To the Hermitage (38 page)
Authors: Malcolm Bradbury
‘
Excusez-MOI!
’
And now she gathers us around Elizabeth Chudleigh’s great silver peacock, indicating to other parties it is now time to depart. As if at her express instruction, the clock now starts to chime. Its mechanical motions begin, this intricacy locking itself into that. The owl moves, and the squirrel cages turn about, tinkling quietly. Then the cockerel crows, the peacock turns toward us, bowing its head low and spreading out its tail. In her silk Poiret dress, Galina stands there, crowing at us, clapping her hands loudly. The tourists who come and go, talking of Rembrandt or Malevich, listening to their imperious guides or auditing the chattering headsets, stare at us curiously, as if we are different from the rest. Indeed we are. Let them have their usual gallery narrative; we’re being treated to something rather different. I think we ought to call it ‘Galina’s Tale’.
DAY TWELVE
It’s snowing beyond the Hermitage windows. Wind is heard whistling down the corridors. HE sits opposite SHE. A rather large low table is set between them. Even so, their knees appear to be touching. HE holds a large sheaf of papers and is going through them with her.
HE
I need to know the total production of timber, grain, linen and birdseed. Imports of oil and horses. Exports of furs, metals, pottery and caviar.
SHE
Whatever for?
HE
You said you’d like me to produce a Russian encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a book of everything.
SHE
Surely you can have far too much of everything.
HE
In life perhaps. Not in an encyclopedia. Now then. What is the landmass of your empire?
SHE
Unknown.
HE
Total income? Total state debt?
SHE
Don’t ask me. Go and bother the members of the Academy of Sciences. That’s why I have them.
HE
I’ve tried. Every time I go there they simply hand me gold medals and huge citations. But they won’t actually tell me anything at all.
SHE
They’re jealous of you. They think I like you far too much. Or maybe you’re asking them questions they are not supposed to answer. How can I know?
HE looks at her.
HE
Questions they are not supposed to answer? What’s the point of having an academy, then?
SHE
I should have thought the point was obvious. All great countries have them. In any case I want the whole world to understand my love of science and my love for learning and philosophy. Anyway, if they refuse to answer your questions, why should I?
HE sighs.
HE
All right, my dear lady, let’s try a very easy one. What’s the total population of Russia?
SHE
Don’t you know?
HE
Some tell me 18 million, some say 20.
SHE
I can give you a list of who pays taxes. Nine million men. Women are excluded, also certain nobles.
HE
Good. The population of Moscow?
SHE
Changes all the time. Up and down. Now for instance there’s a plague. So you’re very well away from it.
HE
More than Petersburg? Less than Petersburg?
SHE
Just put down a lot.
HE
Thank you, Your Highness. The population of Moscow is . . . a lot. And this I have on the very highest authority. From the very top. Number of Jews in Russia?
SHE
We never try to count them. But monks and nuns I can tell you exactly. We have seven thousand monks and five thousand nuns.
HE
Then I suggest you should have two thousand less monks or two thousand more nuns. Then if they ever pair off—
SHE
Why would they ever pair off? The whole point of making them monks and nuns is to stop them pairing off.
HE
It’s often tried, but it’s never succeeded. Sexual passions can always break down convent walls.
SHE
How would you know?
HE
I’ve often tried to climb them. Monasticism’s an amazing stimulant to human depravity. No woman trembles more with passion than an unhappy nun. And since nunneries were chiefly devised to calm the anxieties of worried fathers, there’s a plentiful supply of those.
SHE
Not in Russia. What else do you want to know?
HE checks his list.
HE
What else does Russia produce? Timber, furs, precious stones, minerals?
SHE
Yes, of course.
HE
Hemp? Mulberry trees?
SHE
Yes. And yes again. Just put it produces everything.
HE
Wine? Rhubarb?
SHE
Yes. Yes. Oh, do write down about my Devil’s Grass.
HE
What’s that?
SHE
That’s what they called it when I introduced the potato.
HE
You introduced your people to the potato? Was that kind?
SHE
Yes. Now they grow everywhere. I require my people to eat them, too.
HE
What else did they propose to do with them?
