Travesties (3 page)

BENNETT
: Yes, sir.

(
BENNETT
has entered with a tray of tea things, set for two, with sandwiches
.)

CARR
: It is this complete absence of bellicosity, coupled with an ostentatious punctuality of public clocks, that gives the place its reassuring air of permanence. Switzerland, one instinctively feels, will not go away. Nor will it turn into somewhere else. You have no doubt heard allusions to the beneficial quality of the Swiss air, Bennett. The quality referred to is permanence.

BENNETT
: Yes, sir.

CARR
: Desperate men who have heard the clocks strike thirteen in Alsace, in Trieste, in Serbia and Montenegro, who have felt the ground shift beneath them in Estonia, Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, arrive in Switzerland and after a few deep breaths find that the ringing and buzzing in their ears has regulated itself into a soothing tick-tock, and that the ground beneath their feet, while invariably sloping, is as steady as an alp. Tonight I incline to the theatre; get me out the straight cut trouser with the blue satin stripe and the silk cutaway. I'll wear the opal studs.

BENNETT
: Yes, sir. I have put the newspapers and telegrams on the sideboard, sir.

CARR
: Is there anything of interest?

BENNETT
: The
Neue Zuricher Zeitung
and the
Zuricher Post
announce, respectively, an important Allied and German victory, each side gaining ground after inflicting heavy casualties on the other with little loss to itself.

CARR
: Ah – yes … the war! Poor devils! How I wish I could get back to the trenches! – to my comrades in arms – the wonderful spirit out there in the mud and wire – the brave days and fearful nights. Bliss it was to see the dawn! To be alive was very heaven! Never in the whole history of human conflict was there anything to match the carnage – God's blood!, the shot and shell! – graveyard stench! – Christ Jesu! – deserted by simpletons, they damn us to hell – ora pro nobis – quick! no,
get me out
! – I think to match the carnation, oxblood shot-silk cravat, starched, creased just so, asserted by a simple pin, the damask lapels – or a brown, no, biscuit – no – get me out the straight cut trouser with the blue satin stripe and the silk cutaway. I'll wear the opal studs.

BENNETT
: Yes, sir. I have put the newspapers and telegrams on the sideboard, sir.

CARR
: Is there anything of interest?

BENNETT
: The war continues to dominate the newspapers, sir.

CARR
: Ah yes… the war, always the war …

(
A note on the above: the scene (and most of the play) is under the erratic control of Old Carr's memory, which is not notably reliable, and also of his various prejudices and delusions. One result is that the story (like a toy train perhaps) occasionally jumps the rails and has to be restarted at the point where it goes wild
.

This scene has several of these ‘time slips', indicated by the repetitions of the exchange between
BENNETT
and
CARR
about the ‘newspapers and telegrams'. Later in the play there are similar cycles as Carr's memory drops a scene and then picks it up again with a repeated line (e.g
.
CARR
and
CECILY
in the Library). It may be desirable to mark these moments more heavily by using an extraneous sound or a light effect, or both. The sound of a cuckoo-clock, artificially amplified, would be appropriate since it alludes to time and to Switzerland; in which case a naturalistic cuckoo-clock could be seen to strike during the here-and-now scene of Old Carr's first monologue. At any rate the effect of these time-slips is not meant to be bewildering, and it should be made clear what is happening
.)

I was in Savile Row when I heard the news, talking to the head cutter at Drewitt and Madge in a hounds-tooth check slightly flared behind the knee, quite unusual. Old Drewitt, or Madge, came in and told me. Never trusted the Hun, I remarked. Boche, he replied, and I, at that time unfamiliar with the appellation, turned on my heel and walked into Trimmett and Punch where I ordered a complete suit of Harris knicker-bockers with hacking vents. By the time they were ready, I was in France. Great days! Dawn breaking over no-man's-land. Dewdrops glistening on the poppies in the early morning sun – All quiet on the Western Front… Tickety boo, tickety boo, tickety boo…

BENNETT
: A gentleman called, sir. He did not wait.

