My next lecture is to take place in Cleveland, Ohio. The all-night ride in the stuffy smoker aggravates my fatigue, and sets my nerves on edge.
I arrive in the city feeling feverish and sick. To engage a room in a hotel would require an extra expense from the proceeds of the tour, which are intended for the movement; moreover, it would be sybaritism, contrary to the traditional practice of Anarchist lecturers. I decide to accept the hospitality of some friend during my stay in the city.
For hours I try to locate the comrade who has charge of arranging the meetings. At his home I am told that he is absent. His parents, pious Jews, look at me askance, and refuse to inform me of their son"s whereabouts. The unfriendly att.i.tude of the old folks drives me into the street again, and I seek out another comrade. His family gathers about me. Their curious gaze is embarra.s.sing; their questions idle. My pulse is feverish, my head heavy. I should like to rest up before the lecture, but a constant stream of comrades flows in on me, and the house rings with their joy of meeting me. The talking wearies me; their ardent interest searches my soul with rude hands. These men and women--they, too, are different from the comrades of my day; their very language echoes the spirit that has so depressed me in the new Ghetto. The abyss in our feeling and thought appalls me.
With failing heart I ascend the platform in the evening. It is chilly outdoors, and the large hall, spa.r.s.ely filled and badly lit, breathes the cold of the grave upon me. The audience is unresponsive. The lecture on Crime and Prisons that so thrilled my Pittsburgh meeting, wakes no vital chord. I feel dispirited. My voice is weak and expressionless; at times it drops to a hoa.r.s.e whisper. I seem to stand at the mouth of a deep cavern, and everything is dark within. I speak into the blackness; my words strike metallically against the walls, and are thrown back at me with mocking emphasis. A sense of weariness and hopelessness possesses me, and I conclude the lecture abruptly.
The comrades surround me, grasp my hand, and ply me with questions about my prison life, the joy of liberty and of work. They are undisguisedly disappointed at my anxiety to retire, but presently it is decided that I should accept the proffered hospitality of a comrade who owns a large house in the suburbs.
The ride is interminable, the comrade apparently living several miles out in the country. On the way he talks incessantly, a.s.suring me repeatedly that he considers it a great privilege to entertain me. I nod sleepily.
Finally we arrive. The place is large, but squalid. The low ceilings press down on my head; the rooms look cheerless and uninhabited.
Exhausted by the day"s exertion, I fall into heavy sleep.
Awakening in the morning, I am startled to find a stranger in my bed.
His coat and hat are on the floor, and he lies snoring at my side, with overshirt and trousers on. He must have fallen into bed very tired, without even detaching the large cuffs, torn and soiled, that rattle on his hands.
The sight fills me with inexpressible disgust. All through the years of my prison life, my nights had been pa.s.sed in absolute solitude. The presence of another in my bed is unutterably horrifying. I dress hurriedly, and rush out of the house.
A heavy drizzle is falling; the air is close and damp. The country looks cheerless and dreary. But one thought possesses me: to get away from the stranger snoring in my bed, away from the suffocating atmosphere of the house with its low ceilings, out into the open, away from the presence of man. The sight of a human being repels me, the sound of a voice is torture to me. I want to be alone, always alone, to have peace and quiet, to lead a simple life in close communion with nature. Ah, nature!
That, too, I have tried, and found more impossible even than the turmoil of the city. The silence of the woods threatened to drive me mad, as did the solitude of the dungeon. A curse upon the thing that has incapacitated me for life, made solitude as hateful as the face of man, made life itself impossible to me! And is it for this I have yearned and suffered, for this spectre that haunts my steps, and turns day into a nightmare--this distortion, Life? Oh, where is the joy of expectation, the tremulous rapture, as I stood at the door of my cell, hailing the blush of the dawn, the day of resurrection! Where the happy moments that lit up the night of misery with the ecstasy of freedom, which was to give me back to work and joy! Where, where is it all? Is liberty sweet only in the antic.i.p.ation, and life a bitter awakening?
