it was the daily
food and drink of Jurgis. It was of no use for them to try to deceive
him; he knew as much about the situation as they did, and he knew that
the family might literally starve to death. The worry of it fairly ate
him up--he began to look haggard the first two or three days of it. In
truth, it was almost maddening for a strong man like him, a fighter, to
have to lie there helpless on his back. It was for all the world the
old story of Prometheus bound. As Jurgis lay on his bed, hour after hour
there came to him emotions that he had never known before. Before this
he had met life with a welcome--it had its trials, but none that a man
could not face. But now, in the nighttime, when he lay tossing about,
there would come stalking into his chamber a grisly phantom, the sight
of which made his flesh curl and his hair to bristle up. It was like
seeing the world fall away from underneath his feet; like plunging down
into a bottomless abyss into yawning caverns of despair. It might be
true, then, after all, what others had told him about life, that the
best powers of a man might not be equal to it! It might be true that,
strive as he would, toil as he would, he might fail, and go down and be
destroyed! The thought of this was like an icy hand at his heart; the
thought that here, in this ghastly home of all horror, he and all those
who were dear to him might lie and perish of starvation and cold, and
there would be no ear to hear their cry, no hand to help them! It was
true, it was true,--that here in this huge city, with its stores of
heaped-up wealth, human creatures might be hunted down and destroyed by
the wild-beast powers of nature, just as truly as ever they were in the
days of the cave men!

Ona was now making about thirty dollars a month, and Stanislovas about
thirteen. To add to this there was the board of Jonas and Marija,
about forty-five dollars. Deducting from this the rent, interest,
and installments on the furniture, they had left sixty dollars, and
deducting the coal, they had fifty. They did without everything that
human beings could do without; they went in old and ragged clothing,
that left them at the mercy of the cold, and when the children's shoes
wore out, they tied them up with string. Half invalid as she was, Ona
would do herself harm by walking in the rain and cold when she ought
to have ridden; they bought literally nothing but food--and still they
could not keep alive on fifty dollars