Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

ACT ONE

SUMMER 1846

The garden of Sokolovo, a gentleman’s estate fifteen miles outside Moscow.

NICHOLAS OGAREV, aged thirty-four, has been reading to NATALIE HERZEN, aged twenty-nine, from a so-called thick journal, the Contemporary. IVAN TURGENEV, aged twenty-eight, is supine, out of earshot, with his hat over his face.

NATALIE Why have you stopped?

OGAREV I can’t read any more. He’s gone mad. (He closes the book and lets it fall.)

NATALIE Well, it was boring anyway.

SASHA HERZEN, aged seven, runs across the garden followed by a NURSE pushing a baby carriage. Sasha has a fishing cane and a jar for tiddlers.

NATALIE (cont.) Sasha, not too close to the river, darling!—(to the Nurse) Don’t let him play on the bank!

The Nurse follows Sasha out.

OGAREV But … it was a fishing rod, wasn’t it?

NATALIE (calling) And where’s Kolya?—(looking aside) Oh, all right, I’ll keep an eye. (resuming) I don’t mind being bored, especially in the country, where it’s part of the attraction, but a boring book I take personally. (looking aside, amused) Far better to spend the time eating marigolds. (glancing at Turgenev) Has he gone to sleep?

OGAREV He didn’t say anything about it to me.

NATALIE Alexander and Granovsky will be back from picking mushrooms soon … Well, what should we talk about?

OGAREV Yes … by all means.

NATALIE Why does it feel as though one has been here before?

OGAREV Because you were here last year.

NATALIE But don’t you ever have the feeling that while real time goes galloping down the road in all directions, there are certain moments … situations … which keep having their turn again? … Like posting stations we change horses at …

OGAREV Have we started yet? Or is this before we start talking about something?

NATALIE Oh, don’t be sideways. Anyway, something’s wrong this year … even though it’s all the same people who were so happy together when we took the house last summer. Do you know what’s different?

OGAREV I wasn’t here last summer.

NATALIE No, it’s not that. Ketscher’s gone into a sulk … grown men squabbling over how to make coffee …

OGAREV But Alexander was right. The coffee is not good, and perhaps Ketscher’s method will improve it.

NATALIE Oh, I’m sure it’s not like Parisian coffee! … Perhaps you’re wishing you’d stayed in Paris.

OGAREV No. Not at all.

Turgenev stirs.

NATALIE Ivan …? He’s in Paris anyway, dreaming about the Opera!

OGAREV Yes, I’ll say one thing, Viardot can sing.

NATALIE But she’s so ugly.

OGAREV Anyone can love a beauty. Turgenev’s love for his opera singer is a reproach to us for batting the word about like a shuttlecock. (Pause.) When Maria wrote to introduce herself to you and Alexander after we got married, she described herself as ugly. I’m paying myself a compliment.

NATALIE She also wrote that she had no vanity and loved virtue for its own sake … She was no judge of her looks either, forgive me, Nick.

OGAREV (tolerantly) Well, if we’re talking about love … Oh, the letters one wrote … ‘Ah, but to love you is to love God and His Universe, our love negates egoism in the embrace of all mankind.’

NATALIE We all wrote that—why not?—it was true.

OGAREV I remember I wrote to Maria that our love would be a tale told down the ages, preserved in memory as a sacred thing, and now she’s in Paris living quite openly with a mediocre painter.

NATALIE That’s a different thing—one might say a normal coaching accident—but at least you had each other body and soul before the coach went into the ditch. Our friend here simply trails along in Viardot’s dust shouting brava, bravissima for favours forever withheld … not to mention her husband, the postillion.

OGAREV Are you sure you wouldn’t rather talk about highway travel?

NATALIE Would that be less painful for you?

OGAREV For me it’s the same thing.

NATALIE I love Alexander with my whole life, but it used to be better, when one was ready to crucify a man or be crucified for him for a word, a glance, a thought … I could look at a star and think of Alexander far away in exile looking at the same star, and feel we were … you know …

OGAREV (Pause.) Triangulated.

NATALIE Foo to you, then.

OGAREV (surprised) Believe me, I …

NATALIE Now grown-upness has caught up with us … as if life were too serious for love. The wives disapprove of me, and it didn’t help that Alexander’s father died and left him quite rich. Duty and self-denial are the thing among our group.

OGAREV Duty and self-denial restrict our freedom to express our personality. I explained this to Maria—she got it at once.

NATALIE Well, she didn’t love you properly. I know I love Alexander, it’s just that we’re not the intoxicated children we were when we eloped in the dead of night and I didn’t even bring my hat … And there was that other thing, too … He told you. I know he told you.

OGAREV Oh, well, yes …

NATALIE I suppose you’re going to say it was only a servant girl.

OGAREV No, I wouldn’t say that. ‘Only a countess’ is more the line I take on these things.

NATALIE Well, it put an end to stargazing, and I’d never have known if Alexander hadn’t confessed it to me … Men can be so stupid.

OGAREV It’s funny, though, that Alexander, who goes on about personal freedom, should feel like a murderer because on a single occasion, arriving home in the small hours, he …

Turgenev stirs and raises his head.

OGAREV (cont.) (adjusting) … travelled without a ticket …

Turgenev relapses.

OGAREV (cont.) … changed horses, do I mean?—no, sorry …

Turgenev sits up, taking the creases out of himself. He is somewhat dandified in his dress.

TURGENEV Is it all right for him to eat them?

Natalie looks quickly toward Kolya but is reassured.

NATALIE (calls) Kolya! (then leaving) Oh, he’s getting so muddy! (Natalie leaves.)

TURGENEV Have I missed tea?

OGAREV No, they’re not back yet.

TURGENEV I shall go in search.

OGAREV Not that way.

TURGENEV In search of tea. Belinsky told me a good story I forgot to tell you. It seems some poor provincial schoolmaster heard there was a vacancy in one of the Moscow high schools, so he came up to town and got an interview with Count Strogonov. ‘What right have you to this post?’ Strogonov barked at him. ‘I ask for the post,’ said the young man, ‘because I heard it was vacant.’ ‘So is the ambassadorship to Constantinople,’ said Strogonov. ‘Why don’t you ask for that?’

OGAREV Very good.

TURGENEV And the young man said—

OGAREV Oh.

TURGENEV ‘I had no idea it was in Your Excellency’s gift, I would accept the post of ambassador to Constantinople with equal gratitude.’ (Turgenev laughs loudly by himself. He has a light high voice, surprising in one of his frame, and a braying laugh.) Botkin’s taken up a collection to send Belinsky to a German spa … doctor’s orders. If only my mother would die, I’d have at least twenty thousand a year. Perhaps I’ll go with him. The waters might reassure my bladder. (He picks up the Contemporary.) Have you read what Gogol’s got in here? You could wait till the book comes out …

OGAREV If you ask me, he’s gone mad.

Natalie returns, wiping soil from her hands.

NATALIE I call to him as if he can hear me. I still think one day I’ll say, ‘Kolya!’ and he’ll turn his face to me. (She wipes a tear with her wrist.) What do you think he thinks about? Can he have thoughts if he has no names to go with them?

TURGENEV He’s thinking muddiness … flowerness, yellowness, nice-smellingness, not-very-nice-tastingness … The names for things don’t come first, words stagger after, hopelessly trying to become the sensation.

NATALIE How can you say that—you, a poet?

OGAREV That’s how we know.

Turgenev turns to Ogarev, silenced and deeply affected.

TURGENEV (Pause.) I thank you. As a poet. I mean, you as a poet. I myself have started writing stories now. (Turgenev starts to leave towards the house.)

OGAREV I like him. He’s not so affected as he used to be, do you think?

Turgenev returns, a little agitated.

TURGENEV You don’t understand Gogol, if I may say so. It’s Belinsky’s fault. I love Belinsky and owe a great deal to him, for his praise of my first poem, certainly, but also for his complete indifference to all my subsequent ones—but he browbeat us into taking Gogol as a realist …

ALEXANDER HERZEN, aged thirty-four, and TIMOTHY GRANOVSKY, aged thirty-three, approach, Herzen with a basket.

NATALIE (jumps up) They’re here … Alexander!

She embraces Herzen as warmly as decorum allows her.

HERZEN My dear … but what’s this? We haven’t come from Moscow.

Granovsky goes unsmilingly towards the house.

NATALIE Have you been quarrelling?

HERZEN Disputing. He’ll get over it. The only trouble is, we were having such an interesting talk …

He turns the basket upside down, letting a single mushroom fall out.

NATALIE Oh, Alexander! I can see one from here!

She snatches the basket and runs off with it. Herzen takes her chair.

HERZEN What were you and Natalie saying about me? Well, thank you very much, anyway.

