Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

HERZEN   (cont.) Of course I’m an egoist! How strange people are!—taking pride in humility … in servitude to others … and the whole system of duties designed by authority to keep us quiet and as little different from each other as possible … Why should we damp down everything in us which is our uniqueness, the salt of our personality … the tiny furnace which needs to be constantly fed with selfesteem to keep us warm and vital and, yes, of use to our brothers and neighbours? Egoism isn’t an acquired vice. It’s not an acquired virtue either. It’s just part of what comes with being human, to keep us free, to create our own destiny, and our values. It’s not the enemy of love! It’s what love feeds on. That’s why without you I’d be destroyed.

Herzen’s self-assurance collapses. Natalie comforts him. She is altered back, and speaks as one who is dry-eyed.

NATALIE   No … no … You wouldn’t be destroyed, Alexander. I’m only a little part of your … your sense of worth. I can’t give it back to you. But it’s not lost between us. It passes to me. I’ll never leave you. But think what I have lost, too … the ideal of a love which is greater the more it includes, instead of more hurtful, squalid and ridiculous.

Rocca is heard—and then seen—singing. He is laying the table and making the verandah festive.

NOVEMBER 1851

Herzen is working on the verandah. Rocca, singing, is making the verandah and dining table festive, helped by a Maid. Rocca leaves and returns.

ROCCA   Principe!

Rocca admits a man who is the Russian Consul. The CONSUL bows. Rocca leaves.

CONSUL   Leonty Vasilevich Ibayev. I am addressing Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, of course.

HERZEN   You are.

CONSUL   I am the Russian Consul in Nice.

HERZEN   Good heavens.

CONSUL   I have a communication to make to you.

HERZEN   From whom?

CONSUL   From Count Orlov.

HERZEN   Ah. Last time it was good news. Please sit down.

CONSUL   Thank you.

The Consul sits down and takes a document from his pocket. He reads it out.

CONSUL   (cont) ‘Adjutant-General Count Orlov has notified Count Nesselrode, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that—(He rises to his feet, inclining his head.)—His Imperial Majesty—(He sits again.)—has been graciously pleased to order that Alexander Ivanovich Herzen shall return to Russia at once—of which he is to be informed, accepting from him no reasons for delay and granting him no postponement under any circumstances.’ (He folds the document and puts it in his pocket.) What am I to answer?

HERZEN   That I’m not going.

CONSUL   How do you mean, ‘not going’?

HERZEN   Just that. Not going. Remaining. Staying put.

CONSUL   You don’t understand. His Imperial—(He stands, bows his head and sits.)—Majesty is ordering you …

HERZEN   Yes, and I’m not going.

CONSUL   You mean you are humbly requesting a delay in the execution of the will of His Imperial—

HERZEN   No, no, I can’t make myself any clearer. I’m not asking for a delay. I’m not going at any time.

CONSUL   An indefinite delay, you mean? You are ill, perhaps, too ill to travel. There would be precedents for that.

HERZEN   One of us is mad. I’m in excellent health, especially mental health, so it must be you. Do you really think I would hold out my wrists for the handcuffs on the say-so of His Imperial—sit down, for God’s sake!

CONSUL   But what am I to do? Look on it from my position. If I were to be the intermediary for an act of disobedience to the will of His Imp—(He starts to rise but checks himself.)—Majesty, it would call attention to my name in a most unfavourable context. It might even look as if I’m giving myself airs … being privy to something so inimicable to His Majesty’s dignity, so incommensurable with the vastness of his anger, before which nations tremble.

HERZEN   (amused now) I see what you mean.

CONSUL   Thank you.

HERZEN   But it would be Count Orlov to whom you’d be giving the bad news.

CONSUL   It’s the same thing. Count Orlov would never forget my name.

HERZEN   But you’re only the messenger.

CONSUL   There’s a streak of the Cleopatra in him.

HERZEN   We’d better have a drink. Rocca! Vino.

Rocca interrupts an aria to serve the wine.