BAKUNIN How do you know I don't?

  HERZEN Because if you did, you'd have been telling me about it incessantly for the last week. And all this nonsense with secret journeys, secret codes, false names, invisible ink—it's just children's games. No wonder Liza is the only one of us who has no doubts about you. You send people letters in code and put the code in the same envelope so the person can read the letter.

  BAKUNIN I admit that was a mistake, but what about you?—all you do is fill the Bell with futile discussions about peasants—who can't read it. I agree with Turgenev.

  TURGENEV Me?

  BAKUNIN It's all pedantry—of no practical utility.

  HERZEN Thank you very much! I'm already being called a nihilist by (to Turgenev) your publisher. I'm to blame personally for the student demonstrations at home. St Petersburg is being burned down at my orders. And here I am—or rather, here is Ogarev—slaving over a petition to the Tsar to establish a council of all the classes to iron out the grievances … which Turgenev refuses to sign.

  TURGENEV I do.

  HERZEN Why? You believe in parliaments!

  TURGENEV Yes, but you don't.

  HERZEN I believe in this one as an expedient.

  BAKUNIN But things are moving too quickly.

  HERZEN Where? In Wallachia?

  BAKUNIN Very well. My respect for you has no bounds. I sincerely love you. I hoped I could join your alliance, but your haughty condescension towards your … towards those who … well, look, it's best if we work independently and, if possible, remain friends. I'm sorry, but there it is. (Bakunin leaves.)

  OGAREV Don't let him go like that.

  HERZEN He'll be back tomorrow as if nothing has happened.

  Ogarev, upset, hurries out after Bakunin.

  TURGENEV (to Ogarev) Good night! (Pause.) I don't feel well.

  Natalie, reacting like Ogarev, but with anger, leaves the room.

  TURGENEV (cont.) Actually, I went to the International Exhibition at Kensington …

  Natalie returns.

  NATALIE Tata's waiting up for me. Will you let her go to Italy with Olga?

  HERZEN So far, nobody's going to Italy.

  NATALIE You can't stop Malwida from living where she wants.

  HERZEN I can stop Olga from going with her. That woman asked if she could take Olga to Paris for the winter—now she proposes to take her to Italy to live, because you—

  Natalie turns on her heel.

  HERZEN (cont.) And now Tata wants to go with them.—Well, nobody's going, so she can't!

  Natalie leaves.

  TURGENEV At Kensington, every country in the world has a stand displaying its unique contribution to human ingenuity. But none of the exhibits on the Russian stand—the samovar, the bast shoe, the yoke bridle and so on—are actually Russian inventions. They all arrived centuries ago from somewhere else. It occurred to me, looking round, that if Russia had never existed, nothing in that great hall would alter by so much as a hobnail. God help us, even the Sandwich Islands are showing off some special kind of canoe. But not us. Our only hope has always been Western civilisation transmitted by an educated minority.

  HERZEN What you mean by civilisation is your way of life, your comforts, your opera, your English gun, your books lying about on good furniture … as if life as evolved in the European upper classes is the only life in tune with human development.

  TURGENEV Well, it is if you're one of them. It's not my fault. If I were a Sandwich Islander I expect I'd speak up for navigating by the stars and eighteen things you can do with a coconut, but I'm not a Sandwich Islander. To value what is relative to your circumstances, and let others value what's relative to theirs—you agree with me. That's why despite everything we're on the same side.

  HERZEN But I fought my way here with loss of blood, because it matters to me and you're in my ditch, reposing with your hat over your face, because nothing matters to you very much—which is why despite everything we'll never be on the same side. Not everything in your precious civilisation is on display in Kensington … a whole exhibition's worth of shame-faced accommodations is missing. Praise the Lord but put your faith in Mammon. Think what you like but lie like everyone else. In politics, constant protest with constant obedience. Good taste is the artistic principle, and the supreme virtue is punctuality.

  Tata runs barefoot, in a nightdress, to Herzen.

  TATA Why can't I?—I'm nearly eighteen!—I'm going to be an artist, my whole life is at stake!

  HERZEN Yes—yes—go! Olga, too! Paris or Florence, what's the difference? Tata, Tata, don't forget your Russian … (He hugs her.)