SHE
What they do with everything. Make vodka. Surely those questions are quite enough—
SHE looks bored.
HE
My dear lady, you know I ask you these questions for a reason. I long to see Russia progress. But a nation can only progress if it uses all its resources. We cannot have true science unless we also have good manufacture. We cannot have innovation and discovery unless we cultivate crafts and skills. We cannot have good society unless people have dreams and aspirations—
SHE
Yes, I agree.
HE
What is better, a society where there is no energy or hope, where people live short lives in poverty, where all is struggle, where everyone robs each other or sells their bodies and their souls to each other, or a society of goods and talents, professions and arts. A society where people decorate their houses, cultivate their gardens, attend theatres and museums, acquire good manners and fine graces, spend and consume—
SHE
That is better. Of course.
HE
But then you must also pay the price. You will have to change your towns and cities. Create more streets and neighbourhoods. Devise more workshops, encourage more tradesmen, more craftsmen and inventions, more shopkeepers, more learned scholars, more solid citizens. Then the citizens will become burghers, and insist on governing themselves. They’ll ask for guilds and parliaments. They’ll demand laws that they agree with. They’ll require reform, and in the end they may think they may not need a monarch at all—
SHE
Write down about our wonderful stud farms. Do you know King Frederick of Prussia buys all his stallions from us?
HE
And I’m told that in return you acquire all your best breeding mares from him.
SHE looks at him. The COURTIERS are sniggering.
SHE
Didro. Today you’re being impertinent beyond belief.
HE looks extremely contrite.
HE
I’m very sorry. Sometimes my tongue seems to break loose from my brain. My thoughts come out before I’ve even thought about them.
SHE
Just as your hand does from your pocket. It’s resting on my right thigh yet again.
HE
I regret it. I do indeed.
SHE
Now you’re squeezing. Are you trying to flirt with me, sir?
HE
Not at all, my dear lady. I’m trying to think with you.
SHE
And how does this help?
HE
My dear lady, with me philosophy has never been a form of contemplation. It’s an active current, an unending and torrential flowing of the mind. I don’t think thoughts, I electrify them. Sometimes they pass through me with so much power I hurl my wig across the room. Sometimes, I’ll confess it, they’ve made me squeeze a breast or slap a thigh. Still, to the best of my knowledge, which as far as knowledge goes is among the best there is, no harm has ever come of it. No one has suffered. No one has been hurt. Yet my most sincere and abject apologies, Your Imperial Highness, all the same—
SHE laughs.
SHE
No need to be humble with me, Mr Librarian. I do believe we’re two of a kind.
HE
Are we?
SHE
You have a hot head, and I have one too. We interrupt each other, we don’t listen to what the other is saying. We’re wild and rude, frank and open. We both say stupid things—
HE
But with one difference, let us admit. When I am rude to Your Majesty, I commit an unpardonable offence.
SHE
Only between two honest and open philosophers there can never be any offence. Don’t you think that’s true?
HE
Now you say it, I do believe I do.
SHE
You know, they tell me when His Christian Majesty put you away in the prison at Vincennes, you told the authorities your thoughts all slipped out without you knowing it. In which case you simply couldn’t see how you could possibly be blamed for them—
HE
I told them my thoughts seemed absurd even to me, so I was not surprised they startled them. I said if they desired I was happy to deny them, since to be capable of changing an opinion was the first mark of an honest man. They resisted, of course.
SHE
Why of course?
HE
Because they realized they needed my thoughts exactly as much as they needed to put me in jail for them. That showed me what a waste of time it was trying to avoid being outrageous. And the same must be true for here and now, surely, my dear lady. What would be the point of carting a poor tired Denis a thousand leagues across Europe, simply for him to be flattering or dull or meek?
SHE rises, walks across the room, looks at him over her shoulder.
SHE
You’re certainly not that. You know, I’ve already decided to tolerate you. For just as long as you remain tolerable. But please remember this, sir. You can even try the patience of a saint. And though I may be sublime, I’m certainly not a saint—
HE
And I hope not. I can’t think of anything I should hate more than having to discuss philosophy with a saint.
SHE
Anyway that will do. What do you have for me tomorrow?