OGAREV What were you and Granovsky arguing about?

HERZEN The immortality of the soul.

OGAREV Oh, that.

NICHOLAS KETSCHER, aged forty, a thin, avuncular figure to the younger men, comes from the house carrying, with a slightly ceremonial air, a tray with a coffeepot on a small spirit lamp, and cups. In silence Herzen, Ogarev and Turgenev watch him put the tray on a garden table and pour a cup, which he brings to Herzen. Herzen sips the coffee.

HERZEN It’s the same.

KETSCHER What?

HERZEN It tastes the same.

KETSCHER So you think the coffee is no better?

HERZEN No.

The others are now nervous. Ketscher gives a short barking laugh.

KETSCHER Well, it really is extraordinary, your inability to admit you’re wrong even on such a trifling matter as a cup of coffee.

HERZEN It’s not me, it’s the coffee.

KETSCHER No, I mean it’s beyond anything, this wretched vanity of yours.

HERZEN I didn’t make the coffee, I didn’t make the coffeepot, it’s not my fault that—

KETSCHER To hell with the coffee! You’re impossible to reason with! It’s over between us. I’m going back to Moscow! (Ketscher leaves.)

OGAREV Between the coffee and the immortality of the soul, you’ll end up with no friends at all.

Ketscher returns.

KETSCHER Is that your last word?

Herzen takes another sip of coffee.

HERZEN I’m sorry.

KETSCHER Right.

Ketscher leaves again, passing Granovsky entering.

GRANOVSKY (to Ketscher) How’s the …? (Seeing Ketscher’s face, Granovsky lets the matter drop.) Aksakov’s in the house.

HERZEN Aksakov? Impossible.

GRANOVSKY (helping himself to coffee) Just as you like. (He makes a face at the taste of the coffee.) He’s ridden over from some friends of his …

HERZEN Well, why doesn’t he come out? There’s no need for old friends to fall out over …

Ketscher returns as though nothing has passed. He pours himself coffee.

KETSCHER Aksakov’s come. Where is Natalie?

HERZEN Picking mushrooms.

KETSCHER Ah … good. I must say they were excellent at breakfast. (He sips his coffee while the others watch him, and considers it.) Vile. (He puts the cup down and, in a flurry, he and Herzen are kissing each other’s cheeks and clasping each other, competing in self-blame.)

KETSCHER By the way, did I tell you, we’re all going to be in the dictionary?

HERZEN I’m already in the dictionary.

GRANOVSKY He doesn’t mean the German dictionary, in which you make a singular appearance, Herzen, and only by accident …

KETSCHER No, I’m talking about a new word altogether.

HERZEN Excuse me, Granovsky, but I wasn’t an accident, I was the child of an affair of the heart, given my surname for my mother’s German heart. Being half Russian and half German, at heart I’m Polish, of course … I often feel quite partitioned, sometimes I wake up screaming in the night that the Emperor of Austria is claiming the rest of me.

GRANOVSKY That’s not the Emperor of Austria, it’s Mephistopheles, and he is.

Turgenev laughs.

OGAREV What’s the new word, Ketscher?

KETSCHER You can whistle for it now. (furiously to Herzen) Why do you feel you have to make off with every conversation like a bag-snatcher?

HERZEN (protesting, to Ogarev) I don’t, do I, Nick?

GRANOVSKY Yes, you do.

KETSCHER (to Granovsky) It’s you as well!

HERZEN In the first place, I have a right to defend my good name, not to mention my mother’s. In the second place—

OGAREV Stop him, stop him!

Herzen joins in the laughter against himself.

KONSTANTIN AKSAKOV, aged twenty-nine, comes from the house. He seems to be in costume. He wears an embroidered side-fastening shirt and a velvet skullcap. His trousers are tucked into tall boots.

HERZEN Aksakov! Have some coffee!

AKSAKOV (formally) I wanted to tell you in person that relations are over between us. It’s a pity, but there is no help for it. You understand that we can no longer meet as friends. I want to shake you by the hand and say goodbye.

Herzen allows his hand to be shaken. Aksakov starts to walk back.

HERZEN What is the matter with everybody?

OGAREV Aksakov, why do you dress like that?

AKSAKOV (turning angrily) Because I am proud to be Russian!

OGAREV But people think you’re a Persian.

AKSAKOV I have nothing to say to you, Ogarev. As a matter of fact, I don’t hold it against you, compared with some of your friends who spend their time gallivanting around Europe … because I understand that in your case you’re not chasing after false gods but only after a false—

OGAREV (hotly) You be careful, sir, or you will hear from me!

HERZEN (leaping in) That’s enough of that talk!—

AKSAKOV You Westernisers apply for passports with letters from your doctors and then go off and drink the water in Paris …

Ogarev relapses, seething.

TURGENEV (mildly) Not at all, not at all. You can’t drink the water in Paris.

AKSAKOV Go to France for your cravats if you must, but why do you have to go to France for your ideas?

TURGENEV Because they’re in French. You can publish anything you like in France, it’s extraordinary.

AKSAKOV And what’s the result? Scepticism. Materialism. Triviality.

Ogarev, still furious and agitated, leaps up.

OGAREV Repeat what you said!

AKSAKOV Scepticism—materialism—

OGAREV Before!

AKSAKOV Censorship is not all bad for a writer—it teaches precision and Christian patience.

OGAREV (to Aksakov) Chasing after a false what?

AKSAKOV (ignoring) France is a moral cesspit, but you can publish anything you like, so you’re all dazzled—blinded to the fact that the Western model is a bourgeois monarchy for philistines and profiteers.

HERZEN Don’t tell me, tell them.

Ogarev goes out.

AKSAKOV (to Herzen) Oh, I’ve heard about your socialist utopianism. What use is that to us? This is Russia … (to Granovsky) We haven’t even got a bourgeoisie.

GRANOVSKY Don’t tell me, tell him.

AKSAKOV It’s all of you. Jacobins and German sentimentalists. Destroyers and dreamers. You’ve turned your back on your own people, the real Russians abandoned a hundred and fifty years ago by Peter the Great Westerniser!—but you can’t agree on the next step.

Ogarev enters.

OGAREV I demand that you finish what you were going to say!

AKSAKOV I’m afraid I can’t remember what it was.

OGAREV Yes, you can!

AKSAKOV A false beard …? No … A false passport …?

Ogarev goes out.

AKSAKOV (cont.) We have to reunite ourselves with the masses from whom we became separated when we put on silk breeches and powdered wigs. It’s not too late. From our village communes we can still develop in a Russian way, without socialism or capitalism, without a bourgeoisie, yes, and with our own culture unpolluted by the Renaissance, and our own Church unpolluted by the Popes or by the Reformation. It can even be our destiny to unite the Slav nations and lead Europe back to the true path. It will be the age of Russia.

KETSCHER You’ve left out our own astronomy unpolluted by Copernicus.

HERZEN Why don’t you wear a peasant’s shirt and bast shoes if you want to advertise the real Russia, instead of dressing it up like you in your costume? Russia before Peter had no culture. Life was ugly, poor and savage. Our only tradition was submitting ourselves to invaders. The history of other nations is the history of their emancipation. The history of Russia goes the opposite way, to serfdom and obscurantism. The Church of your infatuated iconpainter’s imagination is a conspiracy of pot-house priests and anointed courtiers in trade with the police. A country like this will never see the light if we turn our backs to it, and the light is over there. (He points.) West. (He points the other way.) There is none there.

AKSAKOV Then you that way, we this way. Farewell.

Leaving, Aksakov meets Ogarev storming in.

AKSAKOV (cont.) We lost Pushkin—(He ‘shoots’ with his finger.)—we lost Lermontov. (He ‘shoots’ again.) We cannot lose Ogarev. I ask your forgiveness.

He bows to Ogarev and leaves. Herzen puts his arm around Ogarev.

HERZEN He’s right, Nick.

GRANOVSKY It’s not the only thing he’s right about.

HERZEN Granovsky … let’s not be quarrelling when Natalie comes back.

GRANOVSKY I’m not quarrelling. He’s right about us having no ideas of our own, that’s all.

HERZEN Where would they come from when we have no history of thought, when nothing has been handed on because nothing can be written or read or discussed? No wonder Europe regards us as a barbarian horde at the gates. This huge country, so vast it takes in fur-trappers, camelherders, pearl-fishers … and yet not a single original philosopher, not one contribution to political discourse …

KETSCHER Yes—one! The intelligentsia!

GRANOVSKY What’s that?

KETSCHER It’s the new word I was telling you about.

OGAREV Well, it’s a horrible word.

KETSCHER I agree, but it’s our own, Russia’s debut in the lexicon.

