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5 SILL GEOFFREY M. SILL from PASSAIC! Josef Hutta lived alone in a room on Third Street. The room was small, almost square, with two doors in one corner. One doorway had been crudely cut into the wall, a makeshift frame set in, and an old closet door hung in the frame to provide an exit into the hall; the other door had once led into the second floor front apartment, to which Josefs room had once served as a bedroom . But that door was now nailed shut, and the only communication between apartments was through the keyhole, over which a piece of cardboard had been placed on the other side. The room was nearly square, but not quite; the outer wall of the tenement jogged outwards perhaps two feet near the middle of Josefs room, so that the one window on that wall could face, at an angle, toward the street rather than directly toward the wall of the building next door. Since there was another apartment to the rear, the angled window was the only window in the room. Josef had placed his bed perpendicular to the wall with his head nearest the window, so that, if the night were clear, he could look out at the stars before falling asleep, and so that the first rays of the morning sun would wake him. He kept few decorations in his room; there was a chest beside his bed, which he had brought over from the old country, and in which he kept a few books, his money, and his father's watch; beyond the chest, a washstand with an enamel bowl, over which hung an oval mirror; and on the wall, a calendar for 1925, with all but the month of December torn off, and above December the likeness of the Virgin Mary. Josef lay in his bed, on his left side, waiting for the first glimpse of the sun over the roofs of the tenements across the street, but he knew it would be a long wait. He awoke every morning around four, which, in the summer, might be early enough to see the sun; in February, however, there was nothing to see but the deep gray starless sky and the bluish snow on the rooftops. The first few minutes of the morning were the worst part of the day: his sleep was restless, and in his dreams he often had the experience oflosing something, looking everywhere for it, and waking with the feeling that it had just slipped out of his grasp. During this past night, from what he could remember, he had been calling to someone who was receding from him, getting farther away all the time, escaping him, and when he pursued, his efforts only made that someone seem still farther away. And when he awoke, after a dream like that, his arms and legs seemed afflicted with such a leaden tiredness that he could hardly get up from the bed and prepare himself for the trip to the Botany. At least he would not be going to work today. Today he would lie in bed 6 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW until the sun rose, then he would get up, have some rolls and coffee by Mrs. Varga, read her newspaper, and sit in his room until it was time to go out to dinner . Such a life! his mother would say, if he could tell her, such a life! But there was nothing he could do about it. The Botany was closed all last week; Niko said to stay away. The other mills had lines of men and women from the doors all the way down the street and around the corner. The hiring halls were so crowded that he often could not get in, and, once in, it was only to see the managers come and announce one or two jobs and send everyone else away again. Josef had tried everywhere, everywhere except the Botany, and Niko had said, holding Josef by the shoulder and wagging a finger in his face, Stay away from the Botany! So it would be easier getting up-there would be no work again today. Almost two months...

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