ACT ONE
SUMMER 1833
Premukhino, the Bakunin estate, a hundred and fifty miles north-west of Moscow.
Interior, verandah, garden. There are places to sit in the garden, and a hammock. One setting is intended to serve for Act One.
Family supper is coming to an end. At the table—ALEXANDER BAKUNIN (sixty-five) and his wife, VARVARA (forty-two); their daughters, LIUBOV (twenty-two), VARENKA (twenty-one), TATIANA (eighteen) and ALEXANDRA (seventeen); MISS CHAMBERLAIN, a young English governess; and BARON RENNE (thirty-six), a cavalry officer in uniform. Household servants (serfs), notably SEMYON, who is senior, attend the table as may be. ‘English’ dialogue is spoken with a Russian accent, except in the case of Miss Chamberlain. The tempo is lively. Alexander Bakunin's rule is benign despotism, but the family atmosphere is prevailingly democratic.
ALEXANDER Speaking of which—Liubov, say something in English for the Baron.
LIUBOV What do you want me to say, Papa?
ALEXANDER All my daughters have been educated in five languages—call me a liberal if you like, I read Rousseau as a young man, I was there at the storming of the Bastille, not storming it personally but I remember my feelings were decidedly mixed, that's how liberal I was when I was nineteen. But education for women, yes indeed!—not just piano lessons and Russian grammar pour les filles Bakunin, though mind you, they write better Russian than I do—what a shame there's nothing worth reading (over his daughters’ protests), apart from …
DAUGHTERS Pushkin!
ALEXANDER … Pushkin. But I tell you, Baron, in choosing my eldest daughter you have chosen the cleverest—
VARVARA I prefer Kozlov.
ALEXANDER —brains before beauty, I wish I'd done the same—
DAUGHTERS Oh shame!—Shame on you, Papa—I hereby protest on behalf of my beautiful sister—Don't you listen, Liubov—
VARVARA Quiet when your father is speaking—
MISS CHAMBERLAIN What did your father say?
LIUBOV I take it as a compliment, Papa.
VARVARA So do I.
TATIANA The Baron doesn't think so, do you?
RENNE No! No … Liubov is as beautiful as your wife is intelligent.
ALEXANDER That's what I said. What a diplomat! Come on, Liubov, my darling, we're waiting.
LIUBOV I'm sure the Baron doesn't want …
ALEXANDRA I can, Papa! (She pops up, standing rigid. In ‘English’) ‘How do you do, Baron Renne! I say! charming weather, you do not think!'
She sits just as suddenly, and Tatiana follows suit.
TATIANA (in ‘English’) ‘The quality of mercy is not strained, it dropping like the gentle dew from heaven!’
Tatiana sits. Alexander continues imperturbably.
ALEXANDER I myself was educated in Italy. My doctorate in philosophy is from the University of Padua.
MISS CHAMBERLAIN Jolly good effort, Tatiana.
RENNE Really? Philosophy?
VARVARA What did she say?
ALEXANDER My dissertation was on worms.
TATIANA Shakespeare, Maman.
RENNE Worms the philosopher?
ALEXANDER No, just worms.
VARVARA I mean Miss Chamberlain, qu'est-ce qu'ele a dit? [What did she say?]
RENNE Ah, the philosophy of worms.
VARENKA Elle l'a félicitée, Maman, c'est tout. [Good effort, Maman, that's all.]
ALEXANDER Not at all. Worms have no philosophy, as far as is known.
VARVARA How can you teach them anything if you can't talk to them?
ALEXANDER Exactly.
MISS CHAMBERLAIN I'm so sorry, what did your mother say?
ALEXANDRA (in English’) ‘No lessons tomorrow, she said, holiday.’
MISS CHAMBERLAIN I think not, see me afterwards.
ALEXANDER That's enough English for now. Anyway, a wife who knows English is not the first consideration for an officer in the Cavalry, otherwise you'd be better off with the governess—No, I only have one serious objection to this marriage, my dear Baron—
DAUGHTERS Oh, no!—What's he going to say next?!—Don't you listen, Liubov!—Father, don't—!
VARVARA (raps the table) Enough!
ALEXANDER Thank you. What was I saying? Oh, well, it's gone.
RENNE Actually, I have to be going myself while there's still light in the sky, if you forgive me, it's a good ride back to camp—
VARVARA Yes, you must, it wouldn't do to break your neck before the happy day, or after, of course.
Noises of arrival and greeting are heard.
ALEXANDER What's going on?
RENNE A thousand thanks—(for Liubov, gallantly)—a thousand and one—
VARENKA Someone's come.
SEMYON (entering) It's Michael, sir, large as life! He's come home!
MICHAEL BAKUNIN is nineteen, in uniform. His entry causes an excited and emotional reunion, as ‘the table’ breaks up.
FAMILY Michael!—Oh my, look at you!—Why didn't you let us know?—So grown up! Look at his uniform!—Let me kiss you!—You're not in trouble, are you? I prayed and prayed for you—How long are you staying?—
MICHAEL No, I'm on leave—I came straight from summer exercises!—
ALEXANDER It's my boy, he's an ensign in the Artillery.
RENNE Of course—the famous Michael.
LIUBOV (to Renne) Thank you for your visit, I'm sorry my family is …
RENNE Oh no, you're all so … wonderfully unrussian …
MICHAEL And congratulations are in order, I believe. Do I have the honour … ?
LIUBOV Baron Renne—I present my brother Michael—
RENNE You have been at the Artillery School in Peter?
ALEXANDRA For five years!
ALEXANDER (to Miss Chamberlain) Run and tell Semyon to bring champagne. ‘Command Semyon to provision—’
MISS CHAMBERLAIN (running out) Champagne, champagne, I understand—
TATIANA Our English governess, do you think she's pretty?
MICHAEL No, I think you're pretty.
RENNE (tapping his glass) Ladies and gentlemen! (addressing Michael) The Cavalry drinks to the Artillery. But a family reunion is a sacred affair, and I was just saying good night—regimental duties, who understands better than you? So farewell! I embrace you, and am proud to call you brother!
Applause from the family. Michael and Renne shake hands and embrace.
ALEXANDER Good! Come along, we'll give you a proper send-off. Semyon!—Pavel!—one of you—his horse—the Baron is leaving!—
A general exodus begins.
ALEXANDER (cont.) (remembering) Ah, yes. That was it. I have only one serious doubt about this marriage—
LIUBOV (tearfully) Father …
VARENKA (to Liubov) It's a joke.
ALEXANDER … and that is the difference in your ages.
RENNE But I'm only thirty-six!
ALEXANDER A good ten years too young for her! The husband should be at least twice the age of the wife.
VARVARA But you're not.
ALEXANDER Not now, of course. (to Renne) Beauty before brains.
ALEXANDRA Are you coming, Michael?
TATIANA (hanging back) Yes, he's coming.
MICHAEL (to Liubov) Do you want to see him off without everybody … ?
LIUBOV (hastily) No, no, let's all go.
ALEXANDER Family on parade! … Handkerchiefs for waving and weeping—(to Renne) My wife was eighteen and I was forty-two. See my point?—just when the wife starts getting a mind to kick over the traces, she realises she only has to show a little patience …
Michael, Varenka and Tatiana are left alone.
MICHAEL Well! He won't do! Liubov doesn't love him, that's obvious.
VARENKA We know that.
TATIANA She won't go against Papa, and the Baron is a good match, isn't he?
Semyon enters with a tray of champagne glasses, and Miss Chamberlain with a bottle. Voices outside: ‘Tatiana! Michael! And where's Varenka?’
MICHAEL Thank you, Semyon. Leave us be.