HERZEN What does it mean?

KETSCHER It means us. A uniquely Russian phenomenon, the intellectual opposition considered as a social force.

GRANOVSKY Well … !

HERZEN The … intelligentsia! …

OGAREV Including Aksakov?

KETSCHER That’s the subtlety of it, we don’t have to agree with each other.

GRANOVSKY The Slavophiles are not entirely wrong about the West, you know.

HERZEN I’m sure they’re entirely right.

GRANOVSKY Materialism …

HERZEN Triviality.

GRANOVSKY Scepticism above all.

HERZEN Above all. I’m not arguing with you.

GRANOVSKY But—don’t you see?—it doesn’t follow that our own bourgeoisie has to adopt the same values as in the West.

HERZEN No. Yes.

GRANOVSKY How would you know, anyway?

HERZEN I wouldn’t. It’s you and Turgenev who’ve been there. I still can’t get a passport. I’ve applied again.

KETSCHER For your health?

HERZEN (laughs) It’s for little Kolya … Natalie and I want to consult the best doctors …

OGAREV (looking) Where is Kolya …?

KETSCHER I’m a doctor. He’s deaf. (Shrugs.) I’m sorry.

Ogarev, unheeded, leaves to look for Kolya.

TURGENEV It’s not all philistines, either. The only thing that’ll save Russia is Western culture transmitted by … people like us.

KETSCHER No, it’s the Spirit of History, the ceaseless March of Progress …

HERZEN (venting his anger) Oh, a curse on your capital letters! We’re asking people to spill their blood—at least spare them your conceit that they’re acting out the biography of an abstract noun!

KETSCHER Oh, it’s my conceit? (to the others) There was nothing wrong with that coffee, either.

HERZEN (to Granovsky, conciliatory) I’m not starry-eyed about France. To sit in a café with Louis Blanc, Leroux, Ledru-Rollin … to buy La Réforme with the ink still wet, and walk in the Place de la Concorde … the thought excites me like a child, I admit that, but Aksakov is right—I don’t know the next step. Where are we off to? Who’s got the map? We study the ideal societies … power to the experts, to the workers, to the philosophers … property rights, property sanctions, the evil of competition, the evil of monopoly … central planning, free housing, free love … limited to eight hundred families or unconstrained by national frontiers … and all of them uniquely harmonious, just and efficient. But Proudhon is the only one who understands what the question is: why should anyone obey anyone else?

GRANOVSKY Because that’s what society means. You might as well ask, why should an orchestra play together? And yet it can play together without being socialist.

TURGENEV That’s true!—my mother keeps an orchestra at Spasskoye. What I find even harder to grasp, however, is that she also owns the nightingales.

HERZEN Bringing in Russia always seems to confuse things. I’m not saying socialism is history’s secret plan, it just looks like the rational step.

GRANOVSKY To whom?

HERZEN To me. Not just me. The future is being scrawled on the factory walls of Paris.

GRANOVSKY Why? Why necessarily? We have no factory districts. Why should we wait to be inundated from within by our very own industrialised Goths? Everything you hold dear in civilisation will be smashed on the altar of equality … the equality of the barracks.

HERZEN You judge the common people after they’ve been brutalised. But people are good, by nature. I have faith in them.

GRANOVSKY Without faith in something higher, human nature is animal nature.

HERZEN Without superstition, you mean.

GRANOVSKY Superstition? Did you say superstition?

Herzen forgets to keep his temper, and Granovsky starts to respond in kind until they are rowing.

HERZEN Superstition! The pious and pitiful belief that there’s something outside or up there, or God knows where, without which men can’t find their nobility.

GRANOVSKY Without ‘up there,’ as you call it, scores have to be settled down here—that’s the whole truth about materialism.

HERZEN How can you—how dare you—throw away your dignity as a human being? You can choose well or badly without deference to a ghost!—you’re a free man, Granovsky, there’s no other kind.

Natalie arrives hurriedly and frightened. Her distress is at first misinterpreted. She runs to Alexander and hugs him, unable to speak. There are some mushrooms in her basket.

NATALIE Alexander …

HERZEN (apologetically to Natalie) It’s only a little argument …

GRANOVSKY (to Natalie) It grieves me deeply to have to absent myself from a household in which I have always received a kind welcome. (Granovsky starts to leave.)

NATALIE There’s a policeman come to the house—I saw him from the field.

HERZEN A policeman?

A Servant comes from the house, overtaken by a uniformed

POLICEMAN.

HERZEN (cont.) Oh God, not again … Natalie, Natalie …

POLICEMAN Is one of you Herzen?

HERZEN I am.

POLICEMAN You’re to read this. From Count Orlov.

The Policeman gives Herzen a letter. Herzen tears it open.

NATALIE (to the Policeman) I want to go with him.

POLICEMAN I wasn’t told …

Herzen hugs Natalie.

HERZEN It’s all right. (announces) After twelve years of police surveillance in and out of exile, Count Orlov has graciously let it be known, I can now apply to travel abroad … !

The others gather round him in relief and congratulation. The Policeman hesitates. Natalie snatches the letter.

KETSCHER You’ll see Sazonov again.

GRANOVSKY He’s changed.

TURGENEV And Bakunin …

GRANOVSKY He hasn’t, I’m afraid.

NATALIE ‘… to travel abroad to seek medical assistance in respect of your son Nikolai Alexandrovich …’

HERZEN (lifting her up) Paris, Natalie!

Her basket of mushrooms falls and spills.

NATALIE (weeping with joy) … Kolya! … (Natalie runs off.)

HERZEN Where’s Nick?

POLICEMAN Good news, then.

Herzen takes the hint and tips him. The Policeman leaves.

NATALIE (returning) Where’s Kolya?

HERZEN Kolya? I don’t know. Why?

NATALIE Where is he?

Natalie runs out, calling the name.

HERZEN (following hurriedly) He can’t hear you …

Turgenev rushes out after them, Granovsky and Ketscher following anxiously.

After a pause, during which Natalie can be heard distantly, silence falls.

Distant thunder.

Sasha enters from another direction and turns to look back. He comes forward and sees the spilled mushrooms. He rights the basket. Ogarev enters at peace, carrying Sasha’s fishing cane and jar, glancing behind him.

OGAREV (calls) Come on, Kolya!

SASHA He can’t hear you.

OGAREV Come along!

SASHA He can’t hear you.

Ogarev goes back towards Kolya.

Distant thunder.

OGAREV There, you see? He heard that.

He goes out.

Sasha starts putting the mushrooms into the basket.

JULY 1847

Salzbrunn, a small spa town in Germany.

[VISSARION BELINSKY and Turgenev took rooms on the ground floor of a small wooden house in the main street. A shack in the courtyard served them as a summer pavilion.] Belinsky and Turgenev are reading separate manuscripts, a short story and a long letter respectively, while drinking water from large beakers. Belinsky is thirty-six and less than a year from death. His face is pale and smooth. He has a stout walking stick to hand. Turgenev finishes first. He puts the letter on the table. He waits for Belinksy to finish reading, and drinks from his beaker, making a face. Belinsky finishes reading and gives the manuscript to Turgenev. Turgenev waits for the verdict. Belinsky nods thoughtfully, drinks from his beaker.

BELINSKY Hm. You don’t tell the reader what you think.

TURGENEV What I think? What has that got to do with the reader?

Belinsky laughs, coughs, slams his stick, recovers.

BELINSKY And what do you think about my letter to Gogol?

TURGENEV Oh … well, I don’t see the necessity for it.

BELINSKY Be careful, boy, or I’ll stand you in the corner.

TURGENEV You said what you had to say about his book in the Contemporary. Is this the future of criticism?—first the bad notice, then the abusive letter to the author?

BELINSKY The censor cut at least a third of my review. But that’s not the point. Gogol evidently thinks I rubbished his book, because he took a swipe at me. I’m not having that. He has to be made to understand that I took personal offence from cover to cover! I loved that man. I found him. Now he’s gone mad—and this apostle of Tsar Nicholas, this champion of serfdom, corporal punishment, censorship, ignorance and obscurantist piety, thinks I gave him a bad notice out of pique. His book is a crime against humanity and civilisation.

TURGENEV No—it’s a book … a bad, stupid book but with all the sincerity of religious mania—why drive him madder? You should pity him.

Belinsky thumps angrily with his stick.

BELINSKY It’s too important for pity. In other countries, the advance of civilised behaviour is everybody’s business. In Russia, there’s no division of labour, literature has to do it all. That was a hard lesson for me, boy. When I started off, I thought art was aimless, pure spirit. I was a young ruffian from the provinces, with the artistic credo of a Parisian dandy. Remember Gautier?—‘Fools! Cretins! A novel is not a pair of boots!’

