V. I.

Lenin

151

KRUPSKAYA AND LENIN TO LENIN’S MOTHER

July 2

Dear Maria Alexandrovna, We received Manyasha’s letter the day before yesterday
and yours yesterday. How glad I was! If only they will soon
release Anya! I embrace you fondly, my dears. It is such
a pity that you are both suffering from ill health. You
absolutely must take a rest—the main thing is to get your
lungs filled with fresh air; after all, Kiev is a city. The
only thing is that in the north the summer is bad; Mother
is living near St. Petersburg at the country house of some
friends and complains of the terrible cold and the rain.
I believe that there is everything conducive to rest at
M.T.’s country place.

We are now on holiday, too. We have let our house and
I am very glad we have, because keeping it clean and housekeeping in general took the whole day, there was
sometimes such a hubbub at our place; the need to think
about housekeeping all the time was a nuisance. If you go
out for a walk, you are left without milk, if you are not up
by seven o’clock you have the pleasure of going to town
for meat, and so on. And in winter it was so cold. We shall now find something more convenient. In general I
am dreaming of autumn, when I shall be able to sit down
and work seriously. I am thinking of various ways of avoiding the constant turmoil; it is terribly tiring. We are now
in Lausanne. It is already a week since we got away from
Geneva and are now resting in the full sense of the word.
We have left our work and our worries in Geneva and here we sleep 10 hours a day, and go swimming and walking—
Volodya does not even read the newspapers properly; we took a minimum of books with us, and even those we are
sending back to Geneva tomorrow, unread, while we ourselves
shall don our rucksacks at four in the morning and set out
for a two weeks’ walking tour in the mountains. [1] We shall go to Interlaken and from there to Lucerne. We are
reading Baedeker and planning our journey carefully. In
a week we have “recovered” quite considerably and have even begun to look healthy again. It has been a difficult
winter and our nerves have been under such a strain that
we cannot be blamed for taking a month’s holiday, although
I am already feeling guilty about it. The weather is a bit doubtful, there is no rain, but the air is rather misty.
For the time being that is all I have to write about us.
Volodya and I have made an agreement not to talk about our work—work, he says, is not a bear and will not escape
to the woods—not even to mention it, and, as far as possible,
not to think about it.

I shall be writing to Manyasha, probably this evening, and in the meantime I embrace all of you fondly, my dears,
and send you many kisses.

Yours,

Nadya

Mother dearest, I will add just a few words. Very best regards to Manyasha
and congratulations on her release. This summer you absolutely must rest. Please go and stay in the country
somewhere. We are taking walks and having a good holiday.
I embrace you.

Yours,

V. Ulyanov

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Notes:
[1]
Krupskaya recalls the following in connection with this holiday.

“ At the end of June 1904, Vladimir Ilyich and I took our
rucksacks and set off for a month in the mountains, following our
noses. We spent a week or so in Lausanne to muster a little strength,
and then set out for somewhere beyond Montreux; we found our
way through the wildest forests to a place where some loggers told
us how to reach the road and where to spend the night. Through
Aigle we descended into the valley of the Rhone, went to
Bex-les-Bains to an old school and college friend of mine, and
then wandered along the Rhone for a long time—about 70 versts;
this was the most tiring part of the journey. In the end we crossed
the Gemmi Pass into Oberland, reached the foot of the Jungfrau,
and then, with our legs aching and completely worn out, we stayed
at Iseltwald on the Brienzersee for about a week and from there
again took to the road through Interlaken and Zimmental back
to the Geneva area. The winter of 1903–04 had been a particularly
difficult one, our nerves were in a bad state and we wanted to
get away from people and forget for the time being all business
and alarms. The mountains helped us. The changing impressions,
the mountain air, solitude, healthy tiredness and healthy sleep
were a real cure for Vladimir Ilyich. His strength and vivacity
and high spirits returned to him. In August we lived on Lac de
Bret, where Vladimir Ilyich and Bogdanov evolved a plan for
the further struggle against the Mensheviks.”

Letter No. 151