A Girl Among the Anarchists Part 7

"Oh, make no attempt to palliate it," Gnecco interrupted. "I have heard English people before now defending your climate. But I see now only too well that my compatriots were right in calling it impossible, and saying that you never saw the sun here," and all attempts to argue them out of this conviction proved futile.

The avvocato, as above mentioned, was an exceptionally good-looking man.

Fully six feet two inches in height, erect and slim without being in the least weedy, he carried his head with an air of pride and self-confidence, and was altogether a very fine figure of a man. His features were regular and well cut, his abundant hair and complexion dark, and his eyes bright with the vivacity of the perennial youth of the enthusiast. The delicacy of his features, the easy grace of his walk, and the freedom and confidence of his manners, all suggested his semi-aristocratic origin and upbringing. He was evidently a man of romantic tastes and inclinations, governed by sentiment rather than by reason; a lover of adventure, who had found in Anarchism an outlet for his activities. His eloquence had made him a considerable reputation all over Italy as an advocate, but the comparative monotony of the life of a prosperous barrister was distasteful to him, and he had willingly sacrificed his prospects in order to throw in his lot with the revolutionary party.

Giannoli, in his way, was an equally interesting figure. Between Gnecco and himself it was evident that there existed the warmest bonds of fraternal affection--a sentiment whose fount, as I discovered later, lay in a mutual attachment for a certain Milanese lady, who on her side fully reciprocated their joint affection. Both these Italians were warm exponents of the doctrine of free-love, and, unlike their more theoretic Northern confreres, they carried their theories into practice with considerable gusto. Many Anarchists of Teutonic and Scandinavian race evidently regarded free-love as an unpleasant duty rather than as a natural and agreeable condition of life--the chaff which had to be swallowed along with the wheat of the Anarchist doctrines. I remember the distress of one poor old Norwegian professor on the occasion of his deserting his wife for a younger and, to him, far less attractive woman--a young French studentess of medicine who practised her emanc.i.p.ated theories in a very wholesale fashion.

"I felt that as an Anarchist it would have been almost wrong to repel her advances," the distressed old gentleman confided to me. "Moreover, it was ten years that I had lived with Rosalie, uninterruptedly....

_Cela devenait tout-a-fait scandaleux, Mademoiselle_.... I no longer dared show myself among my comrades."

I felt quite sorry for the poor old fellow, a humble slave to duty, which he performed with evident disgust, but the most heroic determination.

Giannoli, when seen apart from Gnecco, was a tall man. But at the time of his arrival in London he was already falling a victim to ill-health; there was a bent, tired look about his figure, and his features were drawn and thin. A glance at him sufficed to reveal a nervous, highly-strung temperament; his movements were jerky, and altogether, about his entire person, there was a noticeable lack of repose. He was about thirty-five years of age, though he gave the impression of a rather older man. The fact that he was very short-sighted gave a peculiar look to his face, which was kindly enough in expression; his features were p.r.o.nounced, with a prominent nose and full, well-cut mouth hidden by a heavy moustache. There was a look of considerable strength about the man, and fanatical determination strangely blended with diffidence--a vigorous nature battling against the inroads of some mortal disease.

The third member of the trio was a shortish, thickset man of extraordinary vigour. He somehow put me in mind of a strongly-built, one-storey, stone blockhouse, and looked impregnable in every direction; evidently a man of firm character, buoyed up by vigorous physique. He was a man rather of character than of intellect, of great moral strength rather than of intellectual brilliancy--a fighter and an idealist, not a theoriser. I knew him very well by renown, for he was of European fame in the Anarchist party, and the _bete noire_ of the international police. Enrico Bonafede was a man born out of his time--long after it and long before--whose tremendous energy was wasted in the too strait limits of modern civilised society. In a heroic age he would undoubtedly have made a hero; in nineteenth-century Europe his life was wasted and his sacrifices useless. These men, born out of their generation, are tragic figures; they have in them the power and the will to scale the heights of Mount Olympus and to stem the ocean, while they are forced to spend their life climbing mole-hills and stumbling into puddles.