Semyon leaves deferentially. Miss Chamberlain, unwisely, approaches gushing.
MISS CHAMBERLAIN So you are Michael.
MICHAEL ‘Go away, please.’
Miss Chamberlain gasps. The girls are shocked and admiring. Miss Chamberlain runs out. From outside ‘Varenka!’ is called. Varenka runs out.
MICHAEL (cont.) I'm speaking of love and you are speaking of matchmaking. Tata, Tata, don't you know? Dawn has broken! In Germany the sun is already high in the sky! It's only us in poor behind-the-times Russia who are the last to learn about the great discovery of the age! The life of the Spirit is the only real life: our everyday existence stands between us and our transcendence to the Universal Idea where we become one with the Absolute! Do you see?
TATIANA (desperately) Tell it to me in German.
MICHAEL This marriage cannot take place. We must save Liubov. To give oneself without love is a sin against the inner life. The outer world of material existence is mere illusion. I'll explain it all to Father.
Tatiana and Michael are being called from outside. She launches herself at Michael to embrace him, and runs out.
MICHAEL (cont.) God, I'm starving!
Michael pauses to stuff his mouth with food from the table, then follows Tatiana.
SPRING 1835
Garden and verandah.
Varvara comes out onto the verandah.
VARVARA Where are you all? The newlyweds are here!
Liubov appears in the garden.
LIUBOV Maman, they've been married for months.
VARVARA You wouldn't be so calm if you knew what I know!
She sees Tatiana and Alexandra and calls to them before hurrying back inside.
VARVARA (cont.) Come on!—Varenka's here with her husband.
Tatiana and Alexandra enter, making a beeline for Liubov and beside themselves with outrage. Alexandra has a letter.
ALEXANDRA Liubov! Michael's in love with guess who, Natalie Beyer!
TATIANA No, he's not, she's in love with him. The nerve of the woman!
VARVARA (reappearing crossly) Tatiana!
TATIANA We're coming, Mother, what's all the fuss?
LIUBOV Varenka's having a baby.
VARVARA (panicked) Who told you?
LIUBOV You did.
VARVARA I did not, I did not! You don't know, do you hear, you don't know. (She darts back inside.)
TATIANA (sobered) Poor Varenka!
ALEXANDRA Aunties! What a day!
LIUBOV What's happened?
ALEXANDRA Michael's back from Moscow and he's brought this stupid letter from Natalie Beyer … listen, it's to you too, are you ready? ‘My friends! I take up my pen as a duty to myself, to you, and to the Universal Idea. Michael has opened his heart to me. Ah, if only you knew the Michael I know! If only you understood him!’
TATIANA Imbecile!
LIUBOV But in Moscow she was all over Nicholas Stankevich.
TATIANA It's because Nicholas Stankevich likes you. (Liubov demurs.) Yes, he does, he led Natalie up the garden; she told us. Go on, Alexandra!
ALEXANDRA ‘With all the love you bear him, you can't see that Michael's virile and vigorous nature is being frustrated by your'—yes, my friends, your—listen to this—'limited progress in transcending the objective reality in which you see him only as your brother—’
LIUBOV What's he been complaining about?
TATIANA Not getting his own way in everything, I suppose.
LIUBOV None of her business. Anyway, he does.
ALEXANDRA There's lots more.
But Varenka comes from inside, her eyes brimming with emotion. Her pregnancy does not show.
VARENKA Oh, there you are! It's just us … Oh good.
ALEXANDRA Varenka!—look at this. From Natalie Beyer!
TATIANA She's after Michael!
LIUBOV Varenka … !
ALEXANDRA Can you believe the little minx?
Then they recall themselves to Varenka, suddenly shy.
ALEXANDRA (cont.) How are you?
TATIANA Hello, Varenka.
LIUBOV We've missed you horribly.
VARENKA Oh, so have I! I've told Dyakov I'm going to come back again and stay for a few months.
TATIANA Until the—?
Alexandra claps her hand over Tatiana's mouth.
ALEXANDRA We don't know, we don't know!
The four sisters collapse together in tearful happy embraces.
Alexander appears on the verandah, fulminating.
ALEXANDER Did you know about this?
TATIANA AND ALEXANDRA No!
LIUBOV About what?
ALEXANDER Where is he? Damnable boy! Egotist! Wait till he's got children of his own. Oh, congratulations, my dear—Dyakov told me—very good.
DYAKOV, aged about fifty, a cavalry officer, smoking a celebratory cigar, joins Alexander. His three sisters-in-law respond.
SISTERS Congratulations! How lovely! We can't wait! …
DYAKOV I'm the happiest man in the world.
ALEXANDER (resuming) Your brother's going to end up in the Peter-and-Paul Fortress under lock and key!
He goes back inside with Dyakov.
LIUBOV (to Tatiana) What did she say?
Michael, keeping a canny eye out for Alexander, appears from near the house smoking a cigar. He is in uniform.
MICHAEL Have you heard? Wonderful news. I'm going to be an uncle! Well, of course you have.
LIUBOV Congratulations.
MICHAEL Thank you, thank you. I haven't got used to it yet. Yes, it's an amazing feeling, an uncle at last. Congratulations to you, too, Varenka. And Dyakov, of course. Another cavalry officer! Behind my back while I was serving my country.
TATIANA Father's looking for you.
VARENKA (in regard to Alexander) What have you been up to?
MICHAEL What have you been up to is more like it.
Varenka, speechless for a moment, turns to flee in tears. Liubov, with a reproachful look at Michael, leaves with Varenka—further into the garden.
MICHAEL (cont.) (watching them go) Illusion … it's only illusion. Well … can I have my letter back?
ALEXANDRA It's not yours, it's to us.
MICHAEL The letter is to you but the paper and ink were only on loan.
Alexandra crumples the letter and throws it at him.
ALEXANDRA There you are, keep it! Natalie Beyer is a pompous impertinent little snot and she's going to get what for!
TATIANA Go to her, then—it's obvious you care more for her than us, she understands you so well.
MICHAEL So in general you disagree with her analysis.
ALEXANDRA In general she can go and boil her head. And you should know better. She isn't even pretty.
TATIANA Yes, she is. (Tatiana bursts into tears.)
MICHAEL Tata, Tata, my beloved, don't cry. I renounce all love except pure philosophical love, your love, the love I have for my sisters. The so-called love of talking animals removes people two by two from the only possibility of happiness, which is the communion of beautiful souls.
TATIANA No, no—we don't mind—you'll meet somebody one day.
MICHAEL It's not for me. Don't be angry with Natalie. She thinks it's your fault that I couldn't … that I can't be …
ALEXANDRA What?
Alexander, emerging, sees them from the verandah.
ALEXANDER No spunk, simple as that! (Explains.) Your brother's an army deserter!
MICHAEL (casually) Oh yes, I've resigned my commission.
ALEXANDER He's refusing to return to duty.
MICHAEL On grounds of ill health, Papa. I'm sick of the Army.
ALEXANDER No discipline, that's the problem!
MICHAEL No, it's riddled with discipline, that's the problem. That and Poland.
ALEXANDER Come inside, sir!
MICHAEL Poland is simply impossible.
Alexander goes in. The girls escort Michael, chattering anxiously.
TATIANA AND ALEXANDRA Resigned from the Army? You haven't! Oh, Michael, won't you be in trouble? What did they say? What did you … ?
MICHAEL ‘March here, march there, present arms, where's your cap?'—you've no idea, the whole Army's obsessed with playing at soldiers …
They go together into the house.
AUTUMN 1835
Liubov and Varenka ‘return’ to the garden. Varenka is eight months pregnant. Liubov has a book.