HE
A splendid paper. A really excellent paper—
END OF DAY TWELVE
DAY THIRTEEN
It snows even harder. SERVANTS are running in with logs for the stove. SHE stands beside it, reading a paper. HE comes in.
SHE
This. This . . . writing. Do you dare even call it a paper?
HE
What, Your Highness?
SHE
Your memorandum for today. ‘On the Morality of Princes’. How could you, you—
HE
I spent all night writing it. I was quite pleased with it.
SHE
I spent all morning reading it. I was completely outraged by it.
HE
Oh, Your Most Imperial Majesty! My intention was simply to be pleasing and persuasive.
SHE
No. Your intention was to insult, offend and humiliate me. And not just me. Every noble monarch on this earth.
HE
I really hadn’t noticed.
SHE
How dare you inform me monarchs lack every restraint that law, honour and simple decency impose on every other mortal?
HE
I thought that was the whole point of kingship.
SHE
Not at all. As you say, it’s our duty to act as a constraint on others. But we ourselves must act under the highest constraint of all. The law of God.
HE
Exactly, Your Imperial Highness. And that’s what I was trying to explain. My complaints about kingship were never addressed to you. They were sent to the divinities, to say how badly they performed their office.
SHE looks at him with the greatest suspicion.
SHE
You don’t even believe in the divinities—
HE
Yes I do. Whenever it suits me.
SHE
Listen. ‘Jove arises each morning and looks down through heaven’s trapdoor. “Oh dear,” he yawns, “plague in Asia. Warfare in Germany. Earthquake in Portugal. Disembowelling in Turkey, pox across France, knouting in Russia. Well, well.” Then back he goes to sleep. And this is what we call the work of divine providence in the world.’
HE
Rather good, isn’t it?
SHE
That teaches us, you inform me, that the gods are shifty, idle and useless. So letting monarchs rule by divine right means they rule without any proper constraint or control. That would be an argument for not having monarchs at all.
HE
Precisely.
SHE
How can you call that reason?
HE
I call it reason, justice, decent common sense.
COURTIERS murmur.
SHE
You may not say such things, Monsieur Didro. Neither in public nor in my private court.
HE
Madam, if you would be good enough to read just a little further, you will find I also say that, despite the indifference of the gods to human fate and fortune, no monarch can ever be really free to do whatever he or she wants—
SHE
Because, you say, they are also constrained by the fear of being assassinated by their own people, which makes them a little less vile than they would be otherwise.
HE
Quite so.
SHE
Mr Philosopher, if you insist on coming to my court and calling me a despot, you may find one of these days, when your head is chopped off, you’re right after all. Meanwhile I take it, like all my people, you depend on my gentleness, tolerance, and nobility—
HE looks extremely contrite.
HE
Once more I’m truly sorry, Your Highness.
SHE
Except you don’t mean a word of it, do you?
HE
What, my contrition? I assure you it’s very sincere. Or my performance of it is, most certainly.
SHE
You don’t truly mean to say I am a despot?
HE
Certainly not, madame, if you order me not to—
SHE
I require to know what you truly think.
HE
Then of course I think you are a despot. We none of us expect you to be otherwise. Why do you suppose we adore you so, incline the head, bow the knee? Why else do you merit universal homage? You’re our most honoured divinity. Our great Athena. Our northern Minerva. Our enlightened despot—
SHE
What I am, sir, is an imperial monarch with the world’s largest nation to master and sustain against my enemies.
HE
And I truly understand how hard it must be, to sit and discuss metaphysics with me in the afternoons, when only that very morning you have had to go and pillage and dismember Poland.
SHE looks at him.
SHE
Oh, is that it? You are disputing with me over Poland? You know Monsieur Voltaire entirely approves of it?
HE
Monsieur Voltaire never ceases to amaze me. I presume he’s decorated your rapings and pillage with the most enlightened of reasons? Of course. After all, he has no other reasons.
SHE
Here’s his letter, see. Go ahead, read it.
