NATALIE It's the letter of a jealous lover! You've never written like that to me!

  She flings it at him and leaves. Michael picks it up.

  MICHAEL I'll see you at Premukhino.

  He follows Natalie out.

  INTER-SCENE: NOVEMBER 1836

  A piano. Stankevich plays a duet with Liubov. He breaks off and stands up abruptly.

  STANKEVICH Liubov! I must speak! While you were away, … I have been in …

  LIUBOV (helping) The Caucasus.

  STANKEVICH … torment! You are not the first. I come to you … soiled.

  LIUBOV You mustn't speak of it.

  STANKEVICH Yes, I must, I must—it lies so heavy on my breast that my lips have touched another's!

  LIUBOV (confused) Breast?

  STANKEVICH (startled) Lips, another's lips. (shrewdly) Has Michael been telling you … ?

  LIUBOV No! In you I have found the answering echo of my inner life!

  STANKEVICH Am I forgiven?

  LIUBOV I don't come to you without a mark, Nicholas.

  STANKEVICH Oh, my dear …

  LIUBOV But compared to our exalted love, what is a kiss in a summerhouse?

  STANKEVICH (jumps) He has told you! Oh, my God!

  LIUBOV No!

  STANKEVICH Who, then? … The priest!

  LIUBOV No! No!

  STANKEVICH What are you telling me?

  LIUBOV Baron Renne kissed me in the summerhouse!

  STANKEVICH Oh! I kissed someone in a summerhouse, too. But I didn't like it.

  LIUBOV I didn't like it either. It was just two kisses, Nicholas.

  STANKEVICH (Pause.) Where?

  LIUBOV In the summerhouse.

  Pause. They seem about to kiss. He loses courage, sits, and plays again.

  DECEMBER 1836

  Belinsky's room is a very small space with one window. The larger space suggests the next-door laundry with its steam, its tubs, mangles and washing hung to dry. There is a background of noise from the laundry—the thump of washtubs, water sluicing … His room contains a small bed, a stand-up writing desk, a poor couch occupied by books and bundles, and a wood-burning stove. There are journals, magazines, papers piled on the floor, and a basic washstand and chamber pot. A young woman, KATYA, is in bed wearing her clothes, including an overcoat. Belinsky is heard coming up the stairs. He enters carrying pieces of scavenged wood for the stove. He is not expecting to see Katya, who has sat up, afraid until she sees him.

  BELINSKY Katya … I thought you'd gone for good. I was worried.

  KATYA Oh, I had such a fright, the police came and searched.

  BELINSKY I know.

  KATYA I was afraid they'd come back.

  Belinsky puts the wood by the stove.

  BELINSKY I'll light it when it's colder.

  KATYA They even looked inside the stove.

  BELINSKY Were they correct with you? Did they insult you?

  KATYA Insult me?

  BELINSKY (drops it) Well, if you didn't notice … They had me in for questioning. It's lucky I was away in the country all that time. Nadezhdin got exile. (Laughs.) The censor has lost his three thousand roubles a year—they say he passed Chaadaev's article in the middle of a card game.

  KATYA You stayed away much longer than you said … Why didn't you write to tell me?

  BELINSKY You can't read.

  KATYA That's no reason.

  BELINSKY Yes, I'm sorry. What did you do when the money was gone?

  KATYA Sold my jewels.

  BELINSKY Oh, I hope not, I hope not! (He embraces her, feeling her body inside her clothes.) No, they're still there. (He kisses her.)

  KATYA What was it like where you went?

  BELINSKY It was … a family. Amazing. I knew there were families. I come from a family. But I had no idea.

  KATYA Did you bring me something?

  BELINSKY And the place itself, Premukhino in the freshness of the early morning, everything chirping and croaking, whistling, and splashing, as if Nature was having a conversation with itself, and the sunsets breathing, as alive as fire … You understood how the Eternal and Universal are more real than your everyday life, than this room and the world lying in wait outside the room, you believed in the possibility of escape, of transcendence, of raising your soul to the necessary height, and living high above your own life, folded into the mind of the Absolute.

  KATYA (impatient with him) Tell me what happened properly.

  BELINSKY It was awful.

  He gives way, starts to sob. Katya holds him, upset and anxious, until he recovers.

