Chapter 9: Trafalgar Square

London was in a fever.

It reached its highest point on the second Sunday of November, the Sunday following the events of Chicago.

Among the many memorable days of that memorable year this thirteenth of November was destined to take a most prominent place.

For a month, according to the whim of the police authorities, the “unemployed” had been alternately driven from and admitted to Trafalgar Square, the most accessible public meeting ground of the city.

This condition was intolerable for any length of time. The complaints of the starving masses grew more and more desperate, while the hotel-keepers and pawnbrokers considered the meetings as harmful to their business and invoked the protection of their servants, the “organs of public power.”

At the beginning of the month a decree of the police commissioner interdicted the further holding of meetings on Trafalgar Square.

For thirty years this place, “the finest site of Europe,” had been used by all parties at innumerable gatherings on the most varied occasions. A stroke of the hand was to drive them all away.

The first question raised was that of the “legality” of this despotic measure. The columns of the newspapers were filled with paragraphs from antiquated statute-books, which were paralleled by some taken from still older volumes: those insignia of a usurped power which fill all who have been reared in the faith of human authority with the mysterious awe of the inscrutable.

It is said that every citizen of the State helps make the laws of his country. But is there a single man among the thousands who knows what 57 George III. cap. 19, sec. 23, or 2 and 3 Vic. c. 47, sec. 52 means? Hieroglyphics.

To the chief of police it was of course a matter of perfect indifference whether his decree was “legal” or “illegal.” If he had the power to enforce it to-day, it was “legal,” and Trafalgar Square the property of the queen and the crown; if the “people” was strong enough to drive him and his men tomorrow from Trafalgar Square, the place remained what it had been, the “property of the people,” and everybody could talk on it as much and as long as he found hearers who listened to him, or longer.

The question of the unemployed was pushed into the background at a blow. The Tory administration was suddenly opposed by the radical and liberal parties in battle array, who reinforced the Socialists, and raised against the “terrorism” of the former their cry of the inalienable “right of free speech.”

They decided to hold a public meeting on Trafalgar Square on Sunday, the thirteenth, with the program: “Protest against the recent imprisonment of an Irish leader.”

The preparations for the battle were conducted on both sides with feverish zeal: the Tories were firmly resolved not to stop short of the shedding of blood in beating down any attempt at occupying the Square, while the opposition parties were equally determined on capturing it at any cost.

The excitement in the city had been growing daily. On Saturday the authorities published a second ukase interdicting the approach of the Square on Sunday in the form of a procession.

There were not a few who believed they were on the eve of a revolution...

Auban had risen later than usual. His head felt dull. Nevertheless, he had taken up his work. But he was interrupted by a caller.

He shrugged his shoulders as he read the name “Frederick Waller” on the card that was handed him. What did that man still want of him? As a boy he had offered him his friendship, which Auban had not desired. Later, — he had built up a large business in Lothringia and traveled a great deal, — he had twice called on him in Paris, and Auban had explained those visits by the fact of his temporary popularity, received him coolly, and dismissed him coolly. Now, after years, this man again approached him, with whom he had not a thought, not a sentiment, in common, and who belonged to a circle of people who had always been hateful to him in his inmost soul. But now he wanted to learn what brought him to him.

He wanted to directly ask him what his intentions were. But the other anticipated him by remarking that it was his duty not to entirely lose sight of his relatives. It was the same curious interest in the strange life which had once drawn him to the boy. He knew little about Auban. But as he suspected his radical views, he said confidentially that he, too, was anything but conservative, but that Auban would certainly understand how much his position compelled him to exercise the greatest caution. But Auban had neither patience nor understanding for men of that stamp. He wrapped himself in his frigid superiority, entirely ignored the question of his relative after his own life, made no inquiries, and expressed his opinions with their original harshness. When the visitor went away, he felt as if he had been overtaken listening at a strange door, and he made up his mind never again to repeat the attempt to get at Auban, who had this time plainly shown him how little he thought of him and his entire kith and kin.

In Auban this call awakened memories of long past years, which he followed up for a long time.

What a difference between then and now!

And yet it seemed to him sometimes as if his present self were more like the boy who, alone and reserved, labored to open the iron gates of truth in the quiet nights when no one saw him, with his soft and unskilled fingers, than like the youth who once presumed to storm them with fire and sword.

