally, he told her that she had to come and took hold of her one night in the factory and raped her. Then he began making her come to the brothel. Jurgis becomes furious and walks out of the house. He runs to the street and catches a streetcar. He stands on its platform, "waiting, waiting, crouching as if for a spring. When he arrives at the factory, he finds Connor loading packages onto a truck. He jumps on him and begins to beat the man. He bites his cheek, tearing part of it off. He smashes Connor's head against the floor. A whole team of men comes and pries Jurgis off Connor. They take him to the company police station until a patrol wagon comes to take him away

Starting in summer, every time Ona has these hysterical crying fits, she promises Jurgis that it will never happen again. Winter comes and, with it, the Christmas rush. Marija, Elzbieta, and Ona have to work fifteen or sixteen hours a day. It's so exhausting that they can barely crawl into bed at night. One night just before Thanksgiving, there is a huge snowstorm. Jurgis has two drinks at a bar before going home and is struggling with his growing alcoholism. Very early in the morning, Teta Elzbieta wakes him to tell him that Ona hasn't come home that night. Marija, the children, and especially Stanislovas start to cry from fright - there is a deep blizzard outside, and they think she might have died in the cold. Jurgis runs to the stockyards. He doesn't hear of any accidents on the way, and he finds that Ona did actually leave work the night before. Ona comes into Jurgis's sight through the snow just as the factories start opening. She falls into Jurgis's arms and explains that she spent the night with Jadvyga because it was too cold to go home the night before. Jurgis is so relieved to see her that he doesn't press any further. For the rest of December before Christmas, Jurgis carries Ona to work in the mornings and meets her in the evenings to escort her home. Just before the holidays, Marija and Teta Elzbieta come home at midnight saying that Ona left work before them. The night isn't particularly cold or snowy, so no one can figure out why Ona has not come home yet. They wake Jurgis to explain that Ona is mysteriously absent. He assumes that Ona is staying with Jadvyga and decides to go to Jadvyga's apartment in the morning. Jurgis knocks on the door and one of Jadvyga's sisters answers. She tells him that Ona hasn't been here - in fact, Ona has never been there, not even the night a month before when she claimed to have stayed over with Jadvyga. Jurgis is totally dazed. He has no idea where Ona could be. Jurgis goes to Ona's factory and finds that Ona's boss also isn't in. Apparently, there has been some kind of problem with the streetcars, and no one from the city center has been able to get out to Packingtown. Jurgis protests that Ona has never been to downtown Chicago. The man who Jurgis is talking to seems to know something about Ona's whereabouts, but he won't say. The man asks Jurgis, "How should I know where your wife goes?" . Around noon, Jurgis asks at the police station if anyone has seen Ona. He eventually decides to head home and find her there. Jurgis sees that the streetcars are running again. He notices someone wearing Ona's distinctive hat get off a streetcar a few blocks away from their house. He follows her carefully, suddenly suspicious about where she has been. Ona enters the house, and Jurgis bursts in five minutes later. Teta Elzbieta shushes Jurgis and tells him that Ona is asleep, that she has been sick, and that she has been wandering the streets all night in a daze. Teta Elzbieta lies to Jurgis. She tells him that Ona came in soon after Jurgis left in the morning, and that she has been in bed ever since. Jurgis walks straight into the bedroom and asks Ona where she has been. Ona tries to repeat Teta Elzbieta's lie about Ona's sickness. Jurgis tells her outright that she is lying to him. He knows that she has been downtown - he saw her get off the streetcar. Ona begins to cry hysterically . Teta Elzbieta comes in and tries to calm Ona, but Jurgis sends her out again. Ona falls on the floor and appears to be convulsing. Jurgis thinks Ona might be dying. Eventually, Ona reaches for Jurgis and begs him to have faith in her: she is trying to do the right thing. Jurgis should stop asking her where she is going; it will be better if he doesn't know. She tells him that she has been to Miss Henderson's house downtown. She continues to explain: her boss, Connor, warned her that he would make sure no one in her family could get a job in Packingtown if Ona didn't sleep with him. This was two months before today. After raping Ona in the hallway of her factory, Connor forced Ona to go to Miss Henderson's brothel. Connor has been blackmailing Ona into becoming a prostitute after her hours as a factory laborer so that Jurgis and Marija can keep their jobs. Ona has tried to keep it from Jurgis, especially since it would all have been over soon. She thinks he would have let her stop prostituting herself as her pregnancy continued because she is "getting ugly" . But now that Jurgis knows, Ona is afraid that Jurgis will go and kill Connor and they will all be ruined. Jurgis walks out of the house and runs to the nearest streetcar to go to Ona's factory. Jurgis finds Connor, the boss of the people who load up the factory's products for shipment. Jurgis leaps on top of Connor and starts to strangle him. He bashes Connor's head against the floor. As the surrounding workers start to pull Jurgis off Connor, he bites Connor's cheek out of rage. Finally, they manage to choke Jurgis to unconsciousness and drag him off to the police station.

