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| Emma Goldman, anarchist |
An Overpowering Yearning |
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The [Cooper Union political] meeting was at an end. Sasha [Alexander Berkman] and I filed out with the rest. I could not speak; we walked on in silence. When we reached the house where I lived, my whole body began to shake as in a fever. An overpowering yearning possessed me, an unutterable desire to give myself to Sasha, to find relief in his arms from the fearful tension of the evening.
My narrow bed now held two human bodies, closely pressed together. My room was no longer dark; a soft, soothing light seemed to come from somewhere. As in a dream I heard sweet, endearing words breathed into my ear, like the soft, beautiful Russian lullabies of my childhood. I became drowsy, my thoughts in confusion.
I was roused from my drowsiness as if by an electric current. I felt a trembling, shy hand tenderly glide over me. Hungrily I reached for it, my lover. We were engulfed in a wild embrace. Again I felt terrific pain, like the cut of a sharp knife. But it was numbed by my passion, breaking through all that had been suppressed, unconscious and dormant.
The morning still found me eagerly reaching out, hungrily seeking. My beloved lay at my side, asleep in blissful exhaustion. I sat up, my head resting on my hand. Long I watched the face of the boy who had so attracted and repelled me at the same time, who could be so hard and whose touch was yet so tender. Deep love for him welled up in my heart — a feeling of certainty that our lives were linked for all time. I pressed my lips to his thick hair and then I, too, fell asleep. (New York, 1889)
from Living My Life: Volume One by Emma Goldman (Dover, © 1970)
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