  KATYA It's all right … it's all right … What is it?

  BELINSKY (recovered) Don't you bother with reading, Katya, words just lead you on. They arrange themselves every which way, with no can to carry for the promises they can't keep, and off you go! The objective world is the still unconscious poetry of the soul.’ What do these words mean? ‘The spiritual communion of beautiful souls attaining harmony with the Absolute.’ What do they mean?

  KATYA I don't know.

  BELINSKY Nothing, and I understood them perfectly!—my everyday life, which was banal, meaningless, degrading, was merely illusion … In my real life, my inner life, there was no cause for misery and humiliation. But when it turned out the necessary height was a metre or two above my reach, and all those fine phrases burst like bubbles, there was nowhere to go except back home feeling worthless and now without even a job …

  Michael is heard stamping up the stairs and shouting ‘Belinsky!’ in an aggressive tone. Katya, without alarm or instruction, pulls the blankets around her, making no real attempt to hide, though becoming almost invisible but for her face. Michael barges in flourishing a letter.

  MICHAEL So—do you want to have this out?

  BELINSKY Why don't you sit down?

  MICHAEL Because there's nowhere to sit and I'm not staying.

  BELINSKY You didn't care for my letter.

  MICHAEL What I don't care for is being talked down to on a subject you'd know nothing about if Stankevich and I hadn't translated it for you and made a pupil of you. What I don't care for is being preached at about my character as if I were a ledger clerk, by a snivelling penny-a-line book reviewer who makes himself at home under my roof, insults my parents and makes sheep's eyes at my sister, who could take her pick from the nobility of the province.

  Belinsky quails as from a physical assault.

  BELINSKY Oh … oh … so that was it—

  MICHAEL Ha!—do you think I care if you make a donkey of yourself over Alexandra? What I object to—what I find disgusting—is that poor Tatiana should be taken in by your mountebank's intellectual posturing and hang on your lips and gaze at you like a … like a—

  Michael collapses around Belinsky's shoulders weeping.

  BELINSKY (bewildered) What … ? What's the matter?

  MICHAEL Tatiana! Tatiana! Forgive me, Belinsky, forgive me, my sins are ten times yours! I don't know what to call my feeling for her—but it ruined me, all my ideals were powerless against my … my … my jealousy …

  BELINSKY You were jealous of me?

  MICHAEL I was in torment …

  Belinsky is moved. He embraces Michael.

  BELINSKY Michael, Michael …

  Michael notices Katya staring at him.

  MICHAEL Oh … excuse me, madame … (He disengages himself from Belinsky.) Bakunin. (to Belinsky) I really must be going. Stankevich sends his regards. Did I tell you he and Liubov have agreed to correspond? It's a secret, as yet—but their letters are beautiful. I read (present tense) them to Natalie and we agree he's worthy of her. Varenka has weakened, I'm afraid—I've had to write to her about that animal Dyakov, but I've got it in hand. I'm sorry if I got a bit … you know … but we're all right again, aren't we? What will you do without the Telescope?

  BELINSKY I don't know.

  MICHAEL (cheerfully) Still, you're lucky not to be in Siberia. Chaadaev's under house arrest. He's officially insane, only nobody's telling him, and His Majesty wants daily reports … Well, à bientôt, see you on Friday. What are you reading?

  BELINSKY Fichte, of course. Why?

  MICHAEL You must read Hegel. Hegel is the man! Fichte tried to argue the objective world out of existence. No wonder I was going wrong! … (Bows to Katya.) Madame, a thousand pardons.

  Michael leaves.

  KATYA Huh … ! (Mocks him.) Alexandra!

  Belinsky takes the little penknife from his pocket.

  BELINSKY Here. It's what I brought back for you.

  KATYA (pleased) I've never had a penknife.

  BELINSKY It's all I've got left.

  INTER-SCENE—JANUARY 1837

  Music. Leaning in the doorway of a concert hall, the poet ALEXANDER PUSHKIN, aged thirty-seven, scans the audience with an expression of superior discontent. He catches somebody's eye, turns away abruptly and leaves.

  There is the sound of an other-worldly distant pistol shot.