His was not a nature capable of permanently occupying a position exposing him on all sides to the gaze of a thousand eyes. He did not possess enough of levity, of ambition, of conceit, of self-complacency for that.

It was well that his fate had taken such a turn...

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon.

Auban was slowly coming from the north of the city.

All the streets he passed were almost deserted. Only Oxford Street showed stray signs of life. It was not far from four o’clock when he approached Trafalgar Square. At St. Martin’s Lane he had to stop: crowds of men obstructed the neighboring entrances of the side streets. He had arrived at the very moment when one of the four processions which at that hour tried to get access to the Square from four different sides, the one coming from Clerkenwell Green, came into collision with the police awaiting it here. He forced his way to the front as far as he could, but it was impossible for him to break through the last line of the crowd. He had to look between the heads and over them to see what was going on beyond.

The procession was headed by a woman. She carried a red flag. Auban took her and the men surrounding her, who grasped their canes more firmly, for members of the Socialist League. Directly behind the flag-bearer came the music. They played the Marseillaise. The procession was pretty long. Auban could not see it all. Only waving flags rose above the black throng.

In closed ranks the police awaited the procession. Holding in readiness their oaken clubs, they watched for the sign of attack from the superintendent.

When the procession had come up to them within a horse’s length, calls passed back and forth, while at the same time the police made such a savage attack that the closed ranks of the procession seemed as if torn asunder. A fierce hand-to-hand fight followed. One tall policeman had sprung upon the woman and torn the flag out of her hands, which she held high in the air with all her strength. She staggered and fell down in a swoon, while a violent blow of a cane struck the neck of her assailant. The musicians fought for their instruments, which were taken from them, trampled on, and demolished. Some tried to save them by flight. With iron might the police handled their clubs, unconcerned where they struck. The attacked made a desperate defense. Most of them carried heavy canes and struck about them in mad rage. The confusion was indescribable. The air was filled with curses, cries of pain, words of abuse, the shrill howl of the multitude which, wherever it could, threw itself into the fight, dull blows, the tramp of heavy shoes on the hard pavement, the breaking of lanterns struck by stones... People beat, kicked, scratched each other, sought to trip one another up, got entangled in a tight grip, pulling one another down.

Farther and farther the police pushed forward, driving the crowd before them, surrounded by it, but, mutually rushing to each other’s aid, scattering it by the blows of their clubs. Farther and farther the attacked receded. There was no longer a trace of discipline among them. Some escaped in disorderly flight, others fought on the spot where they stood until they were overpowered, seized, and led away. After ten minutes the victory of the uniforms was decided: the flags were captured, the musical instruments demolished, the entire procession routed... Some of the last of its ranks were pursued through the whole length of St. Martin’s Lane, some driven into the side streets, where they mixed with the howling crowd and were carried away by it in hopeless confusion.

Auban also. He saw how a small division of the police, with their clubs in the air, came rushing towards the entrance of the street where he stood, felt how the crowd enclosing him got into motion, and, irresistibly carried away by it, he found himself the next minute at the other end of the street, where angry speech, laughter, and howling gave relief to the terror of the outraged crowd.

Then everything again streamed in the direction of Trafalgar Square. Auban also. He wished to reach it without again getting into too great a throng. But he could go by no other route than that leading by the church of St. Martin.

After what he had just seen, he was convinced that none of the processions would ever be able to gain access to the Square...

Trafalgar Square lay before him; bounded on the north by the severe structure of the National Gallery, by great club-houses and hotels on the east and west, it slopes gradually towards the south, where it broadens once more before it ends in a number of wide streets.

Its interior lower surface, formed by the terraces of the streets and bearing as an imposing feature the Nelson Column at the south, that large, cold, empty surface, adorned only by two immense fountains, was to-day completely in possession of the authorities; as Auban saw at a glance.

He became alarmed as he thought that the attempt might be made to drive from the place a force which, if not in numbers, was infinitely superior in discipline and military skill. It was indeed an army that was stationed there: a superficial estimate fixed its strength at from three to four thousand men. Who could drive it away? Not fifty, not a hundred thousand.

He left his place, and slowly drifted past the National Gallery. Here the surging crowds were kept in constant motion by the police. Where the constables saw a crowd, there they directed their attacks, by driving the wedge of their men into it. Every man who remained standing was incessantly commanded to “Move on! Move on!”

