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I thought of Kosinski's words again, of his contempt for personal sentiment in an Anarchist, of what he had said about women; and I struggled hard within myself to turn my thoughts into other channels. It was useless, and at last, weary of the effort, I retired to bed and took refuge in slumber.
Armitage, to my surprise, expressed some sympathy with her views, and treated the question with what I considered undue importance. The evening advanced, and I began to despair of Kosinski's ever arriving. Every time there was a knock at the door, I wondered whether it was the much-expected Anarchist, but I was repeatedly disappointed.
You are the only person of whom I should care to ask such a favour. Will you come? I hardly think it will be for many hours." So then Short was right; there was a woman at the bottom of Kosinski's life; and simultaneously with this idea there flashed across my brain a feeling of shame at having for one instant entertained a mean thought of my friend.
No one could look into Kosinski's steady grey eyes and earnest face, pale with the inward fire of enthusiasm, and not feel conscious of standing face to face with one of those rare natures who have dedicated themselves, body and soul, to the service of an ideal.
Then again and again Kosinski's last words recurred to me, and I could not help reflecting that, slight as they were, he had probably never said so much to any other woman. I was compelled to admit to myself that the Russian, for all his strange ideas and brusque manners, had grown to be a great deal to me.
One little escapade of Kosinski's came somehow to the knowledge of the French Comrades, and he suffered accordingly. Although careless and shaggy enough in appearance in all conscience, Kosinski happened to be fastidiously clean about his person.
The room was of a fair size for the style of dwelling and was divided in two by a long paper screen. The first half was evidently Kosinski's, and as far as I could see by the dim light, was one litter of papers, with a mattress on the floor in a corner. We walked past the screen; and the guttering candle, stuck in an old ginger-beer bottle, allowed me to see a bed in which lay the dying woman.
I was as yet too new to the movement and too enthusiastic to endorse all his expressions, but the little man was congenial to me; his Irish wit made him good company, and there was an air of independent self-reliance about him that appealed to me. "That Kosinski's a good fellow," he continued. "He knows what Revolution means.
I shut myself in my room and tried to rest, but I could not free myself from the sights and thoughts which had beset me during the night. The words of Kosinski's friend, "And this is what comes of struggling for the higher life," still haunted me; the dead woman, staring blindly into space rose before me, an image of the suffering forced on the weak by the strong.
Short, however, hinted at things he could say if he would, spoke in general terms of the disgracefulness of exploiting the affections of women, referred in an undertone to "that Kosinski's" luck, adding that, of course, one had a right to act according to one's inclination, still Anarchists should set an example, &c., &c.
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