  FEBRUARY 1837

  Night. Belinsky's room is lit by a tallow lamp. Belinsky, wearing his coat, is wrapping layers of newsprint across his midriff for extra warmth, and coughing into a dirty handkerchief. Stankevich, dressed for outdoors, is pacing, excited, holding open a book.

  STANKEVICH The first thing we have to do is stop being Hamlets.

  BELINSKY (reading from his stomach) Listen to this—'the death of the greatest poet who ever lived …’ God, how I hate the people who write in the shirtfronts. What's it got to do with them?—The loss is personal, I refuse to share it.

  STANKEVICH His moral and spiritual despair is what comes from refusing to face up to the rationality of the objective world …

  BELINSKY It was she who killed him, in a way …

  STANKEVICH That's what I think! She was the wrong woman for him. The duel was between knowledge and denial, the dialectic dramatised, it's all there in Hegel.

  BELINSKY Hegel? She was a flirt!

  STANKEVICH Well, I have to agree. But on a higher, Hegelian level, duelling with rapiers represents—

  BELINSKY He was shot.

  STANKEVICH What?

  BELINSKY He was shot.

  STANKEVICH Who was?

  BELINSKY Pushkin.

  STANKEVICH I'm talking about Hamlet.

  BELINSKY Hamlet?

  STANKEVICH Yes, Hamlet. The play was called Hamlet by William Shakespeare. There was a duel. Do you remember the duel?

  BELINSKY Look, Stankevich, this is humiliating, but whether the objective world is as insubstantial as a fairy's fart or as real as a veal chop—(He clutches his stomach.)—oh, don't!—until someone has the sense to offer me the editorship of some …

  STANKEVICH (taking an envelope of money from his pocket) Oh!—that's what I came for. You should go to the Caucasus for a few months. Here. It's not just from me. Botkin, Aksakov, Katkov … all the members of the circle …

  BELINSKY Thank you.

  STANKEVICH You have to get yourself…

  BELINSKY I will. Don't worry.

  STANKEVICH You can take Hegel with you.

  BELINSKY So, the objective world is not an illusion?

  STANKEVICH No.

  BELINSKY The laundry, the blacksmith, everything that Fichte said was just the shapes left by the impress of my mind … is real?

  STANKEVICH Yes. Everything rational is real, and everything real is rational.

  BELINSKY Poverty, injustice, censorship, whips and scorns, the law's delay? The Minister for Public Instruction? Russia?

  STANKEVICH Real.

  BELINSKY How did we miss it?

  STANKEVICH Not just real but necessary.

  BELINSKY Why's that?

  STANKEVICH Necessary to the march of history. The dialectical logic of history.

  BELINSKY Really? So, to … worry about it … deplore it … is …

  STANKEVICH Unintelligent. A vulgar error.

  BELINSKY Can you lend me a dictionary?

  STANKEVICH God knows when I'll see you again. The doctors say I have to take the water cure at Carlsbad. I'm going home to see my parents first.

  BELINSKY Are you to be congratulated yet?

  STANKEVICH No. Not officially. (Pause.) Belinsky … tell Liubov she's too good for me!

  BELINSKY Have you never felt … desire?

  STANKEVICH There was a woman once before … (He abandons the train of thought.) But I know I experienced a powerful feeling when she was kneeling at my feet …

  BELINSKY (sagely) In the summerhouse.

  STANKEVICH … to take off Natalie's skate …

  BELINSKY (too late) Skate.

  STANKEVICH Summerhouse?

  BELINSKY What?

  STANKEVICH You said summerhouse.

  BELINSKY Look …

  STANKEVICH Bakunin!

  BELINSKY Oh God …

  STANKEVICH Bakunin!

  In tears of humiliation, Stankevich bolts from the room and falls down the unseen stairs. Belinsky grabs the lamp and follows, cursing himself.

  MARCH 1838

  Belinsky's room. Michael has moved in with Belinsky. The books and jumble previously on the couch are on the floor. Michael is lying on the couch, smoking and writing. Belinsky, wearing a coat from the Caucasus, is writing feverishly at the stand-up desk, throwing completed pages to join others on the floor. The laundry sounds today are augmented by hammering on an anvil down below. Michael jumps up, opens the window to shout. The laundry sounds and the hammering are louder, and a few soap bubbles enter through the window.

