A Girl Among the Anarchists

by Isabel Meredith

To me he took a great liking, and he always showed implicit faith in me both as an Anarchist and an individual. "You are a true Anarchist," he said to me one day, "and I would trust you with anything, even" and he emphasised the word so as to give greater weight to the compliment, "even with explosives!"

His suspiciousness, however, grew by leaps and bounds during his sojourn in London. Every day he threw out hints against some new person or some fresh imaginary conspiracy. There was a plot brewing, he informed me, among various false comrades to ruin him. He was the victim of a conspiracy to deprive him of his liberty and perhaps even of his life. Not a day passed but some covert threat was made against him; men whom he had believed his comrades, and to whom he—fool that he was!—had confided the deadliest secrets in the past, had given him to understand the power they held over him, and had made it clear that they would avail themselves of it should it serve their purpose. "What fools we Anarchists are," he exclaimed to me one day, "ever to feel any confidence in any one! We are no longer free men when we have done this. We are slaves."

I watched the progress of this monomania with painful interest, for among all the Anarchists there was no individual for whom I entertained a more genuine regard than for Giannoli. One of the worst aspects of the matter, moreover, was that I was really unable to judge how far Giannoli's suspicions were true and how far imaginary. As to his sincerity there was no possibility of doubt, and this lent to all he said an air of verisimilitude which was most convincing. I did not know the majority of the other Italians well enough to feel positive as to their honesty, and many of them were uncertain and somewhat suspicious characters. Morì, for instance—the youthful Neapolitan already referred to, the enigmatic "buttered muffin"—was quite incomprehensible. He was a youth of no particular intelligence, and certainly of no ideality or genuine political or anti-political convictions, and I was quite at a loss to conjecture why he had followed the Anarchists into exile—his only apparent reason being a disinclination to study and a desire to escape from school. When Giannoli informed me that he was a police-spy I really did not know whether to believe him or not.

And as the weeks passed on, Giannoli's condition grew worse and worse, and I could see that a crisis must inevitably follow. Nor was I mistaken in this conviction.

Late one afternoon, towards the end of September, I was busy in the printing-room "making up" the pages of the forthcoming number of the Tocsin, when, looking up from my work on which I was very intent, I saw Giannoli walk in hurriedly with his usual restless step, and look about the place in a nervous short-sighted way, evidently in search of somebody. He was just about to leave again, not having noticed me, when I called to him. "Oh, Isabel," he replied, evidently much relieved, "are you here then!" and he came up to me. "I did not see you!" and then, casting a glance round the room, he inquired, "Are we quite alone?"

"There are others upstairs," I answered. "If you wish to speak to me alone I will come to your room a little later, when I have finished this work."

"Oh, thank you, thank you," he exclaimed; "I must speak to you; I shall wait for you till you come;" and he hurried away, once more looking furtively round the office as though fearing he were watched.

From his manner it was evident to me that he was terribly perturbed about something and that his fears and suspicions were reaching a climax. "Whatever can be the matter?" I asked myself as I hammered away at my form. "Has anything serious really happened?"

Towards seven o'clock I left the printing-office and the work to the tender mercies of Short, who was just writhing out of a peaceful sleep of some hours' duration on the "bed" of the machine, and made my way towards Giannoli's room, which though quite close was by no means easy of access. Turning to my right, half-way down the court-yard, I passed into Mrs. Wattles's house, at the summit of which my friend was located; and here at once my progress was arrested by that lady herself, only half sober and in a mood evidently requiring sympathy.

"Oh, my dear," she exclaimed, "are you going up to see that pore young man? I don't know what's gone wrong with 'im of late, but for all the world 'e looks as if 'e were sickening for something. To look at 'im's enough. It just sets my inn'ards all of a 'eave and a rumble, and I 'ave to take a little drop o' something warm to settle 'em again."