TURGENEV ‘A sonnet is not a syringe! A play is not a railway!’

BELINSKY (chiming in with Turgenev) ‘A play is not a railway!’ Well, we have no railways, so that’s another job for literature, to open up the country. Are you laughing at me, boy? I once heard a government minister say he was against railways because they encouraged people who should stay put to indulge in purposeless travel with who knows what results. That’s what we’re up against.

TURGENEV I’m not pure spirit, but I’m not society’s keeper either. No, listen, Captain! People complain about me having no attitude in my stories. They’re puzzled. Do I approve or disapprove? Do I want the reader to agree with this man or the other man? Whose fault is it that this peasant is a useless drunkard, his or ours? What about this story I gave you?—is the bailiff worse than the master, or the master worse than the bailiff? Where does the author stand? Why doesn’t he come clean with us? Well, maybe I’m wrong, but how would that make me a better writer? What has it got to do with anything? (raising his voice) Why are you getting at me, anyway? I’m not well, you know—well, I’m not not well like you’re not well—(hastily)—though you’ll get better, don’t worry—sorry—but coming all this way to this dump to keep you company … Can we not talk about art and society with the waters sloshing through my kidneys? …

Belinsky, who has been coughing, is suddenly in distress. Turgenev comes to his aid.

TURGENEV (cont.) Easy, Captain! Easy …

BELINSKY (recovering) The waters of Salzbrunn are not the elixir of life, in my opinion. It’s a mystery how these places get their reputation. Anyone can see they’re killing people off like flies.

TURGENEV Let’s get out! Come with me to Berlin. I’ve got some friends going to London, I promised to see them off—or we can meet in Paris.

BELINSKY No, I …

TURGENEV You can’t go home without seeing Paris!

BELINSKY I suppose not.

TURGENEV Are you all right now?

BELINSKY Yes. (He drinks some water.)

TURGENEV (Pause.) So you didn’t like my story?

BELINSKY Who said? You’re going to be one of our great writers, one of the few—I’m never wrong.

TURGENEV (moved) Oh … (lightly) You said Fenimore Cooper was as great as Shakespeare.

BELINSKY That wasn’t wrong, it was only ridiculous.

There is a transition.

JULY 1847

Paris. La Place de la Concorde.

Turgenev and Belinsky are out walking. Belinsky stares gloomily around.

TURGENEV Herzen has established himself in the Avenue Marigny. He’s got a chandelier, and a footman to bring things in on a silver tray. The snow on his boots is all gone like les neiges d’antan. (He points.) The obelisk marks the spot where they had the guillotine.

BELINSKY They say the Place de la Concorde is the most beautiful square in the world, don’t they?

TURGENEV Yes.

BELINSKY Good. Well, I’ve seen it now. Let’s walk back to where I saw that red-and-white dressing gown in the window.

TURGENEV It was expensive.

BELINSKY I only want to look at it.

TURGENEV I’m sorry about … you know … going off to London like that.

BELINSKY It’s all right. (He coughs painfully.)

TURGENEV Are you getting tired? You wait here, I’ll go to the cab rank.

BELINSKY I could write amazing things in a dressing gown like that.

Turgenev leaves.

SEPTEMBER 1847

Belinsky recovers. A chandelier descends into view. Belinsky looks at it.

Herzen’s voice makes him turn, as the stage—the room—-fills simultaneously from different directions. Turgenev is unwrapping a shopping parcel. Natalie has a bag of toys and books from a shop. MADAME HAAG, who is Herzen’s mother and in her fifties, is in charge of Sasha and Kolya, who is technically aged four. Sasha is ‘speaking’ face-to-face with Kolya, saying ‘Kol-ya, Kol-ya’ with extra enunciation. Kolya has a spinning top. GEORGE HERWEGH, aged thirty, a beautiful young man with a feminine delicacy notwithstanding luxuriant facial hair and beard, lies on a chaise, romantically exhausted, having his brow dabbed with cologne by EMMA, his wife, who is blonde and handsome rather than pretty. NICHOLAS SAZONOV, aged thirty-five, a gentleman down on his luck, is in sympathetic attendance. A Nurse appears and involves herself with Madame and the two children. There is a SERVANT, a footman-valet, making himself useful as a waiter. In their dress, Herzen and Natalie have altered strikingly, transformed into Parisians. Herzen’s previously combed-back hair and ‘Russian’ beard have been stylishly barbered. In the first part of the scene, there are separate conversations going on. They take turns to occupy the vocal foreground, but they are all continuous.

HERZEN You always look at my chandelier.

TURGENEV (about the parcel) Can we see it? …

SASHA Kol-ya … Kol-ya …

HERZEN … there’s something about that chandelier …

BELINSKY No … I was just …

HERZEN … it makes my Russian friends uneasy. It says, ‘Herzen is our first bourgeois worthy of the name! What a loss to the intelligentsia!’

The Servant offers a tray of titbits to Mother with an aristocratic assurance.

SERVANT Madame … may one tempt you?

MOTHER No …

SERVANT Of course. Perhaps later.

The Servant offers his tray here and there, then leaves.

NATALIE Vissarion, look … look what I found in the toy shop …

SASHA Can I see?

MOTHER It’s not for you, you’ve got toys of your own, too many.

Natalie is delayed by Mother.

MOTHER (cont.) (upset) I can’t get used to your servant’s manner.

NATALIE Jean-Marie? But he has beautiful manners, Granny.

MOTHER That’s what I mean—he behaves as if he’s on equal terms, he makes conversation …

Turgenev reveals, from its tissue paper, a flamboyant silk robe with a large red design on white. He puts it on.

TURGENEV Yes … yes, very nice. You think you know somebody, and then it turns out you don’t.

BELINSKY (embarrassed) When I said Paris was a swamp of bourgeois greed and vulgarity, I meant apart from my dressing gown.

NATALIE It’s beautiful, you were right to get it. (showing her shopping) Now, see here, look—you can’t go home without something for your daughter …

BELINSKY Thank you …

SASHA Look, Kolya …

NATALIE Leave it alone! Come on, out you go … (to Nurse) Prenez les enfants …

SASHA (to Belinsky) They’re all girls’ things.

BELINSKY Yes … I had a little boy, but he died.

MOTHER Come on, my lamb, let’s go and see Tata … come, Sasha … a big boy like you, you want to play all the time …

HERZEN Oh, let him be a child, Maman.

Turgenev takes off the dressing gown. Natalie takes it and wraps it loosely.

NATALIE (to Turgenev) You’ve been in London?

TURGENEV Just for a week.

NATALIE Don’t be mysterious.

TURGENEV I’m not. Some friends of mine, the Viardots …

NATALIE You went to hear Pauline Viardot sing?

TURGENEV I wanted to see London.

NATALIE (laughs) All right, then, tell me what London is like.

TURGENEV Very foggy. Streets full of bulldogs …

Meanwhile, Mother, Sasha and Kolya negotiate their way out with the Nurse. Kolya leaves his top behind.

They encounter MICHAEL BAKUNIN entering. He is thirty-five, grandly bohemian. He greets Mother, kisses the children, and helps himself to a glass from the Servant’s salver.

BAKUNIN The Russians are here! (He kisses Natalie’s hand.) Natalie.

HERZEN Bakunin. Who’s with you?

BAKUNIN Annenkov and Botkin. We kept our cab—they’ve gone for two more.

NATALIE Good—we’re all going to the station.

BAKUNIN Sazonov! Mon frère! (confidentially) The green canary flies tonight—ten o’clock—usual place—pass it on.

SAZONOV I told you.

BAKUNIN (to George and Emma) I knew George was here. I could smell eau de cologne in the street. You’re supposed to drink it, you know, that’s the whole thing about German water—(to Belinsky) You didn’t waste your time in Salzbrunn dabbing it behind your ears, I hope. Turgenev! (He draws Turgenev aside.) This is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.

TURGENEV No.

BELINSKY Is it time to go?

HERZEN Plenty of time.

BAKUNIN Belinsky!—Herzen says your letter to Gogol is a work of genius, he calls it your testament.

BELINSKY That doesn’t sound too hopeful.

BAKUNIN Listen, why go back to Russia? The Third Section’s got a cell all ready for you.

NATALIE Stop it!

BAKUNIN Bring your wife and daughter to Paris. Think of it—you could publish free of censorship.

BELINSKY That’s enough to put anyone off.

BAKUNIN What are you talking about? You could publish your letter to Gogol, and everyone would read it.

