588
PARTISAN REVIEW
bedroom, and that he occasionally ate a meal in the Restaurant
Meierei, carefully avoiding the Dadaists. Although they were a quiet
and unobtrusive couple, Lenin was a well-known figure in the central
library, in the museum, and in the Central Archive for Social Litera–
ture. He was in close contact with Otto Lang and Fritz Platten, two
prominent members of the Swiss Social Democratic party, and other
radicals. In addition to the Tivoli restaurant, Lenin liked Zur Ein–
tracht, a simple restaurant that had a private room where he could hold
meetings of Russian emigres, the Cafe Adler with its small lecture
room, and the Odeon, which was headquarters for most of the intellec–
tuals and artists in Zurich. Lenin, too, cou ld spend an undisturbed
afternoon reading international magazines and papers whi le enjoying
a cup of coffee.
Lenin came to the Tivoli fairly regularly.
It
was whispered that he
was broke and needed the credit. His entrance was always unobtrusive.
He was generall y accompanied by two or three other men and they
passed fairly close to our table. Strauss, who was very well versed in
Swiss restaurant manners, got in a
"Cuten Tag!"
whenever he could
catch the eye of one of them, who, in turn, might quite correctly return
his greeting. I'm afraid that my own attempts on these occasions were
rather furtive. Europeans had a style about their restaurant behavior
that is not natural to Americans and it took me awhile to catch on and
fit in.
As Lenin sat at his table, it was possible for us to observe him
without being noticed. His clean, clearly sculptured features and his
well-barbered Vandyke and mustache- gave a certain decisiveness to his
facial expression, unlike the straggly and somewhat Santa Clauslike
appearances of some of the other bearded radicals in Zurich. I think it
was his pale face that made him look to me like a workingman's
Cardinal Richelieu. But the main impression was that of his almost
marblelike forehead and his eyes, which transmitted a sense of great
concentration and power. There was something statuesque about him,
not a classical statuesqueness, but more that of certain Renaissance
men. His appearance was neither particularly benevolent nor malevo–
lent. He simply gave out the vibrations of a completely coordinated
human being, charged with electricity, in total command of the
moment, even in the relaxed and public atmosphere of a restaurant. I
can't help thinking of him now as being what the yogi Patanjali called
"one-poin ted."
Toward the end of March, Strauss was more and more mysterious
when he spoke about Lenin. But eventually I wormed out of him that
