The Coast of Utopia

‘Voyage’

Act II

Time: 1834-44

Place: The Moscow Zoo Skating Pond; the Beyer’s Home, Office of The Telegraph; Belinsky’s garrett; Riverboat dock; Street in St. Petersburg; Premukhino at sunset

1. March 1834 (Moscow Zoo Skating Pond)

2. March 1835 (Soiree at the Beyer’s Home)

3. March 1835 (Natalie’s Letter)

4. Summer 1835 (Office of The Telegraph: Peter Chaadaev’s Philosophical Letter)

5. Spring 1836 (Office of The Telegraph: Fichte, Sand, and Michael’s Letter to Tatania)

[Interscene: November 1836: Stankevich and Liubov at the piano]

6. December 1836 (Belinsky’s garrett: Katya bursts the Premukhino bubble.)

[Interscene: Pushkin eyes the audience and then stomps off. The shot!]

7. February 1837 (Belinsky’s garrett: Belinsky’s conversion to Hegel; Liubov)

8. April 1838 (Belinsky’s garrett: Michael and Belinsky on Hegel and the injustice of Premukhino)

9. June 1840 (Riverboat leaving: Michael shouts to Herzen, “Goodbye!”

10. July 1840 (Street in St. Petersburg: Herzen meets Belinsky.)

11. Spring 1843 (Fancy Dress Party: The Ginger Cat)

12. Autumn 1844 (Premukhino at sunset)

1. March 1834 (Moscow Zoo Skating Pond) (59-69)

· Stankevich, Herzen, Sazonov, and Ogarev wearing French tri-colors at the pond and being observed by the secret police.

· Mrs. Beyer, Natalie, Liubov and Varvara are skating and flirting.

· Herzen “What is wrong with this picture?” (60) Polevoy, the editor of The Telegraph is offended when Herzen tells him, “The Telegraph has no message for us.” (64)

· Herzen speaks of his and Ogarev’s sacred vow on Sparrow Hill to avenge the Decembrists. (65)

· Stankevich: “Reform cannot come from above or below, only from within.” (66)

· Belinsky, in tatters, has a job translating for The Telegraph, only he does not know any French.

· Natalie and Liubov vie for Stankevich’s attention.

2. March 1835 (Soiree at the Beyer’s Home) (70-82)

· Polevoy: The Telegraph has been closed down. The lone voice for reform has been closed for giving a play a bad notice. ‘The Hand of the Almighty Saved the Fatherland’ (74)

· Shevryev is reading Belinsky’s review: “Russia has no literature.”(72)

· Polevoy and Ketscher: Herzen has been arrested and sent into exile.

· Vavara and Dyakov are engaged.

· Stankevich is ‘cut’ by Mrs. Beyer for his ‘virginal’ love of Natalie.

· Peter Chaadaev: “The Hand of the Almighty Saved the Fatherland”

· Belinsky knocks over a table and loses his pocketknife. (75)

· Natalie slaps both Stankevich and Bakunin: the two meet for the first time and go off immediately to discuss Transcendental Idealism… (77)

· Stankevich encounters Liubov, but Michael butts in and takes him away. (78)

· Liubov picks up Belinsky’s pen-knife, thinking it belongs to Stankevich.

· Shevryev compliments Chaadaev for his Philosophical Letters which he wants to publish, only substituting ‘certain people’ for ‘Russians’. (80-81)

3. March 1835 (82-84) a week later

· Michael tells Natalie of Stankevich’s erotic rendezvous in the summer house… which he broke off for ‘philosophical reasons’.

· Natalie: “It’s all so different in George Sand!” (83)

· Natalie kisses Michael and does not get the response she wanted. She complains about his sisters and resolves to write them a letter. (84)

4. Summer 1835 (Office of The Telegraph) (84-89)

· Belinsky and Chaadaev: Literature should not only have a social purpose but it should have the power to become Russia: by sheer power of the intellect and imagination, writers will create the new Russia and then lead the people to it. A land of writers replaces the ‘backwoods’ of barbarism, autocracy, brute force and complacent serfs. (87)

· Chaadaev wants to publish his Philosophical Letters. “How did we come to be the Caliban of Europe?”(88)

5. Spring 1836 (Office of The Telegraph) (89-94)

· Michael now prefers Fichte over Schelling: “The world achieves its existence where I meet it.” (90) The individual mind united with the Volk spirit and achieves its destiny. (nationalism)

· Michael is finagling cash again, as always.

· Sollugub is pursuing Tatania.

· Stankevich is in the Caucasus for his cough. In his letter he urges Belinsky to visit Premukhino.

