Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

Natalie fights out of his embrace and pummels him.

NATALIE   Don’t you dare tell me that! (She runs inside.)

HERZEN   (to Rocca) Get rid of everything. (Herzen gestures at the decorations.)

SAZONOV   God … what happened?

HERZEN   They got rammed by another boat. A hundred people drowned. (to Rocca in Italian) Get rid of all this.

Herzen follows Natalie indoors. She starts to howl in her grief. Rocca uncertainly starts to blow out the candles.

AUGUST 1852

At night Herzen stands by the guardrail on the deck of the crosschannel steamer at sea. After a few moments he realises that Bakunin is at the rail, too.

BAKUNIN   Where are we off to? Who’s got the map?

HERZEN   Michael? Are you dead?

BAKUNIN   No.

HERZEN   That’s good. I was just thinking about you, and there you are, how very … un-odd!—yes, looking just like you looked when I saw you off in the rain on the tender to Kronstadt where the steamer was waiting. Do you remember?

BAKUNIN   You were the only one who came to see me off.

HERZEN   And now you’re the only one who’s come to see me off!

BAKUNIN   Where are you going?

HERZEN   England.

BAKUNIN   Alone?

HERZEN   Natalie died three months ago … We lost Kolya. He was drowned at sea, my mother with him, and a young man who was teaching Kolya to speak. None of them was ever found. It finished my Natalie. She was expecting another baby, and when it came, she had no strength left. The baby died, too.

BAKUNIN   My poor friend.

HERZEN   Oh, Michael, you should have heard Kolya talk! He had such a funny, charming way … and he understood everything you said, you’d swear he was listening! The thing I can’t bear … (He almost breaks down.) … I just wish it hadn’t happened at night. He couldn’t hear in the dark. He couldn’t see your lips.

BAKUNIN   Little Kolya, his life cut so short! Who is this Moloch …?

HERZEN   No, no, not at all! His life was what it was. Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don’t value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life’s bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it’s been sung? The dance when it’s been danced? It’s only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination. We note the haphazard chaos of history by the day, by the hour, but there is something wrong with the picture. Where is the unity, the meaning, of nature’s highest creation? Surely those millions of little streams of accident and wilfulness have their correction in the vast underground river which, without a doubt, is carrying us to the place where we’re expected! But there is no such place, that’s why it’s called Utopia. The death of a child has no more meaning than the death of armies, of nations. Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question. If we can’t arrange our own happiness, it’s a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us. (Pause.) What happened to you, Michael? Were you betrayed?

BAKUNIN No.   I ran out of revolutions. When the soldiers caught up with me, I was too tired to care. I only wanted to sleep. I had plenty of time to sleep after that … nine months in fetters in the fortress of Königstein, and when the Germans had done with me, as long againin Prague Castle. Thank you for the money you sent. I was allowed to order cigars and books. I learned English! (accented) ‘George and Mary go to the seaside.’ How is George? Thank him for me. Emma sent a hundred francs, too. Small sums of money came from democrats all over, from people I didn’t know. Brotherhood before bread, it’s not all bathwater.

HERZEN   You’ve become a myth. I heard that society ladies were collecting funds for a rescue attempt.

BAKUNIN   Word must have got back to Russia—there were twenty Cossacks waiting at the border to escort me to the Peter and Paul Fortress. No, it’s up to the revolution now.

HERZEN   What revolution?

BAKUNIN   The Russian revolution. It can’t be long coming now. Our Westerniser friends at home were waiting for a Russian bourgeoisie to make a revolution for their children, but—don’t you see?—not having a bourgeoisie is Russia’s good fortune!

HERZEN   Don’t tell me, tell them.