LIUBOV That was the last time everything was all right, in the time of Baron Renne. When we were all on the same side in everything, the way we'd always been. I would rather have married him if I'd known what terrible rows …
VARENKA (lightly) Where was Michael when I needed saving? But Dyakov's all right, if it wasn't for … and that's not his fault, we can't all be philosophers when it comes to love. This has been a godsend, even the feeling sick part, not having to want to. Did you ever want to with Baron Renne?
LIUBOV Oh no!
VARENKA It's the spurs.
LIUBOV Oh, Varenka.
They hug each other, laughing and weeping.
LIUBOV (cont.) (Pause.) Do you think it's ever wonderful, apart from in stories, like in George Sand?
VARENKA I wouldn't mind it with … Eugene Onegin!
LIUBOV Yes!
They giggle complicitly.
LIUBOV (cont.) Don't you think Nicholas Stankevich looks like Onegin ought to look?
VARENKA Perhaps I'll meet my Onegin and run off with him.
LIUBOV (shocked) Varenka! (Pause.) Anyway, in Pushkin's story, Tatiana stayed with her husband.
VARENKA That's because she hadn't read George Sand.
LIUBOV Yes!
VARENKA To follow our heart wherever it leads us! To love where we may, whomever we may, to let love be our guide to the greater good!
LIUBOV (Pause.) Sand doesn't tell you the things you want to know, though.
VARENKA I'll tell you if you want.
LIUBOV No. Well … go on then.
VARENKA You have to ask.
LIUBOV I can't.
VARENKA Remember that time the tinker's jackass got into Betsy's paddock?
LIUBOV Yes!
VARENKA Like that, only you're lying on your back.
LIUBOV Oh …
VARENKA Not as big as that.
They laugh complicity, through Liubov's confusion. Voices are heard within.
LIUBOV Is that them? Don't look.
Michael is seen indoors, with NICHOLAS STANKEVICH, a beautiful dark-haired young man aged twenty-two. Michael, hearing the laughter, has gone to the window.
MICHAEL It's Liubov. Varenka's with her.
STANKEVICH The laughter of women is like the spiritual communion of angels. Women are holy beings. For me, love is a religious experience.
VARENKA I don't think he does it.
LIUBOV Varenka! … (anxiously) Don't you?
VARENKA Nicholas Stankevich is keeping himself for you. The next step has got him baffled. But Michael says Nicholas has the most brilliant mind in the Philosophical Circle, so perhaps an idea will come to him … Ask him if he'd like you to show him the …
LIUBOV The what? The fishpond? (suddenly) Promise not to tell—I've got his keepsake!
Liubov retrieves from ‘next to her heart’ the keepsake, a miniature penknife, an inch or two long when folded.
VARENKA Well, why didn't you say!
LIUBOV (laughing, embarrassed) Right next to my heart!
VARENKA What did he give you? His penknife?
LIUBOV Oh, no … he didn't give it, I … (in tears) I'm a fool. Natalie was just making mischief.
Liubov makes to flee. Varenka catches her and hugs her.
Indoors Michael and Stankevich, pupil and guide, sit at the table with their collection of hooks.
STANKEVICH Schelling's God is the cosmos, the totality of Nature struggling towards consciousness, and Man is as far as the struggle has got, with the animals not too far behind, vegetables somewhat lagging, and rocks nowhere as yet. Do we believe this? Does it matter? Think of it as a poem or a picture. Art doesn't have to be true like a theorem. It can be true in other ways. This truth says the universe is all of a oneness, not just a lot of bits which happen to be lying around together. In other words, it says there is a meaning to it all, and Man is where the meaning begins to show. How do we get the rest of the meaning? Schelling says: by unlocking our innermost being. By letting the meaning flow through us. This is morality. Kant says: but morality has no meaning unless we are free to choose, so it follows that we are the only government of our real lives, the ideal is to be discovered in us, not in some book of social theory written by a Frenchman. Idealism—the self—the autonomous will—is the mark of God's faith in his creations. Well, who'd have thought that God's chosen people would turn out to be the Germans?
In the garden, Liubov and Varenka have settled on the bench. Varenka stands up decisively.
VARENKA I'm going to ask him.
LIUBOV No!
VARENKA Well, stay here where he can see you reading.
LIUBOV I won't fling myself at him.
VARENKA Loosen your hair a little.
LIUBOV Varenka, don't …
VARENKA I won't, I won't.
Varenka leaves. Liubov sits and opens her book.
STANKEVICH The inner life is more real, more complete, than what we call reality—which has no meaning independent of my observing it. (pausing to look) I look out of the window. What is my thought experience? A garden. Trees. Grass. A young woman in a chair reading a book. I think: if there were no chair she would fall on the grass. If there were no book she would not be reading. Now the young woman touches her hair where it's come undone. How can we be sure there is a world of phenomena, a woman reading in a garden? Perhaps the only thing that's real is my sensory experience, which has the form of a woman reading—in a universe which is in fact empty! But Kant says no—I cannot have the experience without there being something out there to cause the experience. In fact, a woman reading. Am I, therefore, no more than an instrument for registering the phenomenal world of appearances, a woman now closing her book and standing up? But again Kant says—no! Because what I perceive as reality includes concepts which I cannot experience through the senses. Time and space. Cause and effect. Relations between things. These concepts already exist in my mind, I must use them to make sense of what I observe. And thus my existence is necessary to a complete description of reality. Without me there is something wrong with this picture. The trees, the grass, the woman are merely—oh, she's coming! (nervously) She's coming in here!—I say, don't leave!—where are you going?
MICHAEL Father's looking for me anyway … (gloomily) I've had to ask him to settle a few debts here and there in the world of appearances, so now he's been busy getting me a job.
Liubov enters from the garden, with her book.
LIUBOV Oh—Michael!—(noticing Stankevich) Excuse me—
MICHAEL Nobody seems to understand Stankevich and I are engaged in a life-or-death struggle over material forces to unite our spirit with the Universal—and he has to go back to Moscow tomorrow! (as Liubov makes to leave) No, it doesn't matter now. (to Stankevich) The Provincial Governor is father's friend, so it follows that I should have an inky job in the civil service, and think myself lucky after my distinguished career in the military.
LIUBOV You'll only be in Tver, we'll see you often.
MICHAEL Alas, it is not to be. Nicholas and I intend to go to Berlin, to the fountainhead.
LIUBOV But how will you live?
MICHAEL Oh, I can teach … mathematics—I don't know, what does it matter? (earnestly) You see, Liubov, I'm one of those who are born for their time. I will do such things I know not, but I must sacrifice everything to that sacred purpose, to strengthen my resolve until I can say, ‘Whatever I want, that's what God wants.’ (leaving, airily) I'll explain it all to Father.
Michael goes out. Stankevich is at a loss, Liubov no less so. Stankevich tidies up his books. Presently there are faintly heard the sounds of a gigantic row from a distant room. It goes on for some time, then stops. Liubov is on the point of speaking when the door is flung open and Tatiana and Alexandra rush in speaking over each other.
TATIANA AND ALEXANDRA Oh, Liubov!—Did you hear? Michael and Papa—Oh!—Sorry!—It's nothing!—
They are hardly in before they're out. Stankevich is about to speak when Varvara hurries into the room.
VARVARA (without pausing, to Liubov) Now he thinks he's God!
Varvara crosses the room and leaves. Stankevich loses his nerve and makes to leave.
LIUBOV So you're going to Moscow tomorrow.
STANKEVICH Yes. (Blurts.) It's a long time since you came to the Philosophical Circle. We miss the … feminine viewpoint.
LIUBOV (haplessly) Doesn't Natalie Beyer still go?
