Shipwreck ( Coast of Utopia-2)

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 …

JUNE 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 …