Shipwreck (11 page)

BAKUNIN
   Yes.

OTTO
   Ah. Good. You never planned any revolt, you had no obligation to it or connection with it, its objectives were of no interest to you.

BAKUNIN
   Absolutely true! The King of Saxony is welcome to dismiss his parliament, as far as I'm concerned. I look on all such assemblies with contempt.

OTTO
   There you are. At heart, you're a monarchist.

BAKUNIN
   On May the fourth I met a friend of mine in the street.

OTTO
   Quite by chance.

BAKUNIN
   Quite by chance.

OTTO
   His name?

BAKUNIN
   Wagner. He's a music director of the Dresden opera, at least he was till we burned it down—

OTTO
   Er … don't get too far ahead.

BAKUNIN
   Oh, he was delighted—he despised the taste of the management. Anyway, Wagner said he was on his way to the Town Hall to see what was going on. So I went with him. The provisional government had just been proclaimed. They were out of their depth. The poor things hadn't the faintest idea how to conduct a revolution, so I took charge—

OTTO
   Just—just a moment—

BAKUNIN
   The King's troops were waiting for reinforcements sent by Prussia, and there was no time to be lost. I had them tear up the railway tracks, showed them where to place the cannons—

OTTO
   Stop, stop—

BAKUNIN
   (
laughs
) There's a story that I suggested hanging the
Sistine Madonna
on the barricades on the theory that Prussians would be too cultured to open fire on a Raphael …

Otto jumps to his feet and sits again
.

OTTO
   You know who I am?

BAKUNIN
   Yes.

OTTO
   What brought you to Dresden? Before you answer, I should tell you, both the Austrian and the Russian Emperors have asked for you to be handed over to them.

BAKUNIN
   (
Pause.
) When I arrived, I was using Dresden as my base while plotting the destruction of the Austrian Empire, which I consider a necessary first step to put Europe in flames and thus set off a revolution in Russia. But after a week or two, to my amazement, a revolution broke out against the King of Saxony …

J
UNE
1849

[From Herzen's essays
, From the Other Shore:
‘Of all the suburbs of Paris I like Montmorency best. There is nothing remarkable there, no carefully trimmed parks as at St Cloud, no boudoirs of trees as at Trianon … In Montmorency nature is extremely simple … There is a large grove there, situated high up, and quiet … I do not know why but this grove always reminds me of our Russian woods … one thinks that in a minute a whiff of smoke will drift across from the byres … The road cuts through a clearing, and I then feel sad because instead of Zvenigorod, I see Paris … A small cottage with no more than three windows … is Rousseau's house …']

‘Déjeuner sur l'herbe' … There is a tableau which anticipates
—
by fourteen years
—
the painting by Manet. Natalie is the undressed woman sitting on the grass in the company of two fully clothed men, George and Herzen. Emma, stooping to pick a flower, is the woman
in the background. The broader composition includes Turgenev, who is at first glance sketching Natalie but in fact is sketching Emma. The tableau, however, is an overlapping of two locations, Natalie and George being in one, while Herzen, Emma and Turgenev are together elsewhere. Emma is heavily pregnant. There is a small basket near Natalie
.

HERZEN
   I let Sazonov talk me into joining his march. A few hours in custody have left me with no desire to be locked up in the Conciergerie with hundreds of prisoners and a slop bucket. I've borrowed a Wallachian passport. What we should do is take a house together, our two families across the frontier …

GEORGE
   Can I open?

NATALIE
   Not yet.

TURGENEV
   The police aren't interested in stopping you.

HERZEN
   I'm not going to stay to find out like Bakunin in Saxony.

TURGENEV
   But this is a republic.

HERZEN
   The Crimson Cockatoo has already left for Geneva.

NATALIE
   Are you peeping?

GEORGE
   No—tight shut. What are you doing?

HERZEN
   Can
I
look?

TURGENEV
   If you want.

NATALIE
   All right, then—you can open now.

HERZEN
   (
looking over Turgenev's shoulder
) Ah …

GEORGE
   Oh, my God!

EMMA
   I have to move—I'm sorry—!

GEORGE
   Natalie …

TURGENEV
   Of course! Move!

NATALIE
   Sssh …

TURGENEV
   I'm so sorry—

GEORGE
   My dear …

TURGENEV
   I don't need you anymore.

EMMA
   Terrible words! …

GEORGE
   But suppose somebody …

NATALIE
   Sssh …

HERZEN
   He's doing clouds. I wonder what Russian modern art would be like.

NATALIE
   I wanted to be naked for you, you see.

GEORGE
   I do. I do see.