BELINSKY It wouldn’t mean anything … in this din of hacks and famous names … filling their columns every day with their bellowing and bleating and honking … it’s like a zoo where the seals throw fish to the public. None of it seems serious. At home the public look to writers as their real leaders. The title of poet or novelist really counts with us. Writers here, they think they’re enjoying success. They don’t know what success is. You have to be a writer in Russia, even one without much talent, even a critic … My articles get cut by the censor, but a week before the Contemporary comes out, students hang around Smirdin’s bookshop asking if it’s arrived yet … and then they pick up every echo the censor missed, and discuss it half the night and pass copies around … If the writers here only knew, they’d pack their bags for Moscow and St Petersburg.

He is met with silence. Then Bakunin embraces him, and Herzen, mopping his eyes, does likewise.

EMMA Sprecht Deutsch, bitte! [Speak German, please!]

Herzen, still moved, raises his glass to the room. The Russians soberly raise their glasses, toasting.

HERZEN Russia. We know. They don’t. But they’ll find out.

The Russians drink the toast.

BAKUNIN And I never said goodbye to you when I left.

BELINSKY We weren’t speaking.

BAKUNIN Ah—philosophy! Great days!

NATALIE (to Belinsky) Now, what about your wife?

BELINSKY Cambric handkerchiefs.

NATALIE That’s not very romantic.

BELINSKY Well, she’s not.

NATALIE Shame on you.

BELINSKY She’s a schoolteacher.

NATALIE What’s that got to do with it?

BELINSKY Nothing.

BAKUNIN (to Belinsky) Well, I’ll see you soon in St Petersburg.

HERZEN How can you go home? You’ve been sentenced in absentia for not going home when they summoned you.

BAKUNIN YOU forget about the revolution.

HERZEN What revolution?

BAKUNIN The Russian revolution.

HERZEN I’m sorry, I haven’t seen a paper today.

BAKUNIN The Tsar and all his works will be gone within a year, or two at the most.

SAZONOV (emotionally) We were children of the Decembrists. (to Herzen) When you were arrested, by some miracle they overlooked me and Ketscher.

HERZEN This is not a sensible conversation. There will have to be a European revolution first, and there’s no sign of it. There’s no movement among the people here. The opposition has no faith in itself. Six months ago meeting Ledru-Rollin or Louis Blanc in a café felt like being a cadet talking to veterans. Their superior condescension to a Russian seemed only proper. What had we got to offer? Belinsky’s articles and Granovsky’s lectures on history. But these celebrities of the left spend their time writing tomorrow’s headlines and hoping that someone else will make the news to go with them. And don’t they know what’s good for us! Virtue by decree. They’re building prisons out of the stones of the Bastille. There’s no country in the world that has shed more blood for liberty and understands it less. I’m going to Italy.

BAKUNIN (excitedly) Forget about the French. Polish independence is the only revolutionary spark in Europe. I’ve been here six years and I know what I’m talking about. I’m in the market for a hundred rifles, by the way, payment in cash.

Sazonov shushes him urgently. The Servant has entered. He whispers to Bakunin.

BAKUNIN (cont.) My cabbie wants to go home. Can you lend me five francs?

HERZEN No. You should have walked.

TURGENEV I’ll do it.

Turgenev gives five francs to the Servant, who leaves.

BELINSKY Isn’t it time to go?

SAZONOV (to Belinsky) It’s a shame. With your abilities, you could have done more, instead of wasting your time in Russia.

HERZEN (to Sazonov) And do tell us, what have you done? You don’t think discussing the borders of Poland with the émigrés every day in the Café Lamblin is doing something?—

SAZONOV Hold on, hold on, you forget our situation.

HERZEN What situation? You’ve lived in freedom all these years, playing statesmen-in-waiting and calling yourselves pink budgerigars—

SAZONOV (furiously) Who told you about the—

HERZEN You did.

SAZONOV (bursting into tears) I knew I wasn’t to be trusted!

EMMA Parlez français, s’il vous plaît!

BAKUNIN (comforting Sazonov with a hug) I trust you.

NATALIE Is George all right?

HERZEN I never saw a man more all right.

Natalie goes to George and Emma.

BAKUNIN (to Herzen) Don’t be deceived by George Herwegh. He got expelled from Saxony for political activity.

HERZEN Activity? George?

BAKUNIN And he’s got what every revolutionary needs, a rich wife.

HERZEN Nick Ogarev knew him when they were together in Paris … Nick gave me a letter …

BAKUNIN What’s more, she’ll do anything for him. I once heard Marx explaining economic relations to George for an hour while Emma rubbed his feet.

HERZEN Why?

BAKUNIN He said his feet were cold … other parts of him, it seems, are kept warm by the Contesse d’Agoult.

NATALIE (to Emma) Continuez, continuez …

HERZEN (offended) I won’t have tittle-tattle about my friends in my house … and anyway, you don’t know it’s true.

BAKUNIN (laughs) You’re right—maybe he’s only boasting.

Emma continues to smooth George’s brow.

NATALIE (arriving) Ah, that’s what love should be!

BAKUNIN Love is a mystery, and woman’s privilege is to be the priestess of the mystery, vestal of the sacred flame.

HERZEN Am I being reproached because I don’t let you mother me?

NATALIE I don’t reproach you, Alexander, I only say it’s a fine thing to see.

HERZEN What is? George having the vapours?

NATALIE No … a woman’s love that transcends egoism.

HERZEN Love without egoism cheats women of equality and independence, not to mention any other … satisfaction.

BAKUNIN He’s right, madame!

HERZEN But you just said the opposite!

BAKUNIN (unabashed) He’s right again!

GEORGE (in German) Emma, Emma …

EMMA Was ist denn, mein Herz? [What is it, my precious?]

GEORGE Weiss ich nicht … Warum machst du nicht weiter? [I don’t know … Why have you stopped?]

Emma resumes stroking his brow.

NATALIE (privately to Herzen) You’re being unkind.

HERZEN I like George, but I’d feel ridiculous.

NATALIE (angrily) Idealised love doesn’t mean a lack of … or perhaps you think it does?

HERZEN What’s this?

NATALIE It’s despicable to imply George doesn’t … satisfy a woman …

HERZEN (stung) I’m sure he does—I’m told she’s a countess.

NATALIE I see. Well, if it’s only a countess …

She leaves the room abruptly, leaving Herzen baffled. Belinsky is now on his knees on the floor, puzzling over some small flat wooden shapes, one of the toys. Bakunin loudly calls for attention.

BAKUNIN My friends! Comrades! I give you a toast! The liberty of each, for the equality of all!

There is a mild, dutiful attempt to repeat the toast.

HERZEN What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything.

BAKUNIN I am not free unless you, too, are free!

HERZEN That’s nonsense. You were free when I was locked up.

BAKUNIN Freedom is a state of mind.

HERZEN No, it’s a state of not being locked up … of having a passport … I am devoted to you, Bakunin, I delight in the fanfare, no, the funfair of your pronouncements, I would name my child for you, but equally I would name you for my child, because everything which is simple you make difficult and everything difficult simple. You’ve made yourself a European reputation by a kind of revolutionary word-music from which it is impossible to extract an ounce of meaning, let alone a political idea, let alone a course of action. What freedom means is being allowed to sing in my bath as loudly as will not interfere with my neighbour’s freedom to sing a different tune in his. But above all, let my neighbour and I be free to join or not to join the revolutionary opera, the state orchestra, the Committee of Public Harmony …

TURGENEV This is a metaphor, is it?

HERZEN Not necessarily.

SAZONOV An orchestra is a very good metaphor. There is no contradiction between individual freedom and duty to the collective—

HERZEN I’d like to be there when they play.

SAZONOV —because being in the orchestra is the individual right.

HERZEN We all missed it, Plato, Rousseau, Saint-Simon, me …

BAKUNIN The mistake is to put ideas before action. Act first! The ideas will follow, and if not—well, it’s progress.

HERZEN Belinsky—save me from this madness!

BELINSKY I can’t fit the pieces together to make a square—it’s a children’s puzzle, and I can’t do it …

TURGENEV Perhaps it’s a circle.

Natalie enters and hurries to Herzen, making it up with him.

NATALIE Alexander …?

Herzen embraces her.

GEORGE Mir geht es besser. [I feel better.]

BELINSKY Turgenev’s got a point …

EMMA Georg geht es besser! [George is feeling better!]

The dialogues which follow are written to be ‘wasted’. They are spoken on top of each other, to make a continuum of word-noise.

BELINSKY Our problem is feudalism and serfdom. What have these Western models got to do with us? We’re so big and backward!

TURGENEV (to Belinsky) My mother’s estate is ten times the size of Fourier’s model society.

BELINSKY I’m sick of Utopias. I’m tired of hearing about them.