STANKEVICH (mistaking her, coldly) I … I understand your meaning. …
LIUBOV (panicking miserably) I didn't mean any meaning!
Stankevich hastily starts gathering his books. Liubov snatches one up at random.
LIUBOV (cont.) May I borrow this? To read. (She examines the title.) Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Is it good?
STANKEVICH It's in German.
LIUBOV Ich weiss. [I know.]
STANKEVICH Yes … yes, of course, if you wish. But you have a book. Is it philosophy?
LIUBOV No. I don't know. It's only a novel, by George Sand.
STANKEVICH The philosopher of love.
LIUBOV Yes, she says love is the highest good.
STANKEVICH Perhaps in France. Kant says the only good actions are those performed out of a sense of duty, not from instinct … like passion or desire …
LIUBOV So to act out of love can never be good?
STANKEVICH In the sense that you cannot take moral credit from it. Because you are really pleasing yourself.
LIUBOV Even if it gives happiness to another?
STANKEVICH Yes. Consequences don't come into it.
LIUBOV And to act out of a sense of duty, even if it leads to unhappiness … ?
STANKEVICH Is a moral action, yes.
LIUBOV (timidly) In Germany.
STANKEVICH (insistently) In the system of Kant a man is judged only by his intention.
LIUBOV (still timidly) A fool can mean well.
STANKEVICH (bursts out) And usually does! How was I to know that Natalie Beyer mistook my intentions? I only talked to her about philosophy!
LIUBOV Yes. Only another fool would make that mistake.
She takes the little penknife from her pocket and holds it out to him.
LIUBOV (cont.) I found this. I think it's your penknife.
STANKEVICH Mine? No, it's not mine.
LIUBOV Oh. Didn't you lose one?
STANKEVICH No. (Pause.) Perhaps I should have one.
LIUBOV Yes. Well, you can …
Michael bursts in with a bulging satchel over each shoulder.
MICHAEL We're leaving!
He puts one satchel over Stankevich's shoulder, as Tatiana, Alexandra and Varenka rush in, talking over each other, while Michael gathers up the books, thrusting them at Stankevich.
VARENKA Michael—just for once—
TATIANA Don't go, don't go! What will you do? We'll all beg Father—
STANKEVICH What happened?
MICHAEL Dahin! Dahin! Lass uns ziehn! [There, there lies our path!]
ALEXANDRA When will you come back?
MICHAEL Never!
Michael starts pulling Stankevich to the garden.
MICHAEL (cont.) I've sent Semyon to hold the mail—
Varvara rushes into the room and joins the rout.
VARVARA You have broken your father's heart! When you get to Moscow, go to Pliva's and tell them to send another metre of the grey silk—will you remember?—the grey silk!
Michael, Stankevich, Varvara, Varenka, Tatiana, Alexandra, and now also two SERFS with bits of baggage, stream across the garden amid general lamentation and rebuke.
MICHAEL I don't need parents! I renounce them! They don't exist! They'll never see me again!
The chaotic exodus moves out of sight and then out of earshot. Liubov, alone, sits down at the table. Alexander enters the room, sees her, and sits next to her. As would have been indicated in the previous scene, Alexander has been aging noticeably since we first saw him only two and a half years earlier.
ALEXANDER I myself am a Doctor of Philosophy. My dissertation was on worms. We did not chatter about some inner life. Philosophy does not consist in spinning words like tops till the colours run together and one will do as well as another. Philosophy consists in moderating each life so that many lives will fit together with as much liberty and justice as will keep them together—and not so much as will make them fly apart, when the harm will be the greater. I am not a despot. For Michael to have fallen in with my wishes would have been praiseworthy and, yes, philosophically fitting; for me to fall in with his would be absurd and despicable. My son tells me I persecuted you, in the time of your betrothal. He says I persecuted you—you, my beloved daughter. Can it be true?
Liubov weeps into his breast.
ALEXANDER (cont.) How the world must have been changing while I was holding it still.
SPRING 1836
Garden and interior.
A Nurse (a serf) pushes a baby carriage with a crying infant across the garden, away from the house, going out of view.
Alexander and Liubov are where they were, her head against his breast, his fingers searching her hair.
LIUBOV Ooh, lovely, you can scratch a bit harder.
Varenka enters from the further garden carrying the mewling baby, with Tatiana pushing the empty pram and Alexandra dancing attendance, all of them making for indoors.
ALEXANDRA You don't have to go in, we'll tell you if anybody comes.
VARENKA Little greedy boy, aren't you?
ALEXANDRA Will you let me have a little go, Varenka?
TATIANA Don't be stupid! How can you …
ALEXANDRA Stupid yourself, I mean just to see what it feels like.
Varenka takes the baby into the house. Alexandra goes with her. Tatiana takes a basket of gooseberries from the pram, then notices pipe smoke coming from the hammock. She approaches the hammock stealthily. Varvara enters the room with a jug.
VARVARA Where did Michael go? He bothers Masha to make lemonade and then disappears.
LIUBOV He's in the garden, working.
VARVARA We should light a candle.
From a distance, Tatiana lobs a gooseberry into the hammock without result.
LIUBOV He brought home a magazine with an article he wrote.
ALEXANDER The final straw. Journalism.
VARVARA What's all this?
ALEXANDER She's got nits.
LIUBOV No, I haven't.
ALEXANDER I can see their little arms and legs.
Liubov hastily disengages from him.
LIUBOV You couldn't see them if they were as big as ladybirds.
VARVARA What magazine?
ALEXANDER The Universal Transcendent and Absolute Idiot. My nurse washed my hair in water strained through the ashes from the kitchen stove—deadly for nits.
LIUBOV I haven't got nits! (giving the magazine to Varvara) The Telescope!
ALEXANDER He hasn't written it, he only translated it—another German windbag.
LIUBOV Well, he got paid, thirty roubles! And he has a commission to translate a whole history book.
A book and a pencil are flung out of the hammock. Michael sits up, smoking a pipe.
TATIANA The first goosegogs.
MICHAEL Thank you. Oh, Tata, you've made me happy again!
They embrace. He pulls her into the hammock, laughing. They remain visible. She feeds him a gooseberry.
MICHAEL (cont.) You read my article? I got led astray by Schelling. He tried to make the Self part of nature—but now Fichte shows that nature is simply non-Self!—there is nothing but Self—the soul must become its own object!
VARVARA (laying the magazine aside) Well, I wouldn't give thirty kopecks for it.
ALEXANDER After all these years, intellectual soul mates.
Tatiana's laughter attracts Varvara to the window.
VARVARA You all get happy and silly when Michael's home, until disaster strikes. Tatiana had a letter for the post boy, to Count Sollogub.
ALEXANDER I don't know why he had to run away to Moscow in the first place.
VARVARA A really thick envelope, she must have written him pages and pages.
LIUBOV Don't get your hopes up there, Maman.
VARVARA Why, what has she told you?
MICHAEL I heard Sollogub was a fop.
TATIANA Yes—not like you.
ALEXANDER He got homesick, you see. His friend Stankevich has gone coughing to the Caucasus. That doesn't sound good. He's asked another friend to come and stay in the summer, a critic.
VARVARA What sort of critic?
ALEXANDER Very shy and nervous, he says—not like that desperado Stankevich—we have to be kind to him, he's only a country doctor's son, poor as a mouse.
VARVARA Well, that's no use. (to Liubov) You don't mean she was sending the Count's letters back?
LIUBOV You must ask her, Mother. (Liubov stands up abruptly and looks out at the garden.)
MICHAEL I shall never doubt you again, Tata—or myself.
Tatiana lets herself down from the hammock.
TATIANA Well, your letter was horrible.
MICHAEL I was suffering, that's why.