Such, briefly, were the three men who suddenly emerged from the fog into the office of the _Tocsin_, and who formed the vanguard of our foreign invasion. All three were at once sympathetic to me, and I viewed their advent with pleasure. We celebrated it by an unusually lavish banquet of fried fish and potatoes, for they were wretchedly cold and hungry and exhausted after a long journey and almost equally long fast, for of course they all arrived in a perfectly penniless condition.

Seated round a blazing fire in M'Dermott's _eleutheromania_ stove (the old fellow had a pa.s.sion for sonorous words which he did not always apply quite appositely) the Italians related the adventures of their journey and discussed future projects. As the fog grew denser with the advance of evening, and it became evident that lodging-searching was quite out of the question for the time being, it was agreed that we should all spend the night in the office, where heaps of old papers and sacking made up into not altogether despicable couches. Moreover, publication date was approaching, and at such times we were in the habit of getting later and later in the office, the necessity for Short's a.s.sistance rendering it impossible to get the work done in an expeditious and business-like way.

We worked on far into the night, the Italians helping us as best they could with the printing, one or other occasionally breaking off for a brief respite of slumber. We talked much of the actual conditions in Italy, and of the situation of the Anarchist party there; of how to keep the revolutionary standard afloat and the Anarchist ideas circulating, despite coercion laws and the imprisonment and banishment of its most prominent advocates. Kosinksi joined enthusiastically in the discussion, and the hours pa.s.sed rapidly and very agreeably. I succeeded at length in dissuading Giannoli and Gnecco from their original intention of precipitate flight, partly by repeatedly a.s.suring them that the state of the atmosphere was not normal and would mend, partly by bringing their minds to bear on the knotty question of finance.

The three Italians settled in London; Gnecco and Bonafede locating themselves in the Italian quarter amid most squalid surroundings; while for Giannoli I found a suitable lodging in the shape of a garret in the Wattles's house which overlooked the courtyard of the _Tocsin_. They were frequently in the office, much to the indignation of Short, who could not see what good all "those ---- Foreigners did loafing about."

Short, in fact, viewed with the utmost suspicion any new-comers at the _Tocsin_.

"These foreigners are such a d----d lazy lot," he would say; "I hate them!" and there was all the righteous indignation in his tones of the hard-worked proletariat whose feelings are harrowed by the spectacle of unrighteous ease. Short had a habit of making himself offensive to every one, but for some mysterious reason no one ever took him to task over it. It was impossible to take Short seriously, or to treat him as you would any other human being. When he was insolent people shrugged their shoulders and laughed, when he told lies they did not deign to investigate the truth, and thus in a despised and unostentatious way--for he was not ambitious of _reclame_--he was able to do as much mischief and set as many falsehoods afloat as a viciously-inclined person with much time on his hands well can. His physical and mental inferiority was his stock-in-trade, and he relied on it as a safeguard against reprisals.

After a prolonged period of fog the real severity of the winter set in towards the end of January. One February morning, after all manner of mishaps and discomfort, and several falls along the slippery icy pavement, I arrived at the office of the _Tocsin_. The first thing that struck my eye on approaching was the unusual appearance of the Wattles's greengrocery shop. The shutters were closed, the doors still unopened.

"What has happened?" I inquired of a crony standing outside the neighbouring pub. "Surely no one is dead?"

"Lor' bless yer, no, lydy," answered the old lady, quite unperturbed, "yesterday was the hanniversary of old Wattles's wedding-day, and they've been keepin' it up as usual. That's all."

I was about to pa.s.s on without further comment when my attention was again arrested by the sound of blows and scuffling inside the shop, mingled with loud oaths in the familiar voice of my landlady, and hoa.r.s.e protests and entreaties in a masculine voice.

"But surely," I urged, turning once more to my previous informant, "there is something wrong. What is all that noise?" as cries of "Murder!

murder!" greeted my ear.