Around Thanksgiving, Ona doesn't return home one night after work. Jurgis goes to her factory the next morning to wait for her. When she arrives, Ona explains that she couldn't make it home because of the storm and spent the night with a friend. A month later Ona again does not return home, but this time Jurgis is not concerned until he stops by her friend's house only to find that Ona did not spend the night there nor had she ever done so. Her fellow employees know the truth but refuse to reveal it to Jurgis. By chance he notices Ona on a streetcar and follows her home. He demands to know the truth about her whereabouts, and Ona reveals to Jurgis that she has been to her forelady's house. It takes Jurgis a moment to realize exactly what this means. When he finally understands, he finds out that Connor, one of her bosses, has been taking her downtown, using threats against her family as leverage to make Ona comply with his wishes. Jurgis storms from the house enraged, and rushes to the plant. There he finds Connor and attacks him, attempting to strangle him. Many men are needed to pull Jurgis off of Connor, and eventually Jurgis is taken to the company police station to await a patrol wagon.

Chapter 15 provides readers with the first and only meaningful exchange between Jurgis and Ona. Jurgis, in a rage, confronts his wife about her deceptions and lies. Although the scene borders on melodrama, readers can empathize, experiencing both Jurgis' rage and Ona's fears. Unwittingly, Jurgis is as cruel to Ona as Connor had been. Ona, the weaker one, again submits to the will of anyone who is stronger than she is. As soon as Ona reveals that the unrelenting economic pressure forced her into prostitution, Jurgis becomes unglued. His attack on Connor is both understandable and unwise. Physically, Connor is no match for Jurgis, but in Packingtown, power depends more on connections and money than it does on brute strength. This entire incident illustrates the connection between coincidence, chance, and fate. Connor victimizes Ona from the onset of her employment. Any number of possibilities could have prevented the truth from being revealed: Ona might have been able to make it home either night, or Jurgis might not have attempted to find her, or Connor may have grown tired of her. Regardless of the "what ifs" and "could have beens," the truth did come out, with devastating results. This scene demonstrates that in the jungle of Packingtown, characters are not only prey for beasts, they are bestial themselves. Jurgis' attack on Connor is a demonstration of his most animalistic behavior yet. Glossary bullocks young bulls. rife abundant. tempest a violent storm with high winds.

Winter arrives again, and with it comes the grueling rush season. Fifteen- and sixteen-hour workdays are frequent. Twice, Ona does not return home at night. She explains that the snow drifts kept her away so she stayed with a friend. When Jurgis discovers that she is lying, he wrangles a confession out of her. Sobbing hysterically, Ona confesses that Phil Connor, a boss at her factory, continually harassed her and pleaded with her to become his mistress. She tells Jurgis that Connor eventually raped her in the factory after everyone had gone home and threatened to arrange the firings of every wage earner in her household. Moreover, he threatened to prevent them from obtaining work in Packingtown ever again. With these threats, he forced her into accompanying him to Miss Henderson's brothel in the evenings for the past two months. Jurgis, livid, storms to Ona's workplace. Upon seeing the coarse-looking and liquor-reeking Connor, he leaps at him and sinks his fingers into Connor's throat. He channels all of his outrage about the rape into such a thrashing frenzy that he doesn't even notice the pandemonium in the factory. A half-dozen men finally tear Jurgis, blood and skin dripping from his teeth, from the unconscious Connor and take him to the police station


When Jurgis got up again he went quietly enough. He was exhausted and
half-dazed, and besides he saw the blue uniforms of the policemen. He
drove in a patrol wagon with half a dozen of them watching him; keeping
as far away as possible, however, on account of the fertilizer. Then he
stood before the sergeant's desk and gave his name and address, and saw
a charge of assault and battery entered against him. On his way to his
cell a burly policeman cursed him because he started down the
wrong corridor, and then added a kick when he was not quick enough;
nevertheless, Jurgis did not even lift his eyes--he had lived two years
and a half in Packingtown, and he knew what the police were. It was as
much as a man's very life was worth to anger them, here in their inmost
lair; like as not a dozen would pile on to him at once, and pound
his face into a pulp. It would be nothing unusual if he got his skull
cracked in the melee--in which case they would report that he had
been drunk and had fallen down, and there would be no one to know the
difference or to care.

