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.