Naturally, I didn’t understand his smile at that time, but later, much later, I began to.
I went to a café with them, where we met other folks. We spoke about the movement, about Johann Most, and I became a little livelier. Afterwards, we went back to their commune. Emma suggested that I live with them in the commune and work in the movement with them.
There was always something to be done for the movement: helping to arrange meetings, passing out pamphlets, selling literature. I joined them in the anarchist commune.
The Commune
The commune was on 13th Street. We had three rooms: a bedroom, where Emma and I slept; a living room, where Berkman and Fedya slept on a sofa bed; and a kitchen.23 I worked at a corset factory, and each week gave Emma an envelope with my wages. Berkman also worked (I no longer remember what he did, but he didn’t earn much). From time to time, though not often, Fedya would sell one of his paintings. Emma looked after the house, though of course, we all helped with the housework. At night we would wash the dishes, do the shopping, and sometimes I would also help with the laundry, which I had never done before until Emma taught me how to rinse and hang it up on the line.
My sister Anna wasn’t happy that I had gone to live in the commune because I was still so young; she feared that it would have a negative impact on me and affect my character. But I didn’t need anyone to protect me because I was blind to everything except the interests of the movement. At that time, I read a lot, and Most would bring books to us at the commune. I would read them and often talk with him about them and he would help me with things I didn’t understand.
Johann Most and Emma Goldman
I knew that Emma and Most were intimate with each other, but it didn’t interest me much, although some things were not very clear to me. About certain things I asked myself: is this right, is this good and moral? And I would answer myself that I wasn’t yet able to understand and judge. Mainly I didn’t want to think that Most would do something that wasn’t appropriate. He was still the great Johann Most, who had experienced so much in his life, had sacrificed so much for his ideal, and spent so many years in different jails—if he loved Emma and she afforded him a little joy in his difficult and lonely life, whose business was that?
I didn’t think she loved him as a wife loves a husband to whom she devotes herself, but I was convinced that Most was certainly dear enough to her that she could make his life a little happier, could beautify his bitter and grueling struggle. I felt towards him as a little girl feels towards her uncle, and I was happy that Emma was enough to make him happy. I didn’t judge her, because I sought and found the good in their behavior. I never felt that I should block their way or disturb them when they wanted to be alone. And so time went on. I was never really able to understand this kind of relationship between a man and a woman, but I didn’t want to judge them.
I couldn’t quite understand Berkman and Fedya. Sometimes I actually thought that the three of them (including Emma) were just comrades. When I arrived at their commune, Emma said that the world must be shown that men and women can live together respectably, even when… When Most would come over, he would usually find me sitting in a corner reading or writing. Aside from saying hello, I didn’t socialize with them. When the other “boys” weren’t at home, Emma and Most would often go to another room or out somewhere together.
One time, Most approached me and had a look at what I was writing. It was in Russian, about my childhood and the period after my mother’s death, what I experienced when we had to leave our home and live with our grandmother and grandfather. I also wrote about what I’d read in the banned booklets and pamphlets from the Russian underground movement and those from the students who gave their lives for the people, for which they were sent to Siberia or to live in misery in Russian prisons. Most couldn’t read Russian, and asked me what I was writing, so I translated it into German for him. It was written like a novel. I knew that I couldn’t write properly, and that I didn’t have enough [training?] or technical knowledge. But some kind of internal force urged me to record what was in my memory and my heart.
“Miss, you have talent,” Most said. “You can achieve something with your writing, and I’ll help you. Of course,” he went on, “you can’t read your own stories aloud, because your voice is too weak, but you must write.”
And Emma said to me: “Words drop from your lips like pearls. Continue reading, not everyone has to be a public speaker; you can be a writer.” I was overjoyed. I hoped there would come a time when my life would have meaning and a goal, and it seemed like I would succeed in my desires and efforts.
After having lived in the commune for some time, I began to understand that Berkman and Fedya were both Emma’s lovers. In my innocence, I couldn’t even understand how this was possible. Emma didn’t deny it and explained that great individuals with large, open hearts and broad life experience have the right to this kind of life. The average, insignificant individual with his small, narrow heart and small soul can’t understand it.
So I considered this and thought that maybe she was right. And odds were that I was one of the little people with their small, narrow hearts and souls, because I wasn’t drawn to this sort of life. I didn’t long for it. And I decided that, because of that, I didn’t have the right to judge. They lived as they liked, and they weren’t doing anyone any harm. Perhaps it was truly possible to love two people at the same time. I thought to myself that if a woman can love two men, and a man can love two women, it’s also possible that two men can be in love with the same woman without being jealous, without any hard feelings for each other.
When I brought these ideas to Emma, she said, “Yes, it’s all possible, but not for regular people,” only for those like Sasha “Alexander,” Fedya, and herself. My whole disposition was shaken; I began to feel restless, irritated, and unhappy. It was good that I didn’t have too much time to think about the issue, which I really couldn’t comprehend.
I wasn’t physically strong, and I was working at the sewing machine all day, helping out at home in the evening, going to meetings, reading and writing, and sometimes sewing and mending because there wasn’t enough money for new clothes. With all that, I was too tired to think about the whole issue. It occurred to me: perhaps Yekaterina, the great Russian czarina,24 was one of these great people, because, as history tells, she had whole regiments, officers and soldiers, as lovers.
I wanted to ask Emma if someone can love three people or even more at a time, but I told myself that I mustn’t ask. She’d just find a way to explain it to me so that she turned out to be right. So I asked myself, why does it bother me? Whom does it hurt? A great writer once said—I can no longer remember who it was—take no example from my deeds, only from my words. Emma Goldman worked on behalf of the movement and the masses, and for the ideal that was dear to me. She had the talent of speech and I, who so badly wanted to serve my ideal, didn’t have the gifts. So I was happy for what Emma did for me.
Emma, Alexander Berkman, and Fedya—How I Understood Them at That Time
It’s very difficult for me to recall now what kind of impression Emma Goldman, Sasha Berkman, and Fedya made on me some forty years ago. At that time I was a young girl; I barely understood the world, and even less so people.
However, I’ll try to remember. As I mentioned earlier, I first became acquainted with Emma in Sachs’ restaurant, where the Jewish anarchists used to congregate. In my eyes, Emma was not very different physically than many other women her age.25 In terms of appearance, she wasn’t unattractive. I liked her a lot, with her beautiful blond hair—almost like gold—her beautiful blue eyes, and her pleasant, friendly smile. She was short and heavyset. There was only one thing about her looks I didn’t like: the corners of her mouth were slightly turned down. She was very friendly towards me, and I quickly became attached to her.
