Living My Life - Emma Goldman [71]
He had gone behind the glass counter, which was covered with silverware. In my indignation and rage I swept everything to the floor—plates, coffee-pots and pitchers, jewellery and watches. I seized a heavy tray and was about to throw it at him when I was pulled back by one of the clerks, who shouted to someone to run for the police. Reed, white with fear and frothing at the mouth, signalled to the clerk. “No police,” I heard him say; “no scandal. Just kick her out.” The clerk advanced towards me, then stopped. “Murderer, coward!” I cried; “if you harm Berkman, I will kill you with my own hands!”
No one moved. I walked out and boarded a street-car. [ ... ] I was shocked by the thought that Sasha might indeed have to suffer as a result of my outbreak. But the threat of the Inspector that Sasha would never come out of prison alive had been too much for me. I was sure Sasha would understand.
The night was black as I walked with Nold to the station to take the train for New York. The steel-foundries belched huge flames that reflected the Allegheny hills blood-red and filled the air with soot and smoke. We made our way past the sheds where human beings, half man, half beast, were working like the galley-slaves of an era long past. Their naked bodies, covered only with small trunks, shone like copper in the glare of the red-hot chunks of iron they were snatching from the mouths of the flaming monsters. From time to time the steam rising from the water thrown on the hot metal would completely envelop the men; then they would emerge again like shadows. “The children of hell,” I said, “damned to the everlasting inferno of heat and noise.” Sasha had given his life to bring joy to these slaves, but they had remained blind and continued in the hell of their own forging. “Their souls are dead, dead to the horror and degradation of their lives.” [ ... ]
Far in the distance, as the train sped on, I could still see the belching flames shoot against the black sky, lighting up the hills of Allegheny. Allegheny, which held what was most precious to me immured perhaps for ever! I had planned the Attentat together with him; I had let him go alone; I had approved of his decision to have no lawyer. I strove to shake off the consciousness of guilt, but it would give me no rest until I found forgetfulness in sleep.
CHAPTER XI
Our work for the commutation of Sasha’s sentence continued. At one of our weekly meetings, in the latter part of December, I became conscious of the steady gaze of a man in the audience. [ ... ] I learned that his name was Edward Brady1 and that he had just arrived from Austria after completing a term of ten years in prison for the publication of illegal anarchist literature. I found him the most scholarly person I had ever met. His field was not limited, like Most’s, to social and political subjects; in fact, he rarely talked about them to me. He introduced me to the great classics of English and French literature. [ ... ]
He asked about my childhood and schooldays. [ ... ] I had only had three and a half years of Realschule in Königsberg, I told him. The regime was harsh, the instructors brutal; I learned scarcely anything. [ ... ]
Two of my teachers had been altogether terrible. One, a German Jew, was our instructor in religion; the other taught geography. I hated them both. Occasionally I would avenge myself on the former for his constant beatings, but I was too terrorized by the other even to complain at home.
The great joy of our religious instructor used to be to beat the palms of our hands with a ruler. I used to organize schemes to annoy him: stick pins in his upholstered chair, stealthily tie his long coat-tails to the table, put snails in his pockets—anything I could think of to pay him back for the pain of his ruler. He knew I was the ring-leader