  TURGENEV (leaving) When you were stuck in Russia … well, never mind … wake me for breakfast, if I'm not dead.

  He goes out, passing Natalie, saying good night to her.

  HERZEN (weeps) Oh, Natalie … !

  Natalie comes forward but hesitates.

  HERZEN (cont.) Natalie! It's your Tata grown up!

  Tata kisses Herzen and runs out, stopping to hug Natalie. Natalie comes forward. Something has tipped in her.

  NATALIE (jeers) ‘Oh, Natalie! It's your Tata grown up!’

  Herzen is frightened.

  HERZEN How dare … how dare you …

  NATALIE (laughs, speaking offhandedly) Oh, Natalie was all right, she was just silly for a poke, and Herwegh was kingdom come.

  HERZEN Not another word.

  NATALIE She worshipped you. But it's no good worshipping her if you wait till she's dead. Good old George was an education on his knees, which of course is not in your character—

  Herzen puts his hands over his ears.

  NATALIE (cont.) I didn't lose you Olga! Don't blame me! It was already too late! (Natalie leaves.)

  AUGUST 1862

  Herzen remains, with his hands over his face.

  HERZEN No! … No!

  Ogarev is with him. He has an opened letter.

  OGAREV It's a disaster. The police were waiting for Vetoshnikov at the frontier. They knew. They must have had an agent placed among your visitors. The Third Section knows how to do these things, after all. They searched the flats of everyone mentioned in the letters Vetoshnikov was carrying, and they found more names …

  HERZEN It was me who dragged in Chernyshevsky!—in a postscript!

  OGAREV Sleptsov got away, to Geneva. He says there were thirty-two arrests in all … Land and Liberty has ceased to exist.

  HERZEN (angrily) I said to you—the Bell can't help them by coming out for them, it can only ruin itself. And it has.

  OGAREV (defiantly) Yes, we lost the liberals! And the patriots, when we came out for the Polish uprising! So what? We're not publishers, we're supposed to be revolutionaries with a magazine, aren't we? Sasha, Sasha, don't you know? The boys who are under arrest, they're us when we climbed to the top of the Sparrow Hills and swore to avenge the Decembrists. (Ogarev leaves.)

  SEPTEMBER 1864

  Night. Natalie, in a nightdress, comes to Herzen.

  NATALIE I can't sleep, (playing a child) I want, I want!

  HERZEN (gently) Yes … yes … go back to bed. I won't be long.

  NATALIE You really won't?

  HERZEN I promise.

  NATALIE Everything will be well again if we go to live in Switzerland. I know it will. I'll be different there. Why not? Why not?

  HERZEN Yes! Why not? Nick doesn't want to leave, but he'll come if he can bring Mary. Ciernecki objects that the scenery won't compare with Caledonian Road, but he says he can move the press. Perhaps we can save the Bell by printing a French edition … and in Geneva there's hundreds of exiles from Russia now.

  NATALIE You'll be nearer Tata and Sasha. We can all be happy again!—and what's there in England that you'll miss?

  HERZEN (thinks) Colman's mustard.

  One of the twins starts crying distantly in an upper room.

  NATALIE It's Lola Girl. I'll settle her. The twins can have their third birthday in Paris on the way! Paris, Alexander!

  Natalie leaves.

  Ogarev enters.

  HERZEN (to himself) Do you remember, Nick? (Herzen follows Natalie.)

  OCTOBER 1864

  Night.

  Mary joins Ogarev, who has had too much to drink. He sings a snatch of Russian.

  MARY What have you done with Henry? I sent him to the Lamb to fetch you.

  OGAREV They won't serve me in the Lamb after my incident. They cannot distinguish between a medical condition and inebriation. For example, this is inebriation.

  MARY Is it? I'd called it soused. Oh, Nikholai Whatsitwhich!

  OGAREV Yes, I was once the owner of four thousand serfs. My redemption is slow but steady.

  MARY And now he wants me and Henry to go and live on an alp.

  OGAREV Not an alp, a lake, beautiful, they say. Let's sit down and discuss it. (He lies on the ground.) It's a sad Russian story. My wages come from the Bell, from Alexander's pocket. But … we can stay behind in London if you prefer.

