Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

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 …