"Why, I only just told you, my dear," she responded, still quite unmoved, "they've been celebratin' their silver weddin' or somethin' of the sort. It's the same every year. They both gets roarin' drunk, and then Mrs. Wattles closes the shop next mornin' so as to give 'im a jolly good 'idin'. You see, these hanniversaries make 'er think of all she's 'ad to put up with since she married, and that makes things a bit rough on poor old Jim."

Perceiving my sympathy to be wasted I proceeded, and on entering the office of the _Tocsin_ I found that here, too, something unusual was going on.

A perfect Babel of voices from the room above greeted my ear, while the printing-room was bedecked with a most unsightly litter of tattered garments of nondescript shape and purpose laid out to dry. I was not surprised at this, however, as I had long grown used to unannounced invasions. Unexpected persons would arrive at the office, of whom n.o.body perhaps knew anything; they would stroll in, seat themselves round the fire, enter into discussion, and, if hungry, occasionally partake of the _plat du jour_. The most rudimentary notions of Anarchist etiquette forbade any of us from inquiring the name, address, or intentions of such intruders. They were allowed to stay on or to disappear as inexplicitly as they came. They were known, if by any name at all, as Jack or Jim, Giovanni or Jacques, and this was allowed to suffice. Every Anarchist learns in time to spot a detective at first sight, and we relied on this instinct as a safeguard against spies.

But on reaching the composing-room on this particular morning an extraordinary sight presented itself. Accustomed as I was to the unaccustomed, I was scarcely prepared for the wild confusion of the scene. What at first sight appeared to be a surging ma.s.s of unwashed and unkempt humanity filled it with their persons, their voices, and their gestures. No number of Englishmen, however considerable, could have created such a din. All present were speaking simultaneously at the top of their voices; greetings and embraces mingled with tales of adventure and woe. The first object which I managed to distinguish was the figure of Giannoli struggling feebly in the embrace of a tall brawny, one-eyed man with thick curling black hair, who appeared to be in a state of demi-deshabille. By degrees a few other familiar figures became one by one discernible to me as I stood mute and un.o.bserved at the head of the stairs. Bonafede and Gnecco were there; they, too, surrounded by the invading mob, exchanging greetings and experiences. Old M'Dermott, standing up against his stove, was striking a most impressive att.i.tude, for the old fellow had to live up to the reputation he had established among foreigners of being the greatest orator in the English revolutionary party. Two cloddish-looking _contadini_ stood gazing at him, rapt in awe. Kosinksi stood little apart from the rest, not a little bewildered by the enthusiastic reception which had been accorded him by old friends. In one corner, too, I recognised my old friend Short, fully dressed, as usual, in his frowsy clothes, as though eternally awaiting the call-to-arms, the long-delayed bugles of the social revolution; there he lay, much as when I first set eyes on him, wrapped up in old banners and rugs, blinking his eyes and muttering curses at the hubbub which had thus rudely interrupted his slumbers.

The others were quite new to me. They were evidently all of them Italians--some ten or twelve in number--though at the first glance, scattered as they were pell-mell among the printing plant of the overcrowded work-room, they gave an impression of much greater number.

They appeared mostly to belong to the working-cla.s.ses. Their clothes, or what remained of them, were woefully tattered--and they were few and rudimentary indeed, for most of what had been spared by the hazards of travel were drying down below. Their hair was uncut, and beards of several days' growth ornamented their cheeks. Their hats were of incredible size and shape and all the colours of the rainbow seemed to be reproduced in them. Littered around on divers objects of furniture, they suggested to me a strange growth of fungi.

My advent, as soon as it was perceived amid the confusion and noise of the scene, created something of a sensation, for by now my name had become well known in the International Anarchist party. "Isabel Meredith" was exclaimed in all manner of new and strange intonations, and a host of hands were extended towards me from all directions.