  MARY And do what? I'm not going back to work!

  OGAREV The cows are noted for their beauty.

  MARY What do they speak there, Swiss?

  OGAREV They don't speak, they're cows, but in Geneva French is spoken.

  MARY I never did French.

  OGAREV (straight) I remember.

  MARY (cross) Any more of that and you can go on your own.

  OGAREV Mary, Mary … I won't go anywhere without you.

  MARY ‘Course not. You wouldn't last a week.

  She hauls him up and helps him out.

  MARY (cont.) My Russian aristocrat.

  OGAREV We were only noble. I was a poet.

  MARY An aristocratic Russian poet … I wouldn't have dared make it my dream … and look, it's just life, life, after all.

  APRIL 1866

  A revolver shot … the attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander.

  MAY 1866

  Geneva. A café-bar.

  Sleptsov, last seen four years earlier at Herzen's house, is waiting at a table … with a copy of the Bell. He turns the pages listlessly. Herzen arrives.

  HERZEN I'm afraid I've kept you, Sleptsov.

  SLEPTSOV (shrugs) But you're here.

  HERZEN You're reading the Bell?

  SLEPTSOV It was left in the rack. I expect you left it. Nobody is reading the Bell.

  HERZEN (pause) You said it was urgent.

  SLEPTSOV I'd like a vin rouge.

  HERZEN They probably have that, you could ask.

  SLEPTSOV (laughs) I'm sorry my nihilist manners aren't up to the company of a millionaire revolutionary.

  HERZEN What is it you want?

  SLEPTSOV Your fraternal support. Four hundred francs.

  HERZEN For what?

  SLEPTSOV To send to our comrades at home, and to publish a thousand copies of our pamphlet about Karakozov's assassination attempt on the Tsar.

  HERZEN If your pamphlet says Karakozov was a deranged fanatic, and his revolver shot a useless stupidity which won't advance the fall of the Romanovs by a single day—that it was, in fact, an attempted murder, which (pointing to the sky) hit the crow instead—yes, I'll give you four hundred francs.

  SLEPTSOV (calmly) No, it doesn't say that.

  HERZEN Read my article. At least my shots at the Tsar hit their target.

  Sleptsov laughs.

  HERZEN (cont.) Your hero Chernyshevsky would agree with me. He was against terrorism. He and I agreed about things much more than we disagreed. We were a mutual complement to each other.

  SLEPTSOV It's difficult to ask him, since he's doing fourteen years’ hard labour. Isn't it? But you and Chernyshevsky? Allow me to tell you what I think about that. Between you and Chernyshevsky there is nothing in common. In your philosophy of life, your politics, your character, in the smallest details of your private life, you and Chernyshevsky are as far apart as it's possible to be. The young generation has understood you, and we have turned away in disgust. We don't care about your tedious, hackneyed, sentimental addiction to reminiscence and to ideas which are extinct. We have left you far behind, and you refuse to notice. You flap your wings and dream that you are still our leader and guide. Come down to earth. You're a poet, a storyteller, an orator, anything you please, but you're not a political leader or thinker, let alone the high priest of Russian socialism. Our future is not tied to the slow movements of blind, dumb, subterranean forces. We're taking it in hand. Don't you understand? To us, Tsar Alexander and Herzen are the dance that's outlived its time. So, forget that you're a great man. What you are is a dead man. (Sleptsov leaves.)

  AUGUST 1868

  Switzerland.

  Herzen, aged fifty-six, and less than two years from death, sits in the garden of a rented chateau near Geneva. Liza, aged nearly ten, comes backwards into view, dragging on a long halter. Sasha, now twenty- nine, enters accompanying his pretty Italian wife, TERESINA, who is pushing a baby carriage.

  LIZA Oh, come on!

  SASHA What are you doing with her?

  LIZA I'm going to milk her.

  SASHA She hasn't got any milk.

  LIZA How do you know?

  SASHA She hasn't had any babies.

  LIZA (amazed, enlightened) What? Oh … Is that why Teresina has milk … ? (The halter is jerked out of her hand, and she chases it out of sight.)

  TERESINA Che cosa ha detto di me? [What did she say about me?]