  MICHAEL (shouts) Hammer quietly, damn you! (He closes the window and paces energetically.) We'll change the cover from yellow to green, so the readers can see straightaway that the Moscow Observer is under new management.

  Incensed by renewed hammering, he flings himself out of the door and down the stairs, shouting abuse.

  Belinsky stops writing to take off his coat. He picks the pages off the floor.

  APRIL 1838

  There is a transition to another day, a month later. The anvil is silent. The laundry noises are quieter. Belinsky is excited and pleased. He has the green-covered Moscow Observer, turning the pages. Michael enters and goes straight to his couch, where he starts stuffing his belongings into a big satchel.

  BELINSKY We should have put April on the cover instead of March … There's too much Hegel, perhaps. But your very first signed article reads well… (He notices what Michael is doing.)

  MICHAEL I've got to go home.

  BELINSKY Has something happened?

  MICHAEL Agriculture!

  BELINSKY What do you mean, agriculture?

  MICHAEL That's what I said! Stankevich has been in Berlin for months, sitting at the feet of the Professor there, who was Hegel's actual pupil—and my father says he'll pay my debts if I agree to study agriculture!

  BELINSKY Why agriculture?

  MICHAEL Apparently Premukhino is an agricultural business. You thought it was just there, didn't you, an aesthetic fact of nature, like a bluebell only much bigger.

  BELINSKY No, I didn't.

  MICHAEL Well, I did. I had no idea it was agriculture. The peasants plant things as their fathers did, the things grow, you eat them or feed the animals with them, and then it's time to plant some more. Country life! It isn't a subject for an educated man! So I have to go home and explain things to my father. Anyway, I want to see Varenka before she leaves—and Liubov is worse, I'll cheer her up …

  BELINSKY Is there any news from Stankevich?

  MICHAEL (gloomily) He's having second thoughts.

  BELINSKY Oh. Has he told her?

  MICHAEL No, not about Liubov.

  BELINSKY Oh.

  MICHAEL He doesn't feel he can ask his father for more money. Honestly!—you should see their estate—thousands of souls! I could study Idealism in Berlin for three years for the price of a couple of house serfs! (Michael has got himself packed and ready to leave.) In case you're wondering about the Observer, I've decided this having-our-own-journal is a mistake.

  BELINSKY A mistake?

  MICHAEL We have to abandon the whole thing. We're not ready.

  BELINSKY For what?

  MICHAEL We have to think—think—think!

  BELINSKY IS this because I made a few cuts in your article … ?

  MICHAEL Look, it's simple. We haven't got the right to publish without a lot more study.

  BELINSKY I see.

  MICHAEL Good. That's settled, then. I'm off. (He embraces Belinsky.) You're still my Vissarion!

  BELINSKY I've always admired your qualities, your undoubted qualities … your energy, optimism … The last few months, studying Hegel together and bringing out the first issue of the magazine, have been the happiest of my life. Never have you shown more of the love in you, the gaiety, the poetry. That's how I want to remember you.

  MICHAEL Thank you, Vissarion.

  BELINSKY I don't want to remember you for your overbearing vanity, your selfishness, your lack of scruple … your bullying, your cadging, your conceit as teacher and guide to your distracted sisters whose only philosophy is ‘Michael says’ …

  MICHAEL Well!

  BELINSKY … and above all your permanent flight into abstraction and fantasy which allows you not to notice that the life of the philosopher is an aristocratic affair made possible by the sweat of Premukhino's five hundred souls who somehow haven't managed to attain oneness with the Absolute.

  MICHAEL Right. I don't remember you saying any of this when you had your snout in the trough.

  BELINSKY I wasn't even thinking it. I was in the dream myself. But reality can't be thought away—what's real is rational, and what's rational is real. I can't describe to you my feelings when I heard those words. They were my release from my weary guardianship of the human race. I grasped the meaning of the rise and fall of kingdoms, the ebb and flow of history, the pettiness of my miserable anxiety about my life. Reality! I say it every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake—and the reality for us, Michael, is that I'm the editor of the Moscow Observer, and you are a contributor. By all means continue to submit your articles. I will give them serious consideration.