Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

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.