Living My Life - Emma Goldman [303]
The Swede returned hale and sound. He had not written because he was trying to muster up courage to go his own way. He failed. He was drawn back by his need of me. Would I accept him again? I did, certain that he could not consume me as before. I was back in Russia now, in her triumph and defeat, my every fibre intent on recreating the tremendous panorama I had witnessed for twenty-one months.
My dear old pal Sasha, though rarely sympathetic with my affairs of the heart, never failed me in our common activities or in his co-operation with my literary efforts. Just as soon as he saw me working in earnest, he came back with his old eagerness to help. I should have made considerable progress now but for a new disturbance.
[...] My secretary, an intelligent and efficient Jewish-American girl, and my young Swede could apparently not get on. [ ... ] Soon I discovered the truth of the German saying: Was liebt sich, das neckt sich.2 The two young people had fallen in love with each other and were fighting to distract my attention from their real feelings. They were too unsophisticated to be guilty of deliberate deception. They simply lacked the courage to speak and were perhaps afraid to hurt me. As if their frankness could have been more lacerating than my realization that their show of indifference was only a shield! At heart I had not ceased to believe that my love would rekindle his affection, so rich and abundant during our months in Stockholm.
I could not endure the silly hide-and-seek going on before my eyes. I assured them that nothing would change my affection for them, and that I wanted the girl to continue with me until the manuscript was typed, but I would ask them to find quarters of their own. It would be less wearing for the three of us. They moved out. [ ... ] Their love was young, and it was unkind to cause it pain. [...]
I still had the hardest part of my book to do—an Afterword that was to set forth the lessons of the Russian Revolution which our comrades and the militant masses will have to learn if future revolutions are not to be failures. I had come to realize that with all the Bolshevik mania for power they could never have so completely terrorized the Russian people if it were not inherent in mass psychology to be easily swayed. I was also convinced that the conception of revolution in our own ranks was too romantic, and that miracles cannot be expected even after capitalism shall have been abolished and the bourgeoisie eliminated. I knew better now and I wanted to help my comrades to a clearer understanding. [...]
I wrote a closing chapter suggesting in general outline the practical, constructive efforts during revolution. I had reasons for a double celebration. I had regained my emotional sanity and I had completed the manuscript of “My Two Years in Russia.” [...]
Our presence in Liebenstein brought to us many of our friends from America. [...] “Queen E.G. and her court,” teased Henry [Alsberg] at the lovely surprise party my family arranged for my fifty-fourth birthday. This much life had given me: friends whose love neither faltered nor changed with the years, a treasure few possess.
Among the many birthday gifts and messages I received was also one from my faithful friend and counsellor, Harry Weinberger. It brought the good news that my manuscript had been sold by Brainard to Doubleday, Page and Company and that the book would be out in October of that year (1923). I cabled that page proofs be sent to me. The publishers replied that it would delay the issue of my book and assured me that they would keep strictly to the manuscript. [...]
Stella had hardly left when I received a blow that staggered me.3 A copy of my book arrived with the last twelve chapters missing and with an entirely wrong title. As printed, the volume was an unfinished work, because the last chapters and particularly my Afterword, which represented the culminating