Gusev came to see me, but I refused to collect money myself. I have no understanding of that sort of thing and no idea how to go about it. It so happened that an English journalist from The Times was visiting me just then. This journalist laughed, and gave Gusev a ten-rouble gold coin. Gusev put the loot in a large paper bag which had once held biscuits from the Chuev Bakers. So far he’d collected a grand total of three one-rouble notes and a twenty kopeck coin.
Not long after this, I had another amusing encounter with this same Gusev.
My bourgeois friends took me out one evening for an after-theatre dinner, in an expensive restaurant with music and a cabaret. The clientele was wealthy—everyone was drinking champagne.
And suddenly, not far away from us, I saw a young girl who looked completely out of place there. Her face was covered in thick white make-up and she was gaudily dressed—she could have been Sonia Marmeladova on her way back from the Haymarket.[27] And next to her, behind a silver ice bucket with a bottle of champagne in it, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. It peeped out for a moment, then disappeared. I didn’t even manage to make out who it was, but one of my companions said, “There’s a man over there who’s very interested in you. Third table along. He keeps sneaking looks at you.”
I turned round suddenly and found myself looking right at Gusev. It was he who’d been hiding from me behind the bottle. He tried to hide again but, realizing that I had spotted him, decided to take the initiative. He came over to our table, red in the face, perspiring and embarrassed: “You see, this is the sort of den of iniquity I have to hide out in from time to time…”
“You poor thing,” I sighed. “I understand you only too well. We’ve all taken the decision to hide out here, too. To think what we’re forced to endure. Music, ballet, Neapolitan songs. It’s unbearable.”
He blushed an even deeper red, made a snuffling noise, and left.
A piece of literary criticism by “Anton the Extreme” (Zinaida Gippius) was not published. And a review of a new play also failed to appear.
Why?
“Lenin says it’s of no interest to the working-class reader,” we were told. “The working-class reader has no interest in literature and does not go to the theatre.”
I asked Lenin about this.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s right. Now is not the time.”
“But workers aren’t the only readers of our paper.”
“Maybe so, but they’re the only readers we’re interested in.”
“But don’t you think that, if you get rid of the entire literature section, the paper will lose a lot of subscribers? And then you’ll lose money. Anyway, if you turn the paper into some Party rag, you’ll be shut down before you know it. So long as big literary names continue to appear, the censors won’t look at the paper too closely: these literary names are your camouflage. But if you lose them, everybody will be able to see that the paper is simply a Party rag: you’ll be shut down in no time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lenin. “If this scheme fails, we’ll just think up something else.”
“I see—so no theatre, then, and no music!”
Meanwhile Gukovsky, who was also present, kept nodding his agreement with Lenin.
I went to talk to Rumyantsev.
“Pyotr Petrovich,” I said, “your paper will be shut down.”
“Well you must try and get him to see sense. After all, we have responsibilities to our literary staff. We have a contract. The official authorization for the paper is in Minsky’s name. We can’t oust Minsky from the editorial committee. There’d be the most appalling literary scandal.”
As I was coming out of the editorial office, I saw Gukovsky. He was going through the post.
“Excellent,” he said. “Tickets for the opera. My wife adores music. We’ll definitely go.”
I stopped him. “No no, my friend, you won’t be going anywhere. That would be absolutely incompatible with the iron resolve now required of you. If there are no theatre reviews in the paper, the staff have no right to enjoy free theatre tickets. You did, after all, agree with Vladimir Ilyich just now when he said that we don’t need music or literature any more. You’ve got to be more consistent. So—what you and I must jointly do is to take these vile inducements to unprincipled time-wasting and simply tear them up.”
I put the tickets one on top of the other and calmly ripped them in half and then in half again. Only half an hour later, needless to say, I felt cross with myself for treating him so meanly. Why shouldn’t the man have gone to the opera with his wife to see Eugene Onegin? It might have done him good. Of course he was in awe of Lenin. Of course he was afraid of Lenin and felt he had to agree with Lenin’s every word—but he was still a human being! He wanted to listen to music. And he loved his wife. Why had I been so spiteful? Really I should get him some tickets and send them to him anonymously, with a little note: “I hear you’re fond of music.” But no, that would only scare him: he would wonder what was going on and what people were saying about him. A man like him should, of course, have nothing whatever to do with the opera! That wouldn’t be a Bolshevik step forward—it would be two whole steps back…[28] Still, all in all, the episode left a bad taste in my mouth. If they sent us any more tickets, I thought, I would definitely slip them into Gukovsky’s stable.
Lenin was living in Petersburg illegally. He was, of course, under official surveillance. There was no doubt about that. Nevertheless, he would come into the office, quite freely, day after day, simply turning up the collar of his coat when he left so as not to be recognized. And not one of the gumshoes on duty ever asked any questions about this character who was so keen to cover up his chin.
The mood of those days was bucolic; the lion lay down with the lamb.
When I became aware of the relationship between Lenin and his fellow Party-members, I began to pay closer attention to him.
His appearance was unprepossessing. Slightly balding, rather short, untidily dressed, he could have been a minor official from some remote local council. There was nothing about him to suggest a future dictator. There was no suggestion of passionate fervour. He spoke and gave orders just as if he were simply going about his job like anyone else, as if he himself found it boring—but then, that was life.
He was very simple in his manner. He didn’t pose. People generally pose because they want others to like them, because they yearn for beauty. Lenin had no feeling for beauty whatsoever, in anything. Lunacharsky acted the part of a “squire” and a poet. Rumyantsev fancied himself as an eagle. The whisperers were all Robespierres and Marats, even though they would all tuck their tails between their legs in the presence of Lenin.
They were all posing.
Lenin always spoke to these Marats in a friendly, good-natured way, carefully explaining anything they were slow to understand. And they would thank him warmly for enlightening them: “What on earth were we thinking of ? It’s so simple. Thank you!”
And in this way, acting the part of a good-natured comrade, Lenin gradually took everyone in hand and led them along his straight and narrow line—always the shortest distance between two points. And not one of these people was close or dear to him. They were no more than the material from which he pulled out threads for his own cloth.
People referred to Lenin simply as “he”:
“Is he here?”
“Is he still coming? Didn’t he ask you about it?”
27
Sonia Marmeladova: the young heroine of