ven 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 refuse