1 So once more Jurgis began to make plans and dream dreams.
2 So once more Jurgis began to make plans and dream dreams.
3 So America was a place of which lovers and young people dreamed.
4 Jurgis felt jealous of this fellow; for that was the sort of thing he himself had dreamed of, two or three years ago.
5 Sometimes at night he would waken dreaming of Ona, and stretch out his arms to her, and wet the ground with his tears.
6 And every hour his soul grew blacker, every hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, of raging, frenzied hate.
7 And every hour his soul grew blacker, every hour he dreamed new dreams of vengeance, of defiance, of raging, frenzied hate.
8 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.
9 They had dreamed of freedom; of a chance to look about them and learn something; to be decent and clean, to see their child grow up to be strong.
10 He showed them the sink in the kitchen, with running water and a faucet, something which Teta Elzbieta had never in her wildest dreams hoped to possess.
11 But Marija was not to be prevailed upon, and went on planning and dreaming of all the treasures she was going to have for her home; and so, when the crash did come, her grief was painful to see.
12 To the two who stood watching while the darkness swallowed it up, it seemed a dream of wonder, with its talc of human energy, of things being done, of employment for thousands upon thousands of men, of opportunity and freedom, of life and love and joy.
13 Then, seeing that the sun was still hot, he took his clothes from the bank and proceeded to wash them, piece by piece; as the dirt and grease went floating off downstream he grunted with satisfaction and soused the clothes again, venturing even to dream that he might get rid of the fertilizer.
14 A very few days of practical experience in this land of high wages had been sufficient to make clear to them the cruel fact that it was also a land of high prices, and that in it the poor man was almost as poor as in any other corner of the earth; and so there vanished in a night all the wonderful dreams of wealth that had been haunting Jurgis.