Simultaneously with the above dialogue:

BAKUNIN The Poles should go in with the Slavs. Nationalism is the only movement that’s reached a revolutionary stage. A rising of all the Slav nations! Let me finish! Three necessary conditions—break up the Austrian Empire—politicise the peasants—organise the working class!

SAZONOV (talking over Bakunin) Some of the Poles think you’re a Tsarist agent. The French despise the Germans, the Germans distrust the French, the Austrians can’t agree with the Italians, the Italians can’t agree among themselves … but everybody hates the Russians.

Simultaneously with the above, the Servant enters to talk to Herzen.

HERZEN (to George) Du riechst wie eine ganze Parfumerie. [You smell like a perfume shop.]

GEORGE Wir haben der Welt Eau de Cologne und Goethe geschenkt. [Eau de cologne and Goethe, we gave to the world.]

SERVANT (to Herzen) Il y a deux messieurs en bas, Monsieur le Baron, qui retiennent deux fiacres. [There’s two gentlemen downstairs, Baron, keeping on two cabs.]

HERZEN Allez les aider à descendre leurs baggages. [Please help with the luggage.]

SERVANT Hélas, c’est mon moment de repos—c’est l’heure du café. [It’s my time to go to the café, alas.]

HERZEN Bien. C’est entendu. [Of course. I quite understand.]

SERVANT Merci, Monsieur le Baron. [Thank you, Baron.]

The Servant leaves.

NATALIE (talking over the above) And Heine!

EMMA Und Herwegh!

NATALIE Yes! Yes!

EMMA Du bist so bescheiden und grosszuegig. Schreibst du bald ein neues Gedicht? [You’re so modest and generous. Are you going to write a new poem soon?]

GEORGE Ich hasse solche Fragen! [I hate you asking me that!]

EMMA Verzeihg mir—sonst weine ich. [Forgive me—don’t make me cry!]

Kolya enters in search of his top. All the conversations cut off into silence simultaneously, but ‘continue.’

Turgenev and Belinsky are finally interrupted by Herzen (see reprise at end of Act One), signalling a general break-up and exodus, still ‘silent.’

Turgenev and Sazonov help Belinsky with his valise and parcels.

Kolya is left alone.

There is distant thunder, which Kolya doesn’t hear. Then there is a roll of thunder nearer. Kolya looks around, aware of something.

There is the growing sound of a roaring multitude, of rifle fire, shouting, singing, drumming … and a female voice, representing the famous actress Rachel, singing ‘The Marseillaise.’

Red banners and the Tricolour.

Natalie enters, picks up Kolya and takes him out.

[The monarchy of Louis Philippe fell on 24 February 1848.]

MARCH 1848

Exterior (Place de la Concorde).

[Herzen’s memoirs: These were the happiest days of Bakunin’s life.]

Bakunin flourishes a huge red banner on a pole. He has just encountered KARL MARX, aged thirty. Marx is carrying a yellow-wrapped book, The Communist Manifesto. Turgenev is gazing around in astonishment. A pigeon evidently excretes onto his head. He reacts.

BAKUNIN Marx! Who’d have thought it?!

MARX It was bound to happen. I was expecting it.

BAKUNIN Why didn’t you tell me? All our lives we’ll remember where we were when France became a republic again!

MARX I was in Brussels, waiting for the first copy of The Communist Manifesto to come from the printer …

BAKUNIN I was in Brussels, too, waiting for La Réforme to arrive with my open letter to the French government …

TURGENEV No! I was in Brussels! … The Barber of Seville … Can I have a look?

Marx gives him the book.

BAKUNIN I’ve been on my feet twenty hours a day—

MARX Minister Flocon said that with three hundred more like you …

BAKUNIN … preaching rebellion, destruction …

MARX … France would be ungovernable.

BAKUNIN I’ve been living in barracks with the Republican Guard. You won’t believe this, but it’s the first time I’ve actually met anyone from the working class.

MARX Really? What are they like?

BAKUNIN I’ve never come across such nobility.

TURGENEV (reading) ‘A ghost is going round Europe—the ghost of Communism!’

BAKUNIN A Polish National Committee has already been set up in Prussian Poland to plan the invasion of Russia. I’ve got to get there. Turgenev, this is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you—

TURGENEV Ask Flocon.

BAKUNIN You think the Provisional Government will give me the money to go to Poland?

TURGENEV I’m certain of it.

MARX (to Turgenev) You’re a writer. Do you think there’s something funny about ‘the ghost of Communism’? I don’t want it to sound as if Communism is dead.

Herwegh enters in red, black and gold military uniform.

BAKUNIN Herwegh!

MARX (to Turgenev) Do you know English?

TURGENEV Fairly well. Let me see … (in ‘English’) ‘A ghost … a phantom is walking around Europe …’

HERWEGH (somewhat embarrassed) What do you think?

BAKUNIN Nice. Are you a mason?

HERWEGH No—I’m in command of a brigade of German Democratic Exiles. We’re going to march on Baden!

BAKUNIN March all the way to Germany?

HERWEGH No, no, we’re going to the frontier by train—I’ve got six hundred tickets.

TURGENEV Did Flocon give you the money?

HERWEGH Yes, how did you know?

BAKUNIN Wonderful!

HERWEGH It was Emma’s idea.

TURGENEV I knew you weren’t really a poet. Only a poet. Have you had any military experience?

HERWEGH Emma says whether you’re a poet or a revolutionary, genius is genius.

BAKUNIN She’s right. Look at Byron.

HERWEGH Byron wrote far too much, actually.

Turgenev returns to pondering the book. Emma enters. She, too, is in military mode, with a red, black and gold cockade. She is accompanied by a small shop boy in the livery of a fashionable store, who is burdened with elegantly wrapped parcels. He may have a small pushcart in the same livery.

MARX (intervening sternly) Just a moment, Herwegh!

Then Marx sees Emma.

EMMA I’ve got provisions for the march, my angel—the most wonderful little meat pasties from Chevet, and a turkey stuffed with truffles—

MARX Scoundrel!

EMMA He’s got to eat, Karl. Come with us to the Champs Élysées—George is going to review the troops!

Marx is now beside himself with rage. He pursues the Herweghs out.

MARX Adventurist! By what right do you interfere in the economic struggle with this diversionary folly?

EMMA Don’t take any notice of him, darling.

MARX Victory in Europe will be decided between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie!—only ceaseless propaganda and agitation …

The shop boy follows Marx and the Herweghs out.

TURGENEV (thoughtfully) ‘A spook … a spectre …’

BAKUNIN (transported) This is what it was all for, from the beginning … studying Kant, Schelling, Fichte … with Stankevich and Belinsky … with you in Berlin, do you remember, you in your lilac waistcoat, I in my green, walking down Unter den Linden talking furiously about the spirit of history …

TURGENEV (jogged) ‘A spirit … a spirit is haunting Europe …’

BAKUNIN We were on a journey to this moment. Revolution is the Absolute we pursued at Premukhino, the Universal which contains all the opposites and resolves them. It’s where we were always going.

TURGENEV (taps the book, triumphantly satisfied) ‘A hobgoblin is stalking around Europe—the hobgoblin of Communism!’

He closes the book, looks up and ‘shoots’ twice.

Natalie and NATALIE (NATASHA) TUCHKOV, aged nineteen, enter rapidly in high spirits. Natasha’s hair is wet. Natalie has a tricolour wrapped round her as a shawl.

NATALIE Vive la République! Vive la République!

The two women have entered the next scene.

15 MAY 1848

A different apartment, near the newly completed Arc de Triomphe. Herzen is with Kolya, holding Kolya’s palms to his—Herzen’s—face.

HERZEN Vive la République, Kol-ya! (to Natalie) Where did you get that?

NATASHA Everybody’s wearing them!

Natalie and Natasha are in a state of ecstatic, romantic friendship in which everything is joyous or hilarious or soulful.

NATALIE It’s a present for you from Natasha.

HERZEN Well … thank you.

Natalie removes the ‘shawl’ and presents it to Herzen, leaving herself déshabillée but only her shoulders and arms actually bare.

HERZEN (cont.) But you’ve got no clothes on.

NATASHA I’m wearing them!

NATALIE Poor darling, she arrived wet through, so I said—

NATASHA ‘Take off your clothes! At once!’

NATALIE I made her put on my dress.

HERZEN Of course. I had no idea you had only one dress. In fact, my impression was that you had a dress shop …

NATALIE But I want her to smell of me, and I want to smell of her—

NATASHA You smell like camellias …

Natalie inhales rapturously from Natasha’s hair.

NATALIE Russia!

Mother enters.

MOTHER Natalie!—suppose the servant came in … ! (taking Kolya) Look at your terrible mother … If this is what goes on in a republic … (to Natalie) There’s a letter for you.

