The Nether World
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Оглавление
George Gissing. The Nether World
CHAPTER I. A THRALL OF THRALLS
CHAPTER II. A FRIEND IN REQUEST
CHAPTER III. A SUPERFLUOUS FAMILY
CHAPTER IV. CLARA AND JANE
CHAPTER V. JANE IS VISITED
CHAPTER VI. GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
CHAPTER VII. MRS. BYASS'S LODGINGS
CHAPTER VIII. PENNYLOAF CANDY
CHAPTER IX. PATHOLOGICAL
CHAPTER X. THE LAST COMBAT
CHAPTER XI. A DISAPPOINTMENT
CHAPTER XII 'IO SATURNALIA!'
CHAPTER XIII. THE BRINGER OF ILL NEWS
CHAPTER XIV. A WELCOME GUEST
CHAPTER XV. SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES
CHAPTER XVI. DIALOGUE AND COMMENT
CHAPTER XVII. CLEM MAKES A DISCLOSURE
CHAPTER XVIII. THE JOKE IS COMPLETED
CHAPTER XIX. A RETREAT
CHAPTER XX. A VISION OF NOBLE THINGS
CHAPTER XXI. DEATH THE RECONCILER
CHAPTER XXII. WATCHING FROM AMBUSH
CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE EVE OF TRIUMPH
CHAPTER XXIV. THE FAMILY HISTORY PROGRESSES
CHAPTER XXV. A DOUBLE CONSECRATION
CHAPTER XXVI. SIDNEY'S STRUGGLE
CHAPTER XXVII. CLARA'S RETURN
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SOUP-KITCHEN
CHAPTER XXIX. PHANTOMS
CHAPTER XXX. ON A BARREN SHORE
CHAPTER XXXI. WOMAN AND ACTRESS
CHAPTER XXXII. A HAVEN
CHAPTER XXXIII. A FALL FROM THE IDEAL
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE DEBT REPAID
CHAPTER XXXV. THE TREASURY UNLOCKED
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE HEIR
CHAPTER XXXVII. MAD JACK'S DREAM
CHAPTER XXXVIII. JOSEPH TRANSACTS MUCH BUSINESS
CHAPTER XXXIX. SIDNEY
CHAPTER XL. JANE
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It was the hour of the unyoking of men. In the highways and byways of Clerkenwell there was a thronging of released toilers, of young and old, of male and female. Forth they streamed from factories and workrooms, anxious to make the most of the few hours during which they might live for themselves. Great numbers were still bent over their labour, and would be for hours to come, but the majority had leave to wend stablewards. Along the main thoroughfares the wheel-track was clangorous; every omnibus that clattered by was heavily laden with passengers; tarpaulins gleamed over the knees of those who sat outside. This way and that the lights were blurred into a misty radiance; overhead was mere blackness, whence descended the lashing rain. There was a ceaseless scattering of mud; there were blocks in the traffic, attended with rough jest or angry curse; there was jostling on the crowded pavement. Public-houses began to brighten up, to bestir themselves for the evening's business. Streets that had been hives of activity since early morning were being abandoned to silence and darkness and the sweeping wind.
At noon to-day there was sunlight on the Surrey hills; the fields and lanes were fragrant with the first breath of spring, and from the shelter of budding copses many a primrose looked tremblingly up to the vision of blue sky. But of these things Clerkenwell takes no count; here it had been a day like any other, consisting of so many hours, each representing a fraction of the weekly wage. Go where you may in Clerkenwell, on every hand are multiform evidences of toil, intolerable as a nightmare. It is not as in those parts of London where the main thoroughfares consist of shops and warehouses and workrooms, whilst the streets that are hidden away on either hand are devoted in the main to dwellings Here every alley is thronged with small industries; all but every door and window exhibits the advertisement of a craft that is carried on within. Here you may see how men have multiplied toil for toil's sake, have wrought to devise work superfluous, have worn their lives away in imagining new forms of weariness. The energy, the ingenuity daily put forth in these grimy burrows task the brain's power of wondering. But that those who sit here through the livelong day, through every season, through all the years of the life that is granted them, who strain their eyesight, who overtax their muscles, who nurse disease in their frames, who put resolutely from them the thought of what existence might be—that these do it all without prospect or hope of reward save the permission to eat and sleep and bring into the world other creatures to strive with them for bread, surely that thought is yet more marvellous.
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'But doesn't the doctor come still?' asked Sidney, drawing a chair near to her.
'Well, I didn't think it was right to go on payin' him, an' that's the truth. I'll go to the Orspital, an' they'll give me somethin'. I look bad, don't I, Sidney?'
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