Picture me haggling and arguing on the steps--“Didn't know it was so far--Man didn't understand”--God knows what else! And then he tries to carry off the trunk--and I rushing behind, looking for a policeman! Again more arguing, and a crowd, of course. At last it appears that I have to pay him what he asks and go down to the City Hall and make my complaint--hadn't told him how many steps there were, etc. So finally I agree to carry it up the steps myself, if he'll only leave it for a quarter! Next you must picture me breaking my back and tearing my fingers and the damned wall paper--while the damned frowsy-headed landlady yells and the damned frowsy-headed boarders stick out their heads! And so in the end I get into my steaming hot room and shut the door and fall down on the bed and burst into tears. * * * * * O God, the stings of this bitter, haunting, horrible poverty! The ghastly weight that has hung about my neck since ever I can remember! Oh, shall I ever be free from it? Shall I ever know what it is to have what I ought to have, to think of my work without the intrusion of these degrading pettinesses? They are so infinite, so endless, so hideous! The thing gets to be a habit of my thoughts; my whole nature is steeped and soaked in it--in filthy sordidness! I plot and I plan all the day--I can not buy a newspaper without hesitating and debating--I am like a ragpicker going about the streets! Sometimes the thing goads me so that I think I must go mad--when I think of the time that I lose, of the power, of the courage! I walk miles when I am exhausted, to save a car-fare! I wear ragged collars and chafe my neck! I stand waiting in foul-smelling grocery shops with crowds of nasty people! I cook what I eat in a half-dirty frying-pan because I can not afford to pay the servant to wash it! So it is that I drag myself about--chafing and goaded--crouching and cringing like a whipped cur! My God, when will I be free? My God! My God! * * * * * --The boarding-houses that I have been in! The choice collection of memories that I have stored away in my mind, memories of boarding-houses! The landladies' faces--the assorted stenches--the dark hallways--the gabbling, quarreling, filthy, beer-carrying tenants! Oh, I wring my hands and something clutches me in my heart! Let me go! Let me go!