Living My Life - Emma Goldman [39]
The approach of puberty gave me my first consciousness of the effect of men on me. I was eleven then. Early one summer day I woke up in great agony. My head, spine, and legs ached as if they were being pulled asunder. I called for Mother. She drew back my bedcovers, and suddenly I felt a stinging pain in my face. She had struck me. I let out a shriek, fastening on Mother terrified eyes. “This is necessary for a girl,” she said, “when she becomes a woman, as a protection against disgrace.” She tried to take me in her arms, but I pushed her back. I was writhing in pain and I was too outraged for her to touch me. “I am going to die,” I howled, “I want the Feldscher” (assistant doctor). The Feldscher was sent for. He was a young man, a new-comer in our village. He examined me and gave me something to put me to sleep. Thenceforth my dreams were of the Feldscher.
When I was fifteen, I was employed in a corset-factory in the Hermitage Arcade in St. Petersburg. After working hours, on leaving the shop together with the other girls, we would be waylaid by young Russian officers and civilians. Most of the girls had their sweethearts; only a Jewish girl chum of mine and I refused to be taken to the konditorskaya (pastry shop) or to the park.
Next to the Hermitage was a hotel we had to pass. One of the clerks, a handsome fellow of about twenty, singled me out for his attentions. At first I scorned him, but gradually he began to exert a fascination on me. [ . . . ]
For several months my admirer and I met clandestinely. One day he asked me whether I should not like to go through the hotel to see the luxurious rooms. I had never been in a hotel before—the joy and gaiety I fancied behind the gorgeous windows used to fascinate me as I would pass the place on my way from work.
The boy led me through a side entrance, along a thickly carpeted corridor, into a large room. It was brightly illumined and beautifully furnished. A table near the sofa held flowers and a tea-tray. We sat down. The young man poured out a golden-coloured liquid and asked me to clink glasses to our friendship. I put the wine to my lips. Suddenly I found myself in his arms, my waist torn open—his passionate kisses covered my face, neck, and breasts. Not until after the violent contact of our bodies and the excruciating pain he caused me did I come to my senses. I screamed, savagely beating against the man’s chest with my fists. Suddenly I heard Helena’s voice in the hall. “She must be here—she must be here!” I became speechless. The man, too, was terrorized. His grip relaxed, and we listened in breathless silence. After what seemed to me hours, Helena’s voice receded. The man got up. I rose mechanically, mechanically buttoned my waist and brushed back my hair.
Strange, I felt no shame—only a great shock at the discovery that the contact between man and woman could be so brutal and so painful. I walked out in a daze, bruised in every nerve.
When I reached home I found Helena fearfully wrought up. [ . . . ] The shame I did not feel in the arms of the man now overwhelmed me. I could not muster up courage to tell Helena of my experience. After that I always felt between two fires in the presence of men. Their lure remained strong, but it was always mingled with violent revulsion. I could not bear to have them touch me. These pictures passed through my mind vividly as I lay alongside my husband on our wedding night.