Lenin - God of the Godless

Ferdinard A. Ossendowski

• Publisher: Josephs Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781406729184
• eBook ISBN: 9781528760379

1 GOD OF THE GODLESS By FERDINAND A. OSSENDOWSKI Author of quot Beasts, Men and Gods, quot quot The Fire of Dessert Folk quot quot Slaves of the Sun, quot Etc. Translated From the Polish by GREGORY MACDONALD 1931 iE. P. DUTTON CO., INC New York IN GOD OP quot THE G quot OBLSS, COPYRIGHT BY. E. P.-DUTJON. St. CO INC. I ALL RIGHTS RESE V D MINTED IN u. s. A. LENIN GOD OF THE GODLESS LENIN GOD OF THE GODLESS CHAPTER I LITTLE VLADIMIR ULYANOV was sitting very still, thought fully watching his mother s preparations. Maria Alexandrovna herself, pale and spiritless, was helping the servant-girl to lay the table. For it was Saturday, when her husband s friends would descend upon them, and she had grown more and more to dislike their weekly assemblies. Her children, except Vladimir, shared her feelings. The girls were tidying up the drawing-room and comparing notes on their father s guests. The elder boy, as usual, had slipped out of the house, cursing them for a gang of brigands. Only Vladimir looked forward to the evening with impatience. At last Ulyanov came into the room. He was a grizzled, broad-shouldered man, with the narrow Mongolian eyes of his younger son, and he knew that he looked a man of substance in his dark-blue frock coat with gold buttons, especially when the red and white ribbon on his chest held the cross of St. Vladimir, which conferred an authority of its own. He sat down in an armchair, drew up a small table, and set out the chess-men, in readiness for a game with Doctor Titov. The Doctor always captured the imagination of Vladimir. The lad would have liked to see him go swimming. No mat ter how deep the water might be, the man would not sink. He would bob up and down like a fishing-float on the surface. A round, bulky man was Doctor Titov. The father said nothing to Maria Alexandrovna. He knew very well that she did not like his guests. On the other hand, he did not want to spoil his pleasures by a quarrel with his wife. 4 LENIN But Madame Ulyanova began the conversation at once. quot My dear, quot she said, quot we would both be better off if you gave up those friends of yours. What good can it do you to have that drunken priest. Father Makary, with his rusty old cassock, or Doctor Titov, or the School Inspector, Peter Petro vitch Shustov That old ramrod he s good for neither God nor Devil 5 Her husband twisted uneasily in his chair and began to wipe his perspiring forehead with a red handkerchief. quot We ve been friends for a long time, quot he muttered. quot Be sides, they have very good connections. They can help one along in life. The great ones of the earth have ears, you know, and when my friends whisper a good word about me. . . . quot U O Lord quot groaned his wife. quot You and your good word You remind me of Tiapkin-Lapkin in Gogol s Inspector. He did that too. He took care to ask the Inspector, when he re turned to Petersburg, to tell the Ministers where Tiapkin-Lapkin was living quot She began to laugh, silently and with bitterness. quot That s no sort of a comparison, my dear, quot he said reproach fully. quot Yes, it is It s exactly the same, quot rejoined his wife. quot You re making a fool of yourself, that s all. Why don t you invite some people who really count, young people or men of in tellect For instance, Dr. Dokhturov, or that school master Nilov, or that marvelous monk, the preacher, Brother Alexis I met them at Madame Vlasova s. They have intelligence. They re worth paying attention to quot quot God forbid quot hissed Ulyanov. There was some fear in his voice, and he waved his hands helplessly. quot Those fellows are dangerous types. They are, well . . . political agitators. quot quot Political agitators quot asked Maria Alexandrovna. quot What do you mean by that quot quot Nothing very good, quot he replied in an impressive whisper. quot The Police Commissioner warned me about them...

LENIN
GOD OF THE GODLESS

CHAPTER I

LITTLE VLADIMIR ULYANOV was sitting very still, thoughtfully watching his mother’s preparations. Maria Alexandrovna herself, pale and spiritless, was helping the servant-girl to lay the table. For it was Saturday, when her husband’s friends would descend upon them, and she had grown more and more to dislike their weekly assemblies. Her children, except Vladimir, shared her feelings. The girls were tidying up the drawing-room and comparing notes on their father’s guests. The elder boy, as usual, had slipped out of the house, cursing them for a gang of brigands. Only Vladimir looked forward to the evening with impatience.