So a barred door clanged upon Jurgis and he sat down upon a bench and
buried his face in his hands. He was alone; he had the afternoon and all
of the night to himself.

At first he was like a wild beast that has glutted itself; he was in
a dull stupor of satisfaction. He had done up the scoundrel pretty
well--not as well as he would have if they had given him a minute
more, but pretty well, all the same; the ends of his fingers were still
tingling from their contact with the fellow's throat. But then, little
by little, as his strength came back and his senses cleared, he began
to see beyond his momentary gratification; that he had nearly killed
the boss would not help Ona--not the horrors that she had borne, nor the
memory that would haunt her all her days. It would not help to feed her
and her child; she would certainly lose her place, while he--what was to
happen to him God only knew.

Half the night he paced the floor, wrestling with this nightmare; and
when he was exhausted he lay down, trying to sleep, but finding instead,
for the first time in his life, that his brain was too much for him. In
the cell next to him was a drunken wife-beater and in the one beyond
a yelling maniac. At midnight they opened the station house to the
homeless wanderers who were crowded about the door, shivering in the
winter blast, and they thronged into the corridor outside of the cells.
Some of them stretched themselves out on the bare stone floor and fell
to snoring, others sat up, laughing and talking, cursing and quarreling.
The air was fetid with their breath, yet in spite of this some of them
smelled Jurgis and called down the torments of hell upon him, while he
lay in a far corner of his cell, counting the throbbings of the blood in
his forehead.

They had brought him his supper, which was "duffers and dope"--being
hunks of dry bread on a tin plate, and coffee, called "dope" because it
was drugged to keep the prisoners quiet. Jurgis had not known this, or
he would have swallowed the stuff in desperation; as it was, every nerve
of him was a-quiver with shame and rage. Toward morning the place fell
silent, and he got up and began to pace his cell; and then within the
soul of him there rose up a fiend, red-eyed and cruel, and tore out the
strings of his heart.

It was not for himself that he suffered--what did a man who worked in
Durham's fertilizer mill care about anything that the world might do
to him! What was any tyranny of prison compared with the tyranny of the
past, of the thing that had happened and could not be recalled, of the
memory that could never be effaced! The horror of it drove him mad;
he stretched out his arms to heaven, crying out for deliverance from
it--and there was no deliverance, there was no power even in heaven that
could undo the past. It was a ghost that would not drown; it followed
him, it seized upon him and beat him to the ground. Ah, if only he could
have foreseen it--but then, he would have foreseen it, if he had not
been a fool! He smote his hands upon his forehead, cursing himself
because he had ever allowed Ona to work where she had, because he had
not stood between her and a fate which every one knew to be so common.
He should have taken her away, even if it were to lie down and die of
starvation in the gutters of Chicago's streets! And now--oh, it could
not be true; it was too monstrous, too horrible.

It was a thing that could not be faced; a new shuddering seized him
every time he tried to think of it. No, there was no bearing the load of
it, there was no living under it. There would be none for her--he knew
that he might pardon her, might plead with her on his knees, but she
would never look him in the face again, she would never be his
wife again. The shame of it would kill her--there could be no other
deliverance, and it was best that she should die.

This was simple and clear, and yet, with cruel inconsistency, whenever
he escaped from this nightmare it was to suffer and cry out at the
vision of Ona starving. They had put him in jail, and they would keep
him here a long time, years maybe. And Ona would surely not go to work
again, broken and crushed as she was. And Elzbieta and Marija, too,
might lose their places--if that hell fiend Connor chose to set to work
to ruin them, they would all be turned out. And even if he did not, they
could not live--even if the boys left school again, they could surely
not pay all the bills without him and Ona. They had only a few dollars
now--they had just paid the rent of the house a week ago, and that after
it was two weeks overdue. So it would be due again in a week! They would
have no money to pay it then--and they would lose the house, after all
their long, heartbreaking struggle. Three times now the agent had warned
him that he would not tolerate another delay. Perhaps it was very
base of Jurgis to be thinking about the house when he had the other
unspeakable thing to fill his mind; yet, how much he had suffered for
this house, how much they had all of them suffered! It was their one
hope of respite, as long as they lived; they had put all their money
into it--and they were working people, poor people, whose money was
their strength, the very substance of them, body and soul, the thing by
which they lived and for lack of which they died.

