THE LENIN COUNTRY

By GEORGE SCOTT

WE often hear of the Shakespeare country, the Hardy country, and so on. In Russia, I dare to think, it would be just as correct to talk of the Lenin country, though not quite in the same sense. For, although Shakespeare gave us much, he did not bring about a political upheaval that was to have world-wide reper- cussions. It is, moreover, to be doubted whether Ouliknoff Ore, an hereditary noble of pure. Kalmuick descent with extensive estates in the neighbourhood of Simbirsk, and boasting Genghis Khan blood, would have approved of his son's goings on. He might even have strongly objected to the family name being changed (and not by deed poll) to Lenin.

The girl Valentina, a fragile, attractive little personage who escorted me, a prisoner, from the south to the north in 1918, had a good deal to tell me about the greater leaders of the Revolution. " Very few of them are Slav," she said. "There's Lenin, a Kal- muick ; Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, Georgians ; Bulk and Ulrich, Baltic Lens ; Derzhinsky, a Pole ; and a number of Hebrews. Most of us had aliases, for very obvious reasons! " I noticed that she did not use the word " Jew," at all times a term of contempt in Russia. " Which all goes to show," she enthusiastically ended, "how essentially international and universal is our great and glorious Revolution! "

" And you," I pursued. " You, of course, are pure Slav? "

She shot me a vindictive glance, involuntarily fingering her Colt. All the hatred of a proud, conquered race flamed up. Then she remembered herself. Revolutionaries had no nationality. Yet there was more than a suspicion of scorn in her voice when she replied: "As a revolutionary I am very small fry ; but as for being a Slav— not that it matters in the least, mind you—I actually come of exalted Circassian stock, compared with which your Russian nobles are the guttersnipes they have shown themselves to be! "

She raised her Colt. Threaded on the lanyard was an exquisitely- worked signet-ring. The shield was a flat ruby of considerable size, displaying her family crest, beautifully engraved. I was glad she was ready to talk It helped to kill the monotony. Besides, the camel-cart on which we rode jolted most uncomfortably. One got desperately tired walking in the snow. A sheepskin coat is a heavy affair. At the same time, in riding too long one became drowsy, and frost-bite is a terrible ordeal. We decided to foot it for a spell. Valentina did her best to slouch along like a man. Even so, despite her serviceable get-up, beauty and grace were not to be denied% So as we strode along with a couple of Red Guards (presumably there to help should I attempt a get-away) she told me the story of her ring.

" I had to go to Rostov. Our people had just retaken it. There was much cleaning up to be done. Tribunals, the execution of batches of ex-officers and that kind of routine-work. Some swine stole my papers en route, and I was conceited enough to think that I, as an active mamber of the Cheka, would require no sort of identification at Rostov. I travelled on, and as it happened, on arrival, ran into a crowd of victory-and-drink-maddened sailors who had never heard of me! When I could not produce my papers they became suspicious. Then one of them spotted my ring. I said I had looted it. They would not believe me, saying that I looked far too aristocratic for the ring not to be my own. Rather a right-handed sort of compliment, don't you think? All most ridiculous, considering that I had done three years in Rostov Gaol for my part in killing aristocrats." That night, as we lay in a village on the road (if one could it such) to Elista, we heard thunder on the left.

"Stavropol (Voroshilovsk)," volunteered Valentina. "Hea fighting. The Don Cossacks are behaving like a lot of fools. B they'll get their lesson from our boys. There's heavy fighting abo Georgievsk and Prokhladnoe, too," she went 'on, looking sidewa at me. " I heard something about someone masquerading there few weeks back in Red Army uniform."

" Why was he not shot out of hand? " I blandly demanded. "Ex-captain . . ." she began.

"Nothing of the kind," I interrupted. " British officers s retain their rank wherever they might be."

She stopped and shouted at me.

" We'll see about that when I get you to Moscow, you . carrion. You'll be dead long before we get there! If I had my wa (and she again began to toy with her Colt), but there. Orders orders. And if folk like myself begin taking the law into their o hands, what will become of discipline and, ultimately, of our gr Revolution? Tell me that, you filthy reptile of an Imperialist! "

I made no attempt to comply. I knew only too well that we run into a Cossack patrol I wouldn't have a dog's chance. She shoot me before stopping a bullet herself. Contrariwise, were w to strike a particularly hot Soviet centre, her authority to get to Moscow alive would be of no avail. The locals would overri it. For this reason we by-passed the more important places, su as Elista, camping either in mid-steppe or seeking the hospitali of a Kalmuick peasant's hut. The poorer Kalmuicks in my ch were nomads, travelling about the. steppe with their few came cows, sheep and what not, carrying their house with them. The h which was circular—a wooden framework covered with hides keep the wind out, with a hole in the roof to emit the smoke fr the central fire—was both warm and pungent.

We reached such a one on Christmas Day just in time to see child born. The Kalmuick mother seemed to be in difficulties, Valentina (whom the Revolution had caught studying Medicine Kharkov University) made a highly efficient job of it. No surg nor midwife could have done better. Our Kalmuick host th placed a huge pot of excellent soup on the red-hot camel-dung and, hungry and tired, we feasted. There was plenty of maize brea Then people disposed themselves for the night, clock-wise, f towards the fire.

The extraordinary thing about Valentina was that the more sh did, the more restless she appeared to become. The migh Chentzoff, her lover, was already fast asleep. The night was co paratively warm and the atmosphere in the but suffocating. An the moans of the young mother tended 'to fray yet further nery already at high tension.

Presently she rose and beckoned me as the one person yet awak We slipped out, and selecting one of the better-tempered camel they were all of the double-humped furry variety—we propp ourselves up against its warm complaisance. There was no win to speak of, and in our thick sheepskins we did not feel the col unduly. Neither did we speak. The green steppe night was lovely to disturb by anything so crude as human bickerings.

Later we raised the flap and regained the squalor of the hu Chentzoff, having enjoyed his nap, was kneeling stark naked befo the glowing embers, scorching the vermin from off his underwear He smiled good-humouredly as we entered. Proportioned on th grand scale, he showed to advantage in the ruddy glow. Present] he turned to retrieve a stray garment, and I caught a glimpse of broad back. The creamy skin, beneath which budded the muscles of an iron-worker, was silvered with long weals, whe by way of the prison-lash, they of the Old Days had tried to bre his proud rebel spirit. Altogether he was an exceptionally nobl man. With a little cry, quite unlike her usual self, Valentina dart over to him.

Opposite them lay a brace of young- soldiers, fast asleep. I work myself in between them. They made admirable hot-water bottl And so I lay, dreamily watching the lovers through a column blue, acrid, camel-dung smoke. It all seemed so utterly incongruo and ridiculous, and as some sleepless folk do in the still watch of the night I began to shake with laughter, silent laughter. On

f the young soldiers beside me stirred, and presently I felt a =forting arm steal round my shaking body and a voice whispered: Don't fret. You may yet live to see your dear ones in your own ar land." Russian-wise, the tender-hearted boy had naturally -,sumed that I was bemoaning my probable fate!

A few iveeks later, many-spired, myriad-masted Astrakhan became ore than a mirage. We rested, ate caviare, and entrained for loscow ; and, despite Valentina's spiteful prophesies, it was I, not he, that reached the capital alive. Typhus claimed her at Saratoff, d the remainder of my journey was spent in trying to console er inconsolable lover.

He wrote a poem about her. Here is an approximate rendering f it: When snow covers the ground And everywhere is dearth, A pallid winding-sheet is wound About the loveless earth ; But when you faltered, Sweet, A little loth to go, Black earth became your winding-sheet, With you, whiter than snow.