At last Gnecco managed to make his voice heard above the din of his compatriots. "All these comrades," he explained in Italian, "have escaped like ourselves from the savage reaction which actually holds Italy in its sway. They arrived this morning after a fearful journey which lack of money compelled them to make mostly on foot."

Before he could get any further an outburst of song interrupted his words as the whole band broke into an Anarchist war-whoop. This over, my attention was arrested by the groans of a dark young man of extraordinarily alert physiognomy who had shed his boots and was gazing dolefully at his wounded feet. "What would I not give," he exclaimed, "to be back in prison in Lugano! Oh for the rest and comfort of those good old times!" He was utterly worn out, poor fellow, nipped up with the cold, and seemed on the verge of tears.

"Well," exclaimed M'Dermott at last, "propaganda implies propagandists, and propagandists entail bellies! All these fellows seem pretty well starving. What would they say to a little grub?"

On my interpreting the old fellow's suggestion he and it were received with universal acclaim. Bonafede produced from the innermost depths of his pockets a huge quant.i.ty of macaroni which was put on to boil, and several bottles of wine; one of the new arrivals, a sober-looking young fellow with a remarkably long nose, contributed an enormous lobster which he had acquired _en route_, while Kosinski volunteered to fetch bread and other provender. A Homeric repast ensued, for all these Anarchists had cultivated the digestions of camels; they prepared for inevitable fasts by laying in tremendous stores when chance and good fortune permitted. While they were eating a noticeable silence fell on the scene, and I had leisure to observe the immigrants more in detail.

Beppe, the tall, one-eyed man, already referred to, seemed to be the life and spirit of the band. He was a rollicking good-natured fellow, an unpolished _homme du peuple_, but not inadmirable in his qualities of courage and cheerfulness--the kind of man who would have cracked a joke on his death-bed and sung l.u.s.tily _en route_ to the gallows. He possessed, too, a heroic appet.i.te, and as he made away with enormous heaps of macaroni his spirits rose higher and higher and his voice rose with them.

The long-nosed youth was something of an enigma. From the sc.r.a.ps of conversation which, during the repast, fell princ.i.p.ally on the subject of food, or the lack of food, during the tramp, I gathered that they had relied princ.i.p.ally on his skill and daring in the matter of foraging to keep themselves from actually dying of hunger on their journey. Yet there was about him such a prudent and circ.u.mspect air that he might well have hesitated to pick up a pin that "wasn't his'n." He was evidently of an acquisitive turn, however, for over his shoulder was slung a bag which appeared to contain a collection of the most heterogeneous and unserviceable rubbish conceivable. "_Eh!... possono servire!_" ... was all he would volunteer on the subject when I once chaffed him on the subject of his findings. "They may serve yet!..."

Somehow this youth struck me at once as a man who had made a mistake.

At home as he appeared to be among his comrades, there was yet something about him which suggested that he was out of his proper sphere in the midst of the Anarchists, that he was _desoriente_. He was cut out for an industrious working-man, one that would rise and thrive in his business by hard work and thrift; he was destined by nature to rear a large family and to shine in the ranks of excellent family men. He was moulded for the threshold, poor boy, neither for the revolutionary camp nor for the scaffold, and it was thwarted domestic instinct which led him to steal. There was good nature in his face and weakness; it was the face of a youth easily led, easily influenced for good or bad. As a revolutioniser of his species he was predestined to failure, for years would certainly show him the error of his ways. Old age seemed to be his proper state, and youth in him was altogether a blunder and a mistake.

I found myself vainly speculating what on earth could have led him among the Anarchists.

The others comprised a silent young artisan who was evidently desperately in earnest with his ideas, a red-haired, red-bearded Tuscan of clever and astute aspect, a singularly alert and excitable-looking young man of asymmetrical features, who looked half fanatic, half criminal, and others of the labouring and peasant cla.s.s. One other of their number arrested my attention, a stupid, sleepy young man, who seemed quite unaffected by the many vicissitudes of his journey. His features were undefined and his complexion undefinable, very greasy and suggestive of an unwholesome fungus. He was better dressed than his companions, and from this fact, combined with his intonation, I gathered that he belonged to the leisured cla.s.ses. There was something highly repellent about his smooth yellow face, his greasiness and limp, fat figure. M'Dermott christened him the "b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fin."

