Shipwreck (2 page)

Shipwreck

S
UMMER
1846

The garden of Sokolovo, a gentleman's estate fifteen miles outside Moscow.

NICHOLAS OGAREV
,
aged thirty-four, has been reading to
NATALIE HERZEN,
aged twenty-nine, from a so-called thick journal, the
Contemporary. IVAN TURGENEV,
aged twenty-eight, is supine, out of earshot, with his hat over his face.

NATALIE
   Why have you stopped?

OGAREV
   I can't read any more. He's gone mad. (
He closes the book and lets it fall.
)

NATALIE
   Well, it was boring anyway.

SASHA HERZEN,
aged seven, runs across the garden followed by a
NURSE
pushing a baby carriage. Sasha has a fishing cane and a jar for tiddlers.

NATALIE
   (
cont.
) Sasha, not too close to the river, darling!—(
to the Nurse
) Don't let him play on the bank!

The Nurse follows Sasha out.

OGAREV
   But … it was a fishing rod, wasn't it?

NATALIE
   (
calling
) And where's Kolya?—(
looking aside
) Oh, all right, I'll keep an eye. (
resuming
) I don't mind being bored, especially in the country, where it's part of the attraction, but a boring book I take personally. (
looking aside, amused
) Far better to spend the time eating marigolds. (
glancing at Turgenev
) Has he gone to sleep?

OGAREV
   He didn't say anything about it to me.

NATALIE
   Alexander and Granovsky will be back from picking mushrooms soon … Well, what should we talk about?

OGAREV
   Yes … by all means.

NATALIE
   Why does it feel as though one has been here before?

OGAREV
   Because you were here last year.

NATALIE
   But don't you ever have the feeling that while real time goes galloping down the road in all directions, there are certain moments … situations … which keep having their turn again? … Like posting stations we change horses at …

OGAREV
   Have we started yet? Or is this before we start talking about something?

NATALIE
   Oh, don't be sideways. Anyway, something's wrong this year … even though it's all the same people who were so happy together when we took the house last summer. Do you know what's different?

OGAREV
   I wasn't here last summer.

NATALIE
   No, it's not that. Ketscher's gone into a sulk … grown men squabbling over how to make coffee …

OGAREV
   But Alexander was right. The coffee is not good, and perhaps Ketscher's method will improve it.

NATALIE
   Oh, I'm sure it's not like Parisian coffee! … Perhaps you're wishing you'd stayed in Paris.

OGAREV
   No. Not at all.

Turgenev stirs.

NATALIE
   Ivan …? He's in Paris anyway, dreaming about the Opera!

OGAREV
   Yes, I'll say one thing, Viardot can sing.

NATALIE
   But she's so ugly.

OGAREV
   Anyone can love a beauty. Turgenev's love for his opera singer is a reproach to us for batting the word about like a shuttlecock. (
Pause.
) When Maria wrote to introduce herself to you and Alexander after we got married, she described herself as ugly. I'm paying myself a compliment.

NATALIE
   She also wrote that she had no vanity and loved virtue for its own sake … She was no judge of her looks either, forgive me, Nick.

OGAREV
   (
tolerantly
) Well, if we're talking about love … Oh, the letters one wrote … ‘Ah, but to love you is to love God and His Universe, our love negates egoism in the embrace of all mankind.'

NATALIE
   We all wrote that—why not?—it was true.

OGAREV
   I remember I wrote to Maria that our love would be a tale told down the ages, preserved in memory as a sacred thing, and now she's in Paris living quite openly with a mediocre painter.

NATALIE
   That's a different thing—one might say a normal coaching accident—but at least you had each other body and soul before the coach went into the ditch. Our friend here simply trails along in Viardot's dust shouting
brava, bravissima
for favours forever withheld … not to mention her husband, the postillion.

OGAREV
   Are you sure you wouldn't rather talk about highway travel?

NATALIE
   Would that be less painful for you?

OGAREV
   For me it's the same thing.

NATALIE
   I love Alexander with my whole life, but it used to be better, when one was ready to crucify a man or be crucified for him for a word, a glance, a thought … I could look at a star and think of Alexander far away in exile looking at the same star, and feel we were … you know …

OGAREV
   (
Pause.
) Triangulated.

NATALIE
   Foo to you, then.

OGAREV
   (
surprised
) Believe me, I …

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!

She embraces Herzen as warmly as decorum allows her.

HERZEN
   My dear … but what's this? We haven't come from Moscow.

Granovsky goes unsmilingly towards the house.

NATALIE
   Have you been quarrelling?

HERZEN
   Disputing. He'll get over it. The only trouble is, we were having such an interesting talk …

He turns the basket upside down, letting a single mushroom fall out.

NATALIE
   Oh, Alexander! I can see one from
here!

She snatches the basket and runs off with it. Herzen takes her chair.

HERZEN
   What were you and Natalie saying about me? Well, thank you very much, anyway.

OGAREV
   What were you and Granovsky arguing about?

HERZEN
   The immortality of the soul.

OGAREV
   Oh, that.

NICHOLAS KETSCHER
,
aged forty, a thin, avuncular figure to the younger men, comes from the house carrying, with a slightly ceremonial air, a tray with a coffeepot on a small spirit lamp, and cups. In silence Herzen, Ogarev and Turgenev watch him put the tray on a garden table and pour a cup, which he brings to Herzen. Herzen sips the coffee.

HERZEN
   It's the same.

KETSCHER
   What?

HERZEN
   It tastes the same.

KETSCHER
   So you think the coffee is no better?

HERZEN
   No.

The others are now nervous. Ketscher gives a short barking laugh.