She tips Michael out of the hammock. Liubov comes into the garden.
TATIANA Liubov! Have you heard?
LIUBOV There's lemonade.
MICHAEL (Cheerfully) I've discovered a new philosophy, Liubov. Now I know where I was going wrong.
They all three go companionably to the house.
AUGUST 1836
Twilight and darkening.
Alexander and Varvara remain. A doleful piano is heard in the house. The room fills up with family—Alexandra, Tatiana, Liubov, Michael—and SERVANTS, who bring lamps. The table is cleared and dishes are set out, the lemonade jug passed round. Soup is supped.
VISSARION BELINSKY appears from the shadows in the garden. He is dressed in his scuffed and shabby best, and carries a valise. He approaches the lighted window uncertainly.
VARVARA Where's Varenka?
The piano ceases.
LIUBOV She's coming.
VARVARA Why isn't she with her husband?
LIUBOV Maman!
VARVARA Or he with her, can anyone tell me?
ALEXANDER Varvara, it's none of our business.
MICHAEL Don't worry, I've got it in hand.
Alexander chokes on his soup. Dogs bark outside. Belinsky panics, retreats, falls over his valise. Servants come from the house. Michael comes into the garden. Meanwhile, Varenka enters and takes her place at the table. Inconspicuously, she lowers her eyes for a few moments in prayer before attending to her surroundings.
MICHAEL Belinsky!
VARVARA Is it his friend?
MICHAEL I thought you'd lost your nerve!—Did you walk from the posting station?
BELINSKY I'm sorry.
VARVARA What a time to arrive.
MICHAEL Give me that.
He gives the valise to a servant, who takes it into the house.
BELINSKY I knew it would be like this.
The sisters, except Varenka, steal glances through the window.
ALEXANDRA He looks peculiar.
LIUBOV But … I know him, he came to the Philosophical Circle.
MICHAEL (entering with Belinsky) It's Belinsky, he missed the pony trap.
Belinsky is twenty-five, not tall but stooped, with a hollow chest, a protruding shoulder blade, a pale, pinched face, and fair hair falling over his averted eyes.
ALEXANDER I am Michael's father.
BELINSKY Belinsky.
ALEXANDER Come in, sit down!
MICHAEL Sit there! Next to Alexandra.
Belinsky blindly sits on a lap, jumps up, knocks over a bottle, and stumbles to the inner door, escaping, followed hastily by Michael Alexandra stifles a laugh unsuccessfully.
ALEXANDER That's enough. It's nothing to laugh at. (to Varvara) Tell him it's all right …
Varvara follows Michael out. Alexandra can't contain her laughter.
ALEXANDER (cont.) (angry) Leave the room, then, you can do without supper.
Alexandra leaves, still convulsed.
ALEXANDER (cont.) There. Is anyone else not hungry?
Pause. Supper resumes in silence.
VARENKA Yes, I'm not.
She gets up abruptly, crosses herself, and leaves.
LIUBOV She's unhappy, Papa. Can I go to her?
ALEXANDER I give Up!
He puts down his spoon and stamps out. Liubov stands up to leave.
TATIANA (intensely) Liubov … did you feel it?
LIUBOV What?
TATIANA That man … that man is greater than any of us, he's a greater man than Michael.
Liubov is impatient of the moment. She leaves.
Tatiana, left alone, sits back in her chair, and after a moment goes out to the garden, slowly crossing out of view.
AUTUMN 1836
Late afternoon on a nice autumn day.
A shrieking young woman, a house serf, runs across the garden pursued by Varvara, who is holding a garment and a garden cane with which she slashes at the woman in rage. They disappear from view.
Alexandra comes into view in the garden, followed by Belinsky with a fishing pole and a good-sized (five-pound) carp.
BELINSKY Five hundred souls … ! A man with five hundred souls must have a good chance of salvation.
ALEXANDRA Our forester Vasilly says the weather will change tomorrow, so we must all watch the sunset … He's nearly a hundred years old, that's how he knows.
BELINSKY At the Telescope, we've got a manuscript that's been going from hand to hand for years … Nadezhdin, my editor, says if he can get it past the censor, it'll put the Telescope on the map, or finish us off with a bang … Anyway, it's all about how backward Russia is compared with Europe … the rest of Europe, sorry … but the author could have pointed out that in the matter of the ownership of human beings we were years ahead of America …
Belinsky leans the fishing pole against the wall. He takes a posy of wildflowers from inside his shirt, Alexandra pays no attention.
ALEXANDRA You didn't say anything for weeks, and now whenever you say anything, you say anything.
She goes into the house. Belinsky, embarrassed by the flowers, guiltily throws them out of sight. He follows Alexandra indoors.
Michael, Varenka, Tatiana and Liubov appear in the garden. Michael has got the book which he threw out of the hammock, leafing through it in a cursory manner. Varenka is looking at a letter.
VARENKA I spent hours writing it. I don't want to he unfair to Dyakov. He's the baby's father, after all.
Tatiana takes the letter from her and looks at it.
MICHAEL Well, I'm its uncle. Anyway, Kant says relations are mental concepts. (He manages to tear out a whole chunk of the book, handing the pages to Liubov.) Here, you can have ‘Charlemagne to the Hussite Rebellion.’
TATIANA (returning the letter to Varenka) What Michael says is, write to him that when you gave yourself to him, your body was just the phenomenal manifestation of the ego.
VARENKA He's a cavalry officer.
Michael hands another chunk of the book to Tatiana.
MICHAEL ‘Maximilian the First to the Peace of Utrecht.’
TATIANA (impatiently) Oh, Michael!
MICHAEL It'll soon get done if we do a bit each. Strogonov keeps writing to ask for his four hundred roubles back.
He tears the remainder of the book in two and gives half to Varenka.
MICHAEL (cont.) ‘Napoleon’ … There was a letter from Nicholas, too—he thinks the same as me.
The young woman limps sobbing back to the house.
VARENKA Nicholas wants me to leave my husband?
MICHAEL Come back with me to Moscow next time, Liubov. He does like you.
LIUBOV Did he say so?
Alexander comes into the garden via the verandah with Belinsky and Alexandra.
TATIANA Vissarion!—Did you catch anything?
MICHAEL Of course he did—and what do you think he found inside it this time?
VARENKA Nothing. The carp fairy doesn't repeat herself.
MICHAEL Don't disappoint us, Belinsky. Was it a silver rouble you once gave to an old beggarwoman?
Varvara walks back across the garden, holding the garment.
VARVARA Stupid girl. Look at this—she hung out my skirt where the goat could chew the buttons.
ALEXANDER But can you live as the literary critic of the Telescope?
TATIANA You can if you're Vissarion, in one room over a blacksmith's.
The group position themselves, standing or sitting, towards the sunset.
MICHAEL The readers should see him—pacing and scribbling, swaddled in scarves and coughing, and throwing each page to the floor as he goes, with the anvil pounding below and the smell of soapsuds and wet washing from the laundry across the landing … (giving Belinsky a letter) You had a letter.
Michael's attitude to Belinsky has altered to condescension barely concealed. He is jealous.
VARVARA Above a blacksmith's? What a place to put a laundry!
ALEXANDRA Oh, Mother!
VARVARA Well, it is.
ALEXANDER Another sunset, another season nearer God …
LIUBOV You shouldn't be living next to all that steam and damp, it can't be good for you.
ALEXANDRA Have you met Pushkin, Vissarion?
Belinsky, having opened the letter, puts it in his pocket unread.
BELINSKY No. He's in St Petersburg.
ALEXANDRA How old is he?
ALEXANDER Too young for you.
Michael does an amused ‘Ha ha’ at Alexandra's expense.
