Shevyrev bows himself away.

  Alexandra and Tatiana hurry by in agitated conference.

  TATIANA Poor Natalie.

  ALEXANDRA She gave him up for love!

  They hurry out.

  CHAADAEV Delightful … delightful …

  In the transition, Liubov dances privately across the stage and, just before leaving, suddenly twirls out of sight.

  MARCH 1835

  The transition is to daylight, a week later. Natalie runs into the room, slightly hysterical. Michael follows, slightly sheepish.

  NATALIE It must be my fault. Otherwise how could it be that both of you … It's so humiliating!

  MICHAEL Yes, but Nicholas and I humiliated you in different ways, don't forget that.

  NATALIE I don't care about him anymore.

  MICHAEL With Nicholas it's self-control.

  NATALIE (incredulously) He was controlling himself?

  MICHAEL Well, probably not in your case …

  NATALIE (flaring) What do you mean?

  MICHAEL Yours was just a misunderstanding, but last year the young wife of one of his neighbours in the country took him into their summerhouse and kissed him and pulled down her whatever it was, and—

  NATALIE You've only known him a week!

  MICHAEL He told me a week ago, we were discussing transcendental idealism over oysters, and one thing led to another.

  NATALIE Yes, I see. Well, what happened?

  MICHAEL Well—we got on to the separation of spirit and matter—

  NATALIE In the summerhouse.

  MICHAEL Well, she asked him to kiss her—her—her—you know …

  NATALIE She didn't!

  MICHAEL She did. Both her … both of them.

  NATALIE Oh. Go on, anyway.

  MICHAEL I've just remembered something.

  NATALIE What?

  MICHAEL I promised not to tell anyone.

  NATALIE You can't stop now!

  MICHAEL No, I really shouldn't—

  NATALIE Michael!

  MICHAEL (hastily) Well, he was kissing her dugs when he suddenly realised that what he'd thought was his soul reaching out for communion with hers, was actually a negation of the transcendence of spirit over matter … and he couldn't go on, he was repelled … nauseated …

  NATALIE He explained this to her, did he?

  MICHAEL No, he ran away. That's the difference between Stankevich and me.

  NATALIE What is?

  MICHAEL I'm put off before I begin. Not by you, not by you.

  NATALIE I don't understand why it's called romanticism. (bewildered) It's all so different in George Sand.

  MICHAEL I think you're the one who can give me faith in myself, Natalie. Schelling doesn't understand the point of his own philosophy, if you ask me. Transcending to the Universal Idea means to put a bomb under our submission to habit and convention—in short, to give oneself utterly to loving humanity, to love our neighbour and our neighbour's wife—to release the passion of our nature—

  NATALIE Yes! And you will, because I understand you as no one else, not even your sisters.

  MICHAEL My sisters?

  NATALIE They love you, but do they see you?—your inner reality?

  MICHAEL Perhaps not …

  NATALIE They haven't transcended the objective reality in which you're just their brother.

  MICHAEL (enlightened) Well—no wonder!

  NATALIE I can explain it to them. I'll give you a letter for them to read when you go home.

  MICHAEL Yes, that should do the trick.

  SUMMER 1835

  The Telescope office is sufficient for the editing of a small-circulation literary magazine, and is as much an ordinary room as it is an office. There is an entrance door and a door to an inner room.

  Chaadaev sits waiting. Belinsky enters from within with galleys and page proofs and goes to the only desk. Chaadaev stands up. Belinsky is surprised to see him. He has no more social ease than before.

  CHAADAEV Chaadaev.

  BELINSKY Belinsky.

  CHAADAEV Is Professor Nadezhdin … ?

  BELINSKY Not yet, no. I'm expecting him back anytime.

  CHAADAEV Ah. May I sit down?

  BELINSKY Yes. There's a chair.

  Chaadaev sits. Pause. Belinsky stands waiting.

  CHAADAEV Please don't let me stop you from …

  BELINSKY (nonplussed) Oh. Thank you.

  Belinsky sits at the desk but is fidgety. Time passes.

  CHAADAEV Is Nadezhdin at lunch?

  BELINSKY No, he's in the Caucasus.

  CHAADAEV Ah. Well … in that case …

  BELINSKY I'm expecting him back any day.

