He crossed a long bridge over a river frozen solid and covered with slush. Not even on the river bank was the snow white⁠—the rain which fell was a diluted solution of smoke, and Jurgis’s hands and face were streaked with black. Then he came into the business part of the city, where the streets were sewers of inky blackness, with horses slipping and plunging, and women and children flying across in panic-stricken droves. These streets were huge canons formed by towering black buildings, echoing with the clang of car-gongs and the shouts of drivers; the people who swarmed in them were as busy as ants⁠—all hurrying breathlessly, never stopping to look at anything nor at each other. The solitary trampish-looking foreigner, with water-soaked clothing and haggard face and anxious eyes, was as much alone as he hurried past them, as much unheeded and as lost, as if he had been a thousand miles deep in a wilderness.