ALEXANDER (cont.) (to Belinsky) In my opinion a man shouldn't get married until he's at least twice the age of his wife. I was forty-two and my …
ALEXANDRA (chiming with him) … forty-two and my wife was eighteen …
ALEXANDER Quite so.
ALEXANDRA (pertly) I'll wait for him, then.
BELINSKY But … the longer you wait …
ALEXANDER (to Belinsky) Waste of breath, (to Alexandra) What about Vyazemski? He had two horses shot from under him at Borodino, one easily forgives the poetry.
VARVARA Kozlov, Alexandra!
LIUBOV ‘Oh, where my aching heart relieve when grief assails me sore, My friend who sleeps in the cold earth comes to my aid no more!’
TATIANA How morbid. No, Baratynski! The Gipsy Girl.’
ALEXANDER Oh, dear. I appeal to our critic.
TATIANA Yes, the case requires a critic of literature.
They all look to Belinsky.
BELINSKY We have no literature.
Pause.
ALEXANDER Oh, well. I'll give Mr Pushkin my provisional blessing, in the event that he survives his wife.
MICHAEL (to Alexandra) Pushkin never wrote a poem for you like Vissarion … (to Belinsky) It's all right, it's not a secret, we've all read it.
TATIANA I suppose you think we're terrible. Are you sorry you came now?
BELINSKY No. It's like being in a dream … (amazed) and you all live here! Lost objects from another life are restored to you in the belly of a carp.
ALEXANDRA He says anything.
BELINSKY It's true, though.
TATIANA But how did the penknife get into the carp?
VARENKA Somebody threw it in the fishpond and the carp saw it and just gobbled it up.
ALEXANDER (in ‘English’)
‘The moon is up and yet it is not night; Sunset divides the sky with her …’ (to Belinsky) Do you read in English?
MICHAEL No, he doesn't.
TATIANA Vissarion's going to read us his new article—that's the most exciting thing that's happened at Premukhino, ever … To think, when it's published in the Telescope, and being read by hundreds of people … and we were there when it was being written, with ink from our old brass inkpot just as if it was an ordinary letter …
LIUBOV What is it about?
BELINSKY It's nothing, it's only a book review.
TATIANA It's about how we're stuck between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
MICHAEL Well, Tatiana's in the know. Enlighten us, Belinsky.
BELINSKY I'll read it out after supper.
MICHAEL But I may have better things to do after supper.
VARENKA Who is Stuck?
TATIANA Russia is. Stuck between dried-up old French reasoning and the new German thought which explains everything.
ALEXANDER Everyone knows that German thought is infinitely superior to French thought.
TATIANA Well, it is, isn't it, Vissarion?
MICHAEL Idealism is concerned with questions that lie outside reasoning, it's quite simple. Reason has triumphed over all the ancient problems of natural science, so the clever fools in France thought they could solve the problem of society—of morality, art—in the same way, by reason and experiment, as if God our Maker was a chemist, an astronomer, a clockmaker …
ALEXANDER (losing patience) God is all those things. That's the point!
Michael bows to patriarchal authority. Belinsky misses the warning.
BELINSKY No, the point is, the question ‘how to make a clock’ has the same answer for everybody.
The contradicting of Alexander disturbs everybody in different ways. Belinsky remains unaware.
BELINSKY (cont.) We can all be clockmakers, or astronomers. But if we all wanted to be Pushkin … if the question is, how do you make a poem by Pushkin?—or, what exactly makes one poem or painting or piece of music greater than another?—or, what is beauty? or liberty? or virtue?—if the question is, how should we live? … then reason gives no answer or different answers. So something is wrong. The divine spark in man is not reason after all, but something else, some kind of intuition or vision, perhaps like the moment of inspiration experienced by the artist …
MICHAEL Dahin! Dahin! Lass uns ziehn! (He translates specifically for Belinsky, with malice aforethought.) ‘There, there lies our path,’ Belinsky.
ALEXANDER (courteously) Ah, you don't read German yourself?
BELINSKY No.
ALEXANDER Ah. But you know French.
BELINSKY Well …
Alexandra sniggers quietly behind her hand.
TATIANA (defending him) Vissarion wasn't allowed to finish university.
VARVARA Why not?
LIUBOV Mother …
VARVARA Well, I was only asking.
TATIANA He wrote a play against serfdom, that's why.
Pause. Varvara gets up on her dignity and goes into the house.
MICHAEL (quietly, to Tatiana) Idiot.
ALEXANDER (courteously, with restraint) My estate is of five hundred souls and I am not ashamed. The landowner is the protector of all who live on his land. Our mutual obligations are the foundation on which Holy Russia rests. In the way of life at Premukhino there is true liberty. I know about the other kind, if I may say so; I was in France when they had their Revolution.
BELINSKY (embarrassed) Yes … yes … allow me to … My article is not about our liberties … of course. When was there ever such an article published in Russia? I write about literature.
MICHAEL You said we had no literature.
BELINSKY That's what I write. We haven't. We have a small number of masterpieces, how could we not, there are so many of us, a great artist will turn up from time to time in much smaller countries than Russia. But as a nation we have no literature because what we have isn't ours, it's like a party where everyone has to come dressed up as somebody else—Byron, Voltaire, Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare and the rest … I am not an artist. My play was no good. I am not a poet. A poem can't be written by an act of will. When the rest of us are trying our hardest to be present, a real poet goes absent. We can watch him in the moment of creation, there he sits with the pen in his hand, not moving. When it moves, we've missed it. Where did he go in that moment? The meaning of art lies in the answer to that question. To discover it, to understand it, to know the difference between it happening and not happening, this is my whole purpose in life, and it is not a contemptible calling in our country where our liberties cannot be discussed because we have none, and science or politics can't be discussed for the same reason. A critic does double duty here. If something true can be understood about art, something will be understood about liberty, too, and science and politics and history—because everything in the universe is unfolding together with a purpose of which mine is a part. You are right to laugh at me because I don't know German or French. But the truth of idealism would be plain to me if I had heard one sentence of Schelling shouted through my window by a man on a galloping horse. When philosophers start talking like architects, get out while you can, chaos is coming. When they start laying down rules for beauty, blood in the streets is from that moment inevitable. When reason and measurement are made authorities for the perfect society, seek sanctuary among the cannibals … Because the answer is not out there like America waiting for Columbus, the same answer for everybody forever. The universal idea speaks through humanity itself, and differently through each nation in each stage of its history. When the inner life of a nation speaks through the unconscious creative spirit of its artists, for generation after generation—then you have a national literature. That's why we have none. Look at us!—a gigantic child with a tiny head stuffed full of idolatry for everything foreign … and a huge inert body abandoned to its own muck, a continent of vassalage and superstition, an Africa of know-nothing have-nothings without a notion of a better life, or the wit to be discontented drunk or sober, that's your Russia, held together by police informers and fourteen ranks of uniformed flunkeys—how can we have a literature? Folk tales and foreign models, that's our lot, swooning over our imitation Racines and Walter Scotts—our literature is nothing but an elegant pastime for the upper classes, like dancing or cards. How did it happen? How did this disaster befall us? Because we were never trusted to grow up, we're treated like children and we deserve to be treated like children—flogged for impertinence, shut into cupboards for naughtiness, sent to bed without supper and not daring even to dream of the guillotine …
Long before this, Belinsky's speech has become progressively agitated, fervid, louder. Alone among his mesmerised family, Alexander makes to interrupt.
