Living My Life - Emma Goldman [215]
At last I was assigned to a cell facing a window, which permitted the sun to look in upon me occasionally. The Warden had also instructed the head matron to allow me to take three baths a week. These privileges soon changed my condition for the better. He had furthermore promised to have my cell whitewashed, but he could not keep his word. The whole prison badly needed a new coat of paint, but Mr. Painter had failed to secure an appropriation for it. He could not make an exception of me, and I agreed with him. I devised something else to cover up the hideous patches on the walls—crêpe paper of a lovely green which Stella had sent me. With it I panelled the entire cell, and presently it began to look quite attractive, its cosiness enhanced by beautiful Japanese prints I had received from Teddy and a shelf of books I had accumulated.
There was no library in the female department, nor were we allowed to take out books from the men’s wing. Once I asked Miss Smith why we could not get reading-matter from the male library. “Because I can’t trust the girls to go there alone,” she said, “and I have no time to accompany them. They would be sure to start flirtations.” “What harm would that do?” I remarked naïvely, and Lilah was scandalized.
I requested Stella to see some publishers and also to induce our friends to send me books and magazines. Before long, four leading New York houses supplied me with many volumes. Most of them were above the understanding of my fellow inmates, but they soon learned to appreciate good novels. [...]
Among the books sent me was one from my friend Alice Stone Blackwell,5 containing the letters of Catherine Breshkovskaya and a biographic sketch of her. It was symbolic of the eternal recurrence of the struggle for freedom that I should be able to read the account of our Little Grandmother’s exile under the tsars while I myself was a prisoner. [ ... ]
The news of Breshkovskaya’s arrival in America filled me with hope that an authentic word would at last be said for Soviet Russia and an effective protest voiced against conditions in America. [...]
The reports of her first public appearance in Carnegie Hall and her bitter denunciation of the Bolsheviki came as a fearful shock. Catherine Breshkovskaya, one of those whose revolutionary work for the past fifty years had paved the way for the October upheaval, was now surrounded by the worst enemies of Russia, working hand in glove with White6 generals and Jew-baiters, as well as with the reactionary element in the United States. It seemed incredible. I wrote Stella for accurate information, meanwhile continuing to cling to my faith in her who had been my inspiration and guiding star. Her simple grandeur, the charm and beauty of her personality, which I had learned to love during our common work in 1904 and 1905, had too deeply impressed me for me to give Babushka up so easily. I would write her. I would tell her of my own stand regarding Soviet Russia; I would assure her that I believed in her right of criticism, but I would plead with her not to lend herself as an unwitting tool to those who were trying to crush the Revolution. Stella was coming to visit me and I would have her smuggle out my letter to Babushka, type it, and deliver it to her in person.
I had attained to the highest ambition of my fellow sufferers in the penitentiary: I was placed in Grade A. Not entirely through my own efforts, though, for I was still unable to make the full task. I was indebted for it to the kindness of several coloured girls in the shop. Whether it was due to greater physical strength, or because they had been longer at the tasks, most of the Negro inmates succeeded better than the white women. Some of them had acquired such dexterity that