I Was in Moscow..

These are Nur Salman's impressions of Moscow...
They are like a sprinkling of rosewater — like drops of dew that moisten and refresh,
but do not quench... would that our friend give us more draughts...
from her delectable cask.

I visited the Kremlin palace... and the picture galleries, and Tchaikovsky's house, and I accompanied Mikhail Naimy to Tolstoy's marvelous kingdom. I made the acquaintance of the Russian woman, if only from afar; I grew enamored of the ballet; and I bowed in admiration and reverence in Moscow University and its Oriental library...

Neither my curiosity, nor all the daring I possess, nor my strange love of travel — none of this would have been enough to carry me to... Moscow, had it not been for the invitation of my uncle, Mr. Abdullah Najjar, Lebanon's minister plenipotentiary there, to come and visit him.

xxxx

From the moment I resolved on the journey, images and scenes assailed my imagination... a blacklist on which my name danced... as though it were not my name! An iron curtain before which my courage recoiled... suspicious glances pursuing me... scrutinizing eyes aimed at me... feelings turned against me, casting me out — while I stood bewildered at all this, not at... my own affair!!

Good people... my affair is less strange than you imagine, even if I did visit the China of Europe! For the whole of the matter is that I am one of those who seek learning and knowledge — even in China!

I passed through many European cities of which we know a great deal, until I set down my baggage in the city of Moscow at the break of a rainy dawn. And rain in Moscow reminds me of a February winter in my own country... in its coming and its ceasing there are question marks... and exclamation points!

Naturally, the presence of my uncle and his wife made everything easy for me, and in their company I saw and beheld and visited far more than the ordinary visitor or tourist...

During the time of my stay Moscow was the destination of great visitors from East and West... In my memory are pictures upon pictures which I pass in review whenever longing stirs in me for the receding yesterday... I see the beautiful "Soraya," Empress of Iran, sweeping in her flaring white gown through the ballroom of the Kremlin palace, glances snatching at her, besieged by inquiring... admiring... curious eyes... Thousands congealed into beads of tender emerald adorned Soraya's neck and wrist and hair... beauty... and magnificence!

Then I see the image of President Tito's wife, her face tinted with a bright, eloquent smile...

And Sayf al-Islam al-Badr in his splendid dress... Will Yemen, I wonder, return to its happiness... to its flourishing green, in these days of ours?

And Hammarskjöld... and the visiting parliamentary delegations... and then... the circles of diplomats at every party — at every reception... conversations... volleys of glances, exchanges of smiles by installment or wholesale... comments in agreement or at odds... the clinking of glasses around laden tables...

Between you and me, the life of diplomats is harder than you imagine — a life of exertion... and of giving, both ruled by duty and its demands... a life of recurring festivities... and of a wary... conscious luxury!

And withal, the diplomat goes on smiling under his burden... he carries his country on his shoulders... outside his country!

I visited the Kremlin, quarter of the czars, and I saw extravagance in the highest degrees of its arts and refinements... There gold was amassed to adorn the domes... and to sheathe the robes... to be poured into dishes... and vessels and earrings and strings of jewels! There rubies were gathered to bespangle everything — even the bridles of the horses and their crowns... naturally, this was not by way of kindness to animals!

In all Europe there are Versailles upon Versailles, in which selfishness long ran riot... and in the museums of Moscow, as in most museums, are the legends of gold and rubies and emeralds.

As for the picture galleries — the most important of them the Tretyakov Gallery — they hold masterpieces old and new. It is worth mentioning that painting with them is still classical and conservative: no "abstractionism," no "surrealism," no cubism.

I spent a whole afternoon visiting Tchaikovsky's house at Klin, in the outskirts of Moscow — an artist's house shaded by calm natural beauty, where the sound of music never ceases, repeating the melodies of Tchaikovsky, one of its eminent masters. There I sat talking with his sister's son, the old gentleman. His uncle was difficult of temper... a lover of quiet, precise in the ordering of his hours and in the choosing of... his clothes! As for his sweet wife — she had been a fellow student of his at the Conservatory — his life with her lasted no more than a month and a half..!

And at "Yasnaya Polyana," Tolstoy's marvelous kingdom, I spent one of the days of a lifetime in the company of our great man of letters, Mr. Mikhail Naimy, following the traces of a genius who has gone, while his books remain, with translators falling over them into every language... And talk of "Yasnaya Polyana" cannot be cut short..!

The palace of Prince Yusupov, the czar's cousin, at Arkhangelskoye reminded me of the palaces of the kings of France. And this Yusupov is the killer of the mighty Rasputin, with whom death long kept truce, so that the simple-minded thought him one of its conquerors.

Most of the walls of Yusupov's palace are adorned with magnificent canvases by great artists such as Giovi, Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Lebrun, Torelli, and others... And Yusupov set up in his palace a porcelain factory which he supervised himself, distributing its products among friends and visitors!

As for talk of the ballet, it will always fall short, however long it runs or however fair it is... And after the "Bolshoi Theater," or the Grand Theater, hive of the Russian ballet, where the lords and ladies of the dance soar... At the Bolshoi Theater, Ulanova, Plisetskaya, Bshenskaya, and Struchkova shine in roles from East and West... The Bolshoi Theater company holds fast to the classical, conservative character of its dance, unlike certain other companies. Nor does the folk dancing fall short of the ballet in splendor and perfection — most of the time, that is — and every republic has its traditional dances.

I roamed Moscow University for hours, listening to the "guide" as she told me of its departments and faculties, which embrace more than twenty-two thousand students under the supervision of two thousand five hundred professors. The department of Oriental studies caught my attention. And in the Moscow library I set to turning the pages of rare Arabic manuscripts, wishing I could carry them with me to my own country... a just selfishness..! And modern Arabic books are all to be found in the huge Moscow library; there I leafed through books by Mikhail Naimy, Khalil Takieddine, Salma Sayegh, Fuad Sarruf, Taha Hussein, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Anis Frayha, and others and others..!

There remains the talk of the Russian woman...

They say she is mannish, and I am unable to comment, because I have not yet found a full and sufficient definition of femininity. But I will say that she is energetic, strongly built, earnest, sharing with the man in all his labors. She is simple in her appearance, far from elegance as we understand and know it. And the nature of her country imposes on her an appetite... which cannot but sheathe her in stoutness — an armor that may protect her from the harshness of the cold in winter. The Russian woman's portion of beauty is not large, and the Russian people in general have little luck in the way of beauty.

XXXX

I returned from my long journey laden with everything that was new — to me, at any rate! I returned from Moscow more attached to my country, dogged by the painful prick of a sense of falling short... believe me!

The time has come for us to shake off the garment of dependence... the garment of the chameleon that shelters in the color of whatever shades it — the shelter of the helpless, the deficient, the despairing, sick with his surrendering contentment!

I saw in Moscow, as we see in America and in the European countries, mighty and not mighty, building... and progress, and above all this an obstinacy in guarding the interest of the homeland and the country before everything else.

Is it not time we set the interest of the homeland before our eyes, especially in our taking and our giving... that both may stay in measure?

I returned from my long journey gathering up within myself the scattered strands of a patriotism that will not go with the wind!