And they would lose it all; they would be turned out into the streets,
and have to hide in some icy garret, and live or die as best they could!
Jurgis had all the night--and all of many more nights--to think about
this, and he saw the thing in its details; he lived it all, as if he
were there. They would sell their furniture, and then run into debt at
the stores, and then be refused credit; they would borrow a little from
the Szedvilases, whose delicatessen store was tottering on the brink
of ruin; the neighbors would come and help them a little--poor, sick
Jadvyga would bring a few spare pennies, as she always did when people
were starving, and Tamoszius Kuszleika would bring them the proceeds of
a night's fiddling. So they would struggle to hang on until he got out
of jail--or would they know that he was in jail, would they be able to
find out anything about him? Would they be allowed to see him--or was it
to be part of his punishment to be kept in ignorance about their fate?

His mind would hang upon the worst possibilities; he saw Ona ill and
tortured, Marija out of her place, little Stanislovas unable to get
to work for the snow, the whole family turned out on the street. God
Almighty! would they actually let them lie down in the street and die?
Would there be no help even then--would they wander about in the snow
till they froze? Jurgis had never seen any dead bodies in the streets,
but he had seen people evicted and disappear, no one knew where;
and though the city had a relief bureau, though there was a charity
organization society in the stockyards district, in all his life there
he had never heard of either of them. They did not advertise their
activities, having more calls than they could attend to without that.

--So on until morning. Then he had another ride in the patrol wagon,
along with the drunken wife-beater and the maniac, several "plain
drunks" and "saloon fighters," a burglar, and two men who had been
arrested for stealing meat from the packing houses. Along with them he
was driven into a large, white-walled room, stale-smelling and
crowded. In front, upon a raised platform behind a rail, sat a stout,
florid-faced personage, with a nose broken out in purple blotches.

Our friend realized vaguely that he was about to be tried. He wondered
what for--whether or not his victim might be dead, and if so, what they
would do with him. Hang him, perhaps, or beat him to death--nothing
would have surprised Jurgis, who knew little of the laws. Yet he had
picked up gossip enough to have it occur to him that the loud-voiced man
upon the bench might be the notorious Justice Callahan, about whom the
people of Packingtown spoke with bated breath.

"Pat" Callahan--"Growler" Pat, as he had been known before he ascended
the bench--had begun life as a butcher boy and a bruiser of local
reputation; he had gone into politics almost as soon as he had learned
to talk, and had held two offices at once before he was old enough to
vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan was the first finger of the
unseen hand whereby the packers held down the people of the district. No
politician in Chicago ranked higher in their confidence; he had been at
it a long time--had been the business agent in the city council of old
Durham, the self-made merchant, way back in the early days, when the
whole city of Chicago had been up at auction. "Growler" Pat had given
up holding city offices very early in his career--caring only for party
power, and giving the rest of his time to superintending his dives and
brothels. Of late years, however, since his children were growing up,
he had begun to value respectability, and had had himself made a
magistrate; a position for which he was admirably fitted, because of his
strong conservatism and his contempt for "foreigners."

Jurgis sat gazing about the room for an hour or two; he was in hopes
that some one of the family would come, but in this he was disappointed.
Finally, he was led before the bar, and a lawyer for the company
appeared against him. Connor was under the doctor's care, the lawyer
explained briefly, and if his Honor would hold the prisoner for a
week--"Three hundred dollars," said his Honor, promptly.

Jurgis was staring from the judge to the lawyer in perplexity. "Have you
any one to go on your bond?" demanded the judge, and then a clerk who
stood at Jurgis' elbow explained to him what this meant. The latter
shook his head, and before he realized what had happened the policemen
were leading him away again. They took him to a room where other
prisoners were waiting and here he stayed until court adjourned, when he
had another long and bitterly cold ride in a patrol wagon to the county
jail, which is on the north side of the city, and nine or ten miles from
the stockyards.

Here they searched Jurgis, leaving him only his money, which consisted
of fifteen cents. Then they led him to a room and told him to strip for
a bath; after which he had to walk down a long gallery, past the grated
cell doors of the inmates of the jail. This was a great event to the
latter--the daily review of the new arrivals, all stark naked, and many
and diverting were the comments. Jurgis was required to stay in the bath
longer than any one, in the vain hope of getting out of him a few of his
phosphates and acids. The prisoners roomed two in a cell, but that day
there was one left over, and he was the one.