Walking down the west side, Auban now became convinced, at every step he took, of the well-considered plan of all these preparations. The steps leading to the north were strongly garrisoned. Here, and along the two other enclosed sides, a double line of policemen made it utterly impossible to climb over the enclosure and jump into the Square.

A reporter who knew Auban gave him a few figures which he had just learned and was now putting in his note-book, while Auban furnished him with some details concerning the Clerkenwell procession. The police had occupied the Square already since nine o’clock in the morning. Since twelve in full force. About one thousand five hundred constables and three thousand policemen had been summoned from all parts of London, besides several hundred mounted police. The Life and the Grenadier Guards were being held in reserve.

The southern open side of the Square, in the center of which the Nelson Column rises on an immense base guarded by four gigantic lions, was most strongly garrisoned, since no wall obstructed the entrance there. The “protectors of order” guarded the place here in lines four and five men deep; and a long line of mounted police was stationed here, who from time to time flanked the streets.

Here, in the wide space in front of the column which is formed by the meeting of four large streets, here, around the monument of Charles I., the crowds seemed densest. The masses appeared to grow larger from minute to minute. From all sides portions of the scattered processions congregated here in smaller or larger bands, no longer with flags and music and courageous spirits, but clasped together arm in arm, incensed by their defeat to the last degree, no longer hopeful of still capturing the place, but determined to have their revenge in minor collisions.

Auban studied the physiognomy of the crowd. Out of every five certainly two were curiosity-seekers, who had come to enjoy a rare spectacle, they willingly went wherever the police drove them. But surely many a one among them lost his equanimity in witnessing the brutalities that were committed about him, and by taking sides with the attacked, became a participant in the event of the day against his will. Another fifth certainly consisted of the “mob”: fishers in troubled waters, professional pickpockets, ruffians, idlers who make a better living than the honest workingman, pimps — in short, of all those who are always on hand, as nothing binds them. They were mostly very young. As the most personal enemies of the police, with whom they are engaged in daily struggle, they allowed no opportunity to pass in taking their revenge on them. Armed with stones, sticks, and pocketknives, they inflicted painful injuries upon the police; whereupon they escaped as quick as lightning, disappearing in the crowds without leaving a trace and emerging at another place the next minute with loud howls and shrieks, to vent their spite afresh. They were present, moreover, at all collisions, aggravating the tumult, intensifying the confusion, exasperating the rage to the highest pitch by their wild shrieks. There remained only two-fifths, who consisted of those who were directly interested in the present afternoon: those who saw in the struggle an important political action, the members of the radical parties, the Socialists, the unemployed... And those truly interested persons who had not been attracted by curiosity, the observing and thoughtful spectators to whom he himself belonged.

He had arrived at the south end of the place, half jostled, half pushed. Here the crowding was intense and the masses were steadily growing more excited. It had just struck four o’clock: Auban saw the hands on Dent’s clock. At the foot of the Nelson Column a violent collision took place. Two men, a Socialist leader and a radical member of parliament, undertook to gain admission by force. After a short hand-to-hand fight, they were overpowered and arrested.

Auban could not see anything but clubs and sticks swinging in the air, and uplifted arms...

He tried to go on, but met with difficulties. The mounted police continually flanked the way between the column and the monument of Charles I., in order to keep it clear. The masses, wedged in as they were, began to scatter in all directions: gathered into small groups, filled with fear, around the lantern posts; fled down Whitehall; or were pushed close against the lines of the police, by whom they were brutally driven away.

Auban waited until the riders had galloped by, and then reached one of the crossings where he felt secure beside the lantern post. But a constable drove away the crowd gathering here. “Move on, sir!” he commanded Auban too. But Auban looked calmly into the flushed face of the angry man, and pointed to the horses that again came storming towards him. “Where to?” he asked. “Must I let those horses ride over me or rush into the clubs of your men?” His calmness made an impression. When the street was again clear for half a minute, he safely reached the sidewalk in front of Morley’s Hotel on the east side of the Square.

There he was suddenly seized by the arm. Before him stood an English acquaintance. His collar was torn, his hat soiled. He was in a state of the greatest excitement. After a few hasty questions back and forth, he said that the long procession from the south had also been dispersed.

