Shipwreck (5 page)

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.

J
ULY
   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.