At last Ulyanov came into the room. He was a grizzled, broad-shouldered man, with the narrow Mongolian eyes of his younger son, and he knew that he looked a man of substance in his dark-blue frock coat with gold buttons, especially when the red and white ribbon on his chest held the cross of St. Vladimir, which conferred an authority of its own.

He sat down in an armchair, drew up a small table, and set out the chess-men, in readiness for a game with Doctor Titov.

The Doctor always captured the imagination of Vladimir. The lad would have liked to see him go swimming. No matter how deep the water might be, the man would not sink. He would bob up and down like a fishing-float on the surface. A round, bulky man was Doctor Titov.

The father said nothing to Maria Alexandrovna. He knew very well that she did not like his guests. On the other hand, he did not want to spoil his pleasures by a quarrel with his wife.

But Madame Ulyanova began the conversation at once.

“My dear,” she said, “we would both be better off if you gave up those friends of yours. What good can it do you to have that drunken priest, Father Makary, with his rusty old cassock, or Doctor Titov, or the School Inspector, Peter Petrovitch Shustov? That old ramrod!—he’s good for neither God nor Devil!”

Her husband twisted uneasily in his chair and began to wipe his perspiring forehead with a red handkerchief.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” he muttered. “Besides, they have very good connections. They can help one along in life. The great ones of the earth have ears, you know, and when my friends whisper a good word about me. . . .”

“O Lord!” groaned his wife. “You and your good word! You remind me of Tiapkin-Lapkin in Gogol’s ‘Inspector.’ He did that too. He took care to ask the Inspector, when he returned to Petersburg, to tell the Ministers where Tiapkin-Lapkin was living!”

She began to laugh, silently and with bitterness.

“That’s no sort of a comparison, my dear,” he said reproachfully.

“Yes, it is! It’s exactly the same,” rejoined his wife. “You’re making a fool of yourself, that’s all. Why don’t you invite some people who really count, young people or men of intellect? For instance, Dr. Dokhturov, or that school master Nilov, or that marvelous monk, the preacher, Brother Alexis? I met them at Madame Vlasova’s. They have intelligence. They’re worth paying attention to!”

“God forbid!” hissed Ulyanov. There was some fear in his voice, and he waved his hands helplessly. “Those fellows are dangerous types. They are, well . . . political agitators.”

“Political agitators!” asked Maria Alexandrovna. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing very good,” he replied in an impressive whisper. “The Police Commissioner warned me about them. But I forgot to tell you, Maria, that he is calling on us today, as well.”

“What are you going to do next?” stormed Maria Alexandrovna, striking her hands together in exasperation. “We won’t hear a single honest opinion expressed tonight. With a policeman present, no one will dare open his mouth. Especially with that busybody!”

The husband held his peace, breathing heavily and wiping his forehead.

“For a man in a small way, like myself,” he muttered, “it is necessary to have a powerful friend.”

But his wife threw up her hands in despair and went out of the room.

Punctually at eight o’clock the guests began to arrive. In a short time they were seated in the drawing-room, where they carried on an animated conversation.

Vladimir had eyes only for two of them. With a sly grin he nudged his sister, Sacha, glancing at the same time towards the Doctor.

His head was round, bald and very red. His eyes protruded abnormally, weak and pale in colour, so as to give the impression that they were actually white. Below them the face fell away into three folds of chin, which lay like so much putty upon a crumpled shirt front. The domed head, balanced as though casually upon the gigantic rotundity of his body, gave an uneasy sense of disproportion. . . . Some sudden movement might send it rolling down his waistcoat, as he sat on the high sofa swinging his fat, short legs above the floor.

“An apple on a watermelon,” whispered Vladimir to his sister, screwing up his eyes. Sacha pinched his arm and put her hand over her mouth to conceal her giggles.

The lad turned to examine the new guest, Bogatov, the Police Commissioner, about whom there were all sorts of stories in the town, and whose very name was the terror of evil-doers. He was lean but strongly built. His cheeks were covered with fine side-whiskers. The ends of his long, carefully waxed moustaches pointed upwards almost to his half-closed, cunning eyes. He was lounging comfortably in his armchair, constantly adjusting his sword and the decorations hanging at his throat. His splendid appearance was completed by his high, shining boots, and long spurs which clicked softly as he moved.