While they — kept on the move by the police — held closely together in order not to be separated, and drifted to and fro with the crowd into which they were wedged, the Englishman said, with breathless haste: —

“We gathered at Rotherhithe: the radical and other societies and clubs of Rotherhithe, Bermondsey, etc., met on our way the Peckham Radical Club, the associations of Camberwell and Walworth, and in Westminster Bridge Road also those of St. Georges — it was an enormous procession, with numerous banners, music bands, adorned with green, accompanied by an endless mass of people on both sides, which in the best of order crossed the entirely vacant bridge of Westminster.

“As was agreed, we were to meet with the procession from Lambeth and Battersea in Bridge Street at Parliament House. Then we were to march in a straight line from south to north, up Whitehall, to this place. Just imagine: a single great procession of imposing length, representing the entire south of London, the entire section of the city on the other side of the Thames — from Woolwich and Greenwich to Battersea and Wandworth! ...

“But our two processions had not joined each other, we had not reached Parliament Street, when the battle began. I was pretty far in the front ranks. Ah, the brutes, galloping on their horses into our ranks, breaking and tearing our flags, knocking down whatever comes in their way!”

“It was fortunate you did not get farther,” Auban interrupted him, “for I have heard that the Life Guards were held in reserve in Whitehall. I am surprised that they are not yet here, for the situation is getting more serious.”

“But we defended ourselves,” exclaimed the other, “with my loaded cane I gave one —”

He did not finish his sentence. For a division of the police began to clear the sidewalk, dispersed the throng congregated there, and the next minute Auban was again alone. He was again near Morley’s Hotel; the steps had just been cleared to the last man, but were again occupied with the rapidity of lightning. Auban secured an elevated position...

From here the place and its surroundings could be easily overlooked, and presented a grand view. For four hours the multitude that surged around it had been steadily growing and seemed now to have reached the limit of its size as well as the culmination of its excitement. The windows and balconies of the neighboring houses were occupied to the last corner by the spectators of this wholly unusual and singular sight who followed every collision between police and the people with passionate interest and applauded the brutalities of the former. On the balconies of the club-houses lying opposite, the gilded youth of London indulged in the innocent pleasure, as Auban had observed before, of spitting on the “mob,” against whose wrath they felt as secure in their high position as in a church...

In the south of the place, there where the masses surged through the wide bed of the streets like a wildly swollen stream, the situation seemed to grow more and more serious. Nevertheless, the traffic of omnibuses, often interrupted, went on. Crowded to overflowing, the heavy vehicles moved on step by step. Like ships they floated through the black human flood. On their tops stood excited men who gesticulated with their hands in the air, and improved the opportunity of saying at least a few sympathetic words to the multitude below. The horses and wheels made passages for swarms of people, who followed each vehicle like so many tails.

There Auban suddenly saw an extraordinary excitement, like an electric current, passing through the masses and coming nearer and nearer. Faster than before, they scattered in all directions, and louder and more frightened grew the cries and calls. What was it?

Horsemen appeared.

And: —

“The Life Guards!” exclaimed a hundred voices. The police seemed forgotten. All eyes hung on the shining cuirasses and the tufted helmets of the riders, who, about two hundred in number, slowly approached the Nelson Column, then turned to the right, and in quiet march proceeded on the way to the National Gallery, past the steps where Auban stood.

A man in civilian’s dress rode at the head, between the commanding officers, a roll of paper in his hand. And: —

“The Riots Act!” exclaimed again the voices. The representative of the magistrate of the city was received with loud cries.

“We are all good Englishmen and law-abiding citizens — we need no —” cried one.

“You damned fool, put away your paper —” another.

Just as the troops were passing the steps where Auban stood, he heard how the heavy tramp of the hoofs on the hard pavement was drowned by the cries of applause, the clapping of hands, the jubilant shouts of the surrounding crowds, and he distrusted his ears. Were these really signs of applause? It was not possible. It could only be mockery and scorn. But the exultation of the crowd at the unexpected spectacle of that glittering tin, that pompous procession, was so spontaneous, and so well calculated was the effect of the latter, that he could no longer doubt: the same people who but a minute before had covered the police, who clubbed them and rode roughshod into them, with the hissing of their hate and the howl of their rage, now hailed with senseless pleasure those who had been sent to shoot them down! ...

