Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (best motivational books .TXT) 📖
- Author: Upton Sinclair
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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.
Chapter 19
“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,
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