The cells were in tiers, opening upon galleries. His cell was about five
feet by seven in size, with a stone floor and a heavy wooden bench built
into it. There was no window--the only light came from windows near the
roof at one end of the court outside. There were two bunks, one above
the other, each with a straw mattress and a pair of gray blankets--the
latter stiff as boards with filth, and alive with fleas, bedbugs, and
lice. When Jurgis lifted up the mattress he discovered beneath it a
layer of scurrying roaches, almost as badly frightened as himself.

Here they brought him more "duffers and dope," with the addition of a
bowl of soup. Many of the prisoners had their meals brought in from a
restaurant, but Jurgis had no money for that. Some had books to read and
cards to play, with candles to burn by night, but Jurgis was all alone
in darkness and silence. He could not sleep again; there was the same
maddening procession of thoughts that lashed him like whips upon his
naked back. When night fell he was pacing up and down his cell like a
wild beast that breaks its teeth upon the bars of its cage. Now and then
in his frenzy he would fling himself against the walls of the place,
beating his hands upon them. They cut him and bruised him--they were
cold and merciless as the men who had built them.

In the distance there was a church-tower bell that tolled the hours one
by one. When it came to midnight Jurgis was lying upon the floor with
his head in his arms, listening. Instead of falling silent at the end,
the bell broke into a sudden clangor. Jurgis raised his head; what could
that mean--a fire? God! Suppose there were to be a fire in this jail!
But then he made out a melody in the ringing; there were chimes. And
they seemed to waken the city--all around, far and near, there were
bells, ringing wild music; for fully a minute Jurgis lay lost in wonder,
before, all at once, the meaning of it broke over him--that this was
Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve--he had forgotten it entirely! There was a breaking of
floodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his
mind. In far Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas; and it came to
him as if it had been yesterday--himself a little child, with his lost
brother and his dead father in the cabin--in the deep black forest,
where the snow fell all day and all night and buried them from the
world. It was too far off for Santa Claus in Lithuania, but it was not
too far for peace and good will to men, for the wonder-bearing vision
of the Christ Child. And even in Packingtown they had not forgotten
it--some gleam of it had never failed to break their darkness. Last
Christmas Eve and all Christmas Day Jurgis had toiled on the killing
beds, and Ona at wrapping hams, and still they had found strength
enough to take the children for a walk upon the avenue, to see the store
windows all decorated with Christmas trees and ablaze with electric
lights. In one window there would be live geese, in another marvels in
sugar--pink and white canes big enough for ogres, and cakes with
cherubs upon them; in a third there would be rows of fat yellow turkeys,
decorated with rosettes, and rabbits and squirrels hanging; in a fourth
would be a fairyland of toys--lovely dolls with pink dresses, and woolly
sheep and drums and soldier hats. Nor did they have to go without their
share of all this, either. The last time they had had a big basket with
them and all their Christmas marketing to do--a roast of pork and a
cabbage and some rye bread, and a pair of mittens for Ona, and a rubber
doll that squeaked, and a little green cornucopia full of candy to be
hung from the gas jet and gazed at by half a dozen pairs of longing
eyes.

Even half a year of the sausage machines and the fertilizer mill had not
been able to kill the thought of Christmas in them; there was a choking
in Jurgis' throat as he recalled that the very night Ona had not come
home Teta Elzbieta had taken him aside and shown him an old valentine
that she had picked up in a paper store for three cents--dingy and
shopworn, but with bright colors, and figures of angels and doves.
She had wiped all the specks off this, and was going to set it on the
mantel, where the children could see it. Great sobs shook Jurgis at this
memory--they would spend their Christmas in misery and despair, with
him in prison and Ona ill and their home in desolation. Ah, it was too
cruel! Why at least had they not left him alone--why, after they had
shut him in jail, must they be ringing Christmas chimes in his ears!

But no, their bells were not ringing for him--their Christmas was not
meant for him, they were simply not counting him at all. He was of no
consequence--he was flung aside, like a bit of trash, the carcass of
some animal. It was horrible, horrible! His wife might be dying, his
baby might be starving, his whole family might be perishing in the
cold--and all the while they were ringing their Christmas chimes! And
the bitter mockery of it--all this was punishment for him! They put him
in a place where the snow could not beat in, where the cold could not
eat through his bones; they brought him food and drink--why, in the name
of heaven, if they must punish him, did they not put his family in jail
and leave him outside--why could they find no better way to punish him
than to leave three weak women and six helpless children to starve and
freeze? That was their law, that was their justice!

