De Amerikaanse schrijver Frank Norris werd geboren op 5 maart 1870 in Chicago. Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 5 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 maart 2009 en ook mijn blog van 5 maart 2010.

Uit: The Pit 

„Chicago, the great grey city, interested her at every instant and under every condition. As yet she was not sure that she liked it; she could not forgive its dirty streets, the unspeakable squalor of some of its poorer neighbourhoods that sometimes developed, like cancerous growths, in the very heart of fine residence districts. The black murk that closed every vista of the business streets oppressed her, and the soot that stained linen and gloves each time she stirred abroad was a never-ending distress.  

    But the life was tremendous.  All around, on every side, in every direction the vast machinery of Commonwealth clashed and thundered from dawn to dark and from dark till dawn.  Even now, as the car carried her farther into the business quarter, she could hear it, see it, and feel in her every fibre the trepidation of its motion.  The blackened waters of the river, seen an instant between stanchions as the car trundled across the State Street bridge, disappeared under fleets of tugs, of lake steamers, of lumber barges from Sheboygan and Mackinac, of grain boats from Duluth, of coal scows that filled the air with impalpable dust, of cumbersome schooners laden with produce, of grimy rowboats dodging the prows and paddles of the larger craft, while on all sides, blocking the horizon, red in color and designated by Brobdignag letters, towered the hump-shouldered grain elevators.

    Just before crossing the bridge on the north side of the river she had caught a glimpse of a great railway terminus.  Down below there, rectilinear, scientifically paralleled and squared, the Yard disclosed itself.  A system of grey rails beyond words complicated opened out and spread immeasurably. Switches, semaphores, and signal towers stood here and there.  A dozen trains, freight and passenger, puffed and steamed, waiting the word to depart.  Detached engines hurried in and out of sheds and roundhouses, seeking their trains, or bunted the ponderous freight cars into switches; trundling up and down, clanking, shrieking, their bells filling the air with the clangour of tocsins.  Men in visored caps shouted hoarsely, waving their arms or red flags; drays, their big dappled horses, feeding in their nose bags, stood backed up to the open doors of freight cars and received their loads.“

Frank Norris (5 maart 1870 – 25 oktober 1902)

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