A FOREIGN INVASION
Thus was the question of the new paper and its quarters settled. The
shop, as I had hoped, did well enough for our purposes. True, the
district in which it lay was neither salubrious nor beautiful, and the
constant and inevitable encounters with loquacious Mrs. Wattles and
her satellites something of a trial; but we were absorbed in our work,
absorbed in our enthusiasms, utterly engrossed in the thought of the
coming revolution which by our efforts we were speeding on.
During the first months, besides writing and editing the _Tocsin_, I
was very busily employed in learning how to set type, and print, and the
various arts connected with printing--and as I grew more proficient at
the work my share of it grew in proportion.
The original staff of the _Tocsin_ consisted of Armitage, Kosinksi, and
myself, with Short occupying the well-nigh honorary post of printer,
aided by occasional assistance or hindrance from his hangers-on. But our
staff gradually increased in number if not in efficiency; old M'Dermott
was a frequent and not unwelcome visitor, and as time went on he
gradually settled down into an inmate of the office, helping where he
could with the work, stirring up lagging enthusiasms, doing odd cobbling
jobs whenever he had the chance, and varying the proceedings with
occasional outbursts of Shakespearian recitation. These recitations were
remarkable performances, and made up in vigour for what they perhaps
lacked in elegance and _finesse_. Carter would at times put in an
appearance, mostly with a view to leaning up against a type-rack or
other suitable article of furniture, and there between one puff and
another at his pipe would grumble at the constitution of the universe
and the impertinent exactions of landlords. Another Englishman who in
the earlier days frequented the _Tocsin_ was a tall, thoughtful man
named Wainwright, belonging to the working-classes, who by the force of
his own intelligence and will had escaped from the brutishness of the
lowest depths of society in which he had been born.
Thus with little real outside assistance we worked through the spring
and early summer months. Besides bringing out our paper we printed
various booklets and pamphlets, organised Anarchist meetings, and during
some six weeks housed a French Anarchist paper and its staff, all of
whom had fled precipitately from Paris in consequence of a trial.
The lively French staff caused a considerable revolution in Lysander
Grove, which during several weeks rang with Parisian argot and Parisian
fun. Many of these Frenchmen were a queer lot. They seemed the very
reincarnation of Murger's Bohemians, and evidently took all the
discomforts and privations of their situation as a first-class joke.
Kosinksi detested them most cordially, though, spite of himself, he was
a tremendous favourite in their ranks, and the unwilling victim of the
most affectionate demonstrations on their part: and when, with a shrug
of his shoulders and uncompromising gait, he turned his back on his
admirers, they would turn round to me, exclaiming fondly--
_"Comme il est drole, le pauvre diable!"_
They could not understand his wrath, and were obstinately charmed at his
least charming traits. When he was singularly disagreeable towards them,
they summed him up cheerfully in two words, _Quel original!_ They soon
learned, however, not to take liberties with Kosinski, for when one
sprightly little man of their number, who affected pretty things in the
way of cravats and garters, presumed to dance him round the office, the
Russian, for once almost beside himself, seized his persecutor by the
shoulders and dropped him over the balustrade below, amid the cheers of
all present.
He appeared, however, to be their natural prey, and his quaint habit of
stumbling innocently into all manner of blunders was a perpetual fount
of amusement to the humour-loving Gauls. His timidity with women, too,
was a perennial joy, and innumerable adventures in which he figured as
hero were set afloat.
One little escapade of Kosinski's came somehow to the knowledge of the
French Comrades, and he suffered accordingly. Although careless and
shaggy enough in appearance in all conscience, Kosinski happened to be
fastidiously clean about his person. I doubt whether he was ever without
a certain small manicure set in his pocket, and an old joke among his
Russian friends was that he had failed to put in an appearance on
some important occasion--the rescue of a Nihilist from prison, I
believe--because he had forgotten his tooth-brush. This was of course a
libel and gross exaggeration, but his extreme personal cleanliness was
none the less a fact. Now when he first reached London he had scarcely
left the station, besooted and begrimed after his long journey, when his
eye was arrested by the appearance of a horse-trough. "Most opportune!"
mused Kosinski, "how public-spirited and hygienic this London County
Council really is!" and straightway divesting himself of his hat and
collar and similar encumbrances, and spreading out on the rim of the
trough his faithful manicure set and a few primitive toilette requisites
secreted about his person, he commenced his ablutions, sublimely
unconscious of the attention and surprise he was attracting. Before
long, however, a riotously amused crowd collected round, and the Russian
had finally to be removed under police escort, while attempting to
explain to the indignant officer of the law that he had merely taken
the horse-trough as a convenient form of public bath for encouraging
cleanliness among the submerged tenth.