NATASHA It’s from me!

Natalie and Natasha embrace. Herzen drapes the flag over Natalie as a manservant, BENOIT, opens the door to admit Sazonov with an air of condescension.

SAZONOV Citoyens!—you’re back at last …

Natalie and Natasha dash out past Sazonov, who is thrown off his stride. Benoit follows the women out.

SAZONOV (cont.) And who was the young …?

HERZEN (lightly) My wife has fallen in love … We met the family in Rome, they’re neighbours of Ogarev back home.

Mother accepts Sazonov’s bow.

MOTHER We arrived back ten days ago. (to Kolya) Come on, it’s time for your and Tata’s tea …

HERZEN Maman, ask Benoit to post this for me, please …

He puts his written sheets into the prepared envelope and seals it.

MOTHER The Marquis? All right, but he’s grander than the last one—the last one spoke, the new one always seems about to ask me to dance …

Mother leaves with Kolya, leaving behind Kolya’s top.

HERZEN French servants were the biggest surprise. I knew you weren’t allowed to send them into the army or sell them … but nothing prepares you for their amazing efficiency, politeness and absolute lack of calling.

SAZONOV Forget France! Don’t you see?—our time has come. The Russian government is in an impasse. They won’t want to be the pariahs of Europe. They’ll have to make a gesture.

HERZEN Oh, they will! They’ll cancel all leave for the Cossacks, Tsar Nicholas will be the last righteous ruler in a wilderness of cowards and constitutions.

SAZONOV No, history is being made! Russia is going to need a liberal cultured ministry, men with European experience. Have you thought of that?

HERZEN I promise you, I never have.

SAZONOV Well, the government will have to appeal to us.

HERZEN You and me?

SAZONOV Well, people of our circle.

HERZEN (laughs) Which ministry do you fancy?

SAZONOV You can laugh … but the stage is now bigger than your little articles for the Contemporary.

HERZEN Nevertheless, the workers are marching on the National Assembly this morning … so let’s see if the elected government acts like republicans …

There is a transition to some hours later, with a sound of rioting.

Herzen enters tired and angry. Turgenev is shown in by Benoit.

HERZEN (cont.) (to Benoit) Du vin. [Wine.]

Benoit leaves.

HERZEN (cont.) So, what do you think now of your democratic republic?

TURGENEV Mine? I’m a tourist like you. You should be asking what the Parisians thought of it … and the remarkable thing is, you couldn’t tell. It was as if they’d bought tickets and were interested to see how it would turn out. The lemonade and cigar sellers circulated, very content, like fishermen hauling in a good catch. The National Guard waited to see which way it was going, and then set about the mob.

HERZEN The mob? Workers marching behind their banners.

TURGENEV Invading the National Assembly to demand the self-abolition of an elected parliament which happens to be not to their taste.

HERZEN Turgenev!—you talk to me of taste? A republic behaving like the monarchy it displaced is not a failure of aesthetics. This is a republic by superstition only, by incantation. Vive la République! But it turns out the Republic makes revolution unnecessary and, in fact, undesirable. Power is not to be shared with the ignoramuses who built the barricades. They’re too poor to have a voice.

TURGENEV It was an insurrection, and order has triumphed.

HERZEN Well, don’t imagine today was the end. When the lid blows off this kettle, it’ll take the kitchen with it. All your civilised pursuits and refinements which you call the triumph of order will be firewood and pisspots once the workers kick down the doors and come into their kingdom. Do I regret it? Yes, I regret it. But we’ve enjoyed the feast, we can’t complain when the waiter says, ‘L’addition, messieurs!’

TURGENEV Goodness me … the sins of the Second Republic won’t bear the weight of this revenge drama of cooks and waiters. The Provisional Government promised elections. Elections took place. Nine million Frenchmen voted for the first time. Well, they voted for royalists, rentiers, lawyers … and a rump of socialists for the rest to kick. You have a complaint? A coup d’état by the organised workers, and a salutary period of Terror, would put that right. You could be Minister of Paradox, with special responsibility for Irony. Herzen … Herzen! For all the venality you see around you, France is still the highest reach of civilisation.

Natalie and Natasha enter with George, who is shorn of his beard, moustache and dignity.

HERZEN (puzzled) Yes …?

TURGENEV It’s Herwegh, back from Germany.

Benoit follows with glasses of wine.

HERZEN Ach, mein armer Freund … [Oh, my dear fellow … ]

NATALIE There was a price on his head!

Herzen embraces George, who bursts into tears.

HERZEN Trink einen Schluck Wein. Du bist ein Held! [Take some wine. You’re a hero!]

Herzen gives a glass to George. Turgenev, Natasha and Natalie take glasses from the salver.

HERZEN (cont.) (toasting) Auf die Revolution in Deutschland! [To the revolution in Germany!]

GEORGE Dankeschoen, danke … [Thank you, thank you … ] (toasting) Auf die Russische Revolution … und auf die Freundschaft! [To the Russian revolution … and to friendship!]

NATALIE To friendship!

NATASHA And love!

TURGENEV (toasting) Vive la République!

HERZEN (toasting) A bas les bourgeois! Vive le prolétariat!

Benoit, leaving, registers pained reproach, just perceptibly.

HERZEN (cont.) Mille pardons, Benoit.

George weeps afresh. Natalie comforts him. There is a transition to a month later.

JUNE 1848

A ‘BLUE BLOUSE,’ an old workman in tattered clothes, stands in the room, a desperate motionless figure, invisible to Natalie and Natasha who, innocently embraced, recline on the couch, with George in attendance moping.

GEORGE Everybody’s being horrible about me. They say I hid in a ditch as soon as the enemy came in sight. You don’t believe it, do you?

NATALIE Of course we don’t.

NATASHA Of course not.

NATALIE Nor does Emma. Well, she was there.

GEORGE She pushed me into it.

NATALIE The ditch?

GEORGE No, the whole business … chairman of the German democrats in exile, and suddenly I was Napoleon at Austerlitz.

NATASHA Waterloo. Oh, sorry … but you looked so defeated.

GEORGE Emma still has faith in me. Perhaps she’ll invade Poland. She was in love with me before she met me. So were half the women in Germany. My book of poems went through six editions. I met the King. Then I met Emma.

NATALIE And she’s the one who got you!

GEORGE I wish I’d listened to Marx.

NATALIE Marx? Why?

GEORGE He tried to talk me out of it.

NATALIE (amazed) Marrying Emma?

GEORGE No, the Legion of German Democrats.

NATALIE Oh … !

GEORGE Now he’s crowing over my humiliation … after all I’ve done for him, taking him to all the best houses, introducing him at Marie d’Agoult’s salon …

NATASHA The countess?

GEORGE Yes, the writer, one of my admirers.

NATALIE And you were one of hers, surely … I admire her, too. When she fell in love with Liszt, she followed her heart. Everything had to give way to love—reputation, society, husband, children … just like George Sand and Chopin! … Do you play?

GEORGE A little. I compose a bit, too. Emma says if I practised, Chopin and Liszt better watch out.

NATASHA Shto praiskhódit? [What’s this?]

NATALIE (to Natasha) George looks like Onegin ought to look, don’t you think? (Natalie jumps up and pulls George by the hand.) Come on, then!

Herzen enters.

NATALIE (cont.) George is going to play for us!

There is a distant sound of riot, and a transition. Herzen and the Blue Blouse remain.

NATASHA (to Natalie, warningly) Natalie.

NATALIE (dissembling) What?

NATASHA You haven’t got a piano.

NATALIE (brazenly) Well?

The two women embrace hilariously and take George out.

Herzen sees the Blue Blouse.

HERZEN What do you want? Bread? I’m afraid bread got left out of the theory. We are bookish people, with bookish solutions. Prose is our strong point, prose and abstraction. But everything is going beautifully. Last time—in 1789—there was a misunderstanding. We thought we had discovered that social progress was a science like everything else. The First Republic was to have been the embodiment of morality and justice as a rational enterprise. The result was, admittedly, a bitter blow. But now there’s a completely new idea. History itself is the main character of the drama, and also its author. We are all in the story, which ends with universal bliss. Perhaps not for you. Perhaps not for your children. But universal bliss, you can put your shirt on it, which, I see, you have. Your personal sacrifice, the sacrifice of countless others on History’s slaughter-bench, all the apparent crimes and lunacies of the hour, which to you may seem irrational, are part of a much much bigger story which you probably aren’t in the mood for—let’s just say that this time, as luck would have it, you’re the zig and they’re the zag.

The noise of insurrection increases.

21 JUNE 1848

Street.

