Living My Life - Emma Goldman [42]
He suggested that I come next Wednesday, to help with expediting the Freiheit, to write addresses and fold the papers—“and afterwards we may be able to talk.” With several books under my arm and a warm handshake, Most sent me off. Berkman left with me. [ . . . ]
It was late in the evening when we parted. Berkman had told me little about himself, except that he had been expelled from the Gymnasium for an anti-religious essay he had composed, and that he had left home for good. He had come to the United States in the belief that it was free and that here everyone had an equal chance in life. He knew better now. He had found exploitation more severe, and since the hanging of the Chicago anarchists he had become convinced that America was as despotic as Russia.
“Lingg was right when he said: ‘If you attack us with cannon, we will reply with dynamite.’ Some day I will avenge our dead,” he added with great earnestness. “I too! I too!” I cried; “their death gave me life. It now belongs to their memory—to their work.” He gripped my arm until it hurt. “We are comrades. Let us be friends, too—let us work together.” His intensity vibrated through me as I walked up the stairs to the Minkin flat.
The following Friday, Berkman invited me to come to a Jewish lecture by Solotaroff at 54 Orchard Street, on the East Side. [ . . . ] After the meeting Berkman introduced me to a number of people, “all good active comrades,” as he put it. “And here is my chum Fedya,”3 he said, indicating a young man beside him; “he is also an anarchist, of course, but not so good as he should be.”
The young chap was probably of the same age as Berkman, but not so strongly built, nor with the same aggressive manner about him. His features were rather delicate, with a sensitive mouth, while his eyes, though somewhat bulging, had a dreamy expression. He did not seem to mind in the least the banter of his friend. He smiled good-naturedly and suggested that we retire to Sachs’s, “to give Sasha a chance to tell you what a good anarchist is.”
Berkman did not wait till we reached the café. “A good anarchist,” he began with deep conviction, “is one who lives only for the Cause and gives everything to it. My friend here”—he indicated Fedya—“is still too much of a bourgeois to realize that. He is a mamenkin sin (mother’s spoilt darling), who even accepts money from home.” He continued to explain why it was inconsistent for a revolutionary to have anything to do with his bourgeois parents or relatives. His only reason for tolerating his friend Fedya’s inconsistency, he added, was that he gave most of what he received from home to the movement. “If I’d let him, he’d spend all his money on useless things—‘beautiful,’ he calls them. Wouldn’t you, Fedya?” He turned to his friend, patting him on the back affectionately.
The café was crowded, as usual, and filled with smoke and talk. For a little while my two escorts were much in demand, while I was greeted by several people I had met during the week. Finally we succeeded in capturing a table and ordered some coffee and cake. I became aware of Fedya watching me and studying my face. To hide my embarrassment I turned to Berkman. “Why should one not love beauty?” I asked; “flowers, for instance, music, the theatre—beautiful things?”
“I did not say one should not,” Berkman replied; “I said it was wrong to spend money on such things when the movement is so much in need of it. It is inconsistent for an anarchist to enjoy luxuries when the people live in poverty.”
“But beautiful things are not luxuries,” I insisted; “they are necessaries. Life would be unbearable without them.” Yet, at heart, I felt that Berkman was right. Revolutionists gave up even their lives—why not also beauty? Still the young artist struck a responsive chord in me. I, too, loved beauty. Our poverty-stricken life in Königsberg had been made bearable to me only by the occasional outings with our teachers in the open. The forest,