Jurgis stood upright; trembling with passion, his hands clenched and
his arms upraised, his whole soul ablaze with hatred and defiance. Ten
thousand curses upon them and their law! Their justice--it was a lie, it
was a lie, a hideous, brutal lie, a thing too black and hateful for any
world but a world of nightmares. It was a sham and a loathsome mockery.
There was no justice, there was no right, anywhere in it--it was
only force, it was tyranny, the will and the power, reckless and
unrestrained! They had ground him beneath their heel, they had devoured
all his substance; they had murdered his old father, they had broken and
wrecked his wife, they had crushed and cowed his whole family; and now
they were through with him, they had no further use for him--and because
he had interfered with them, had gotten in their way, this was what they
had done to him! They had put him behind bars, as if he had been a
wild beast, a thing without sense or reason, without rights, without
affections, without feelings. Nay, they would not even have treated a
beast as they had treated him! Would any man in his senses have trapped
a wild thing in its lair, and left its young behind to die?

These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in them was the
beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief. He had no
wit to trace back the social crime to its far sources--he could not say
that it was the thing men have called "the system" that was crushing him
to the earth; that it was the packers, his masters, who had bought up
the law of the land, and had dealt out their brutal will to him from the
seat of justice. He only knew that he was wronged, and that the world
had wronged him; that the law, that society, with all its powers, had
declared itself his foe. And every hour his soul grew blacker, every
hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, of raging,
frenzied hate.

          The vilest deeds, like poison weeds,
            Bloom well in prison air;
          It is only what is good in Man
            That wastes and withers there;
          Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
            And the Warder is Despair.

So wrote a poet, to whom the world had dealt its justice--

           I know not whether Laws be right,
            Or whether Laws be wrong;
          All that we know who lie in gaol
            Is that the wall is strong.
          And they do well to hide their hell,
            For in it things are done
          That Son of God nor son of Man
            Ever should look upon!

Jurgis goes to prison. He is kicked by a policeman on his way to his cell but is not surprised at this. He knows that the police in Packingtown can be brutal. When he arrives in the holding cell, he sits down "like a wild beast that has glutted itself; he was in a dull stupor of satisfaction" because he had beaten Connor so well. That feeling of satisfaction soon leaves, however, and he is confronted with the reality of his situation. He remembers Ona and his family and now realizes their situation. That night, Jurgis is overcome with the memories of his past. He stretches out his arms "to heaven, crying out for deliverance from it," but deliverance does not come. He curses himself for letting Ona work in such a place, even though he had heard the stories and knew the realities of such places for women like her. He knows that even though she might forgive him, she "would never look him in the face again, she would never be his wife again" because of the shame she now feels over the incident. Jurgis toils in his mind over the poverty that his family now faces. He wonders if they will be evicted, thrown out in the streets to die. He thinks only of the worst possibilities. Jurgis is picked up in the morning by a police wagon and driven to a makeshift courtroom. Jurgis goes before Justice Callahan, one of the bosses of Packingtown's political machine. The Justice gives him a $300 bond, but since Jurgis has no way to pay it, he is led away by the police. He is made to take a bath and taken to a cell with two bunks, each one infested with fleas and rodents. At night, Jurgis paces up and down "like a wild beast that breaks its teeth upon the bars of its cage. He sometimes flings himself against the walls and beats them with his fists. At midnight, there is a loud outburst of bells from the town's church steeples. Jurgis remembers that it is Christmas Eve. He flashes back in his mind to Lithuania and to times of celebration. Jurgis realizes that even in Packingtown they had not forgotten the vision of the Christ child and that "some gleam of it had never failed to break their darkness. He remembers all of the shoddy, yet happy Christmases that the family had shared in Packingtown. However, Jurgis's thoughts soon turn to despair once again. He realizes that the Christmas bells are not ringing for him. He was of no consequence -- he was flung aside, like a bit of trash, the carcass of some animal. A fury is awakened in Jurgis. He understands now that justice is a lie and that all of society was "tyranny, the will and the power, reckless and unrestrained. They treat him and his family worse than they treat the animals at the packinghouses. In these midnight hours, Jurgis feels "the beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief. He declares all of society his enemy. The chapter ends with a poem: "The vilest deeds, like poison weeds, / Bloom well in prison air; / It is only what is good in Man / That wastes and withers there