[From Turgenev’s Literary Reminiscences: ‘At first there was nothing particular that I could see … But the farther I went the more did the appearance of the boulevard change. Carriages became less frequent, the omnibuses disappeared completely; the shops and cafés were being hastily closed … there were many fewer people in the street. On the other hand, all the windows of the houses were open, and a great number of people, mostly women, children, maids and nursemaids, were crowded in the doorways. They were all talking, laughing, not shouting but calling to one another, looking round, waving their hands—as though in expectation of some pageant. A light-hearted, festive curiosity seemed to have taken possession of people. Ribbons of many colours, kerchiefs, caps, white, pink, blue dresses shimmered and glittered, rose and rustled in the light summer breeze … The uneven line of the barricade, about eight feet high, came into sight. In the middle of it, surrounded by other tricolour and gold-embroidered banners, a small red flag fluttered with its ominous pointed tongue … I moved a little nearer. The space just in front of the barricade was almost deserted, only a few men walking to and fro in the roadway. The workers exchanged jokes with the spectators in the street who came up to them … One of them, with a white soldier’s sword-belt round his waist, held out an uncorked bottle and a half-filled glass to them, as if inviting them to come up and have a drink; another, next to him, with a double-barrelled gun over his shoulder, yelled in a drawn-out voice, “Long live the democratic and socialist republic!” Beside him stood a black-haired woman in a striped dress, also with a sword-belt and a revolver thrust in it; she alone did not laugh … Meanwhile the sound of drums drew nearer and grew louder …’]

Natalie, carrying Kolya, the Nurse pushing a stroller containing a three-year-old (TATA), as it were, and Mother holding Sasha’s hand, hurry across the street. Sasha carries a tricolour on a pole, which encumbers him.

NATALIE Oh God—oh God—quickly … There were omnibuses full of corpses.

MOTHER You must be calm for the children …

Herzen meets them and takes Kolya.

HERZEN (to Sasha) Go with Mama. What are you doing with that?

SASHA Benoit says to wave it for the Garde Mobile!

HERZEN Go inside.

NATALIE Did you see?

HERZEN Yes.

NATALIE The omnibuses?

HERZEN Yes.

Rachel’s voice is heard again … but ‘The Marseillaise’ is drowned out in volleys of rifle fire.

27 JUNE 1848

There is a transition to the interior, with cheerful music heard from the street.

Kolya remains with Herzen and sits on the floor with his top. Turgenev is with Herzen. Benoit delivers some letters to Herzen on a salver and leaves.

TURGENEV Have you been out? It’s amazing how life settles back. The theatres are open. There’s carriages in the streets again, and ladies and gentlemen inspecting the ruins as if they were in Rome. To think it was only on Friday morning the laundress who brought my washing said, ‘It’s started!’ And then four days shut away in this awful heat, listening to the guns, knowing what must be happening and helpless to do anything … oh, that was torture.

HERZEN But with clean laundry.

TURGENEV I trust if we’re going to have this conversation—

HERZEN I didn’t invite conversation. If I were you, I’d take avoiding action. These four days could make one hate for a decade.

TURGENEV I’ll go, then. (Pause.) But allow me to express the opinion that somebody must do your laundry, too.

HERZEN Letter from Granovsky! Just wait till he hears! (He opens the letter.) All you liberals are splashed with blood no matter how you tried to keep your distance. Yes, I have a laundress, possibly several, how would I know? The whole point of the serving class is that the rest of us, the fortunate minority, can concentrate on our higher destinies. Intellectuals must be allowed to think, poets to dream, landowners to own land, dandies to perfect their cravats. It’s a kind of cannibalism. The uninvited are necessary to the feast. I’m not a sentimental moralist. Nature, too, is merciless. So long as a man thinks it’s the natural order of things for him to be eaten and for another to eat, then who should regret the death of the old order if not we who write our stories or go to the opera while others do our laundry? But once people realise the arrangement is completely artificial, the game is up. I take comfort in this catastrophe. The dead have exposed the republican lie. It’s government by slogan for the sake of power, and if anyone objects, there’s always the police. The police are the realists in a pseudo-democracy. From one regime to the next, power passes down the system until it puts its thumbprint on every policeman’s forehead like the dab of holy oil at an emperor’s coronation. The conservatives can’t keep the smiles off their faces, now they know the whole thing was a confidence trick. The liberals wanted a republic for their own cultivated circle. Outside it they’re conservatives. They cheered on Cavaignac’s butchers while wringing their hands with their fingers crossed. Well, now we know what the reactionaries have always known: liberty, equality and fraternity are like three rotten apples in their barrel of privilege, even a pip could prove fatal—from now on it’s all or nothing, no quarter, no mercy.

TURGENEV (mildly) You sound like Belinsky, adjusting some poet’s reputation … Do you think there’s something Russian about taking everything to extremes?

HERZEN No doubt. Single-minded conviction is a quality of youth, and Russia is young. (pointedly) Compromise, prevarication, the ability to hold two irreconcilable beliefs, both with ironic detachment—these are ancient European arts, and a Russian who finds them irresistible is, I would say, exceptional.

TURGENEV (disingenuously) How interesting that you should say that. Because I myself, you see—

Herzen, despite himself, laughs, and Turgenev laughs with him, but almost at once his laughter turns to anger.

TURGENEV (cont.) Putting yourself in another’s place is a proper modesty, and yes, it takes centuries to learn it. Impatience, pig-headed stubbornness to the point of destruction—yes, these are things to be forgiven in the young, who lack the imagination to see that almost nothing in this life holds still, everything is moving and changing—

HERZEN (with Granovsky’s letter, cries out) Who is this Moloch who eats his children?

TURGENEV Yes, and your taste for melodramatic, rhetorical—

HERZEN Belinsky’s dead.

TURGENEV No, no … oh, no, no, no … No! … No more blather, please. Blather, blather, blather. Enough.

Natalie enters and goes to Herzen.

NATALIE Alexander …?

SEPTEMBER 1847 (REPRISE)

Herzen, Natalie, Turgenev and Kolya remain, their positions corresponding to the reprised scene which now reassembles itself at the point of Natalie’s re-entrance.

GEORGE Mir geht es besser. [I feel better.]

BELINSKY Turgenev’s got a point.

EMMA Georg geht es besser. [George is feeling better!]

BELINSKY Our problem is feudalism and serfdom.

The rest of the scene now repeats itself with the difference that instead of the general babel which ensued, the conversation between Belinsky and Turgenev is now ‘protected,’ with the other conversations virtually mimed. At the point where the babel went silent before, nothing now alters.

BELINSKY (cont.) What have these theoretical models got to do with us? We’re so big and backward!

TURGENEV My mother’s estate is ten times the size of Fourier’s model society.

BELINSKY I’m sick of Utopias. I’m tired of hearing about them. I’d trade the lot for one practical difference that owes nothing to anybody’s ideal society, one commonsensical action that puts right an injury to one person. Do you know what I like to do best when I’m at home?—watch them build the railway station in St Petersburg. My heart lifts to see the tracks going down. In a year or two, friends and families, lovers, letters, will be speeding to Moscow and back. Life will be altered. The poetry of practical gesture. Something unknown to literary criticism! I’m sick of everything I’ve ever done. Sick of it and from it. I fell in love with literature and stayed lovesick all my life. No woman had a more fervent or steadfast adorer. I picked up every handkerchief she let fall, lace, linen, snot rag, it made no difference. Every writer dead or alive was writing for me personally, to transport me, insult me, make me shout for joy or tear my hair out, and I wasn’t fooled often. Your Sportsman’s Sketches are the best thing since Gogol was young, and this Dostoevsky is another if he can do it twice. People are going to be amazed by Russian writers. In literature we’re a great nation before we’re ready.

TURGENEV You’re going round again, Captain.

HERZEN My God! We’re going to miss it! (comforting Natalie) You’re pale. Stay here. Stay with the children.

Natalie nods.

NATALIE (to Belinsky) I won’t come to the station. Have you got everything?

BAKUNIN It’s not too late to change your mind.

BELINSKY I know—it’s my motto.

Natalie embraces Belinsky. Turgenev and Sazonov help Belinsky with his valise and his parcels.

HERZEN Don’t try to talk French. Or German. Just be helpless. Don’t get on the wrong boat.

There is a general exodus, as before.

Kolya is left alone. There are sounds of the cabs departing. There is distant thunder, which Kolya ignores. Then there is a roll of thunder nearer. Kolya looks around, aware of something. Natalie enters. She kisses Kolya on the nose, enunciating his name. He watches her mouth.

NATALIE Kolya … Kolya …

Natalie notices Belinsky’s dressing gown. She gives a cry of dismay and runs out of the room with it.

KOLYA (absent-mindedly) Ko’ ya … Ko’ ya. (He plays with his top.)