Storm in My Heart. Helene Minkin
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.
During the time we lived together in our two-room flat, where she and my sister Anna sewed clothes (when they had sewing work), I was rarely at home because I was working in the corset factory. At Sachs’ restaurant, Emma had gotten to know Sasha (Berkman), and through her, Anna and I also became acquainted with him. Berkman and Emma were soon close friends, but I rarely saw him, because I wasn’t home during the day and we’d all go to meetings in the evening. There, we as good as disappeared from each other, because we were all preoccupied with the speakers.
Emma and Berkman were always together, and my sister Anna was often with them, so I would often find myself alone at meetings. But we’d all go home together, and Emma would draw me close to her, like an older sister would a much younger one. In general, they related to me like a young child. This hurt my feelings, so I pulled away from them a bit.
At that time I didn’t find Berkman very different from the other young people I knew, though I must say that he was very serious when he’d speak about our ideal and the movement. Even then, he was advocating that one must relinquish body and soul for the ideal and for humanity, and be ready to make the greatest sacrifices. I was in complete agreement; I felt the same.
Alexander (Sasha) Berkman around 1892.
(Joseph A. Labadie Collection, University of Michigan Library)
However, I couldn’t imagine then that Berkman would actually be ready to do something that demanded a huge sacrifice on his part. I must admit that, as I said earlier, as a fifteen-year-old I generally didn’t understand people and life. Later I learned that I’d been mistaken in my perception of Berkman, and quite the opposite was