Hard Times

Morning. The factories burst into illumination and the Hands clatter back to work. Stephen bends over his loom quiet and steady. At noon, he walks not home but toward a red house with a brass nameplate — BOUNDERBY — and knocks. He is a steady Hand with no complaints on record, so he is admitted. Bounderby is at lunch. Mrs. Sparsit is netting in a side-saddle attitude by the fireside. Stephen has come to ask how he is to be rid of his wife. He lays out nineteen years of marriage: she went bad, drank, sold the furniture, left, came back, left again, came back again. He has walked the streets at night rather than go home. He has gone to a bridge, minded to throw himself off it. He has paid her to stay away for five years. Last night she was back on his hearthstone. Bounderby tells him there is a law — but it costs a thousand to fifteen hundred pounds, perhaps twice that. Stephen asks the law systematically: if he hurts her, the law punishes him. If he flees, the law punishes him. If he marries again, the law punishes him. If he lives with another woman without marrying her, the law punishes every innocent child born to them. 'Now, a' God's name,' said Stephen, 'show me the law to help me!' Bounderby tells him the institutions of his country are not his piece-work, and he had better mind his piece-work. Stephen leaves: 'Tis a muddle. 'Tis a' a muddle!'