BELINSKY (cont.) Yes—I've got off my track, hell and damnation … excuse me … it's always happening to me! … I forget what I'm trying to say—I'm sorry, I'm sorry … (Belinsky makes to leave, but turns back.) Every work of art is the breath of a single eternal idea. That's it. Forget the rest. Every work of art is the breath of a single eternal idea breathed by God into the inner life of the artist. That's where he went. (He starts to go and comes back.) We will have our literature. What kind of literature and what kind of life is the same question. Our external life is an insult. But we have produced Pushkin and now Gogol. Excuse me, I don't feel well.
This time he goes into the house. After a moment, Tatiana jumps up and follows him.
VARENKA (Pause.) Who's Gogol … ?
ALEXANDER We missed the sun going down, (to Michael) If Mr Belinsky is a literary critic, so was Robespierre.
Alexander goes angrily indoors. The baby, a year old, is heard crying. Varenka stands up.
ALEXANDRA (eagerly) Can I come?
VARENKA I'm going to write my letter again. Varenka and Alexandra go indoors.
LIUBOV Yes … will you take me to Moscow with you when Nicholas comes back from the Caucasus?
MICHAEL (cries out) Oh, Liubov! Where can I turn?
He starts weeping, and walks away. Liubov follows him into the further garden.
LIUBOV What is it?—what has happened?
MICHAEL None of it's any use—the outer world worms itself into my heart like a serpent!
Belinsky comes out onto the verandah, his letter in his hand.
BELINSKY O my prophetic soul!—The Telescope has been banned! Closed down! They've arrested Nadezhdin!
MICHAEL (ironically) Illusion!—It's only illusion—
BELINSKY (bewildered) No … the police have searched my room. I have to get back to Moscow.
MICHAEL Yes—we must get out—out!—to Moscow!
He leaves. Belinsky goes back indoors.
LIUBOV Moscow … !
She follows Michael out.
A gunshot disturbs the crows in the wintry garden … overlapping the next scene.
A sudden wail of grief sounds out from inside the house.
JANUARY 1837
Interior. Alexandra is in an attitude of romantic despair, clutching a letter of several pages. Tatiana hurries into the room, followed by Varenka.
ALEXANDRA Tata … Liubov's had a letter from Nicholas.
TATIANA Let me see.
Alexandra flutters the letter, swooning. Tatiana takes it and starts to read, passing each page to Varenka to read.
VARENKA Michael's written, too.
ALEXANDRA (operatically) They took Pushkin back to his house and he lingered between life and death all the next day.
The three sisters congregate at a chaise longue where Liubov is lying, propped up by pillows. Varenka takes a letter from her pocket and gives it to Liubov.
VARENKA From Michael. (tenderly) How are you feeling?
ALEXANDRA Can I see?
Liubov starts reading Michael's letter, passing pages to Alexandra, while the remainder of the first letter—from Stankevich—passes from Tatiana to Varenka. Alexandra passes pages of Michael's letter to Tatiana, who returns them to Varenka. Varenka returns Stankevich's pages to Liubov. Meanwhile, as the pages pass from hand to hand:
TATIANA His wife killed him!—as surely as if she fired the shot!
ALEXANDRA It's just like in the story—perhaps they were friends like Onegin and Lensky.
TATIANA That's stupid—Onegin wasn't the one killed!
ALEXANDRA Stupid yourself!—he might have been.
TATIANA But he wasn't—and Pushkin was.
VARENKA How like Nicholas.
LIUBOV What's like Nicholas?
VARENKA Pushkin is killed in a duel, and somehow it's all about the tragedy of a woman marrying unwisely. Nicholas is always putting you off between the lines, like when he went to see Hamlet and it was all Ophelia's fault …
Tatiana and Alexandra at once abandon their squabble, alarmed.
ALEXANDRA AND TATIANA Michael says—Yes, Michael—
VARENKA (bursts out) I don't care what Michael says! (She starts to cry.) Michael calls my husband an animal. That's what he says to me. It's not right. Dyakov's done nothing wrong by normal people's standards. Everything's my fault. I'm going to beg his forgiveness.
Varenka would leave, but Liubov clasps her, also in tears.
LIUBOV Oh, Varenka, Varenka … and you sacrificed yourself for me … (against Varenka's protest) Yes—your marriage in exchange for mine, that's why Father gave in.
TATIANA (tearfully, insisting) Michael says Nicholas's love for Liubov has transformed his inner life.
ALEXANDRA (likewise) He says Liubov is Nicholas's ideal.
VARENKA (shouts) Go away! Go off to bed!
Tatiana and Alexandra are shocked into compliance.
ALEXANDRA (leaving) What did we do wrong?
They leave.
LIUBOV Don't you believe he loves me, Varenka?
VARENKA I wasn't there. What did you do, in Moscow?
LIUBOV We played duets on the piano.
VARENKA Well, that's something.
LIUBOV He wouldn't have asked me to write to him if…
VARENKA Then why doesn't he propose to you instead of lecturing you like a German?
LIUBOV He's going home to ask his father …
VARENKA And then he's going abroad!
LIUBOV He has to go, he's ill, he has to go to the spas.
VARENKA Why can't he marry you and take you with him? You need to go to the spas just as much as he does.
LIUBOV What do you mean?
VARENKA You know you do.
Liubov pulls away from her in distress, struggling.
LIUBOV I don't, I don't! Don't say that!
Liubov goes into a coughing fit, breathless.
VARENKA (embracing her) Liuba … Liuba … I'm sorry … ssh … there, there, my lamb, I'm sorry for all the things I said. You'll be well and Nicholas will come back and marry you … I know he will.
SPRING 1838
A bonfire blazes in the garden just out of plain sight. A Serf goes to the fire with an armful of dead wood. A House Serf crosses from the house, bringing provisions, utensils, folding chairs, cushions, etc. Varvara comes from the direction of the picnic, folding up a lace bedcover. Tatiana comes from the house, hurrying and in a festive mood, with a long-handled warming pan.
VARVARA Is Liubov ready?
TATIANA She's coming. Her carriage awaits!
VARVARA What are you doing with that? You'll burn the handle.
TATIANA No, I won't. It's the very thing. What's Michael doing?
VARVARA Explaining something to Father.
TATIANA Oh, no!
Tatiana goes out to the fire. A Serf Girl, she of the goat-chewed buttons, comes from the house with a rolled-up carpet. Passing her, Varvara casually boxes her ear.
VARVARA The lace tablecloth—tablecloth!—not the coverlet off my bed!
Varvara goes into the house. The girl follows Tatiana out. Alexander and Michael come from the further garden, not from the bonfire, with bunches of lilies and white flowers they have picked. Alexander also has a periodical, the Moscow Observer, which has a green cover.
MICHAEL Agriculture? I'd rather kill myself than study agriculture. But after three years in Berlin I'd be qualified for a professorship. I am prepared for it. I was on the wrong track with Fichte, I admit it—Fichte was trying to get rid of objective reality, but Hegel shows that reality can't be ignored, on the contrary, reality is the interaction of the inner and outer worlds, you see, Father, and harmony is achieved by suffering through the storms of contradiction between the two—as I have suffered: that's why I have never been more in harmony with myself than now, that's why I am worthy of your trust.
Alexander gives Michael the magazine.
ALEXANDER You've changed windbags, that's all. It's well and good for Robespierre to be editor of the new Moscow Monthly Windbaggery, I congratulate him, the first middle-class intellectual in Russia and it can't be helped, but a gentleman has a duty to look after his estate.
Varenka comes out of the house with two bottles of red wine and a small basket of lemons and spices.
MICHAEL Belinsky is not one of us, I agree. In fact, I have broken off relations with him. He's turned out to be a complete egoist. But my estate is self-fulfilment and the future of philosophy in Russia.
VARENKA The musicians are ready.
ALEXANDER We've got the flowers. Michael follows Alexander indoors.