At first Auban had incredulously shaken his head. Now he laughed, and a thought struck him. He gave a shrill whistle. And behold: round about him the whistle was taken up and carried along farther and farther, so that for a minute the clapping of applause was drowned by that sign of contempt. And Auban saw that now the same people whistled who before had shouted their applause.

Then he laughed. But his laughter soon gave way to the disgust that overcame him in the contemplation of that irresponsible stupidity.

What foolish children! he thought. Just now cruelly chastised by brutal hands, they go into raptures — like the child over his doll — over the gay rags of that ridiculous outward show, without even suspecting the terrible meaning of the childish play!

As he resolved to escape that disgusting farce by leaving the steps and the place, the reinforcement of the Grenadier Guards came moving along on foot with crossed bayonets, everywhere scattering fear and wild dismay by their glittering steel; the steps were filled by a double number of terrified people, who at last — as it seemed — began to understand what the issue was, and that perhaps an accident might change this play by a turn of the hand into the most deadly earnest. But everything seemed to pass off with a threat. Calmly the troops passed several times round the outside of the Square. Only once, when Auban had already reached the north end at St. Martin’s, he heard a terrible outcry of fear, drowning the dull roar and tumult, rise from the midst of the crowd, who were being driven before the steadily advancing column of bayonets occupying the entire width of the street.

What had happened? Had anybody been stabbed? Had a woman been crushed in the infinite throng? The excitement was tremendous. Now, at the approach of dusk, everybody seemed to be seized by the dizziness of fear, although only a few could make up their minds to leave the place.

Auban walked towards the Strand. For a long time the noise behind pursued him. He walked until he came to the end of the crowds who surged through the streets surrounding the Square in a wide circle, and where the usual bustle began. He longed after rest and seclusion. Therefore he went to the dining-room of one of the large English restaurants and sat there a long time.

Here on the snowy linen of the tables glittered the silver, and flowers exhaled their perfume, while the whole was reflected from the high mirrors on the walls. The guests, most of them in full evening dress, entered silently and took their places with dignity, conscious of the importance of the moment which they devoted to the study of the menus. With inaudible steps the waiters passed over the heavily carpeted floor. Nothing was to be heard in this lofty, aristocratic room with its subdued colors, but the low clatter of plates and knives, the rustle of silken trains, and occasionally a soft, melodious laugh which interrupted the conversation carried on in low tones...

Auban dined as simply as ever, only better and at a tenfold price which he paid for his presence in these rooms. And while he observed the diners, he involuntarily compared their confident, easy, elegant, but monotonous and uncharacteristic appearance with the forms out of whose midst he had come: the heavy, rude forms of the people whom hunger and privation had crushed and often disfigured until they could no longer be recognized...

When after an hour’s rest he again took the direction of Trafalgar Square, he happened to pass the doors of Charing Cross Hospital. The entrance, as well as the whole street on which the hospital lay, was densely crowded: here the broken limbs were again set and the gashed heads mended, which had resulted from the conflict on the neighboring battlefield...

The spectacle was at once serious and comical: here, supported by two others, a man came tottering along, whose face was covered with blood streaming from an open wound on his forehead; there a man came out of the door, his wounds just dressed, his one arm in a sling, but still holding in the other his broken wind-instrument. Here a policeman limped along who had fallen down with his horse; and there a man who had fainted was carried on a stretcher.

Auban came closer and looked round in the hall of the hospital. Along the walls the enemies were peaceably sitting together, some with their wounds already dressed, others waiting until one of the assistants, driven with work, should take pity on them.

“So far, we have not met with any very serious injuries,” said one of the bystanders.

What a comedy! thought Auban. First they crack each other’s skulls, then they let the same hand mend them, — an innocent pastime. Pack schlägt sich, Pack verträgt sich.

And he walked on, forcing his way with great difficulty through the curious throng at the entrance, attracted, as it were, by the fresh blood, and who made way only for the wounded.

When he had again reached the Strand, a screaming and unusually large crowd came rushing towards him and forced him to stop. The police were now driving the multitude far into the side streets...

Nevertheless, he did not wish to turn back now, when the wings of the evening were already spread over the earth, without having cast another glance at the spectacle, which must have assumed an entirely different character in the twilight.

