The Jungle

by Upton Sinclair

Such were the new surroundings in which Ona was placed, and such was the work she was compelled to do. It was stupefying, brutalizing work; it left her no time to think, no strength for anything. She was part of the machine she tended, and every faculty that was not needed for the machine was doomed to be crushed out of existence. There was only one mercy about the cruel grind—that it gave her the gift of insensibility. Little by little she sank into a torpor—she fell silent—Ona, who had once gone about all day singing like a bird. She had nothing to sing about now, nothing to think about. She had barely strength to drag herself home at night; she would meet Jurgis at the corner, and often they would not say a word all the way. At home they would eat what they had to eat, and then, because there was only their misery to talk of, they would crawl into bed and fall into a stupor and never stir until it was time to get up again, and dress by candle light, and go back to the machine. They were so numbed that they did not even suffer much from hunger, now; only the children continued to fret when the food ran short.