MICHAEL Two thousand a year from my inheritance, even fifteen hundred, Father … I'm desperate …
Varenka continues towards the fire and is met by Tatiana, who takes the bottles and basket from her.
TATIANA A fête champêtre! How does she look?
VARENKA Beautiful! Like a bride. Alexandra's doing her hair.
TATIANA Oh, it's going to be lovely. Get Michael away from Father before he …
VARENKA Yes!—Yes! …
Tatiana hurries back to the fire. Varenka hurries towards the house—too late. In the house, Alexander is heard raising his voice—'No! Enough!'—and he enters the room with Michael dogging him. They no longer have the flowers. Varenka pauses outside, aware of them.
ALEXANDER (angrily) Your own life you have wasted at every turn, and sponged off friends and strangers until your name is a byword for bad faith and discounted bills. You have turned your sisters’ faces away from the light of parental love, and poisoned their minds with liberal sophistries dressed up as idealism. With your meddling, you've broken their lives like a spoiled child smashing his breakfast egg to annoy his nurse. Liubov would have been long married to a nobleman who loved her. Instead, she is betrothed by permanent correspondence with an invalid who evidently can't drink Russian water even if it meant he could set eyes on his future wife. Tatiana you defended from her only suitor as though he were a Turk intent on stealing her maidenhead.
His speech has carried him to the verandah, from where Varenka is conveniently included in his tour d'horizon.
ALEXANDER (cont.) Yes, and you incited Varenka to leave her husband whom she freely chose, and incited her again when she tried to make it up with him, until she was half out of both her minds, and now she, too, must go and drink the amazing German tapwater with her son. Dyakov is a sainted fool to let her go, but now that I see you have plotted this together—
Varenka attempts denial. Michael flings himself into a chair and buries his head in his hands. Alexander continues on his way towards the fire.
ALEXANDER (cont.) —I'll be damned if I pay for any more of your wilfulness. You will not go to Berlin. That is my last word.
Alexander leaves. Varenka goes inside to Michael.
VARENKA Why did you have to ask him today?
MICHAEL Nicholas has written. It's bad news.
VARENKA (Pause.) Tell me.
MICHAEL He can't lend me any more money. You'll have to go on your own.
Alexandra puts her head in the door.
ALEXANDRA (excitedly) Ready!
She disappears. Varenka starts to laugh in hysterical relief
MICHAEL What is to be done?
VARENKA Well, we mustn't let it show. Everything must be happy.
Varenka leaves.
Turgenev enters the garden: an overlap with the next scene.
MICHAEL Dahin! Dahin! Lass uns ziehn!
He follows Varenka out.
AUTUMN 1841
IVAN TURGENEV is joined in the garden by Tatiana. He is twenty-three and well over six feet tall, with a surprisingly light, high voice.
TURGENEV Yes, twice, three times counting in his coffin … The first time, I didn't know it was Pushkin. He was leaving a party at Pletnyov's as I arrived, he'd already got his hat and coat on. The second time was at a concert at the Engelhardt Hall. He was leaning against a doorway, glancing around with a sort of scowl. I'm afraid I stared at him and he caught me and walked off looking vexed. I felt misunderstood, but I was flattering myself. He had more important things to vex him, it was just a few days before the duel. Well … I was a boy—nearly five years ago now, I was eighteen—and Pushkin was a demigod to me.
TATIANA Are you a writer?
TURGENEV No. But I thought I was. (He shoots’ at birds flying over. Laughs.) I'm a sportsman. (Pause.) But I'd still like to write a decent poem one day. Tomorrow, for example. It's lovely here. I'd like to stay.
TATIANA (too quickly) You can. (Pause.) Michael's letter said, ‘Ivan Turgenev is my brother …’
TURGENEV Michael described every inch of Premukhino … strolling down Unter den Linden to our favourite café. He talks about home all the time.
TATIANA When he was here he talked about nothing but going to Berlin. Nicholas Stankevich was there, and Michael schemed and begged for years … and then when he got to Berlin at last, he heard Nicholas had died a month before in Italy.
TURGENEV Yes, what a cure that turned out to be. It makes one angry, a death like that. Beside it, Pushkin's death is a comedy.
Tatiana gasps, distressed.
TURGENEV (cont.) An absurdity. If we weren't in tears, it would be sidesplitting. No other social class but ours could count it natural behaviour, to march grimly into the snow with loaded pistols and bang away because according to some anonymous lampoon a woman who once stirred your blood, and now only irritates you, is being kept occupied by someone as yet in the first stage of discovery. If we lived somewhere like … the Sandwich Islands, it would be the seducer who gets the sniggers while the husband hands out cigars to his friends … (Pause.) But the White Death that slips into the breast of the young and brave, blind to sense as a slow-worm, and makes itself at home, feeding on blood and breath … How do they like it now, those fine catchwords which sound even nobler in German?—the Universal, the Eternal, the Absolute, the Transcendent? How they must blush and shift about when they bump up against death by wasting and coughing—(He realises that Tatiana is upset.)—of course, of course—I'm so clumsy.
TATIANA I always think of Liubov at this time of day in the garden … Once, not long before she died, Michael made a bonfire, just over there in the copse, and we brought Liubov out in a carriage like a queen coming to the dance … and I mulled the wine in a warming-pan … !
The bonfire becomes audible, luciferous offstage.
Liubov, brought from bed, reclining in a bed made up on a cart, is drawn into view by Michael, Varenka and Alexandra, who are in high spirits, calling, Here she is! Careful, careful!’, with Varvara keeping up and fussing over her. Liubov has a bouquet of the flowers picked by Alexander and Michael, which also decorate the cart. Two Serf Musicians accompany her. Alexander comes to meet the cart, with a glass in his hand.
ALEXANDER This way, this way! Gluhwein!
TATIANA It was the last time we were all together, and somehow we were happy! … even Varenka. She'd sent Dyakov away after one last effort to be his wife, and she was going to Germany with her son. It was Dyakov's final service.
The cart is pulled out of sight. Varenka hangs back. Michael comes to fetch her.
VARENKA But how will I live?
MICHAEL (airily) Oh, you can … give music lessons, I don't know, what does it matter?
They leave, laughing. The past fades.
TATIANA (laughs to herself) The liberation of Varenka! She sold her bits of jewelry, and everyone was offering advice, Nicholas writing from Berlin …
TURGENEV When I was in Rome I saw Nicholas and
Varenka every day. Then, when I got back to Berlin, I had a letter from them, from Florence. He said he was doing better, and that he and Varenka were going to spend the summer by Lake Como. That was two weeks before he died in her arms. (Pause.) Yes … if you can't write a poem here, there's no hope. And not much if you can. (responding to her glance) At Premukhino the eternal, the ideal, seems to be in every breath around you, like a voice telling you how much more sublime is the unattainable, imagined happiness of the inner life, compared with the vulgar happiness of the crowd! And then you're dead. There's something missing in this picture. Stankevich was coming round to it, before the end. He said: ‘For happiness, apparently, something of the real world is necessary.’
TATIANA Would you like me to show you the—(Stuck, she indicates vaguely.)—fishpond?
TURGENEV Yes, very much. (He offers her his arm.) Oh yes, we're all Hegelians now. ‘What's rational is real, and what's real is rational.’ But Nicholas brought me and Michael together. I've got written in my Hegel: ‘Stankevich died June 24th 1840. I met Bakunin July 20th. In my life up to now, these are the only two dates I wish to remember.’ (Pause.) No, it must have been the beginning of August. (He ‘shoots’ a bird flying over.) By the Western calendar. I always think—our situation in Russia isn't hopeless while we've still got twelve days to catch up.
They stroll away.