CARR
: What did he want?

BENNETT
: He did not vouchsafe his business, sir. He left his card.
(
Offers it on a salver
.)

CARR
: ‘Tristan Tzara. Dada Dada Dada.' Did he have a stutter?

BENETT
: He spoke French with a Romanian accent, and wore a monocle.

CARR
: He is obviously trying to pass himself off as a spy. It is a form of vanity widely indulged in in Zurich during a European war, I believe, and adds greatly to the inconveniences caused by the crowds of
real
spies who conspire to fill the Odeon and the Terrasse, and make it almost impossible to get a table at either.

BENNETT
: I have noticed him with a group of friends at the Terrasse, sir. Whether they were conspirators I could not, of course, tell.

CARR
: To masquerade as a conspirator, or at any rate to speak French with a Romanian accent and wear a monocle, is at least as wicked as to be one; in fact, rather more wicked, since it gives a dishonest impression of perfidy, and, moreover, makes the over-crowding in the cafés gratuitous, being the result neither of genuine intrigue nor bona fide treachery – was it not, after all, La Rochefoucauld in his
Maximes
who had it that in Zurich in Spring in wartime a gentleman is hard put to find a vacant seat for the spurious spies peeping at police spies spying on spies eyeing counterspies
what a bloody country even the cheese has got holes in it!! (Off the rails again
,
CARR
has, on the above words, done violence to the inside of a cheese sandwich
.)

BENNETT
: Yes, sir. I have put the newspapers and telegrams on the sideboard, sir.

CARR
: Is there anything of interest?

BENNETT
: There is a revolution in Russia, sir.

CARR
: Really? What sort of revolution?

BENNETT
: A social revolution, sir.

CARR
: A
social
revolution? Unaccompanied women smoking at the Opera, that sort of thing? …

BENNETT
: Not precisely that, sir. It is more in the nature of a revolution of classes contraposed by the fissiparous disequilibrium of Russian society.

CARR
: What do you mean, classes?

BENNETT
: Masters and servants. As it were. Sir.

CARR
: Oh. Masters and servants.
Classes
.

BENNETT
(
Expressionless as always
): There have been scenes of violence.

CARR
: I see. Well, I'm not in the least bit surprised, Bennett. I don't wish to appear wise after the event, but anyone with half an acquaintance with Russian society could see that the day was not far off before the exploited class, disillusioned by the neglect of its interests, alarmed by the falling value of the rouble, and above all goaded beyond endurance by the insolent rapacity of its servants, should turn upon those butlers, footmen, cooks, valets … Parenthetically, Bennett, I see from your book that on Thursday night when Mr Tzara was dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed. I have had previous occasion to speak to you of the virtues of moderation, Bennett: this time I will only say, remember Russia.

BENNETT
: Yes, sir. I have put the newspapers and telegrams on the sideboard, sir.

CARR
: Is there anything of interest?

BENNETT
: The Tsar has now abdicated, sir. There is a Provisional Government headed by Prince Lvov, with Guchkov as Minister of War, Milyukov Foreign Minister and the Socialist Kerensky as Minister of Justice. The inclusion of Kerensky is calculated to recommend the Government to a broad base of the common people, but effective authority has already been challenged by a committee of workers' deputies, or ‘Soviet', which has for the moment united all shades of socialist opinion. However there is no immediate prospect of the Socialists seizing power, for the revolution is regarded by them as the fulfilment of Karl Marx's prophecy of a
bourgeois capitalist era
in Russia's progress towards socialism. According to Marx, there is no way for a country to leap from autocracy to socialism: while the
ultimate
triumph of socialism is inevitable, being the necessary end of the process of dialectical materialism, it must be preceded by a bourgeois-capitalist stage of development. When the time is ripe, and
not before, there will be a further revolution, led by the organized industrial workers, or ‘Proletariat'. Thus, it is the duty of Russian Marxists to welcome the present bourgeois revolution, even though it might take several generations to get through. As things stand, therefore, if one can be certain of anything it is that Russia is set fair to become a parliamentary democracy on the British model.