  SASHA (fondly) Niente … [Nothing.]

  TERESINA Ha detto il mio nome. [She said my name.]

  SASHA Vuole mungere il vitello e non ha capito per il latte materno. [She wants to milk the calf, and she didn't understand about mother's milk.]

  They laugh quietly together, Teresina shyly. Louder is the sound of Natalie rebuking Liza. Natalie enters in nervous tearful distress.

  NATALIE Why can't she have a dog?

  SASHA (to Natalie) Calm down, it's all right.

  NATALIE Is it? It is, isn't it? (She looks into the pram.) I murdered my two little ones, you know.

  SASHA Now, stop.

  NATALIE (to Teresina) I killed them with wanting my own way.

  SASHA Teresina doesn't know French, she only speaks Italian.

  NATALIE Huh! She doesn't even speak Italian, (loudly for Herzen) You disappointed your father. An Italian peasant for the wife of a Herzen!

  HERZEN I … That's enough!

  Natalie starts weeping again.

  NATALIE I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

  SASHA She's not a peasant. She's a proletarian.

  Sasha and Teresina continue out of view.

  NATALIE (to Herzen) You said wait until spring, and I said no, no, I want to leave now, straightaway, I want, I want … You said travel straight through to the south, and I said no, no, I want to see Paris again, I want, I want … and in Paris diphtheria was raging, and it took away our Lola Boy and Lola Girl … Why did you let me have my way?!

  HERZEN Natalie … what's the use … ? Natalie …

  NATALIE I am not the real Natalie. The real one is in the sky. (Natalie meanders away into the further garden.)

  HERZEN (calls) Tata … Tata … !

  Tata comes. She is twenty-three, and now Herzen's helpmate and confidante.

  TATA I'm here … what is it?

  HERZEN Has Olga come?

  TATA No, not yet. Ciernecki came with something for Nick—he brought Bakunin, too.

  HERZEN Bakunin? It's a family gathering, a holiday—

  TATA He's going back with Ciernecki in a little while—it'll be good for you to have Bakunin to argue with. We're boring for you, and you're being so good … (She kisses him.)

  HERZEN You'll bring Olga straight out when she comes? Perhaps the carriage wasn't at the station …

  TATA I'm sure it was. I'll go and keep a lookout.

  Tata leaves. Ogarev and Bakunin enter. Ogarev is sockless and has a stick, which he gives to Bakunin while he opens a crumpled parcel.

  OGAREV (pleased) Mary's found my socks. I thought I'd seen the last of them. I had them on before I fainted. Did she get them from the police station, I wonder?

  BAKUNIN Natalie is openly living with Herzen, so why can't you bring Mary? There's no logic to his sense of propriety.

  OGAREV Well, don't make a fuss … (approaching Herzen) Look who's here.

  HERZEN Oh … it's the International Brotherhood of Socialist Democrats, and he's got Ogarev with him.

  BAKUNIN I've dissolved the Brotherhood. My new organisation is the Social-Democratic Alliance. Would you like to join?

  Ogarev and Bakunin take chairs. Ogarev, with a little difficulty, puts on the socks.

  HERZEN What are your aims, precisely?

  BAKUNIN Abolition of the state by the liberated workers.

  HERZEN That's reasonable.

  BAKUNIN Now you have to give me twenty francs.

  HERZEN I'll give you a copy of the Bell. It's the last one. They don't want us in Geneva, neither in Russian nor in French. I don't know why I came here. The Russians treated me with contempt so long as my purse was open to them. I gave and gave until I was tired of giving. And then they really turned on me. These ‘new men’ are the syphilis of our revolutionary lust. They spit on everything beautiful or humane, past or present.

  BAKUNIN The old morality has gone, the new one is still being formed. They're caught between. But they've got courage and passion. There's always a touch of senility in hatred of the young. My youngest recruit is only sixteen.

  OGAREV You mean Henry?

  BAKUNIN Every voice is going to count. I'm in the process of turning the Alliance into the Geneva Section of Marx's International Working Men's Association.

  HERZEN But … Marx wants to take over the state, not abolish it.

  BAKUNIN You've put your finger on it.

  HERZEN On what?