Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

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.