· Natalie criticizes Schelling for insisting that you must be an artist or a philosopher to set a moral example. She praises George Sand for freeing women from sexual slavery.

· Natalie reads Michael’s letter to Tatania urging her to dump Sollugub. She gets furious. “It’s the letter of a jealous lover.” (94)

· Michael connives 400 roubles to translate a German history book: he’ll get his sisters to do the work for him.

[Interscene: November 1836 Stankevich plays a duet with Liubov. They nearly kiss but break off: Stankevich confesses his liaison in the summer house, and Liubov confesses that she kissed Baron Renne there too!]

6. December 1836 (Belinsky’s garret) (96-101)

· Belinsky has just returned to his garret from his visit to Premukhino… the shot will ring out next month…

· Belinsky and Katya reunite. He learns that the police have searched his room.

· Because of Chaadaev’s Letters, The Telegraph has been shut down and Nazdrehin, the editor, has been exiled. Chaadaev is under house arrest and has been declared mad.

· Belinsky tells Katya of Premukhino: the Eternal and the Absolute made real…. Belinsky admits that his words about Premukhino are mere bubbles, easily burst. (97-98)

· Illiterate Katya is smart enough to size up what has been going on: “He’s in love with his sister, only she fell for you, and you fell for a different one that wouldn’t do it.” (101)

· Michael bounds up the stairs to ‘have it out’ with Belinsky. He admits his jealousy of Belinsky and Tatiana.

· He too has moved on from Fichte to Hegel. (The real world is produced from conflict which will ultimately generate historical progress.)

[Interscene: Pushkin eyes the audience and then walks off… the shot!]

7. February 1837 (Belinsky’s garret) (101-104)

· Stankevich and Belinsky discuss Pushkin’s death. Belinsky is moving on from his adherence to German Idelaist philosophy: “…whether the objective world is as insubstantial as a fairy’s fart or as real as a lamb chop…” (102)

· Stankevich offers Belinsky the money for a convalescent trip to the Caucasus. He also gives him Hegel to read: “Everything rational is real, and everything real is rational.” (103)

· Poverty is not just real but necessary. So worrying about it is unintelligent.

· Belinsky urges Stankevich to marry Liubov and thereby embrace the real for himself.

8. April 1838 (Belinsky’s garret) (104-108)

· Michael has been living in Belinsky’s apartment, but he is now packing to leave.

· They have been studying Hegel together. Belinsky is now editing the Moscow Observer.

· Stankevich is in Berlin, studying with Hegel’s pupil, and Michael must get there! However, Michael has been ordered home by his father to study agriculture; he must comply or his father will refuse to pay his debts.

· The influence of Hegel: Belinsky tells Michael what he really thinks of his ‘noble’ arrogance. He insists that the dream of Premukhino must be accounted for: it’s reality is based on serfdom. (107)

· Michael exclaims that the future of philosophy in Russia hangs on someone lending him a few roubles.

9. June 1840 (A riverboat is leaving) (108)

· Michael waves goodbye to Herzen (who must have given him the money to get to Berlin.)

10. July 1840 (A street in St. Petersburg) (109-11)

· Herzen meets Belinsky, and they immediately debate philosophy.

· Herzen describes Hegel’s dialectic as a six foot ginger cat. (110)

· Herzen tells of his exile and his elopement with Natalie.

· Herzen knows nothing of suffering and admits it. (111)

· Herzen lets Belinsky know that Stankevich is dead.

· The Ginger Cat, sipping champagne, observes Belinsky.

11. Spring 1943 (“Fancy Dress Party”) (112-16)

· Alexandra has married and is pregnant.

· Varenka and Dyakov have reconciled.

· Belinsky chats with Chaadaev about his new philosophical stance: “The life and death of a single child matter more than Hegel’s construction of historical necessity.” (113)

· Tatiana encounters Belinsky again. He tells her that he is to be married.

· Tatiana proclaims her love for Turgenev despite his rejection of her.

· Turgenev presents Belinsky with his new book, The Hunting Sketches. “You are our only critic.” (116)

12. Autumn 1844 (Premukhino at sunset.) (116-119)

· Alexander is now in his late 70’s.

· Semyon pleads with Alexander to help him avoid the conscription into the army. Alexander threatens to conscript all the young men on the estate.

· Tatiana brings her father a blanket.

· Alexander tells her that Michael has been sent to Siberia for socialist rabble rousing in Switzerland.

· Alexander laments that his children grew up in paradise and never realized it. Now it is gone (with Liubov.) (119)