Dinner over, the one-eyed baker, Beppe, proceeded to give us their news, and to recount the vicissitudes of their travels. Gnecco and Giannoli were anxious for news of comrades left behind in Italy. So-and-so was in prison, another had remained behind in Switzerland, a third had turned his coat, and was enjoying ill-gotten ease and home, others were either dead or lost to sight.

The present party, who were mostly Northern Italians, had left Italy shortly after Giannoli and Gnecco, and had since spent several weeks in Italian Switzerland, whence at last they had been expelled in consequence of the circulation of an Anarchist manifesto. Beppe gave a glowing account of their stay in Lugano, and consequent flight to London. "You know," he said, "that I reached Lugano with two hundred francs in my pocket in company with all these comrades who hadn't got five francs among them. It is not every one who could have housed them all, but I did. I could not hire a Palazzo or a barrack for them, but we managed very comfortably in one large room. There were fourteen of us besides la Antonietta. There was only one bed, but what a size! We managed well enough by sleeping in two relays. However, even in two relays it took some organisation to get us all in. It was a fine double bed, you know, evidently intended for three or four ... even for five it was suitable enough, but when it came to seven!... there was not much room for exercise, I can tell you.... But with four at the top and three at the bottom, we managed, and Antonietta slept on a rug in a cupboard.

We did our best to make her comfortable by sacrificing half our clothes to keep her warm, but we might have saved ourselves the trouble, for she deserted us for the first bourgeois who came along. She was not a true comrade, but I will tell you all about her later on.

"We had some trouble with the landlord, a thick-headed bourgeois who got some stupid idea into his head about overcrowding. I have no patience with these bourgeois prejudices. One day he came round to complain about our numbers, and at not receiving his rent. But we were prepared for him. We a.s.sembled in full force, and sang the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_ and the _Inno dei Lavoratori_, and danced the _Carmagnole_. I took out my eye and looked very threatening--one glance at us was enough for the old fellow. He made the sign of the cross and fled before we had time to tear him to pieces.

"Well, my two hundred francs was a very large sum, and not paying the rent was economical, but it dwindled, and I had to look round again for ways and means to feed us all. The money came to an end at last and then the real struggle began. Old Castellani, the landlord, kept a large stock of sacks of potatoes in a cellar, and every day he used to go in and take a few out for his own use, and then lock the cellar up again, mean old brute! But once again I was one too many for him. I collected large quant.i.ties of stones in the day-time, and then at night with a skeleton key I had acquired--it came out of Meneghino's bag which we always jeered at--I let myself in and from the farthest sacks I abstracted potatoes and refilled them with stones. I calculated that at the slow rate he used them he would not notice his loss till March. What a scene there will be then, _Misericordia_! During the last fortnight of our stay we lived almost entirely on my potatoes. I don't know how the devil they would all have got on without me. It is true that a waitress at the Panetteria Viennese fell in love with Meneghino, and used to pa.s.s him on stale bread; but then you all know his appet.i.te! He ate it nearly all himself on the way home. One day I sent Bonatelli out to reconnoitre. He returned with _one mushroom_!" It would be quite impossible to convey an idea of the intense contempt contained in these last words. It was a most eloquent denunciation of impotence and irresolution.

"All the same we had a grand time in Lugano. And the week I and Miglia.s.si spent in prison was a great treat. Why, they treated us like popes, I can tell you--as much food as you like, and the best quality at that; no work, a comfortable cell, and a bed all to yourself! And the bread! I never tasted anything like it in my life: they sent to Como for it all. Lugano bread was not good enough. Ah, Swiss prisons are a grand inst.i.tution, and I hope to spend a happy old age in such a place yet.

