Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

GEORGE   But there’s no point if, every time you want to argue back, Karl just says, ‘Well you would think that, because as a product of your class, you can’t think anything else.’ In my opinion, that’s cheating.

NATALIE   I agree. But then I would, wouldn’t I, because—

GEORGE   You think what you are! You say, ‘Karl, I don’t agree good and evil are to be defined entirely by our economic relations,’ and Karl replies—

NATALIE   ‘Well, you would think that—’

GEORGE   ‘—because you’re not a member of the proletariat!’

Natalie and George delightedly clasp hands in mutual congratulation. Herzen removes the handkerchief from his face. Natalie continues to smooth George’s hair.

HERZEN   But Marx is a bourgeois from the anus up.

NATALIE   Alexander! I won’t have that word …

HERZEN   Sorry, middle-class.

GEORGE   It’s German genius, that’s what it is.

NATALIE   What is?

GEORGE   That if you’re a miserable exploited worker, you’re playing a vital role in a historical process that’ll put you on top as sure as omelettes was eggs. Everything’s functioning perfectly, you see! With the French geniuses, your miserable exploited no-accountness means there’s a fault in the plumbing, and they’re here to fix it because you’re too stupid to do it for yourself … So the workers have to hope the plumber knows what he’s doing and won’t cheat them. No wonder it didn’t catch on.

HERZEN   But how can Communism catch on? It asks a worker to give up his … aristocracy. A cobbler with his own last is an aristocrat compared with the worker in a factory. A minimum of control over your own life, even to make a mess of it, is something necessarily human. What do you think goes wrong with those experimental societies? It’s not the mosquitoes. It’s something human refusing to erase itself.

Still, at least Marx is an honest-to-God materialist. Those ‘Marseillaise’-singing orators of the left won’t let go of nurse. I feel sorry for them. They’re preparing for themselves a life of bewilderment and grief … because the republic they want to bring back is the last delirium of two thousand years of metaphysics … the elevation of spirit over matter … brotherhood before bread, equality by obedience, salvation through sacrifice. To save this tepid bathwater, they’ll chuck out the baby and wonder where it went. Marx gets it. We didn’t get it—or we didn’t have the courage.

NATALIE   George risked his life on the field of battle!

HERZEN   So he did. You know, now that people have started recognising you clean-shaven, you should grow a beard.

NATALIE   You’re a brute. (to George) He’s only teasing. Nobody cares about that anymore, it’s all forgotten.

HERZEN   I haven’t forgotten.

NATALIE   Stop it.

GEORGE   I don’t mind. Would you like me to grow my beard?

NATALIE   I’ve got used to you without it. What does Emma say?

GEORGE   She said I should ask you.

NATALIE   Oh! How flattering. But it’s not me who gets the tickles if you grow it back.

HERZEN   Why doesn’t Emma come with you anymore?

GEORGE   I need to have an hour or two free from family life. What an abominable institution.

HERZEN   I thought this was family life.

GEORGE   Yes, but your wife is a saint. It’s not Emma’s fault. Her father was ruined by the dialectic of history, and he blames me. … It’s very hard on Emma, losing her allowance. But what can I do? I’m a poet of revolution between revolutions.

Herzen takes up a few newly arrived letters and looks through them.

HERZEN   Write an ode to Prince Louis Napoleon on his election as President of the Republic. In a free vote, the French public renounced freedom.

GEORGE   ‘Bonaparte Plumbers, a name you can trust.’

HERZEN   How naive we were at Sokolovo that last summer in Russia, do you remember, Natalie?

NATALIE   I remember you quarrelling with everyone.

HERZEN   Arguing, yes. Because we were agreed that there was only one thing worth arguing about—France! France, the sleeping bride of revolution. What a joke. All she wanted was to be the kept woman of a bourgeois … Cynicism fills the air like ash and blights the leaves on the freedom trees.

Herzen gives one of the letters to Natalie.

NATALIE   Thank you … Oh, from Natasha! I miss her so, since she went home.

GEORGE   One must learn to be a stoic. Look at me.

HERZEN   You’re a stoic?

GEORGE   What does it look like?

HERZEN   Apathy?

GEORGE   Exactly. But apathy is misunderstood.

HERZEN   I’m very fond of you, George.

GEORGE   Apatheia! To the ancient stoics there was nothing irresolute about apathy, it required strenuous effort and concentration.

HERZEN   Very fond of you.