EMMA
   Where've they got to, I wonder?

NATALIE
   Just once!

TURGENEV
   They're hunting mushrooms.

NATALIE
   So, when I'm sitting across from you in the objective world, listening to Alexander reading Schiller in the evenings—or picnicking at Montmorency!—you'll remember there is an inner reality, my existence-in-itself, where my naked soul is one with yours!

GEORGE
   I am deeply … Just once?

HERZEN
   What would it be
like?

NATALIE
   Let's not talk … let's close our eyes and commune with the spirit of Rousseau among the woods where he walked!

HERZEN
   That's where Rousseau lived, that cottage. Montmorency is the only bit of country round Paris which reminds me of Russia. Nature here is simple, not like the park at St Cloud, which is somebody's masterpiece, or the disciplinarian planting at Trianon. How is the country where you go to stay?

TURGENEV
   Delightful.

EMMA
   Do your friends have land?

TURGENEV
   It wouldn't count for much at home. You can see right across it.

HERZEN
   How many souls do they have?

TURGENEV
   One each.

NATALIE
   Oh, George! I ask for nothing but to give!

GEORGE
   Please get dressed before …

NATALIE
   I ask nothing of you but to take!

GEORGE
   I will, I will, but not here …

NATALIE
   To take strength from me.

GEORGE
   Oh, yes, yes, you're the only one who understands me.

HERZEN
   Well, what do you do there?

TURGENEV
   We like to go out shooting.

HERZEN
   Madame Viardot shoots?

TURGENEV
   No, she's not an American, she's an opera singer. Her husband shoots.

HERZEN
   Ah. Is he accurate?

Turgenev crumples up his drawing
.

EMMA
   Oh—what a waste of being still.

GEORGE
   But Emma must be wondering …

NATALIE
   Let's tell her!

GEORGE
   No!

NATALIE
   Why ever not?

GEORGE
   Besides, she'd tell Alexander.

NATALIE
   Do you think so? Alexander must never know.

GEORGE
   I agree.

NATALIE
   He wouldn't understand.

GEORGE
   No, he wouldn't

NATALIE
   If only he could see there's no egoism in my love.

GEORGE
   We'll find a way.

NATALIE
   One day, perhaps …

GEORGE
   Yes, let me think—Tuesday …

NATALIE
   But until then …

GEORGE
   Yes—so put your clothes on, my dear spirit, my beautiful soul!

NATALIE
   Don't look, then.

GEORGE
   Oh God, we haven't found a single mushroom!

George snatches up the basket and hurries away. Natalie starts getting dressed
.

TURGENEV
   (
to Herzen
) You still own a small estate at home, I believe. How many souls do
you
have?

HERZEN
   None now. The government took it. But you're quite right. I apologise.

TURGENEV
   I freed my mother's household serfs, with land, but I receive quit-rent from the rest.

EMMA
   Honestly, you Russians.

HERZEN
   I'm going to find George and Natalie. (
Herzen leaves
.)

EMMA
   What are you writing now?

TURGENEV
   A play.

EMMA
   Is it about us?

TURGENEV
   It takes place over a month in a house in the country. A woman and a young girl fall in love with the same man.

EMMA
   Who wins?

TURGENEV
   Nobody, of course.

EMMA
   I want to ask you something, but you might be angry with me.

TURGENEV
   I'll answer anyway. No.

EMMA
   But how do you know the question?

TURGENEV
   I don't. You can apply my answer to any question of your choice.

EMMA
   That's a good system … Well, I'm sorry. Devotion such as yours should not go unrewarded.

Pause
.

EMMA
   (
cont.
) Now I want to ask you something else.

TURGENEV
   Yes.

Emma starts to weep
.

TURGENEV
   (
cont.
) I'm sorry.

EMMA
   But you're right. If you knew how I suffer. George was my first.

TURGENEV
   My first was a serf. I think my mother put her up to it. I was fifteen. I was in the garden. It was a drizzly sort of day. Suddenly I saw a girl coming towards me … she came right to me. I was her master, you must remember. She was my slave. She took hold of me by the hair and said, ‘Come!' … Unforgettable … Words stagger after. Art despairs.

EMMA
   That's different. That's eroticism.

TURGENEV
   Yes.

EMMA
   Have you ever been happy?

TURGENEV
   But I have moments of extreme happiness … ecstasy!—

EMMA
   Do you?

TURGENEV
   —watching a duck scratching the back of its head with that quick back-and-forth of its damp foot … and the way slow silver threads of water stream from a cow's mouth when it raises its head from the edge of the pond to stare at you …