Although The Jungle was one of the most popular books of the early twentieth century, it did not necessarily bring about the kind of change that Sinclair hoped to persuade people was needed in American politics. Sinclair wrote the novel as a diatribe on the evils of capitalism. He argues through the story of Jurgis and his family that socialist economic policies will help cure the ills of American society. It was such scenes as is found in Chapter Fourteen, however, that actually captured the American public's imagination. The horrifying descriptions of the meat packing process created a public outrage and President Theodore Roosevelt, as well as Congress and other elected officials, were forced into passing sweeping reforms of the American food industry. These reforms, however, did not specifically address the themes that Sinclair brings to light in the novel, that of unjust working and social conditions. Jurgis's drinking problem becomes a commentary on the breaking apart of traditional family roles. While saloon life and alcohol consumption are secondary topics of criticism in The Jungle, they do offer a brief glimpse at what Sinclair saw as a motivating factor in destabilizing family life and human relations. Saloons of this period played important roles of political and economic function. They were masculine spaces and, as is exemplified by Jurgis's experience, often became second homes for men. In this way, traditional patriarchal family life loses its sense of purpose and is another victim to mechanisms of Social Darwinism. Family life becomes a burden; men seek to become lost in their own individual suffering. In Chapters Fifteen and Sixteen, Sinclair uses language that exemplifies the meaning of the book's title. In the novel, the idea of "jungle" means several different things. In this chapter, the reader begins to see that one meaning is the issue of the devolving of characters. In several instances, Sinclair gives Ona and Jurgis animalistic traits. Ona is like a hunted animal. Jurgis, when going to attack the foreman that has raped Ona, acts like a tiger, and when he is imprisoned, he acts like an animal in a cage. The social atmosphere of Packingtown has created characters that now know they must kill or be killed. In this way, the "jungle" is society framed in the terms of natural selection. The Christmas Eve scene that takes place while Jurgis is in prison is one of several "awakening" scenes in the novel. This first awakening is a kind of spiritual awakening. Christmas Eve is symbolic of Jurgis's transformation. Just as the birth of the Christ child is a symbol in Christianity of the promise of mankind's salvation, this scene in prison acts a kind of promise for Jurgis's future salvation. Jurgis does not yet have the intellectual tools to address his situation -- that will be a future awakening -- but this scene allows him to gain an understanding of the way the particular injustices of society work to repress him and his fellow workingmen.

Jurgis goes quietly to be booked by the cops. It takes a while for Jurgis to come to his senses as he's sitting in his jail cell. Soon, he realizes that he has really messed things up now. Ona will definitely be fired, and how will she support herself and Antanas? Jurgis doesn't mind prison so much - it's not like his job is anything better - but he blames himself for the life that he has dragged Ona into. He starts to imagine that Connor won't stop with firing Ona; out of revenge, he'll probably go after Elzbieta and Marija's jobs, too. Without Jurgis, the family will become homeless. They will have to beg for loans from the Szedvilas family, Jadvyga, and even poor Tamoszius Kuszleika. But it won't be enough. The next morning, Jurgis is taken to his arraignment along with a bunch of other prisoners - brawlers and drunkards, mostly. Jurgis hears gossip that they are going to be tried by a certain Judge Callahan, who is known to hate foreigners. So Jurgis is sure that he is ruined. Jurgis doesn't understand the bail system, but he definitely doesn't have three hundred dollars, so he's taken to jail to wait for his official trial a week later. Jurgis spends the entire week fretting and worrying. He passes Christmas in jail, wracked with guilt and regret. What makes all of this worse is that he realizes that he is warmer and better fed in jail than he would be at home; he wishes his family could be in jail with him. Jurgis becomes so outraged at this thought that he finally realizes that he has been wronged by society. He is filled with a sense of injustice and rebellion. The narrator quotes two passages from poet and playwright Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" . This is a poem Wilde wrote after spending some time in jail for the "crime" of being in a gay relationship. It is a beautiful meditation on prison, guilt, and human law.

At the police station Jurgis is booked on charges of assault and battery. After his satisfaction at taking revenge on Connor subsides, Jurgis begins to worry about Ona and the family. He is convinced they will lose the house. Incarcerated on Christmas Eve, Jurgis hears the church bells and curses the injustice and insanity of American society.

