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Show LENINE, RUSSIA'S MAN OF DISASTER : By One Just Back From That Land of Turmoil of his grandchildren. The only thing in which he cannot control himself is his manipulation of a white liaudkercbief, which he constantly keeps in his hand while talking talk-ing and with which he almost unconsciously makes the gestures of sweeping the air before be-fore him. It is a- terrifying gesture, if one tries to understand or to analyze it. It (ires one the shudders by its reminder of nil the things which this man lias already swept away, and of all those which he means yet to destroy before he thinks he has done with his self -appointed task. I. .nine is un excellent ami au arduous worker. Far into the night he sits at his disk, bending over large white sheets of paper which he insists upon having as larne as possible, and he writes, writes, without stopping for hours at a stretch. No one knows what It is that be thus puts in black and white, or rather red upon white, be-cause be-cause ho does not caro to use nny but the reddest of inks, but certainly it is something some-thing whieh would bo worth reading if lie allowed .any one to do so. But Ibis is precisely what he will not do. His desk hot a patent lock, the key of which he when one sees him for the first time. Tm man is terrifying in a way, just as a crocodile would be terrifying if one found oneself unexpectedly face to face with it. When one talks with hiin. I.euine, if his interlocutor happens to be a person upon whom he wants' to make a good impression, can show himself extremely courteous and amiabie. In opposition to his famous friend Trotzky, who takes a particular delight de-light in proving to people that he can afford to treat them as dirt beneath his feet. Lenine applies himself to cfFacc any feelings of distrust his- visitors might entertain i'1 regard to him, and he tries to present to them Russia as well as himself iu the best, possible light when he talks about her or about his own aims and aspirations. He is an excellent speaker, though lie could hardly be called an orator. He has got none of the fiery eloquence with which Trotzky electrifies the masses he addresses, but he has got at his disposal convincing arguments, at least convincing while he explains thein to you. He talks sofl.lv, slowly, almost kindly, and affects the Mti-hide Mti-hide of it grandfather desirous of the good got in its veins more or less of Tartar blood, dating from the times when the Muscovite czars were the vassals of the khans of the Golden Horde. He is not tall, and yet one could not call him short. The shoulders are bent, but be is not ungainly, and his walk is brisk and quick. The eyes are about the best feature in a face which most certainly cannot be called a refined one, but which, at the same time, is not that of an ignorant man. The nose is distinctly Russian, broad and large. The mouth has cruel corners, together with au expression which sometime is kind, and always sad. The fatalism of the Slav seems to have laid its weight over a forehead which alone in this magnificently, but odiously built head, has a few noble lines and a great many intellectual in-tellectual ones. There is, in spite of its strong appearance, a curious lack of consciousness con-sciousness of bis strength in the physiognomy of this reformer of an old world blended with a' perfect knowledge of the power which he wields, an anomaly which caused one day the famous Marie Hpiridonowa to say of him hat "Lenine understands perfectly well what he can compel others to do, but never perform himself." Strange as this may seem, it nevertheless constitutes part of his strength, this strength, so very different from power, which is the first thing that one notices iu him always carries 'tied on a ribbon around his neck, and no one has ever seen or even glanced at any of the papers which he regularly and every night fills with his thoughts. A servaut specially attached to his person has the duty to continually renew this tea, ' add to do It noiselessly, without disturbing his master, who never speaks with him, and never even raises his eyes from his work when he bears him enter the room. But one day this servant was ill, or wanted to take a holiday, and asked auother man to replace him. Lenine immediately noticed the strauger. and ringing a bell which always stands within his reach to summon, if need be, one of the red guards who watch at his door, he ordered the intruder to be taken away and shot within an hour unless the individual whose place he had taken was found before that time. He was not found of course, and the other one was shot. A friend of Leuine afterward had actually the courage to mention this incident inci-dent to him, and to ask him how he could reconcile it with his theory of freedom for everybody to do what he liked. Surely, he added, if in Russia tins freedom really existed, he ought not to have been so furious at the absence of a servant, l enine looked nt his friend with an expression of pitjr and 'A FRENCH author once wrote that in every great crisis in the history of a country there is to be found one man who embodies it in his own person, and who appears to posterity as a part of that crisis, and if not in 'the light of a great man, at least in that of a great historical figure. When thinking of the being who under