“Don’t ask me about Lenin,” she protested. “What can I say? Where can I begin? He isn’t a man any more, he’s a slogan. He has lost human characteristics and become a legend. Children born during the revolutionary years are called Lenin’s children; the mysterious old man who comes on New Year’s Day laden with gifts which he distributes to the children is no longer Saint Nicholas or Saint Basil, he is Lenin. All the muzhiks and little old women of the masses need a superhuman comforter, a protector; the women hang Lenin’s hallowed figure on their new iconostases and light a lamp for him. In the remotest villages of Russia, everywhere from the Arctic Ocean to the tropical settlements in Central Asia, the simple folk—fishermen, plowmen, shepherds-spend their nights carving Lenin’s figure while they talk, laugh, and sigh. The women embroider him in all manner of silks, the men whittle him in wood, the children sketch him on the walls with a piece of charcoal. Once he received his portrait from a small village in the Ukraine—a mosaic made from grains of wheat, with lips of red pepper.
“Lenin has become a slogan for all of us, educated and uneducated alike. For us, the great man does not hang suspended above the masses that engendered him; he issues from his people’s bowels, with the sole difference that what the masses shout inarticulately he formulates into an integrated message. The moment this message has been formulated, there is no longer any possibility for it to scatter and perish. It becomes a slogan. And a slogan means action!”
“What about Stalin?” I demanded, longing to hear about this savage mustachioed figure with the foursquare sluggish body, the all-cunning eye, the grave, measured gestures. What species of sacred monster was Stalin?
Itka remained silent for a moment, as though counting her words lest one too many escape her. You could sense that she had entered a forbidden zone. Finally she found what to say, and spoke.
“Lenin is the light, Trotsky the flame, but Stalin is the soil, the heavy Russian soil. He received the seed, a grain of wheat. Now, no matter what happens, no matter how much it rains or snows, no matter how much it fails to rain or snow, he will hold that seed, will not abandon it, until finally he turns it into an ear of wheat. He is patient, obstinate, sure of himself, and he has unbelievable endurance. I’ll relate just a single incident from his youth, when he was a worker in Tiflis, and you’ll understand what I mean.
“In those times (they seem like a fairy tale to us now) the Russian grand dukes, when they got drunk, lined the muzhiks up in their parks and used them for target practice. But the workers had begun to organize, and the czarist police arrested the working-class leaders at frequent intervals, imprisoned them, exiled them to Siberia, or killed them. One day the workers who unloaded freight cars at Tiflis declared a strike. Either you improve our living conditions so we can live like human beings, they said, or else we stop working. The police descended upon them, arrested some fifty, and lined them up in a field outside of Tiflis. The czarist soldiers formed ranks, each holding a knout garnished with spikes.
“One by one the workers bared their backs and passed in front of the rank while each soldier brought down the knout with all his might. Blood spurted, the pain was unbearable; many found it impossible to pass along the entire rank, and they swooned. Several fell down dead.
“Came the turn of the workers’ leader. He threw off his shirt and bared his back, but before beginning his ordeal, he bent down to the ground, picked a tender blade of grass and passed it between his teeth. Then he proceeded to cross in front of the line of soldiers, slowly, bolt upright. The knout fell upon him maniacally, the blood spurted from his wounds, but he did not open his mouth, did not utter a sound. The incensed soldiers set about determinedly to do away with him; each struck two times, three times. But from him, not a sound. He passed the entire rank without bending, without groaning, and when he reached the last soldier, he removed the blade of grass from between his teeth and gave it to him. ‘Take this to remember me by,’ he said. ‘Look, I didn’t even bite it. My name is Stalin!’”
Itka glanced at me and smiled.
“Every Russian has been holding that blade of green grass between his teeth for years now, struggling not to bite it. . . . Now do you understand?”
“Yes,” I replied with a shudder. “Life is violent, extremely violent-”
“But the human soul is more violent still,” said Itka, and she squeezed my arm, as though wishing to give me courage.
I held my head high as I listened to fervid Itka’s words. I felt as though the distant, impetuous breath of the steppes were blowing over me. An eastern wind full of destruction and creation had set my mind in a whirl.
