SCENE: _An underground room, bare of any furniture except two or
three broken chairs, a tattered mattress on the stone floor and
an old trunk. On a packing-chest are a few pots and pans and a
kettle. A few sacks are spread over the floor, close to the empty
grate; the walls are discoloured, with plentiful signs of damp
oozing through. Close to the door, at back, is a window, looking
on to the area; two of the panes are broken and stuffed with
paper._
_On the mattress a child is sleeping, covered with a tattered old
mantle;_ MARY _is bending over her, crooning a song. The woman is
still quite young, and must have been very pretty; but her cheeks
are hollow and there are great circles round her eyes; her face
is very pale and bloodless. Her dress is painfully worn and
shabby, but displays pathetic attempts at neatness. The only
light in the room comes from the street lamp on the pavement
above._
JOE _comes down the area steps, and enters. His clothes are of
the familiar colourless, shapeless kind one sees at street
corners; he would be a pleasant-looking young fellow enough were
it not that his face is abnormally lined, and pinched, and
weather-beaten. He shambles in, with the intense weariness of a
man who has for hours been forcing benumbed limbs to move; he
shakes himself, on the threshold, dog-fashion, to get rid of the
rain._ MARY _first makes sure that the child is asleep, then
rises eagerly and goes to him. Her face falls as she notes his
air of dejection._
MARY. [_Wistfully._] Nothing, Joe?
JOE. Nothing. Not a farthing. Nothing.
[MARY _turns away and checks a moan._
JOE. Nothing at all. Same as yesterday--worse than yesterday--I _did_
bring home a few coppers--And you?