HE (
reads
)
‘My object, from which I shall never budge, is tolerance. That is the great religion I preach, and you are head of the great church in which I’m simply a humble friar. Your zeal to establish freedom of conscience in Poland is a great blessing humanity will surely acknowledge . . .’ Oh, my dear, good lord—
SHE
Don’t stop there . . . keep on—
HE (
reads on
)
‘And not only is the great Empress sublimely tolerant. She equally wishes her neighbours to be tolerant. For the first time, supreme power and force will have been exercised to establish a true freedom for the human conscience.’
SHE
There then. And don’t those words come from the greatest thinker in the world?
HE
If you tell me so.
SHE
Now, now, sir. Surely you wouldn’t compare yourself with Monsieur Voltaire?
HE
No, Your Highness. Not on the matter of Poland, anyway.
SHE
I believe you’re jealous. I’m sure you’d have called me tolerant first, if you’d had the wit to think of it.
HE laughs to himself.
SHE
What? Come along, tell me?
HE
Sometimes I amuse myself by imagining you on the throne of France. What an empire you’d make of it! And in what a brief period of time!
SHE
I should. I should be a Sun Queen.
HE
What a truly terrible empire. I’ve no doubt you’d make everyone eat potatoes—
SHE
Better than lettuce. Better than starving.
HE
We would rebel and send you to rule over England. They live on potatoes there. You know what they call you in England? ‘The Philosophical Tyrant.’
SHE
So you
are
calling me a despot—
HE
Why not, if that’s what you are?
SHE (
angry
)
Mr Philosopher, if you had an empire to run, and I only hope for your own sake you never suffer that fate, you’d do everything just as I have.
HE
I should not.
SHE
I am what I am, and I’m extremely good at it. You should have seen Russia before I ascended. A ruinous dump of a place. And look at it now.
HE
What a wonderful difference a sudden attack of the haemorrhoids can make.
Silence in the court. SHE rises.
SHE
Go away from here. Right now.
HE rises to leave.
SHE
Come back. And what would you do then? Free the serfs, I suppose? Enoble the merchants? Create a parliament of the ranks? Remove the power of the patriarchs? Give a franchise to the people? Take away the knout?
HE
Why not implement your own Great Instruction? Surely it would be your quickest way to Posterity.
SHE
There, sir. That shows us the difference between the philosophical tyrant and the tyrannical philosopher. It would be my way to Posterity, oh yes. But not in the way you mean. It would be my quickest route to disaster, the quick way to lose my head. You’re a playwright. What do our finest plays, our noblest operas tell us? The dramas of Corneille, the operas of Handel, Rameau? The greatest tragedies befall those royal heroes who seek to do most good for their people. Coriolanus, Rienze, Godunov. Because your splendid common people turn out to be a mob—
HE
Your people love you greatly, you told me. What would you have to fear?
SHE laughs, and even the COURTIERS are amused.
SHE
Don’t you know in Russia the serfs hate the kulaks, the kulaks hate the landowners, the landowners hate the provincial governors, the governors hate the nobles? The nobles hate the generals, the generals hate the bureaucrats. There are thirteen levels in the table of ranks, and each rank hates all the other twelve. The church hates the army. The army hates the navy. The infantry hates the cavalry. Every regiment hates every other. Everyone spies on everyone else, including me. And each person in all Russia hates the bitter fate that binds them in duty to their loving mother-tzarina—
HE
They have only to use their reason.
SHE
Their reason! I’m the only reason there is in this whole society. Otherwise every single person longs to rob or replace or slaughter every other. I’m all that exists between the hangman’s knout and a river of blood.
HE
Yes. I can imagine it’s so.
SHE
Thank you. So if, as you claim, you really are wise and just, you should appreciate the value of a despot. If you knew the nature of human beings and their gift for hatred, envy and wickedness, you’d know that a society without someone like me is far worse than this—
HE
Yes, Your Highness. I confess I didn’t truly consider the difficulties of power, or the grandeur of which it’s capable. Indeed I forgot for a moment why I adore you. Why I travelled all these leagues to see and worship you—
SHE
So now you confess I’m tolerant?
HE
You prove it with every kindness you show me.
SHE
Enlightened? Philosophical?
HE
An adornment to human thought.
SHE
Good, sir. Now, may I suggest you go and rewrite your paper, now we’ve discussed it carefully, and show me again tomorrow. Good day now, Mr Librarian . . .
END OF DAY THIRTEEN