What moved me supremely, and each day to a greater degree, was this: Never before had I seen the Invisible so visibly as here in the clamorous cities and on the snow-covered plains of Russia. When I say the Invisible, I do not mean any priestly version of God, or metaphysical consciousness, or absolutely perfect Being, but rather the mysterious force which uses men—and used animals, plants, and minerals before us—as its carriers and beasts of burden, and which hastens along as though it had a purpose and were following a specific road. You feel surrounded here by the blind forces which create sight and light.
Beyond all reasoning, beyond learned bickering, beyond economic needs and political programs, above Soviets and commissars, it is the spirit of our times which operates and directs here, the gloomy, drunken, merciless spirit of our times. All, from the most bestial muzhik to the saintly figure of Lenin, are its conscious or unconscious collaborators. This spirit is higher than programs, higher than leaders, higher than Russia. It blows above them, leaves them behind, and mobilizes the world.
When I came to this terrifying laboratory, I posed philosophical questions to the faithful who were constructing the new Russia. I was still governed by the futile, genteel concerns of the urbanite who has eaten to satisfaction and possesses the leisure to discuss and play. I did not see the visible world; I wanted to see the invisible one. Obviously I was coming from the daffodil-covered meadow of Buddha.
It is said that the aged Socrates was strolling one morning in the agora waiting for the first young man, so that he could stop him, engage him in conversation, and carry away his soul. But that morning, instead of a young man, he saw an elderly Indian sage appear from the East. This sage had set out on foot, years before, to find Socrates. The moment he saw him, he threw himself at his feet, clasped his knees, and said, “Buddha, O sage delivered from the mundane, conquerer of life and metamorphosis, sovereign over the gods, white elephant who treads and rips asunder the deceptive stalking-blind of vanity; O body beyond the eye and ear, beyond smell, taste and touch, incline the, bowl of alms which you hold and spill me like a drop into the ocean of nonbeing. Master, extend your hand and show me the road of everlasting disaster.”
And Socrates, politely concealing the ironic smile occasioned by these barbarous words, answered, “Stranger, if I understood correctly, you speak of gods and eternity. I am going to bring you to a friend of mine, a hierophant at Eleusis. He knows how the world came into being, where we come from, and whither we are going, and that the stars are larger than the Peloponnesus. He knows, in addition, that God is an egg gleaming in Erebus, and he will teach you the spell for the white cypress. . . . As for me, I’m sorry, but I concern myself only with this world, and with man.”
How Stalin would have laughed, I reflected, had I entered the Kremlin the next day and asked him the old Indian’s questions!
Daybreak. I lean out my window. Outlandish constellations-hammers, sickles, red stars—phosphoresce in the obscure dawn with their multicolored lightbulbs. I struggle to discern the letters of the red inscriptions which belt the streets. The light gradually increases, and I spell out, “Workers . . . seven-hour . . . Lenin . . . world-wide revolution . . .”
I hurriedly dress myself. I meet all the races of mankind in the hotel corridors as I descend from floor to floor—a multitude of invited workers, both manual and intellectual. I bow deeply as I
encounter the Japanese writers, the delegates from Persia and Afghanistan, two hodjas from Arabia, three young Indian university students and two charming Indian women with orange-colored cashmere shawls. On the first floor I exchange greetings with two gigantic Mongols and three diminutive supersubtle Chinese generals; in their words and eyes I feel all the dangerous, seething agitation of Asia.
We race to be in time for the beginning of the ceremony. Extreme cold, gray sky, steam flowing from nostrils and mouths. Red Square is already full. The government officials stand in a row above Lenin’s Holy Sepulcher; opposite them, on benches arranged amphitheatrically in rising tiers, the invited guests from the world over. The troops in ranks, motionless; the masses behind them make a dense, muffled din like a remote subterranean earthquake. The ground shakes beneath your feet. In the background, the beloved cathedral of Ivan the Terrible, with its many domes and many colors, protudes like a ghost in the morning fog.