CARR
: Newspapers or coded telegram?

BENNETT
: General rumour put about Zurich by the crowds of spies, counter-spies, radicals, artists and riff-raff of all kinds. Mr Tzara called, sir. He did not wait.

CARR
: I'm not sure that I approve of your taking up this modish novelty of ‘free association', Bennett.

BENNETT
: I'm sorry, sir. It is only that Mr Tzara being an artist –

CARR
: I will not have you passing moral judgements on my friends. If Mr Tzara is an artist that is his misfortune.

BENNETT
: Yes, sir. I have put the newspapers and telegrams on the sideboard, sir.

CARR
: Is there anything of interest?

BENNETT
: In St Petersburg, the Provisional Government has now declared its intention to carry on the war. However, the committee of workers' deputies, or Soviet, consider the war to be nothing more than an imperialist adventure carried on at the expense of workers of both sides. To co-operate in this adventure is to be stigmatized in a novel phrase which seems to translate as a ‘lickspittle capitalist lackey', unnecessarily offensive in my view.

CARR
(
Languidly
): I'm not sure that I'm much interested in your views, Bennett.

BENNETT
(
Apologetically
): They're
not
particularly interesting, sir. However, there is a more extreme position put forward by the Bolshevik party. The Bolshevik line is that some unspecified but unique property of the Russian situation, unforeseen by Marx, has caused the bourgeois-capitalist era of Russian history to be compressed into the last few days, and that the time for the proletarian revolution is now ripe. But the Bolsheviks are a small minority in the Soviet, and their leader, Vladimir Ulyanov, also known as Lenin, has
been in exile since the abortive 1905 revolution, and is in fact living in Zurich.

CARR
: Naturally.

BENNETT
: Yes, sir – if I may quote La Rochefoucauld, ‘Quel pays sanguinaire, même le fromage est plein des trous.' Lenin is desperately trying to return to Russia but naturally the Allies will not allow him free passage. Since Lenin is almost alone in proclaiming the Bolshevik orthodoxy, which is indeed his creation, his views at present count for nothing in St Petersburg. A betting man would lay odds of about a million to one against Lenin's view prevailing. However, it is suggested that you take all steps to ascertain his plans.

CARR
: I ascertain Lenin's plans?

BENNETT
: Telegram from the Minister.
(
He starts to leave
.)

CARR
: A million to one.

BENNETT
: I'd put a pound on him, sir.

CARR
: You know him?

BENNETT
: I do, sir. And if any doubt remained, the British Secret Service assures us that the man to watch is Kerensky.
(
Exit
BENNETT
.)

CARR
(
Aside
): Bennett seems to be showing alarming signs of irony. I have always found that irony among the lower orders is the first sign of an awakening social consciousness. It remains to be seen whether it will grow into an armed seizure of the means of production, distribution and exchange, or spend itself in liberal journalism.

BENNETT
(
Entering
): Mr Tzara.
(
TZARA
enters
.
BENNETT
retires
.)

CARR
: How are you, my dear Tristan. What brings you here? (
This Tzara (there is to be another) is a Romanian nonsense. His entrance might be set to appropriate music
.)

TZARA
(
Ebulliently
): Plaizure, plaizure! What else? Eating ez usual, I see ‘Enri?! – 'allo – 'allo, vhat is all the teapots etcetera? Somebody comink? It is Gwendolen I hopp! – I luff 'er, 'Enri – I have come by tram expressly to propose a marriage – ah – ha! –

BENNETT
(
Entering
): Miss Gwendolen and Mr Joyce.

(
GWENDOLEN
and
JAMES JOYCE
enter
.
BENNETT
remains by the door
.
GWENDOLEN
and
TZARA
are momentarily transfixed by each other. This is hardly noticed as
JOYCE
has made it his own entrance
.)