MAY 1849
Saxony. In a prison room, a lawyer (FRANZ OTTO) is seated at a table. Bakunin is in chains, sitting opposite.
OTTO What were you doing in Dresden?
BAKUNIN When I arrived or when I left?
OTTO Just generally.
BAKUNIN When I arrived, I was using Dresden as my base while plotting the destruction of the Austrian Empire. But after a week or two, a local revolution broke out against the King of Saxony, so I joined it.
OTTO (Pause.) You understand who I am?
BAKUNIN Yes.
OTTO I am your lawyer, nominated by the Saxon authorities to present your defence.
BAKUNIN Yes.
OTTO You are charged with treason, for which the penalty is death. (Pause.) What brought you to Dresden? I suspect it was to visit the art gallery with its famous Sistine Madonna by Raphael. In all probability you had no knowledge of any popular insurrection brewing against the King. On May the third, when the barricades appeared, it was a complete surprise to you.
BAKUNIN Yes.
OTTO Ah. Good. You never planned any revolt, you had no obligation to it or connection with it, its objectives were of no interest to you.
BAKUNIN Absolutely true! The King of Saxony is welcome to dismiss his parliament, as far as I’m concerned. I look on all such assemblies with contempt.
OTTO There you are. At heart, you’re a monarchist.
BAKUNIN On May the fourth I met a friend of mine in the street.
OTTO Quite by chance.
BAKUNIN Quite by chance.
OTTO His name?
BAKUNIN Wagner. He’s a music director of the Dresden opera, at least he was till we burned it down—
OTTO Er … don’t get too far ahead.
BAKUNIN Oh, he was delighted—he despised the taste of the management. Anyway, Wagner said he was on his way to the Town Hall to see what was going on. So I went with him. The provisional government had just been proclaimed. They were out of their depth. The poor things hadn’t the faintest idea how to conduct a revolution, so I took charge—
OTTO Just—just a moment—
BAKUNIN The King’s troops were waiting for reinforcements sent by Prussia, and there was no time to be lost. I had them tear up the railway tracks, showed them where to place the cannons—
OTTO Stop, stop—
BAKUNIN (laughs) There’s a story that I suggested hanging the Sistine Madonna on the barricades on the theory that Prussians would be too cultured to open fire on a Raphael …
Otto jumps to his feet and sits again.
OTTO You know who I am?
BAKUNIN Yes.
OTTO What brought you to Dresden? Before you answer, I should tell you, both the Austrian and the Russian Emperors have asked for you to be handed over to them.
BAKUNIN (Pause.) When I arrived, I was using Dresden as my base while plotting the destruction of the Austrian Empire, which I consider a necessary first step to put Europe in flames and thus set off a revolution in Russia. But after a week or two, to my amazement, a revolution broke out against the King of Saxony …
JUNE 1849
[From Herzen’s essays, From the Other Shore: ‘Of all the suburbs of Paris I like Montmorency best. There is nothing remarkable there, no carefully trimmed parks as at St Cloud, no boudoirs of trees as at Trianon … In Montmorency nature is extremely simple … There is a large grove there, situated high up, and quiet … I do not know why but this grove always reminds me of our Russian woods … one thinks that in a minute a whiff of smoke will drift across from the byres … The road cuts through a clearing, and I then feel sad because instead of Zvenigorod, I see Paris … A small cottage with no more than three windows … is Rousseau’s house …’]
‘Déjeuner sur l’herbe’ … There is a tableau which anticipates—by fourteen years—the painting by Manet. Natalie is the undressed woman sitting on the grass in the company of two fully clothed men, George and Herzen. Emma, stooping to pick a flower, is the woman in the background. The broader composition includes Turgenev, who is at first glance sketching Natalie but in fact is sketching Emma. The tableau, however, is an overlapping of two locations, Natalie and George being in one, while Herzen, Emma and Turgenev are together elsewhere. Emma is heavily pregnant. There is a small basket near Natalie.
HERZEN I let Sazonov talk me into joining his march. A few hours in custody have left me with no desire to be locked up in the Conciergerie with hundreds of prisoners and a slop bucket. I’ve borrowed a Wallachian passport. What we should do is take a house together, our two families across the frontier …
GEORGE Can I open?
NATALIE Not yet.
TURGENEV The police aren’t interested in stopping you.
HERZEN I’m not going to stay to find out like Bakunin in Saxony.
TURGENEV But this is a republic.
HERZEN The Crimson Cockatoo has already left for Geneva.
NATALIE Are you peeping?
GEORGE No—tight shut. What are you doing?
HERZEN Can I look?
TURGENEV If you want.
NATALIE All right, then—you can open now.
HERZEN (looking over Turgenev’s shoulder) Ah …
GEORGE Oh, my God!
EMMA I have to move—I’m sorry—!
GEORGE Natalie …
TURGENEV Of course! Move!
NATALIE Sssh …
TURGENEV I’m so sorry—
GEORGE My dear …
TURGENEV I don’t need you anymore.
EMMA Terrible words! …
GEORGE But suppose somebody …
NATALIE Sssh …
HERZEN He’s doing clouds. I wonder what Russian modern art would be like.
NATALIE I wanted to be naked for you, you see.
GEORGE I do. I do see.
EMMA Where’ve they got to, I wonder?
NATALIE Just once!
TURGENEV They’re hunting mushrooms.
NATALIE So, when I’m sitting across from you in the objective world, listening to Alexander reading Schiller in the evenings—or picnicking at Montmorency!—you’ll remember there is an inner reality, my existence-in-itself, where my naked soul is one with yours!
GEORGE I am deeply … Just once?
HERZEN What would it be like?
NATALIE Let’s not talk … let’s close our eyes and commune with the spirit of Rousseau among the woods where he walked!