So he wanted to try to reach the Square from the south; and in front of Charing Cross Station he turned on the left into Villiers Street, leading to the Thames. Then he passed through the tunnel under the railroad station. Just five weeks ago — on a Saturday evening in October, wet and cold as the present one, — coming from the other side of the Thames he had passed through it, and, agitated by the sad memories of former experiences, fled from it the last time. To-day he had no time for memories.

He hurried on. When he stood in Northumberland Avenue, that street of palaces, he saw that ever fresh enforcements were sent to the Square from Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the police. He took the same road.

Everything in the Square presented a changed aspect: the Nelson Column rose like the giant forefinger of a giant hand threateningly into the darkness; on the right lay the enormous rotunda of the Grand Hotel with its illuminated windows, behind which the curiosity-seekers had not yet disappeared; silent was the inner surface of the place, still occupied by the police; and in the streets round about still raged the struggle, which with the falling darkness seemed to grow more intense the nearer it approached its end...

The countless lights of the lanterns flashed and illumined with their trembling rays the dark masses who surged wildly past them in feverish haste.

The Life Guards were still riding up and down the streets in troops. Flooded by the light, their uniforms, their armor, their white pantaloons and red coats, glittered in the darkness.

The attacks of the police, especially the mounted police, had become more and more insolent, brutal, and unjustifiable. Riding into the densest crowds at full speed, they trampled upon all who could not escape quickly enough, using their clubs against the falling and those lying on the ground, indifferent where they struck, on the arms, the shoulders, or the heads of the defenseless. In an instant the places where just now not a stone could have fallen on the ground, were strewn with rags and tatters, crushed hats, broken canes.

Notwithstanding the exhaustion of both parties was unmistakable, all seemed doubly embittered. Now that nothing could be clearly distinguished, the cries sounded more beastly than before.

Whichever way he turned, Auban saw scenes that made his blood boil.

He stood, unable to move, in a crowd petrified by fear, at the very front. An old man sought refuge with him. His white hair was stained with blood. One of the riders pursued him, again and again beating him with his club. Auban rushed forward, but he could not help, for he was carried along by those following him with such violence that he himself felt as if he were falling; the police had come riding up on the other side and put everything into commotion...

At the entrance of Charing Cross he could at last get a firm footing once more. The riders turned round and madly galloped back. Auban mounted some steps.

“London has not witnessed such scenes since the days of the Chartists!” exclaimed an elderly gentleman beside him.

“The Prince of Wales made the bloodhounds drunk with brandy, so that they would kill us!” screamed a woman.

And it really seemed to be so. But not only the police were drunk, but also the people, drunk with rage and hate.

At the entrance of the same street where Auban stood, not far from the Grand Hotel, a new crowd was gathering, clearly determined to offer resistance and keeping close together in obedience to the instinct of a common interest. A new division of the police, on foot, came moving on apace. A mad hand-to-hand fight followed. Stones flew through the air, window-panes crashed, the wrestling of the combatants was heard and the dull thud of the canes, screams, and low mutterings.

The police were on the point of retreating. But already the mounted ranks arrived at full speed, and the struggle was decided. The fleeing crowd was driven far into Charing Cross. Again Auban was irresistibly carried away.

The sparks which the galloping horses struck on the pavement glittered in the darkness...

Thus the noise and the conflicts would continue to rage for another hour, at most two, and then subside; and then the battle, fought out along the whole line in favor of authority, would be brought to an end, and the right of free speech on Trafalgar Square lost to the people forever, for a long time...

Before Auban left the Square, he once more, with a long look, fixed in his mind the picture of this spectacle, which he would never forget. Once more his ears and his eyes, both tired, drank in the dark expanse of the place, the black sea of humanity, the rush and roar of its tides, the dazzling lights, the thousand tones of passion consolidated into one; and no longer ridiculous, but almost terrible was the howl which seemed to come from a single throat.

Auban fled. He longed for rest. He longed for a struggle, different from this one in which he had participated in its early days as passionately as any one, for a struggle about whose success there was no doubt, because it would have to be relentless, in which other forces were to be tested than those which had to-day wrestled together in play, as if to make each other’s acquaintance.

As he entered the carriage which was to take him to his quiet room, he heard the shrill voices of the newsboys offering for sale the evening papers, which contained descriptions of what he had seen in the afternoon.