One of Life's Slaves

one has any account, and no one takes any account, who swarm down there only one floor higher, so to speak, than the spawn an

livelihoods, or a wandering vagabond life, takes them; refuges, police-stations, prisons and the house of correction tak

l relationship, can draw a sigh of relief. The responsibility is at any rate diminished, as the chances now are that they wil

minded the whirring shuttles, balls and rollers-Swedish Lena, and Stina, and Kristofa, and Kalla, and Josefa and Gunda, and al

iculate, nod, talk in a loud voice, but they got on best with their faces close up to one another in all this whizzing, where the band-wheels each whirred away for their little sub-division of power, the boards

lla Holman, she with the dark hair, slender and freckled, with heelless slippers and a large spot of paraffine on the front of her dress, who coughed and questioned, and questioned and coughed, while her eyes looked like two littl

liked believe that, but neither Gunda nor Jakobina did! Then Kristofa had related her wonderful adventure of last Sunday-she was always passing through remarkable occurrences,

etvindt, and the talk was of handkerchiefs, bows, and finery-which some possessed and others had to borrow-and of who danced best and treated most liberally. K

nd questioned and examined. And the young workwomen sat each in her place, wit

illness in from the great windows high up in th

slowly, and the smell of oil and the heat from the e

g stifling minutes.

ps, with their breakfast-tins in their hands, in their neat aprons, handkerchie

f it! Silla, hot and thirsty, knocked off a bit of

indt, she wandered down arm-in-arm with a long row of her companions. The road out from

England already!" The young girls nudged each other,

le. They were all brown together; I counted exactly seven different kinds of dirt-co

ke care of the oi

ead! Oh, what a lovely red silk handkerchief in

ld high and swinging his walking-stick. All the young girls stared respectfully and stupidly straight in front of the

e a pudding-basin!"-"Don't breathe upon him, he is so thin!"

rned to loo

he has to be as firm as a rock. Johanna Sjoberg, who does clear starching,

ly waltzing with a common man, and perhaps it is the son of the richest man in the town! But if you are a little careful yo

notice?" whispered Kristof

d Silla, a little confused at h

a burst of

ng crow goin

new quite well, that he did know her; he had been in the office when she went o

flowed out into the irregular part of the town that was built of wood, below-through narrow entrances and up narrow flights of steps, int

in the rotten woodwork full of bent rusty nails, and from time to time a d

d look that she opened the gate, behind which stood Mrs. Andersen's servant-maid, furiously red, and incapable of defending herself, while Mrs. Holman, her skirts fastened u

clothes to the wash not patched or mended; and I can tell you that both Mother Nilsen next door and the people in this house have wondered to see the things that a person, who calls herself a chandler's wife, lets her husband and children wear! No, you needn't contradict

significance she tur

deal of work. But it's of no consequence; the sooner I'm dead and gone, t

you wring

if you, who have only been sitting up in the factory, had hurried yourself a

at last recovered her voice. "But I think you won't need to trouble yourself any

then added, as she vanish

lye was half as sha

hteousness in this world-in others. Inasmuch as part of this sentence also points inwards towards one's self, she was fortunate in f

ckmaker Holman had existed was something which was really properly unders

as a further aggravation of the situation, her dead husband's bill at Mrs. Selvig's thrust its extremely unexpected, unwelcome face into M

umerous when she found herself compelled

n which others might have things in theirs. During all these years, she had, so to speak, sat comfortably on the top of the load and

h Consul Veyergang to get her daughter Silla taken into his factory. Unemployed hands must have something to do, and it would, at any rate, yield some small compensation for the weekly money lost with her husband. If

leisure time in idleness, which was dangerous for young people. Sewing and darning and

Kristofa's and her friends' word-pictures transformed themselves into actual experiences. Bubble after bubble, the one more wonderful than the other, floated up or burst right