  CHAADAEV Even so.

  BELINSKY (flustered) I didn't quite understand …

  CHAADAEV My fault entirely.

  BELINSKY He went to the Caucasus for a few months.

  CHAADAEV Of course.

  BELINSKY He left me in charge.

  CHAADAEV Really? If I may say so, there has been a noticeable improvement in the quality of the Telescope which has more than made up for the irregularity of its appearance.

  BELINSKY (gloomily) Ah, you noticed that.

  CHAADAEV Don't worry. If only Shevyrev had the wit to miss out on a few issues of the Observer, where one would be grateful for the respite.

  Belinsky cheers up instantly, becoming almost gleeful, losing his shyness. On home ground—literature and criticism—he becomes transformed.

  BELINSKY Yes! I'm preparing an article against him. There'll be no mercy for Shevyrev! I thought I was going to be literally sick when I read his essay on the genteel. Gentility and art are not synonyms. Gentility is the property of caste. Art is the property of intelligence and feeling. Otherwise, any toff could walk in here and call himself a writer.

  CHAADAEV (politely) Quite …

  BELINSKY I'm losing my youth and my health and making enemies all over the shop when I could be surrounded by admirers who want nothing from me except to take away my independence—because I believe literature alone can, even now, redeem our honour, even now, in words alone, that have ducked and dodged their way past the censor, literature can be … become … can … (furiously) I don't know what I'm saying half the time, but that's the half that's as plain to me as a glass of water!

  CHAADAEV You mean literature can make itself useful, with a social purpose … ?

  BELINSKY No! Let social purpose hang itself unhindered! No—I mean, literature can replace, can actually become … Russia! It can be greater and more real than the external reality. It only has to be true. Art is true or false. Everything else about it is up to the artist, but on that we're in the emperor's seat. (He puts his thumb up, then down.) Hail or good night. Not true to the facts, not true to appearances, but true to the innermost of the innermost doll, where genius and nature are the same stuff. The moment an artist has a thesis, he is merely a huckster, maybe talented but that's not it, it won't help us when every time we say ‘Russia’ we have to grin and twitch like half-wits from the embarrassment of a mother country that has given nothing to the world and taken nothing from it. ‘Russia! Yes, I'm afraid so—you've got it—the backwoods—no history but barbarism, no law but autocracy, no glory but brute force, and all those contented serfs!'—we're nothing to the world except an object lesson in what to avoid. But a great artist can change all that, make it irrelevant, well, not one, but even one, even Pushkin for a start, I mean Pushkin up to, say, Boris Gudunov, he's finished now, he hasn't written a great poem for years, but even Pushkin, or Gogol's new stories, definitely Gogol, and there's more to come, I know they're coming, and soon, here things are growing not by the year but by the hour, every time I open a new manuscript I wonder whether it's going to make last week's Telescope completely out of date. You see what I'm saying? When the word ‘Russia’ makes you think of great writers and almost nothing else, the job will be done—you'll be able to walk down the street in London or Paris, and when someone asks you where you're from, you can say, ‘Russia! I'm from Russia, you poor bastard, so what do you think of that?!’

  CHAADAEV (Pause.) It's actually not too late to amend last week's Telescope.

  BELINSKY Oh God, I know! I'm still writing some of it.

  CHAADAEV If I may speak to you as an admirer, it is not your beliefs which make you enemies, so much as your … your style … People aren't used to it.

  BELINSKY But what can I do? When a book seizes me, it's not by the elbow but by the throat. I have to slap down my thoughts before I lose them, and change them sometimes while I'm having them—it all goes in, there's no time to have a style, it's a miracle if I have a main verb. What people are used to is deference to literature's own table of ranks. We've always awarded laurels too easily, but at least in the old days it was out of childish veneration. Now it's a gang of St Petersburg toadies rigging reputations like stocks they've got shares in. Bulgarin, Grech and Senkowski can have their style. Mine is chaos, excess and no mercy.

  CHAADAEV Yes … an interesting moment, (preparing to go, hesitates) I happen to know Pushkin. If you like, I'll give him your good wishes.

  BELINSKY For his recovery. Oh, bite your tongue, Belinsky! Yes—give Mr Pushkin my … adoration. Ask him to give me a poem, so I have something for Nadezhdin.