Readers sympathize with Jurgis and understand his attack on Connor, but the courts do not. As readers side with Jurgis, it is easier for them to agree with his conclusion that justice is a lie and does not exist. Capitalism not only adversely affects the workers, its evil infiltrates the seemingly unbiased judicial system. In reality, the courts are just as corrupt as industry is. While in jail, Jurgis determines that society is his enemy. His conclusions mark the beginning of a new Jurgis. He no longer is the naive young immigrant who arrived ready to work, eager to fulfill the American dream. The reference at the end of the chapter to an Oscar Wilde poem is clearly from Sinclair's and not Jurgis' experience. Although the sentiment matches the scenario, the literary allusion is inappropriate, because Jurgis, an uneducated immigrant, would have no knowledge of Wilde. Glossary melee a noisy, confused fight or hand-to-hand struggle among a number of people. glutted fed to excess. fetid having a bad smell, as of decay. clangor a continued clanging. outlawry disregard or defiance of the law.

Chapter 16 ould they find no better way to punish him than to leave three weak women and six helpless children to starve and freeze. Jurgis is arrested and taken to jail, where old men and boys, hardened criminals and petty criminals, innocent men and guilty men share the same squalid quarters. A date is designated for Jurgis's trial and his bond is set at three hundred dollars. Afterward, he is taken to the county jail and made to strip; he is then walked, naked, down a hallway past the inmates, who leer and make comments. He is put into a small cell with a filthy, bug-infested mattress. Upon hearing a clanging of bells that evening, Jurgis realizes that it is Christmas Eve. He recalls the previous Christmas, when he and Ona walked along the avenue with the children and gazed at the marvelous food and toys in the store windows. He begins to sob when he thinks of his family spending Christmas without him and with Ona ill. He laments his family's plight and feels that the Christmas chimes are mocking him

Packingtown is full of predators and, as they have done throughout The Jungle, these hostile forces continue to attack the family bond that unites the immigrants. Phil Connor, empowered by his criminal connections, violates the sacred marriage bond between Jurgis and Ona, one of the few things of meaning that the two still possess. The idea of powerlessness pervades this grim section; no poor person has the power to fight for him- or herself. Marija tries to fight for her full wages, only to be fired; Ona cannot afford to reject Connor's advances because he has the power to ruin her family. The wage laborer is systematically crippled and silenced by the power structure of capitalism. In his attack on Connor, in Chapter 15, Jurgis exhibits an animalistic fury. Sinclair compares him to a "wounded bull" and a "tiger," and the image of Jurgis hovering over Connor with his mouth full of Connor's blood and skin evokes the primal, bestial quality of his rage. Ironically, the factories seek this sort of unrefined animal energy in their workers, which they can channel into efficient labor. Everywhere in Packingtown, there are wage laborers who suffer from some form of permanent disfigurement directly or indirectly related to their work. In a sense, the prevalence of these disfiguring injuries is a metaphor for the butchery of human bodies--which, like animals, are slaughtered in the service of profit. With Jurgis's sentencing, Sinclair argues that capitalism has perverted the American justice system. Judges are bought and sold by men with power and money, giving impunity to men like Connor. Furthermore, in Jurgis's case, the judge does not care that his ruling means the difference between starvation and survival for an entire family. Sinclair also charges capitalism with being anti-Christian. Immigrants  from eastern-European countries held fast to their religious beliefs and traditions upon coming to America as a source of strength and a sense of heritage. Here, however, Jurgis is forced to spend the Christmas holidays separated from his family, and his inability to work leads to them being evicted from their home at a time of year that is traditionally festive. Jurgis's recollection of practically drooling over food and toys in store windows on the previous Christmas pits the harsh and cruel reality of capitalism at odds with the immigrants' fantasies. Jurgis cannot afford the store window contents; his inability to be a consumer marks his failure as a producer, according to the capitalist system. The family's slew of misfortunes following Jurgis's imprisonment clearly marks the beginning of the family's inevitable descent into ruin. Sinclair foreshadows this fall throughout the early sections of the novel; his commitment to exemplifying the evils of capitalism necessitates that these exploited immigrants fail in their naive pursuit of the American Dream. Throughout the novel, Sinclair relentlessly insists that hard work, family values, self-reliance, and self-motivated action--the underpinnings of the American Dream--do absolutely nothing to provide the means for social advancement. The wage laborers that populate The Jungle are moved inevitably toward ruin and abuse by forces beyond their control. Capitalism becomes a force as inevitable and careless as nature. It picks off unfortunate individuals as carelessly as cold weather, disease, and heat exhaustion.