A Girl Among the Anarchists

by Isabel Meredith

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!"