DAY SIXTY
A bright sun is shining through the windows of the Hermitage, casting a liquid light over the waters of the Neva below. The birds in the arbours outside the state rooms are full of song. SHE sits on the sofa, beneath the big portrait of an earlier self. Her English whippets are beside her. The COURTIERS are quiet, the room almost empty apart from DASHKOVA. HE comes in. His hands are behind his back.
HE
My dear lady. The last time. The very last time.
SHE
The last time, my dear dear Didro. So today there is no paper.
HE
But there is. I’ve just finished writing it.
HE takes his hands from behind his back and presents her with a paper. SHE looks.
SHE
‘Peace Treaty of Sankt Peterburg, between a Great Sovereign and a Poor Philosopher.’ And just why do we need a peace, when we never were at war?
HE
It’s true, we never were, dear lady. I don’t think two people of opposite parties ever got on better. But there are my demands.
SHE
Your demands? Who allowed you to have demands?
HE
I allowed myself. I must tell you they’re exceedingly small demands.
SHE
Yes. Tell me what I can do for you?
HE
Nothing. You’ve done everything already.
SHE
Then I shall sign it at once, without even reading it.
HE
No, that won’t do at all. Even though I now understand very well how your fellow-monarchs managed to sign and then break treaties without ever reading them. You read my other papers, please read this—
SHE
What does it say, Didro?
HE
First, it explains I have no wish for gold. I should hate it if all the eulogies and flatteries I intend to press on the Empress when I return to Paris should appear to be paid for. I prefer to be believed.
SHE laughs.
SHE
Very well, dear friend. But are you rich?
HE
No, madame. Content, which is better. But I have made certain requests. Your Majesty will surely remember how I struggled to arrive here, and how hard I worked when I came.
SHE
Sir, you were quite extraordinary. There is no one in the world quite like you. You will never be forgotten.
HE
So I am sure Your Majesty would not wish me to go home with nothing. I simply ask you pay me the costs of my journey, coming and return. They are not extensive, a philosopher shouldn’t travel like a lord.
SHE
Can you tell me how much?
HE
Fifteen thousand roubles would cover it, I believe.
SHE
Then you shall have double. Dashkova, get it from the exchequer.
DASHKOVA takes a key and goes.
HE
Second, I request no expensive personal gift, but there is one small thing I would welcome. A tiny thing, something that’s yours and I would value because I know you have used it every day—
SHE looks at him with amusement.
SHE
What is that, sir?
HE
Your breakfast cup and saucer, that is all.
SHE
Nonsense, it would smash on the journey—
HE
You will see it is already in the treaty, if you read—
SHE
I have something better for you. Something I have already selected for you, my dear librarian—
SHE opens her bag and takes out an agate cameo ring. Her own portrait has been engraved onto it. SHE hands it to him.
HE
It’s beautiful, extraordinary, Your Highness. Third, I hope you would help me with my journey—
SHE
Where do you go now? Samarkand, the Great Wall of China, somewhere over the steppes?
HE
No, dear lady, home. By the fastest way possible.
SHE
Frederick of Prussia has sent for you again. So has the King of Sweden. And Voltaire wants to see you at Ferney, remember.
HE
They can’t have me, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sad I shall be to leave you. But I shall be even more happy to see my dear ones again.
SHE
Your wife, you mean?
HE
My dear dancing daughter. My sweet indifferent mistress. My friends, my talking circle. And yes, even my quarrelsome wife.
SHE
Very well. You shall have a coach, a splendid new English travelling coach I purchased only this week. And I shall provide you with a chamberlain to guide you on the journey and take you back to Prince Golitsyn there in the Hague. Anything more?
HE
Yes, Your Highness. If it should be when I return to Paris I must suffer for what I’ve done – a spell in the Bastille, for instance – I hope you’ll protect me. Look after my wife, who could starve without noticing. Protect my dear darling daughter, who has only just given birth—
SHE
It’s done, it’s all done. You have all of your treaty. So was it all really worth it? All those great versts? All that Neva colic?
HE
That’s not a question for the philosopher. That’s for the monarch to say.
SHE takes his hands.
