Russian Portraits

by Clare Sheridan

I came away filled with sadness, and when Kameneff came to see me this evening, I tried to tell him about it, and begged him to have the house taken care of. He says that there is a committee that looks after all the houses, but I think they have passed this one by.

Coming back from our wanderings we passed, in one of the squares, a statue of Gogol, the Russian writer. I thought it a very fine piece of work. Gogol, half wrapped in a cloak, looks down scrutinizingly in bronze from his rough granite seat, and Andrev laughed at me for liking it, and said that in Moscow it was scorned and had brought coals of fire down on the artist’s head.

I was very surprised, and thought to myself that the standard of Russian art must be very high: but in spite of this ridicule, I stuck to my opinion. I even said that in London we had not a single statue as good as that one. Later he admitted that he was the author of it.

October 2nd.

Hearing that there was a review of troops in the Red Square at 11 o’clock, I went to see what I could see. Everyone else seemed busy, and Michael Markovitch, whom I wanted, was not to be found. If he had come with me I should have taken my kodak, but I have not a permit and did not feel like risking a controversy alone. Arrived in the Red Square, I was not allowed to get anywhere near, and I did so want to see and hear Trotsky addressing the troops. Soldiers kept the onlookers absolutely out of the square, and I stood on the steps of the wonderful church of St. Basil. The soldiers certainly were very amiable, and, when I wandered rebelliously from my steps out into the road, a bayonet was levelled smilingly at me; I made a gesture of not understanding, and said helplessly in English “Where do you want me to go?” Whereupon the soldier laughed and allowed me to stand by his side. The crowd was very quiet and apathetic, one certainly was not near enough to get excited. In the dim distance one could hear Trotsky’s voice, punctuated by cheers from the soldiers. After awhile the crowd broke forward to where I stood with the soldier. Some mounted detachments came towards us, very decorative indeed with bright coloured uniforms and lances with fluttering pennons. Suddenly a man at my side said to me in French: “Madame, does this please you?” I was very glad to have someone to speak to; the man was young, and, though ill-shaved, was well-dressed in uniform. He could speak German also, but English he said he had forgotten, though he had at one time spent three months in England. Waving a hand contemptously towards the scene before us, he said: “C’est du théâtre, Madame—that is all it amounts to.” I ventured to say that a theatrical display was not much use unless there were spectators. In England, I assured him, we had our military pageants for the benefit of the people, but what was the use of this if we were not allowed anywhere near? He replied that it was a necessary precaution for the protection of Trotsky. I laughed: “We are three gunshots away, at least.” Then to my amazement the man began to discuss and criticise, and talk what seemed to me pure Counter-Revolutionary stuff. From all one has ever heard about Russian conditions (Tsarist as well as Revolutionary) it seemed to me that he was strangely indiscreet, and I asked him: “Are you not mad to talk like this in a crowd? Anyone may understand French.” He shrugged his shoulders: “One has lived so long now side by side with death that one has grown callous.” He then asked if I would care to go for a walk. I felt rather selfconscious of walking away in front of the crowd with a man whom they had seen me so obviously “pick-up.” However, in Russia there are no conventions, it was only my bourgeois blood rushing to the surface again that made it seem peculiar.

We went down to the river and leaned against the railing and talked for a long time. He was certainly very interesting and amazingly indiscreet. Happily I have nothing with which to reproach myself. I adopted a perfectly good Bolshevik point of view, and argued in my usual way about wars and blockades, and urged him to have imagination and to look further ahead than to-day and to-morrow. We talked about idealists, reviewed a few Tsarist items, and made comparisons, but everything I said provoked him to further extreme utterances. He wished finally that he might have an opportunity of showing me “the other side.” He invited me to go to a factory with him. I asked what use that would be as I cannot speak a word of Russian. He said he would like to present to me his father and his uncle, but as they were both “known” he would have to be very careful. Finally we exchanged my name and address for his telephone number. He said that if I would telephone him to-morrow, Sunday night, he would meet me outside my front gate at 11 on Monday morning, but he would not dare to come into the house.

At 1 o’clock a.m. (I have adopted the Russian habit of not going to bed) I saw Michael Markovitch, when he returned from the Commissariat, and told him about it. He said that he must be the queerest sort of Counter-Revolutionary he had ever heard of, and advised me to leave him alone.

October 3rd.

I have been five days out of work. It seems much longer. I am told that there are people in Moscow who have been waiting six months to accomplish the business they came for. Lenin seems to me further away than he did in London. There is nothing to do here unless one has work. Never could one have imagined a world in which there is absolutely no social life and no shops. There are no newspapers (for me) and no letters, either to be received or written. There are no meals to look forward to, and comfort cannot be sought in a hot bath. When one has seen all the galleries, and they are open only half a day, and some of them not every day, and when one has walked over cobblestones until one’s feet ache, there is nothing more to be done. One must have work to do. Perhaps I should be calmer if I had already accomplished Lenin, but my anxiety is lest I should have to wait weary weeks. Return to London without his head I cannot. Michael took me for a walk, and it was extremely cold. We went to St. Basil, as I wanted to see it inside, but it is locked after 3 o’clock. Outside it is wonderful, painted all over in various designs and colours. I cannot understand how it stands the climate. Inside I am told that there is not much to see; Napoleon stabled his horses in it. One has heard so much about Bolshevik outrages, but they have done nothing like that. Napoleon distinguished himself in several ways while he was here. For instance, he ordered the destruction of the beautiful Spassky Gate of the Kremlin; the barrels of powder were placed in position and the matches were lit as the last of the French rode out. The Cossacks galloped up in time to put the matches out at the risk of their lives.

On our way home we passed by St. Saviour’s church and looked in, really impelled to seek refuge from the cold. In a side chapel where the light was dim, a priest, with his long hair and beard and fine features, was preaching to a congregation which sat fervently absorbed. The heads of the women looked Eastern in their shawl swathings. I listened for some time to the strange musical tongue, of which I could not understand a word. The priest looked so amazingly like the traditional pictures of Christ that I felt I was listening to the great Master teaching in the Temple.