Читать книгу The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West онлайн

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“If we ain’t never had ’em, I guess we’ll catch ’em to-night,” says Clark, softly in my ear, and the words take on a sickening significance as we enter an unventilated atmosphere of foulest pollution, and we see more clearly the frowzy, ragged garments of unclean men, and have glimpses here and there of caking filth upon a naked limb.

The wisdom of a late hour of retiring is at once apparent when we have sight of the inner passage. Not a square foot of the dark, concrete floor is visible. The space is packed with men all lying on their right sides with their legs drawn up, and each man’s legs pressed close in behind those of the man in front.

Clark draws from an inside pocket a roll of old newspapers, and hands me one. We spread them on the pavement as a Mohammedan unrolls his mat for prayers, and then we take off our boots and coats. Our soaked, pulpy boots we fold in our jackets and use them as pillows, and we soften our bed by spreading over the newspapers our outer coats, which thus have a chance to dry in the warmth of the room and in that which comes from our bodies. We need no covering in the steaming heat in which we lie, and I can see at a glance that Clark and I are more fortunate than most of the other men, for few of them have outer coats, and in their threadbare, filthy garments they lie with nothing but paper between them and the floor, their heads pillowed on their arms.