SHE
Then of course it was worth it, dear Didro. Don’t you see how I’ve sat entranced by all your thoughts, the strange things that spring from your genius—
HE
Entranced by some things, enraged by others—
SHE
Yes, but, my dear man, you’ve done wonders. You’ve taught me everything. How to run a just society. How to create education, develop manners, encourage the great arts and crafts—
HE
How to run a police force. How to construct lighter cities. How to found banks and create improvement.
SHE
You’ve taught me about usury and luxury. God and the devil. Gambling and divorce. Life and liberty—
HE
The pursuit of happiness—
SHE
Mulberry trees and pig farms—
HE
And you have shown me what I never expected to see. The martial power of a Brutus, arrayed in all the charms of a Cleopatra—
SHE
You’ve written me those splendid papers, told me those wonderful stories—
HE
I shall never forget how Your Majesty chose to ignore the distance between us and brought herself to my level just so I might raise myself to hers—
SHE
No, I have been your pupil, you have been my master.
HE
I have been your servant, you have been my mistress— Such was the daydream of Denis the Philosopher.
SHE
You left your papers? My new Russia?
HE
In your state papers. I know they contain foolishness and folly—
SHE
Yes, my dear dreamer. You know, there is just one difference between us. You’re a philosopher, and work on paper, which is supple, obedient, does just what it’s told. Where I, a poor empress, must work on human skin. Which is itchy, irritable, and grows raw to the touch.
HE
Yet, if you’d followed me, you would surely have created a great society, and made your nation the envy of all humankind.
SHE
Yes, and if I had listened to you thoughtlessly, every single institution in my empire would have been upturned. Monarchy, law, the church, the budget. The nation would have disintegrated, the borders would collapse. Perhaps if only your visit had come at some other time. When I wasn’t at war with the Turks, when I wasn’t resisting Pugachov—
HE
Yes, Pugachov. Well, now you have captured him, what will happen?
SHE
He sits in the middle of Moscow in an iron cage, so the people can see he’s really not the anointed of God. Just Emelyn Pugachov, a stupid farmer, who thought his fortune had been rewritten in the great Book of Destiny above. Of course, if I were the only one he had harmed, I should seek to forgive him. But no brute invader since Tamburlaine has killed so many of my people. He’s lived like a scoundrel. Let him die like a coward—
HE
What will happen, then?
SHE
He’ll be beheaded in front of the people. All his people will be exiled to the frontiers, and his village burned.
HE
And Countess Pimburg? Princess Tarakanova?
SHE
Dead, alas. It seems the poor creature all the time had tuberculosis. That is what killed her—
HE
But an underground cell in the Peter and Paul wouldn’t have helped. So, the truth is, I made no difference.
SHE looks at him.
SHE
But you made every difference, my dear Didro. You and Monsieur Voltaire can tell the world now that my ideals always reached higher than my deeds. I sometimes think we dreamed each other. I dreamt you, and you say you dreamt me. Take off your jacket!
HE
What?
SHE
That black coat. Everyone’s sick of it. We have a new one for you. Put it on.
SHE holds up a bright-red jacket, heavily frogged, and helps him put it on.
HE
I really never cared for new clothes.
SHE
What do you say, Dashkova?
DASHKOVA looks him up and down.
DASHKOVA
A dashing man. A true philosopher-king.
SHE
And with that goes a bearskin jacket. To keep you warm on the homeward journey.
SHE holds his hands. They embrace each other.
HE
You remember Voltaire once wrote history was a trick the living play on the dead? Well, I have come to think Russian history is probably a trick a clever empress played upon Voltaire and me—
SHE
Nonsense. No, don’t go. Send for your wife and family. Build yourself a great palace here.
HE weeps. SHE looks at him.
HE
No, my dear. My wife’s an old woman with sciatica. My sister-in-law is eighty. My mistress has probably forgotten me. My daughter has a baby at the breast. My son-in-law has high pretensions in the textiles trade. And where I used to count up the future in decades or years, now I count it in months and days—
SHE
Nonsense, Didro, you’ll live for ever.
HE
You’ll guarantee it? Is it in the treaty?
SHE
Yes, it’s in the treaty.
A huge shaggy BEAR-LIKE MAN, having only one eye, and wearing a loose Turkish kaftan, has entered the room, eating something. SHE looks, hurries over, embraces him.
SHE
Oh my darling. My dear Potemkin—
HE goes, unobserved.
END OF DAY SIXTY