  CHAADAEV (deciding) I have brought something of mine for Nadezhdin. Here. It's not new. Perhaps you already know it.

  He gives a manuscript to Belinsky, who studies it for a moment.

  BELINSKY No …

  CHAADAEV It's probably unpublishable.

  BELINSKY Oh, I'm sure it's not that bad.

  CHAADAEV In Russia, that is.

  BELINSKY Ah, yes.

  CHAADAEV I share your sentiments, even one or two of your phrases … (taking the pages) Allow me … here, for instance: ‘… nous sommes du nombre de ces nations qui ne semblent pas faire partie intégrante du genre humain, n'est qui existe que pour donner leçon au monde …‘

  BELINSKY (faking) Ah. Yes … indeed … indeed …

  CHAADAEV And this paragraph especially. I am not an artist, so I trust you will allow me to have a thesis. How did we come to be the Caliban of Europe? We stand with one foot in the air, do we not, needing to repeat the whole education of man, which passed us by.

  BELINSKY (faking) Oh … yes … yes …

  Chaadaev is disappointed and puzzled by Belinsky's deflated response.

  CHAADAEV Well—(preparing to leave again)—no doubt Nadezhdin will tell me if he's willing to tussle with the censor. I hope it's not too … genteel for your taste.

  BELINSKY (looking at the pages) No … no …

  His little joke having failed to register, Chaadaev, slightly on the wrong foot, leaves. As soon as he is safely gone, Belinsky hurls himself into a fury of humiliated self-castigation, assaulting himself, hitting the furniture and finally rolling on the floor. Chaadaev re-enters, catching him.

  CHAADAEV My fault entirely. I'll send you a copy in Russian.

  He bows and leaves.

  Belinsky sits in the desk chair and buries his face in his arms.

  SPRING 1836

  Belinsky is asleep at his desk with his head in his arms. He wakes when Michael enters.

  MICHAEL Belinsky …

  BELINSKY Oh … Bakunin … sorry … Come in! Please. Have a chair. What time is it?

  MICHAEL I don't know. Is Nadezhdin here?

  BELINSKY No. He's arguing over an article at the censor's office.

  MICHAEL Damn … Never mind, listen, how much money do you have on you?

  BELINSKY Me? I'm sorry, I wish I …

  MICHAEL I'm not trying to borrow it.

  BELINSKY Oh, well, I've got about fifteen roubles.

  MICHAEL That will have to do for the moment. It's for this article I've done for the Telescope. (He gives Belinsky a few sheets.) It's a pity you weren't at the last meeting. Stankevich and I have discovered a new philosophy.

  BELINSKY I was there. Could you wait till Nadezhdin gets back? … Oh, it's a translation … Fichte.

  MICHAEL Stankevich went through it with me before he left. He's taken his cough to the Caucasus. It sounds as if you should do the same. What do you think?

  BELINSKY How can I … ?

  MICHAEL Yes, you're right, you have to read it first. Fichte is the man! Now I know why nothing ever seemed quite right. Schelling was trying to make out I was just some insignificant spark of consciousness in the Great Pre-Conscious, but the Self won't be got rid of like that. How do I know I exist? Not by meditation! In meditation I cease to exist. I know I exist when a seagull shits on my head. The world achieves existence where I meet it. (He demonstrates with a stale bread roll snatched from the desk.) I don't eat because it's food, it's food because I eat it. Because I decide it. Because I will it. The world is nothing but the impress of my Self. The Self is everything, it's the only thing. At last a philosophy that makes sense! You can read it while I've got a letter to write, don't move, I'll use Nadezhdin's desk.

  BELINSKY No, you can't go in, he's got someone waiting—

  MICHAEL I say, Belinsky, what do you know about Sollogub? I'm told he writes.

  BELINSKY He's a fop. Stories about high society, not contemptible, though worthless.

  MICHAEL Good-looking? Good horseman, good shot, one of those? Well, I'll see him off anyway. It seems he's pursuing poor Tatiana—Natalie's had a letter from my sisters … Oh, I forgot—(He opens the door and bawls.) Porter! Ask Miss Beyer to come up! … By the way—(He gives Belinsky a few visiting cards.)—did I show you these? ‘Monsieur de Bacounine … Maître de Mathématiques …’

  BELINSKY Yes, you gave me one. Did you get any pupils?

