Marija Berczynskas Quotes

“So in the summer time they had all set out for America. At the last moment there joined them Marija Berczynskas, who was a cousin of Ona’s. Marija was an orphan, and had worked since childhood for a rich farmer of Vilna, who beat her regularly. It was only at the age of twenty that it had occurred to Marija to try her strength, when she had risen up and nearly murdered the man, and then come away.”

“Better luck than all this could hardly have been hoped for; there was only one of them left to seek a place. Jurgis was determined that Teta Elzbieta should stay at home to keep house, and that Ona should help her. He would not have Ona working – he was not that sort of a man, he said, and she was not that sort of a woman. It would be a strange thing if a man like him could not support the family, with the help of the board of Jonas and Marija. He would not even hear of letting the children go to work – there were schools here in America for children, Jurgis had heard, to which they could go for nothing. […] Jurgis would have it that Stanislovas should learn to speak English, and grow up to be a skilled man.”

“So, bit by bit, the feast takes form – there is a ham and a dish of sauerkraut, boiled rice, macaroni, bologna sausages, great piles of penny buns, bowls of milk, and foaming pitchers of beer. There is also, not six feet from your back, the bar, where you may order all you please and do not have to pay for it. “Eiksz! Graicziau!” screams Marija Berczynskas, and falls to work herself – for there is more upon the stove inside that will be spoiled if it be not eaten.”

Is she discouraged, does she drag herself about the house and find fault with everything? Why do you not tell her to try Dr. Lanahan’s Life Preservers?

It would be a strange thing if a man like him could not support the family, with the help of the board of Jonas and Marija.

what she thought of a world where such things were allowed to happen

She was shut up in one of the rooms where the people seldom saw the daylight;

“I couldn’t lie to her. And maybe the children have found out by this time. It’s nothing to be ashamed of—we can’t help it.”

“I haven’t seen him for over a year. He got blood poisoning and lost one finger, and couldn’t play the violin any more; and then he went away.”

“No,” she answered, “I don’t blame you. We never have—any of us. You did your best—the job was too much for us.”

“Marija, reaching for her hat, which was big enough to be a drum major’s, and full of ostrich feathers.

“How can I ever be anything but sick, at this life?”

“I seem to take more of it every day.”

My laundry bill is nearly twenty dollars each week alone—think of that!

She never got outside of that place for ten months, and then they sent her away, because she didn’t suit.

Only one of the girls that came out with her got away, and she jumped out of a second-story window one night.

“Most of the women here are pretty decent—you’d be surprised. I used to think they did it because they liked to; but fancy a woman selling herself to every kind of man that comes, old or young, black or white—-and doing it because she likes to!”

“It’s nice to have somebody to wait on you,”

“What are you talking?—I won’t give you money,” she added, as she followed him to the door, “because you’ll drink it up, and do yourself harm.”

“Here’s a quarter for you now, and go along, and they’ll be so glad to have you back, you won’t have time to feel ashamed.”