Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

NATALIE   Now grown-upness has caught up with us … as if life were too serious for love. The wives disapprove of me, and it didn’t help that Alexander’s father died and left him quite rich. Duty and self-denial are the thing among our group.

OGAREV   Duty and self-denial restrict our freedom to express our personality. I explained this to Maria—she got it at once.

NATALIE   Well, she didn’t love you properly. I know I love Alexander, it’s just that we’re not the intoxicated children we were when we eloped in the dead of night and I didn’t even bring my hat … And there was that other thing, too … He told you. I know he told you.

OGAREV   Oh, well, yes …

NATALIE   I suppose you’re going to say it was only a servant girl.

OGAREV   No, I wouldn’t say that. ‘Only a countess’ is more the line I take on these things.

NATALIE   Well, it put an end to stargazing, and I’d never have known if Alexander hadn’t confessed it to me … Men can be so stupid.

OGAREV   It’s funny, though, that Alexander, who goes on about personal freedom, should feel like a murderer because on a single occasion, arriving home in the small hours, he …

Turgenev stirs and raises his head.

OGAREV   (cont.) (adjusting) … travelled without a ticket …

Turgenev relapses.

OGAREV   (cont.) … changed horses, do I mean?—no, sorry …

Turgenev sits up, taking the creases out of himself. He is somewhat dandified in his dress.

TURGENEV   Is it all right for him to eat them?

Natalie looks quickly toward Kolya but is reassured.

NATALIE   (calls) Kolya! (then leaving) Oh, he’s getting so muddy! (Natalie leaves.)

TURGENEV   Have I missed tea?

OGAREV   No, they’re not back yet.

TURGENEV   I shall go in search.

OGAREV   Not that way.

TURGENEV   In search of tea. Belinsky told me a good story I forgot to tell you. It seems some poor provincial schoolmaster heard there was a vacancy in one of the Moscow high schools, so he came up to town and got an interview with Count Strogonov. ‘What right have you to this post?’ Strogonov barked at him. ‘I ask for the post,’ said the young man, ‘because I heard it was vacant.’ ‘So is the ambassadorship to Constantinople,’ said Strogonov. ‘Why don’t you ask for that?’

OGAREV   Very good.

TURGENEV   And the young man said—

OGAREV   Oh.

TURGENEV   ‘I had no idea it was in Your Excellency’s gift, I would accept the post of ambassador to Constantinople with equal gratitude.’ (Turgenev laughs loudly by himself. He has a light high voice, surprising in one of his frame, and a braying laugh.) Botkin’s taken up a collection to send Belinsky to a German spa … doctor’s orders. If only my mother would die, I’d have at least twenty thousand a year. Perhaps I’ll go with him. The waters might reassure my bladder. (He picks up the Contemporary.) Have you read what Gogol’s got in here? You could wait till the book comes out …

OGAREV   If you ask me, he’s gone mad.

Natalie returns, wiping soil from her hands.

NATALIE   I call to him as if he can hear me. I still think one day I’ll say, ‘Kolya!’ and he’ll turn his face to me. (She wipes a tear with her wrist.) What do you think he thinks about? Can he have thoughts if he has no names to go with them?

TURGENEV   He’s thinking muddiness … flowerness, yellowness, nice-smellingness, not-very-nice-tastingness … The names for things don’t come first, words stagger after, hopelessly trying to become the sensation.

NATALIE   How can you say that—you, a poet?

OGAREV   That’s how we know.

Turgenev turns to Ogarev, silenced and deeply affected.

TURGENEV   (Pause.) I thank you. As a poet. I mean, you as a poet. I myself have started writing stories now. (Turgenev starts to leave towards the house.)

OGAREV   I like him. He’s not so affected as he used to be, do you think?

Turgenev returns, a little agitated.

TURGENEV   You don’t understand Gogol, if I may say so. It’s Belinsky’s fault. I love Belinsky and owe a great deal to him, for his praise of my first poem, certainly, but also for his complete indifference to all my subsequent ones—but he browbeat us into taking Gogol as a realist …

ALEXANDER HERZEN, aged thirty-four, and TIMOTHY GRANOVSKY, aged thirty-three, approach, Herzen with a basket.

NATALIE   (jumps up) They’re here … Alexander!