That didn’t prevent Dzerjinsky from having Alexey arrested as a counter-revolutionary and sending him for three years to Alexandrovsk.
That was one of the reasons why Simon wanted me so much to take him to see Alexey.
And when I wouldn’t, because I couldn’t bear that he should see to what depths that poor, broken-down man had sunk, he charged me with questions to put to him.”
“But who was Dzerjinsky?” asked Charley.
“He was the head of the Cheka.
He was the real master of Russia.
He had an unlimited power over the life and death of the whole population.
He was monstrously cruel; he imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands upon thousands of people.
At first I thought it strange that Simon should be so interested in that abominable man, he seemed to be fascinated by him, and then I guessed the reason.
That is the role he means to play when the revolution he’s working for takes place.
He knows that the man who is master of the police is master of the country.”
Charley’s eyes twinkled.
“You make my flesh creep, dear.
But you know, England isn’t like Russia; I think Simon will have to wait a hell of a long time before he’s dictator of England.”
But this was a matter upon which Lydia could brook no flippancy.
She gave him a dark look.
“He’s prepared to wait.
Didn’t Lenin wait?
Do you still think the English are made of different clay from other men?
Do you think the proletariat, which is growing increasingly conscious of its power, is going to leave the class you belong to indefinitely in possession of its privileges?
Do you think that a war, whether it results in your defeat or your victory, is going to result in anything but a great social upheaval?”
Charley was not interested in politics.
Though, like his father, of liberal views, with mildly socialistic tendencies so long as they were not carried beyond the limits of prudence, by which, though he didn’t know it, he meant so long as they didn’t interfere with his comfort and his income, he was quite prepared to leave the affairs of the country to those whose business it was to deal with them; but he could not let these provocative questions of Lydia’s go without an answer.
“You talk as though we did nothing for the working classes.
You don’t seem to know that in the last fifty years their condition has changed out of all recognition.
They work fewer hours than they did and get higher wages for what they do.
They have better houses to live in.
Why, on our own estate we’re doing away with slums as quickly as it’s economically possible.
We’ve given them old age pensions and we provide them with enough to live on when they’re out of work.
They get free schooling, free hospitals, and now we’re beginning to give them holidays with pay.
I really don’t think the British working man has much to complain of.”
“You must remember that the views of a benefactor and the views of a beneficiary on the value of a benefaction are apt to differ.
Do you really expect the working man to be grateful to you for the advantages he’s extracted from you at the point of a pistol?
Do you think he doesn’t know that he owes the favours you’ve conferred on him to your fear rather than to your generosity?”
Charley was not going to let himself be drawn into a political discussion if he could help it, but there was one more thing he couldn’t refrain from saying.
“I shouldn’t have thought that the condition in which you and your Russian friends now find yourselves would lead you to believe that mob-rule was a great success.”
“That is the bitterest part of our tragedy.
However much we may deny it, we know in our hearts that whatever has happened to us, we’ve deserved it.”
Lydia said this with a tragic intensity that somewhat disconcerted Charley.
She was a difficult woman; she could take nothing lightly.
She was the sort of woman who couldn’t even ask you to pass the salt without giving you the impression that it was no laughing matter.
Charley sighed; he supposed he must make allowances, for she had had a rotten deal, poor thing; but was the future really so black?
“Tell me about Dzerjinsky,” he said, stumbling a little over the pronunciation of the difficult name.
“I can only tell you what Alexey has told me.
He says the most remarkable thing about him was the power of his eyes; he had a curious gift, he was able to fix them upon you for an immensely long time, and the glassy stare of them, with their dilated pupils, was simply terrifying.
He was extremely thin, he’d contracted tuberculosis in prison, and he was tall; not bad-looking, with good features.
He was absolutely single-minded, that was the secret of his power, he had a cold, arid temperament; I don’t suppose he’d ever given himself up with a whole heart to a moment’s pleasure.
The only thing he cared about was his work; he worked day and night.
At the height of his career he lived in one small room with nothing in it but a desk and an old screen, and behind the screen a narrow iron bed.
They say that in the year of famine, when they brought him decent food instead of horseflesh, he sent it away, demanding the same rations as were given to the other workers in the Cheka.