Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

HERZEN   Well, don’t imagine today was the end. When the lid blows off this kettle, it’ll take the kitchen with it. All your civilised pursuits and refinements which you call the triumph of order will be firewood and pisspots once the workers kick down the doors and come into their kingdom. Do I regret it? Yes, I regret it. But we’ve enjoyed the feast, we can’t complain when the waiter says, ‘L’addition, messieurs!’

TURGENEV   Goodness me … the sins of the Second Republic won’t bear the weight of this revenge drama of cooks and waiters. The Provisional Government promised elections. Elections took place. Nine million Frenchmen voted for the first time. Well, they voted for royalists, rentiers, lawyers … and a rump of socialists for the rest to kick. You have a complaint? A coup d’état by the organised workers, and a salutary period of Terror, would put that right. You could be Minister of Paradox, with special responsibility for Irony. Herzen … Herzen! For all the venality you see around you, France is still the highest reach of civilisation.

Natalie and Natasha enter with George, who is shorn of his beard, moustache and dignity.

HERZEN   (puzzled) Yes …?

TURGENEV   It’s Herwegh, back from Germany.

Benoit follows with glasses of wine.

HERZEN   Ach, mein armer Freund … [Oh, my dear fellow … ]

NATALIE   There was a price on his head!

Herzen embraces George, who bursts into tears.

HERZEN   Trink einen Schluck Wein. Du bist ein Held! [Take some wine. You’re a hero!]

Herzen gives a glass to George. Turgenev, Natasha and Natalie take glasses from the salver.

HERZEN   (cont.) (toasting) Auf die Revolution in Deutschland! [To the revolution in Germany!]

GEORGE   Dankeschoen, danke … [Thank you, thank you … ] (toasting) Auf die Russische Revolution … und auf die Freundschaft! [To the Russian revolution … and to friendship!]

NATALIE   To friendship!

NATASHA   And love!

TURGENEV   (toasting) Vive la République!

HERZEN   (toasting) A bas les bourgeois! Vive le prolétariat!

Benoit, leaving, registers pained reproach, just perceptibly.

HERZEN   (cont.) Mille pardons, Benoit.

George weeps afresh. Natalie comforts him. There is a transition to a month later.

JUNE 1848

A ‘BLUE BLOUSE,’ an old workman in tattered clothes, stands in the room, a desperate motionless figure, invisible to Natalie and Natasha who, innocently embraced, recline on the couch, with George in attendance moping.

GEORGE   Everybody’s being horrible about me. They say I hid in a ditch as soon as the enemy came in sight. You don’t believe it, do you?

NATALIE   Of course we don’t.

NATASHA   Of course not.

NATALIE   Nor does Emma. Well, she was there.

GEORGE   She pushed me into it.

NATALIE   The ditch?

GEORGE   No, the whole business … chairman of the German democrats in exile, and suddenly I was Napoleon at Austerlitz.

NATASHA   Waterloo. Oh, sorry … but you looked so defeated.

GEORGE   Emma still has faith in me. Perhaps she’ll invade Poland. She was in love with me before she met me. So were half the women in Germany. My book of poems went through six editions. I met the King. Then I met Emma.

NATALIE   And she’s the one who got you!

GEORGE   I wish I’d listened to Marx.

NATALIE   Marx? Why?

GEORGE   He tried to talk me out of it.

NATALIE   (amazed) Marrying Emma?

GEORGE   No, the Legion of German Democrats.

NATALIE   Oh … !

GEORGE   Now he’s crowing over my humiliation … after all I’ve done for him, taking him to all the best houses, introducing him at Marie d’Agoult’s salon …

NATASHA   The countess?

GEORGE   Yes, the writer, one of my admirers.

NATALIE   And you were one of hers, surely … I admire her, too. When she fell in love with Liszt, she followed her heart. Everything had to give way to love—reputation, society, husband, children … just like George Sand and Chopin! … Do you play?

GEORGE   A little. I compose a bit, too. Emma says if I practised, Chopin and Liszt better watch out.

NATASHA   Shto praiskhódit? [What’s this?]