Vladimir could only gaze at him in admiration. He liked the energy radiating from Bogatov’s muscular frame, the self-confidence reflected in every word he spoke and in the least glance of his unscrupulous eyes. At the same time, in the depths of the little boy’s heart there arose perhaps some secret animosity, almost hatred. He felt a desire to make this strong and self-confident man uncomfortable, to torment him and to shame him.

The Commissioner, drawing at his thick cigarette, was telling a story. They were all bending forward, with servile smiles of admiration, to hear what he had to say. Ulyanov alone was sitting upright and rigid, anxious not to miss a single word; for as a schoolmaster he had learned the art of listening, and this he had passed on to Vladimir. Father and son were silently taking it all in, noting every word and action of the Commissioner.

Dr. Titov, with his head on one side, vainly attempted to turn his heavy body towards the speaker. Inspector Shustov crowed softly as he fidgeted in his chair. Father Makary, whose eyes were raised to heaven, stroked his long beard with one white and full-fleshed hand, while with the other he pressed against his chest a heavy cross of silver and blue enamel, hanging on a golden chain, with little jewels glittering in the crown of Christ.

“Well, gentlemen,” Bogatov was saying in his low clear voice, “Mr. Aksakov belongs to one of the oldest families. He is esteemed and reverenced by the whole countryside. But when he refused the peasants timber to rebuild the village which had been burnt down, they attacked the manor house. They were received with bullets. Two of them were killed, three were wounded and the rest were successfully dispersed. Then they sent a farmhand on horseback for me. I went to the place without delay. After sniffing about for an hour, I found the wounded and had them brought to me. I tried to get the details out of them, tried to find out who were mixed up in it. They kept mum. ‘So you won’t answer, my lads?’ I asked them. When I’d clouted three of them across the head, and perhaps knocked a few teeth out . . . broken a nose or two . . . when there was a bit of blood on them . . . they sang a different tune. You know, our Governor doesn’t like a noise, troublesome reports to Petersburg, all that sort of thing. He has to put up with letters, enquiries—no end of a fuss. So he takes me aside and says, ‘Simon Simonovitch, you’re the man who’s got to punish the rebels. Teach them once and for all not to cut up against the nobility.’ . . . Well, I took some of my policemen along and I did justice according to my lights. The fellows who caused the trouble got a hundred strokes each, and every other man and woman in that village got twenty-five strokes. That was just to give them a lesson. Now everything is quiet and peaceful, like the inside of a church. The rod: that’s the best medicine for our peasants.”

He laughed comfortably at the end of his story and the Doctor nodded in agreement.

“You’re right, sir. The rod is a cure like cupping. It draws off blood from the head and heart.”

“It is a mild, fatherly punishment,” Father Makary observed in his sing-song voice, caressing the cross with both hands. “Our peasants are children; they must be punished like children.”

“M-yes. Better than hauling them up in court,” added the School Inspector. “Better than gaol. Better than Siberia.”

He glanced at Ulyanov as he spoke. Maria Alexandrovna also eyed her husband gravely, and clinched her hands. He was clearly embarrassed. Then he spoke gruffly to his daughter.

“Sacha! Hurry the cook up! Our guests are famished, I’m sure.”

Maria Alexandrovna, with a sign for the children to follow her, left the room. The men turned their conversation to the gossip of the town and of the official world. At last the host proposed that they should play cards or chess. Bogatov, Father Makary and the School Inspector began a game of stoss, Ulyanov and the Doctor wrangled fiercely over the chessboard; until, at the invitation of the wife, they passed into the dining-room.

The visitors drank quantities of vodka from large glasses. The meal began with herring, pickled gherkins and pickled mushrooms.

“You are a master drinker, Father Makary,” said the School Inspector admiringly as the priest poured more vodka into his large glass.

“With God’s help I can manage it still,” replied Father Makary with a good-humoured cackle. “There is no art about it when a couple like the Ulyanovs invite you to a meal and serve vodka. I always bring my throat along in case of emergencies.”

“Talking of throats,” the Doctor mused, “how is it that your Reverence’s voice has not dropped to bass, but has remained tenor?”

“Well you see, I’m not a deacon.”

“What’s the difference?” asked Ulyanov, a little elevated.

“Quite simple,” the priest shrilled. “The deacon, when he drinks, chuckles and roars, ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’ As for me, when I’ve had a few, I take the highest pitch, ‘Ee! Ee! Ee!’ ”

The guests laughed heartily and Father Makary poured out yet another glass, drained it, threw back his head, and screamed, “Like this: I! I! I!”