The diminutive Chinese generals are packed in around me, decorations on their chests. Also some Indian men and women, the Japanese intellectuals, and a Negro of gigantic proportions, a gold ring in his ear. We look at one another tenderly, smile, and tacitly voice our affection. A Japanese poet squeezes my hand. I know only a single word of Japanese—Kokoró—which means “heart.” Placing my hand over my heart, therefore, I lean to his ear and say, “Kokoró!” whereupon he emits a cry of joy and falls into my arms.
Suddenly—martial trumpets. We all jump to our feet, faces beaming. Cavalry units of Circassians, Caucasians, Mongols, and Kalmucks press by, the commander in front with a naked sword held upright, the cavalrymen following in ethnic costume, with lances and multicolored banners. They salute Lenin’s tomb and disappear. One on top of the other, in compact waves, come the infantry, artillery, the sailors of the Baltic and the Black Sea, the air force, the Moscow guard, the Gay-Pay-Oo, the workers with their leather blouses and short rifles, the women workers with their red kerchiefs and rifles over their shoulders. Next, the astonishing, interminable people’s parade. Three slow-moving red rivers spill out of the three sides of the gigantic square. Students go by, then pioneers, communist youth, peasants, Asians on camels, Chinese with a colossal cloth dragon which opens and closes its jaws. On a float a large globe choked by chains, and a child striking the chains with a hammer and breaking them; afterwards a series of floats with disabled veterans waving their crutches in the air and cheering. Mothers pass holding their infants. The hours roll by; suddenly the sun pierces the fog and the myriad faces gleam, the eyes sparkle. The whole square shakes from cheering and the marchers’ heavy tread. The Indians in front of me remove their orange-colored shawls and unfurl them in the air.
I look around me. Everyone is weeping. I look again, but see nothing; my eyes have been dimmed by tears like all the rest. Falling upon the slender Chinese general at my side, I hug him as tightly as I can, and we both weep. The Negro dashes forward and clasps the two of us in his arms. He is weeping also, and laughing. . . . How many hours did this divine intoxication last? How many centuries? This was the second great day of my life, the loftiest of all. The first was when Prince George of the Hellenes set foot on Cretan soil. As I squeezed the Chinese general in my arms, as the Negro squeezed the two of us, I felt that boundaries were crumbling away, that names, countries, and races were vanishing. Weeping, laughing, embracing, man was uniting with man. A lightning flash had illuminated their minds and they had seen: all men are brothers!
I too felt my tiny heart cry out, like the boundless land of Russia. I vowed that my life would finally take on singleness of purpose, that I would free myself from slavery’s myriad forms, triumph over fear and falsehood, and help others to free themselves from fear and falsehood. Men had committed injustice long enough; I would tolerate it no further. We must give clean air, toys, and education to all the children of the earth, freedom and tenderness to the women, courtesy and kindness to the men, and a grain of wheat to that tail-wagging jade, man’s heart.
This is the voice of Russia, I told myself, and I vowed to follow it to the death.
Vows of a man in love. I meant what I said; I was determined to give up my life. I understood for the first time what joy must be felt by those who are stoned, burned, and crucified for an idea. This was the first time I had experienced the meaning of brotherhood so deeply, the meaning of “all men are one.” I realized that there is a gift higher than life, and a force which conquers death.
I knew of Panait Istrati’s heroic life of tribulations and had read his stories, so full of oriental charm, but as yet I had never seen him. One day I received a crumpled, smudged piece of paper covered with large, hastily written letters: “Come and see me. My father was Greek, my mother Romanian. I am Panait Istrati.”
I knocked on the door of his room at Moscow’s Hotel Passage. I was truly delighted at the prospect of seeing a man who knew the meaning of struggle. I had conquered the distrust which takes hold of me each time it is a question of making a new acquaintance, and I went to this man, to Istrati, full of confidence. He was lying in bed sick. The moment he caught sight of me he sat up and shouted joyfully in Greek, “Good to see you. By God, good to see you!”