the name of Lenine will certainly be remembered as one of the most curious personages of the first half of the twentieth century, I recall the Frenchman's statement. Lenine is a colossal cancer in a diseased body, which, before he invaded it, was already afflicted with various evils, various ' aches, and various deformities. Only an unhealthy land could have produced him, just as there are some plants which only blossom upon newly made graves. When the serious judgment of history shall pass upon him, it will be seen that he was neither so great nor so utterly cruel as some persons per-sons have declared him to be, but that he was simply a moral fungous growth which slowly consumed the body on which it fastened fast-ened itself. THE man is worth describing from the physical as well as from the intellectual point of view. Clever he undoubtedly is; instruction he has, education he totally lacks. Lenine is the product of that class of men whom one could find only in Russia previous pre-vious to the great war, men who in a certain cer-tain sense were self-made, because self-Instructed self-Instructed ; men who had been thirsting for knowledge; men who nursed great ideals, almost unawares, and who declared war upon society because they had vaguely felt that, though deserving to be accepted by . it as leaders, they yet lacked the something some-thing which gives to a human creature the ability to rule its fellows by the mere force of its personal strength and individuality. He was a dreamer, and he Imagined in all sincerity sin-cerity that his dreams constituted a political program and a political system. His theory of a state entirely controlled by the pro-l-tariat was an excellent flag under which to enroll the discontented people with whom Hie world abounds, and he realized this fact betjet than any one else before him. But this did not mean that he really admitted :he possibility "f the destinies of that same state being rated by any one but himself and himself alone. The man is, if not exactly an enigma, at least a riddle which it is difficult if not impossible to understand entirely, even by those who share the opinions whjcb he says he professed, but which most certainly ho does not hold. Seen even among a crowd, he would always nttra't, the notice of an observant person. There is strength as well an running Ml appearance, brutal (trfOfU if you like, bill strength all the name. The great .Mongol conqueror! of whom history has preserved the name must linvi- looked like him, and. Indeed, li" ; of Mongol origin, like nil Hi" llun'iiiim v,ho are born on the shores of llo- V'ulgii, p-ecion .'.'! flit: :;huv. iiimuitlbu li'll I contempt: "No one in my service is frea to do what he likes without referriot first j to me." iie dryly remarked. Here again can be noticed this implaci- j bility which is one of the disbadiri 1 features in Leuine's character. He never j admits discussion. No autocrat has ever been so thoroughly convinced of the fact that it is he alone who rules than this son of a village school teacher, who sits th upon what was once the throne of Ivan til Terrible. This Ivan is the type which in tin whole course of Russian history has appealed ap-pealed the most intensely to Lenine's mind. The first night that he slept in the Kremlin, he had the dreaded crar's throne and rro brought to the room which he occupied (net at all a sumptuous cneby the way. and contrasting strangely with the magnificent apartments that Trotzky had immediate!? appropriated for his own use and that ff his wife w hen tbey arrived in Moscevrl. and no one knows what he did with these relil of a bloody past during the hours when b remained alone with them. The next day they were returned to their former place m 1 the treasury, not quite ia their former est i though, because Lenine had them locked i a separate room which no one is allowed ' enter, but which he visits himself . sionally. This man, who has so often d-flared d-flared that he does not recognize the p l ives to look upon what is left of it, in the ; way of symbols, but it is curious that those which apiuil to him the most are net j connected with Russia's former greatness, There is considerable method In the os" nor in which Lenine works. EreryB' that he does bears the impress of hlviM been carefully prepared beforehand. Hi nature is a curious mixture of industry al idleness, because sometimes lie will put fil the most pressing matters submitted to for decision in order to enjoy an honri laziness, which he spends in couversasioo with a friend or even with a stratujer. the rase ma be, and iu watching tbo of the Innumerable cigarettes of whk"h is so fond disappear into space. LENINE consider himself a society, rtut ho dors not c.-.re to be" a prophet. He does not idmll ' preaches s new creed, and merely IM the fact thai he is only working ter P"j pose, that of a complete desti existing order of things. Out of which r he firmly believes thai others will bj" to build in time BOtuetotni w!"'-h vivc. Ills Indifference as to hi' uulrements Is sometimet tBiUtBI ' knows whether lie bM ft an oW & i new cost on he novel cares wV.it of , ,1 r.X en the .'the - ''' ' ;( : .., f illj UMtiT OS to l'0t rl n think or sa.i oboul him, Ul ' " told that mcli or such s person um then he .m icily loughs on . 1 laugh, which sounds sln.ost ss a ml as Implacable OS tvvebl be. j m |