With the departure of the _Ça-Ira_ the office resumed once more, during
a brief interval, the even tenor of its ways. Kosinski who, in a
spirit of self-preservation, had practically effaced himself during its
sojourn, made himself once more apparent, bringing with him a peculiar
Swede--a man argumentative to the verge of cantankerousness--who for
hours and days together would argue on obscure questions of metaphysics.
He had argued himself out of employment, out of his country, almost out
of the society and the tolerance of his fellows. Life altogether was one
long argument to this man, no act or word, however insignificant, could
he be induced to pass over without discussing and dissecting, proving or
disproving it. Free-love was his particular hobby, though this, too, he
regarded from a metaphysical rather than a practical point of view. Like
everything else in his life it was a matter for reason and argument, not
for emotion; and he and Kosinski would frequently dispute the question
warmly.
One day, not long before Christmas, and after I had been nearly a year
in the movement, when all London was lost in a heavy fog and the air
seemed solid as a brick wall, there landed at the _Tocsin_ a small batch
of three Italians fresh from their native country. It was the year of
the coercion laws in Italy, of the "domicilio coatto" (forced domicile),
and the Anarchists and Socialists were fleeing in large numbers from the
clutches of the law.
None of these Southerners had ever been in England before, and having
heard grim tales of the lack of sunshine and light in London, they took
this fog to be the normal condition of the atmosphere. Stumbling into
the lighted office from the blind stifling darkness outside, the
leader of the party, a remarkably tall handsome man well known to me by
reputation and correspondence, gave vent to a tremendous sigh of relief
and exclaimed in his native tongue:
"Thank Heaven, friends, we have overcome the greatest danger of all and
we are here at last, and still alive!"
They then advanced towards me and Avvocato Guglielmo Gnecco held out his
hand. "You are Isabel Meredith?" he said in a sonorous voice, and I gave
an affirmative nod. "I am very glad to meet you at last, Comrade," and
we all shook hands. "So this is London! I had heard grim enough tales of
your climate, but never had I conceived anything like this. It is truly
terrible! But how do you live here? How do you get through your work?...
How do you find your way about the streets? Why, we've been wandering
about the streets ever since eleven o'clock this morning, walking round
and round ourselves, stumbling over kerb-stones, appealing to policemen
and passers-by, getting half run over by carts and omnibuses and cabs.
Giannoli here sees badly enough at all times, but to-day he has only
escaped by the skin of his teeth from the most horrid series of deaths.
Is it not so, Giacomo?" Giannoli, who had been engaged in enthusiastic
greetings with Kosinski, who was evidently an old friend, looked up at
this.
"Oh, I've had too much of London already," he exclaimed fervently. "We
must leave here for some other country to-night or to-morrow at the
latest. We should be better off in prison in Italy than at liberty here.
You see, Comrade," he said, turning to me with a smile, "we Anarchists
all belong to one nationality, so I have no fear of wounding your
patriotic sentiments."
"But London is not always like this, I assure you," I began.
"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 confréres, 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
emancipated 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-à-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 pronounced, 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 _bête 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 passion 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
assistance 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 passed rapidly and very agreeably. I succeeded at length
in dissuading Giannoli and Gnecco from their original intention of
precipitate flight, partly by repeatedly assuring 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 _réclame_--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 pass 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 hoarse
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 nobody
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 mass 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-déshabille. By degrees a few other familiar figures became one by
one discernible to me as I stood mute and unobserved 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 attitude,
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-classes. 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 quantity 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 lustily _en route_ to the gallows. He
possessed, too, a heroic appetite, 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 scraps of
conversation which, during the repast, fell principally on the subject
of food, or the lack of food, during the tramp, I gathered that they had
relied principally 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 circumspect 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 _desorienté_. 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 class. 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 classes. There was something highly
repellent about his smooth yellow face, his greasiness and limp, fat
figure. M'Dermott christened him the "Buttered muffin."
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 assembled in full force, and sang the _Marseillaise_ 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 quantities 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 pass
him on stale bread; but then you all know his appetite! 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
Migliassi 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
institution, 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 Morì 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 appetite for
dry bread and potatoes."
At this point Morì, 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 passage 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 carcasses of dead birds and other animals who had
succumbed 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 unobserved 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.