The initial contact, the decisive one, was cordial. Each of us observed the other as though attempting to divine something—like two ants groping with their antennae. Istrati’s much-buffeted face was slender and deeply creased. His lustrous gray hair fell unkemptly over his forehead, like a child’s. His eyes gleamed, full of roguery and sweetness; his hircine lips hung down voluptuously.
“I read the speech you gave at the Congress the other day,” he said to me. “I liked it. You laid it into them—just what they deserved. Those idiotic Westerners! They think they’re going to prevent the war with their little pacifist penholders! Or else, if war does break out, they think the workers will revolt and throw away their arms. Hooey! I know the workers only too well! They’ll drag themselves to the slaughter all over again and start killing. Yes, you laid it into them nicely, I tell you. Another world war is going to break out whether we like it or not, so let’s be ready!”
Looking me straight in the eye, he extended his bony hand and squeezed my knee.
“They tell me you’re supposed to be a mystic,” he said with a laugh. “But I can see you’ve got a weather eye open and that your tummy doesn’t get filled just with fresh air. That’s what it is to be a mystic, eh? Well, what do I know about it? Words, words! Give me your hand.”
We clasped hands, both laughing. He flew out of bed with a bound. There was something of the wildcat in this man’s abrupt, nimble movements, rapacious eyes, fierce grace. He lit the kerosene burner and placed the briki on it.
“One medium-sweet!” he cried in a waiter’s singsong.
Memories of Greece arose in him, and his Cephalonian blood began to boil. He started to sing some ancient songs he had heard in the Greek quarter of Brila:
O to be a butterfly,
and fly near you . . .
Greece was rising from his vitals. The prodigal son yearned to return to the land of his fathers now. Suddenly, full of passion, he made his decision: “I’m going back to Greece!”
He had grown tired. Coughing, he returned to bed and sipped his coffee.
Sitting up in bed and lighting one cigarette after the other, he began to talk with passionate slovenliness about Russia, then about his work and its principal hero, Adrian Zographi, who suffers because he searches for a friend all his life and does not find one. His desires are undisciplined, his heart insurgent, his mind incapable of regulating chaos.
I regarded Istrati with much love and compassion. I sensed that his life was undergoing a decisive change but that he still had not settled to himself which road to take. He kept looking at me with his tiny inflamed eyes, as though seeking my aid.
“Adrian, the hero of your books, is you,” I said to him with a laugh. “Identical! You’re not the revolutionist you think you are; you’re the homme révolté! The revolu
tionist has system, order, and coherence in his activity, a bridle on his heart. You are a rebel and find it very difficult to remain faithful to one idea. Now that you’ve set foot in Russia, however, you must put things in order inside yourself and come to a decision. You have a responsibility to do so.”
“Leave me alone!” he cried, as though I had grasped him by the throat. But a moment later he asked me in an anguished tone, “Are you sure?”
“The Romanian Adrian Zographi is dead,” I declared, and I caught hold of Istrati’s emaciated arm, as though wishing to console him. “Long live the Russian Adrian Zographi! Panait, it’s time you left Brila’s narrow districts. The world’s anxiety and hope have broadened, and Adrian has broadened as well. Let the personal, disorderly rhythm of his life join with the world-wide rhythm of Russia, so that it may finally acquire coherence and faith. The time has come to put into effect the lofty equilibrium which Adrian—and Panait—sought in vain for so many years, because now it can base itself not on the inconsistent destiny of a single individual, but on the dense struggling masses of a colossal people.”
“Enough!” cried Istrati, irritatedly. “Enough! What devil brought you here? I’ve thought about all you’ve said day and night as I’ve lain here on my bed. But you don’t ask if I can. You shout ‘Jump’ at me, but you don’t ask ‘Can you?’”
“We’ll see, Panaitáki,” I replied. “Don’t get excited. Jump, and we’ll see how far you get.”
“Good God, this isn’t a game! How can you talk like that? It’s a question of life and death.”
“Life is a game and so is death,’ I said, rising. “A game—and whether we win or lose depends on just such a moment as this.”
“Why did you get up?”
“I’d better go. I’m afraid I’ve tired you.”