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

46 страница из 79

“No, I’m sorry,” he was saying, “I’m sorry that I can give you nothing to do. The fact is, I’ve got to lay off three men at the end of the week. My business don’t warrant my keeping them. I hope you’ll be more fortunate elsewhere.”

A minute later we were standing waiting for the attention of a square-shouldered, thick-necked dealer who was in angry dispute with a subordinate. His face was still distorted when he turned upon us, and his dilating eyes sought mine with an expression of growing impatience.

“We are looking for a job, sir,” I began. “Can you give us a chance to work?”

“No, I can’t, —— you! Out you go, now!” And then to a man near the door: “—— your soul, Kelly, I’ve told you to keep these bums out of here. If you let in another one I’ll fire you, as sure as hell.”

“OUT YOU GO, NOW.”

The hour was nearly up, and there was apparently nothing for it but to start north in accordance with Clark’s plan and in hope of better fortune. I felt as though I could not go. I was fairly faint with hunger, and a curious light-headedness had possessed me. The sights and sounds about us took on a strange unreality, and I could not rid myself of the feeling of moving and speaking in a dream. Again and again I was conscious of a repetition of identical experience, recalling the same circumstances in some faintly remembered past, and even before I spoke at times, I had an eerie sense of having uttered the coming sentences before under precisely similar conditions. The one fact to which consciousness held with unshaken certainty was the strong craving for food. And this was not so much a positive pain, as it was a sickening, benumbing influence. My hand would all but go out in reach for fruit that lay exposed about me, and the thought that the act would be wrong, and would get me into trouble, followed the impulse afar, and was forced into action as a checking conviction by a distinct effort of the will.