Living My Life - Emma Goldman [134]
“The break has come, though, at last,” he went on. “It had to, anyway, even if you and I had not become good friends again. It was bound to come as soon as I began to realize the effect those quarrels were having on the child.” He added that for a long time he had wanted to go to Europe to see his mother again, but he had lacked the means. Now he was in a position to do so. He would take his child to Vienna with him, and he asked me to accompany him.
“How do you mean, take the child?” I cried. “The mother, what about her? It’s her child, too, isn’t it? It must mean everything to her. How can you rob her of it?” Ed got on his feet and raised me up also. His face close to mine, he said: “Love! Love! Haven’t you always insisted that the love of the average mother either smothers the child with kisses or kills it with blows? Why this sudden sentimentality for the poor mother?” “I know, I know, my dear,” I answered; “I haven’t changed my views. Just the same, the woman endures the agony of birth and she nourishes the infant with her own substance. The man does almost nothing, and yet he claims the child. Can’t you see how unjust it is, Ed? Go to Europe with you? I’d do it at once. But I cannot have a mother robbed of her child on my account.” He charged me with not being free; I was like all feminists who rail against man for the wrongs he supposedly does to woman, without seeing the injustices that the man suffers, and also the child. He would go anyway and take his little girl along. Never would he allow his child to grow up in an atmosphere of strife. [ . . . ]
After much thought I concluded that my feeling in regard to the mother of Ed’s child was deeply embedded in my sentiments for motherhood in general, that blind, dumb force that brings forth life in travail, wasting woman’s youth and strength, and leaving her in old age a burden to herself and to those to whom she has given birth. It was this helplessness of motherhood that had made me recoil from adding to its pain. [ . . . ]
One morning, very early, I was roused out of bed by persistent and violent ringing. It was Timmermann, whom I had not seen for more than a year. “Claus!” I cried; “what brings you at such an hour?” [ . . . ]
“It’s about Ed,” he began. “Ed!” I cried, suddenly alarmed; “is anything the matter with him? Is he ill? Have you a message for me?”
“Ed—Ed—” he stammered—“Ed has no more messages.” I held out my hand as if to ward off a blow. “Ed died last night,” I heard Claus say in a shaken voice. I stood staring at him. “You’re drunk!” I cried; “it can’t be!” Claus took my hand and gently pulled me down beside him. [ ... ]
Finally Claus spoke. He had gone to Ed’s house to meet him for supper; he had waited until nine o’clock, but Ed did not return, so he decided to leave. At that moment a cab drove up to the house. The driver inquired for Brady’s apartment, saying that Mr. Brady was in the cab, sick. Would someone help to carry him up? Neighbours came out and surrounded the cab. Ed was inside, sunk back in the seat, unconscious and breathing heavily. People carried him upstairs, while Claus ran for a doctor. When he came back the cabman was gone. All he had been able to tell was that he had been called to a saloon near the Long Island station, where he had found the gentleman hunched up in a chair, bleeding from a cut on his face. He was conscious, but able only to give his address. The saloon-keeper explained that the gentleman had asked for a drink and had taken it standing at the bar. Then he had paid and started towards the toilet. On the way he had suddenly fallen down in a heap, striking his forehead against the