The Resurrection
CHAPTER VII.
Finally Matvei Nikitich arrived, and the usher, a long-necked and lean man, with a sideling gait and protruding lower lip, entered the jury-room.
The usher was an honest man, with a university education, but he could not hold any employment on account of his tippling habit. A countess, his wife's patroness, had obtained him his present position three months ago; he still retained it, and was exceedingly glad.
"Are you all here, gentlemen?" he asked, putting on his pince-nez and looking through it.
"I think so," said the cheerful merchant.
"Let us see," said the usher, and drawing a sheet of paper from his pocket, began to call the names of the jury, looking at those that responded to their names now through his pince-nez, now over it.
"Counsilor of State E. M. Nikiforoff."
"Here," said the portly gentleman, who was familiar with all the litigations.
"Retired Colonel I...
Berkman, Alexander (1912) Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, Mother Earth Press.
7
THE TRIAL
THE COURTROOM BREATHES the chill of the graveyard. The stained windows cast sickly rays into the silent chamber. In the somber light the faces look funereal, spectral.
Anxiously I scan the room. Perhaps my friends, the Girl, have come to greet me.... Everywhere cold eyes meet my gaze. Police and court attendants on every side. Several newspaper men draw near. It is humiliating that through them I must speak to the People.
"Prisoner at the bar, stand up!"
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania-the clerk vociferates-charges me with felonious assault on H. C. Frick, with intent to kill; felonious assault on John G. A. Leishman; feloniously entering the offices of the Carnegie Company on three occasions, each constituting a separate indictment; and with unlawfully carrying concealed weapons...
This manuscript is part of the International Institute of Social History's Alexander Berkman Archive and appears in Anarchy Archives with IISH's permission.
Some Reminiscences of Kropotkin
By Alexander Berkman
It was about 1890, when the anarchist movement was still in its infancy in America. We were just a handful then, young men and women fired by the enthusiasm of a sublime ideal, and passionately spreading the new faith among the population of the New York Ghetto. We held our gatherings in an obscure hall in Orchard Street, but we regarded our efforts as highly successful. Every week greater numbers attended our meetings, much interest was manifested in the revolutionary teachings, and vi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)