"Then came Bonafede's manifesto, and that scoundrel Costanzi betrayed us all to the police. Then the real trouble began. We had not ten francs among the lot of us, and we twelve had orders to clear out of the country within forty-eight hours! Once again they were all at a loss but for me!" and here he tapped his forehead in token of deference to his superior wits. "I had noticed the fat letters Mor received from home the first day of every month, and how jolly quiet he kept about them.

I also noticed that he used to disappear for a day or two after their receipt, and return very sleepy and replete, with but scant appet.i.te for dry bread and potatoes."

At this point Mor, the greasy Neapolitan youth, blinked his eyes and laughed foolishly. He seemed neither ashamed of himself nor indignant at his companions, merely sluggishly amused.

"Well," continued Meneghino, "that letter was just due, and I intercepted it. It contained one hundred and eighty francs; would you believe me? and that went some way to get us over here. Altogether we managed to collect sufficient money to carry us to the Belgian frontier, and for our pa.s.sage across from Ostend. But that tramp across Belgium, _dio boia_!"

Here a clamour of voices interrupted Beppe, as each one of the travellers chimed in with a separate account of the horrors of that ghastly tramp across country in mid-winter.

For many years Europe had not experienced such an inclement season.

Everywhere the cold counted innumerable victims. Along the country highways and byways people dropped down frozen to death, and the paths were strewn with the carca.s.ses of dead birds and other animals who had succ.u.mbed to the inclemency of the elements. All the great rivers were frozen over, and traffic had to be suspended along them. Unwonted numbers of starving sea-gulls and other sea-birds flocked to London in search of human charity, for the very fishes could not withstand the cold, and the inhospitable ocean afforded food no longer to its winged hosts. All Europe was under snow; the railways were blocked in many places, and ordinary work had to be suspended in the great cities; business was at a stand-still.

Neither the temperaments nor the clothes of these Italians had been equal to the exigencies of their march in the cruel Northern winter. As they tramped, a dismal, silent band across Belgium, the snow was several feet deep under foot, and on all sides it stretched hopelessly to the horizon, falling mercilessly the while. Their light clothing was ill adapted to the rigours of the season; boots gave out, food was scanty or non-existent, and they had to rely entirely on the fickle chances of fortune to keep body and soul together. By night, when chance allowed, they had crept un.o.bserved into barns and stables, and, lying close up against the dormant cattle, they had striven to restore animation to their frozen limbs by means of the beasts' warm breath. Once an old farm-woman had found them, and, taking pity on their woebegone condition, had regaled the whole party on hot milk and bread; and this was now looked back on as a gala day, for not every day had afforded such fare. At times in the course of their weary tramp the Anarchists had made an effort to keep up their flagging spirits by means of song, revolutionary and erotic, but such attempts had usually fallen flat, and the little band of exiles had relapsed into gloomy silence as they tramped on noiselessly through the snow. One of their number had quite broken down on the road and they had been compelled to leave him behind.

"Lucky fellow, that Morelli," exclaimed Meneghino, "enjoying good broth in a hospital while we were still trudging on through that infernal snow!"

"And Antonietta?" inquired Giannoli, when the relation of these adventures had terminated. "You have not yet told us her end, nor how she incurred your displeasure."

"Oh, Antonietta!" exclaimed Beppe. "I was forgetting. You who believed her to be such a sincere comrade will scarcely credit her baseness. She ran away with a horrible bourgeois; she was lured away from the Cause by a bicycle! Yes, Antonietta weighed a bicycle in the scales against the Social Revolution, and found the Social Revolution wanting! So much for the idealism of women! Never speak to me of them again. The last we saw of her she was cycling away in a pair of breeches with a disgusting banker. She laughed and waved her hand to us mockingly, and before we had time to utter a word she was gone. I never shall believe in a woman again!"

His indignation choked him at this point, and only the expression of his mouth and eye told of the depth of scorn and disgust which he felt for the young lady who had thus unblushingly cycled away from the Social Revolution.