The rain has ceased. The sun peeps through the clouds, and glints its rays upon a shop window. My eye falls on the gleaming barrel of a revolver. I enter the place, and purchase the weapon.
I walk aimlessly, in a daze. It is beginning to rain again; my body is chilled to the bone, and I seek the shelter of a saloon on an obscure street.
In the corner of the dingy back room I notice a girl. She is very young, with an air of gentility about her, that is somewhat marred by her quick, restless look.
We sit in silence, watching the heavy downpour outdoors. The girl is toying with a gla.s.s of whiskey.
Angry voices reach us from the street. There is a heavy shuffling of feet, and a suppressed cry. A woman lurches through the swinging door, and falls against a table.
The girl rushes to the side of the woman, and a.s.sists her into a chair.
"Are you hurt, Madge?" she asks sympathetically.
The woman looks up at her with bleary eyes. She raises her hand, pa.s.ses it slowly across her mouth, and spits violently.
"He hit me, the dirty brute," she whimpers, "he hit me. But I sha"n"t give him no money; I just won"t, Frenchy."
The girl is tenderly wiping her friend"s bleeding face. "Sh-sh, Madge, sh--sh!" she warns her, with a glance at the approaching waiter.
"Drunk again, you old b.i.t.c.h," the man growls. "You"d better vamoose now."
"Oh, let her be, Charley, won"t you?" the girl coaxes. "And, say, bring me a bitters."
"The dirty loafer! It"s money, always gimme money," the woman mumbles; "and I"ve had such bad luck, Frenchy. You know it"s true. Don"t you, Frenchy?"
"Yes, yes, dear," the girl soothes her. "Don"t talk now. Lean your head on my shoulder, so! You"ll be all right in a minute."
The girl sways to and fro, gently patting the woman on the head, and all is still in the room. The woman"s breathing grows regular and louder.
She snores, and the young girl slowly unwinds her arms and resumes her seat.
I motion to her. "Will you have a drink with me?"
"With pleasure," she smiles. "Poor thing," she nods toward the sleeper, "her fellow beats her and takes all she makes."
"You have a kind heart, Frenchy."
"We girls must be good to each other; no one else will. Some men are so mean, just too mean to live or let others live. But some are nice. Of course, some twirls are bad, but we ain"t all like that and--" she hesitates.
"And what?"
"Well, some have seen better days. I wasn"t always like this," she adds, gulping down her drink.
Her face is pensive; her large black eyes look dreamy. She asks abruptly:
"You like poetry?"
"Ye--es. Why?"
"I write. Oh, you don"t believe me, do you? Here"s something of mine,"
and with a preliminary cough, she begins to recite with exaggerated feeling:
Mother dear, the days were young When posies in our garden hung.
Upon your lap my golden head I laid, With pure and happy heart I prayed.
"I remember those days," she adds wistfully.
We sit in the dusk, without speaking. The lights are turned on, and my eye falls on a paper lying on the table. The large black print announces an excursion to Buffalo.
"Will you come with me?" I ask the girl, pointing to the advertis.e.m.e.nt.
"To Buffalo?"
"Yes."
"You"re kidding."
"No. Will you come?"
"Sure."
Alone with me in the stateroom, "Frenchy" grows tender and playful. She notices my sadness, and tries to amuse me. But I am thinking of the lecture that is to take place in Cleveland this very hour: the anxiety of my comrades, the disappointment of the audience, my absence, all prey on my mind. But who am I, to presume to teach? I have lost my bearings; there is no place for me in life. My bridges are burned.
The girl is in high spirits, but her jollity angers me. I crave to speak to her, to share my misery and my grief. I hint at the impossibility of life, and my superfluity in the world, but she looks bored, not grasping the significance of my words.
"Don"t talk so foolish, boy," she scoffs. "What do you care about work or a place? You"ve got money; what more do you want? You better go down now and fetch something to drink."
Returning to the stateroom, I find "Frenchy" missing. In a sheltered nook on the deck I recognize her in the lap of a stranger. Heart-sore and utterly disgusted, I retire to my berth. In the morning I slip quietly off the boat.