  MICHAEL One step at a time. If you hear of anyone … My father let me down, let me down very badly, trying to shove me into the Governor's office in Tver, it served him right when I washed my hands of home sweet home … but God, I miss it sometimes, and now Stankevich has left town and the Beyers are leaving for the country soon … I'm thinking of forgiving him. Why don't you come and stay?

  BELINSKY Come … ?

  MICHAEL To Premukhino. We can study Fichte together.

  BELINSKY Oh, I'd only make a fool of myself there.

  MICHAEL It's not grand, all you need is a clean shirt… perhaps a pair of shoes … I'd give you the money right now, only just at this moment… That's why I'm obliged to ask you for cash on the nail—it's the last thing I'll ever ask of you.

  BELINSKY I can't give it to you, I'm sorry, I'm … meeting someone later.

  MICHAEL (without resentment) Another tart up from the country?

  BELINSKY No, the same one.

  Natalie enters behind him.

  BELINSKY (cont.) At least she's a real woman, even if she's a tart.

  MICHAEL (to Natalie) He's not talking about you.

  NATALIE (resigned) I know.

  MICHAEL I'm going to write to Tatiana while I'm here.

  BELINSKY Miss Beyer …

  NATALIE Hello, Vissarion. You didn't come to the Philosophy Circle.

  BELINSKY Yes, I did.

  Michael meanwhile has half entered the inner room, and returned.

  MICHAEL There's someone asleep in there.

  BELINSKY (fussed) I told you …

  MICHAEL Who is it?

  BELINSKY Strogonov. A publisher.

  MICHAEL Well, I won't disturb him.

  Michael goes inside and closes the door.

  BELINSKY Do you want to sit down?

  NATALIE Thank you. (She sits.) Now the chair exists. And I exist where I meet the chair. The real woman you were talking about must spend her life sitting down. Is she a writer?

  BELINSKY Fichte didn't really mean … It's the impress of the mind upon the world … the Self.

  NATALIE At least Fichte makes us all equal, not like in Schelling, where you had to be an artist or a philosopher, a genius, to be a moral example to the rest of us.

  BELINSKY Yes! That's right! Democracy in the moral order. Fichte puts us back in the saddle!

  NATALIE So Michael's got no right to be moralistic about Tatiana and Count Sollogub.

  BELINSKY What?

  NATALIE Isn't she allowed to have a saddle?

  BELINSKY Oh … ! (disbelieving) Tatiana?!

  NATALIE Her sisters wrote me all about it, so I told Michael.

  BELINSKY Is it all right to tell me?

  NATALIE What?

  BELINSKY I don't know.

  NATALIE About letting Count Sollogub write to her?

  BELINSKY What?

  NATALIE Why should Tatiana send the Count's letters back? It's a woman's purpose to be worshipped. A Russian woman, anyway. Or a German woman, of course … to be the incarnation of the Ideal, to be a sister, an angel, a Beautiful Soul …

  Belinsky is distracted by a sound of conversation from the inner room.

  NATALIE (cont.) In the perfect society, all women will be the object of exalted feelings, like in the time of the troubadours … loved by the pure flame of spiritual … (abruptly) Was it George Sand?

  The sound next door becomes more lively and convivial. Michael laughs.

  BELINSKY I wonder what's going on.

  NATALIE (with sudden passion and anger) How dare you call her a tart? George Sand has freed herself from the slavery of our sex!—she's a saint!

  BELINSKY (baffled, alarmed) It's all right …

  NATALIE (bursts into tears) I want to be a French woman. Or Spanish or Italian … even Norwegian … Dutch! … or any …

  Michael comes out of the other room with a book in his hand.

  MICHAEL (gaily) Done it!

  He gives Natalie his letter, and money to Belinsky. Natalie reads the letter.

  BELINSKY What's this?

  MICHAEL Stroganov's asked me to translate this German history book—eight hundred roubles, half up-front, piece of cake, that'll show them! There you are, get yourself a new pair of shoes, now you've got to come. Off we go, Natalie, my rod, my staff, my disciple, my sister in joy and sorrow—