came in contact. I nourished an almost passionate admiration for Voratin
as a thinker and a man, and his writings had gone far to influence me in
my Anarchist leanings. Never shall I forget the excitement I felt when
first I met him at Nekrovitch's house. I reverenced him as only a youthful
disciple can reverence a great leader.

From Armitage and Nekrovitch I heard much from time to time of another
Russian Anarchist, Ivan Kosinski, a man actively engaged in the Anarchist
propaganda all over Europe. He was much admired by them for his absolute
unswerving devotion to his ideas. A student and a man of means, he had
never hesitated between his interests and his convictions. He had come
into collision with the Russian authorities by refusing to perform
military service. In prison he would not recognise the right of judges and
jailers, and had consequently spent most of his time in a strait waistcoat
and a dark cell. His forte was silence and dogged unyielding obstinacy. On
escaping from Russian prisons he had gone to America: he had starved and
tramped, but he had never accepted any sort of help. How he lived was a
mystery to all. He was known to be an ascetic and a woman-hater, and had
been seen at one time selling fly-papers in the streets of New York. In
revolutionary circles he was looked up to as an original thinker, and it
was rumoured that he played a leading part in most of the revolutionary
movements of recent years. He was also engaged on a life of Bakounine
which was to be the standard work on the famous revolutionist, for which
purpose he was always reading and travelling in search of material.

And at last one evening Nekrovitch announced that Kosinski was expected.
I had heard so much about this man that I spent my whole evening in a
state of suppressed excitement at the news. For many months past I had
sympathised with the Anarchist principles, but I had taken no particular
steps towards joining the party or exerting myself on its behalf. I was