The laughter grew more boisterous. Madame Ulyanova, after giving food to the children, saw them off to bed. She remained silent and gloomy, brightening a little only when some marked attention was paid to her. Soon, as the spirits of the company rose, she was completely overlooked; she was quick to notice this, and escaped from the room.

Vladimir did not go to the wing of the house where he slept with his brother. He slipped furtively back and hid himself in the drawing-room, whence he could watch the men at table through the open doors.

“How much can you drink, Father Makary?” Ulyanov asked the priest, slapping him on the shoulder.

“To infinity, and one over,” replied the priest, raising his eyes as if in prayer.

“If I may say so, your Reverence puts limits to Infinity,” observed the School Inspector with a laugh.

“Exactly, Peter Petrovitch. Do we not read in the words of Ecclesiastes, the son of David, King of Jerusalem: ‘Eat your bread in merriment, and drink wine with rejoicing, for your deeds please the Lord’?”

Vladimir, crouching in the other room, became thoughtful at these words. His mother taught him to pray and took him to church, where people were always praying in front of beautiful gilded ikons. Sometimes the worshippers had exalted faces, sometimes they sighed and groaned. God—a tremendous word, a terrible, lovely, mysterious name. A Being with such a lofty and commanding name as God should be fine, majestic, powerful, radiant. God could not possibly be like his father, or the Doctor, or the Commissioner with his decorations, the priest in a green cassock, with a beautiful cross on his chest, or even like his mother. His mother flew into a rage from time to time, scolding his sisters or the servant girl—exactly like Vladimir himself when he was angry. A great Being like God must act quite differently. Yet here was Father Makary saying that God approves of gaiety over meat and drink—the very thing about which his mother was always arguing angrily and despairingly with his father. God seemed to Vladimir now less mysterious and less lovable. That sort of a God was rather commonplace after all. Probably He was just like Father Makary or Bishop Leonti. Vladimir made a face at the thought and began to listen again to the talk of the guests.

With his elbows on the table, and nodding his head for emphasis, the School Inspector was recounting one of his experiences.

“I often go the rounds of distant villages where we open day schools,” Shustov was saying. “I’m collecting some rather funny material for one of my friends at the Academy. You remember him—Surov, the hunchback? He passed through the University and is now a Professor at Moscow. A great scholar, that fellow, and no doubt about it; a personal friend of the Minister of Education and a writer of books. I did what he asked, for you know, a connection like that is a valuable one. And I found materials for him that made his mouth water. Would you credit that in two villages I discovered pagans? Yes, real pagans. They’re Orthodox, officially. When the authorities tell them to, they go fifty versts to church, to make their prostrations. And they make a great shout about them, too. Then they go home to their old gods, in front of which they place bowls with offerings—milk, salt, flour. Ha! Ha!”

“Where did you find that, Peter Petrovitch?” asked Father Makary and the Commissioner together.

“At Beyzyk and Lugovya,” replied Shustov.

“I must report it to the Bishop tomorrow,” said Father Makary. “Missionaries must be sent there to redeem them by means of the true Orthodox religion.”

“Before you do that,” shouted Bogatov with a laugh, “I’ll send some mounted police. They’ll convert the idolaters. They’ll baptize them—with whips. Our peasants are savages still. Yes, that’s what they are. Just savages!”

Ulyanov put his glass of beer down on the table. “That’s why we are establishing schools,” he said. “Education spreads quickly. You wouldn’t find any villages now where the people are quite illiterate.”

“Quite so,” said Father Makary. “You can teach them from good books now to value the Church, to reverence the clergy, to pay filial homage to our father, the Czar now happily reigning, and his w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapter VII
• Chapter VIII
• Chapter IX
• Chapter X
• Chapter XI
• Chapter XII
• Chapter XIII
• Chapter XIV
• Chapter XV
• Chapter XVI
• Chapter XVII
• Chapter XVIII
• Chapter XIX
• Chapter XX
• Chapter XXI
• Chapter XXII
• Chapter XXIII
• Chapter XXIV
• Chapter XXV
• Chapter XXVI
• Chapter XXVII
• Chapter XXVIII
• Chapter XXIX
• Chapter XXX
• Chapter XXXI
• Chapter XXXII
• Chapter XXXIII
• Chapter XXXIV
• Chapter XXXV