Travesties (11 page)

NADYA
: Ilyich wrote very little about art and literature, generally, but he enjoyed it. We sometimes went to concerts and the theatre, even the music hall – he laughed a lot at the clowns – and he was moved to tears when he saw
La Dame aux Camélias
in London in 1907.

CARR
(
Sentimentally
): Oh …
La Dame aux Camélias
…

NADYA
: Ilyich admired Tolstoy, especially
War and Peace
, but, as he put it in an article in 1908 on Tolstoy's eightieth birthday…
(
LENIN
enters to join
NADYA
)

LENIN
(
Entering
): On the one hand we have the great artist; on the other hand we have the landlord obsessed with Christ. On the one hand the strong and sincere protester against social injustice, and on the other hand the jaded hysterical sniveller known as the Russian intellectual beating his breast
in public and wailing, I am a bad wicked man, but I am practising moral self-perfection. I don't eat meat, I now eat rice cutlets. Tolstoy reflected the stored-up hatred and the readiness for a new future – and at the same time the immature dreaming and political flabbiness which was one of the main causes for the failure of the 1905 revolution.'

CARR
(
Finding the place
): Here we are.

NADYA
: However, he respected Tolstoy's traditional values. The
new
art seemed somehow alien and incomprehensible to him. Clara Zetkin, in her memoirs, remembers him bursting out –

CARR
&
LENIN
: Bosh and nonsense!

LENIN
: We are good revolutionaries but we seem to be somehow obliged to keep up with modern art. Well, as for me I'm a barbarian.

CARR
&
LENIN
: Expressionism, futurism, cubism … I don't understand them and I get no pleasure from them.

CARR
: That's my point. There was nothing wrong with Lenin except his politics.

LENIN
: September 15, 1919, to A. M. Gorki, Dear Alexei Maximych … ‘I recall a remark of yours during our talks in London, on Capri, and later – namely: “We artists are irresponsible people.”'

CARR
&
LENIN
(
Simultaneously
) Exactly!

LENIN
: ‘You utter incredibly angry words – about what? About a few dozen (or perhaps even a few hundred) Cadet and near-Cadet gentry spending a few days in jail in order to prevent plots which threaten the lives of tens of thousands of workers and peasants. A calamity indeed. What an injustice! A few days, or even weeks, in jail for intellectuals in order to prevent the massacre of tens of thousands of workers and peasants. “Artists are irresponsible people!'”

CARR
: In other words, a chit from matron.

LENIN
: ‘Both on Capri and afterwards, I told you – you allow yourself to be surrounded by the very worst elements of bourgeois intelligentsia and succumb to their whining. No, really, you will go under if you don't tear yourself away from these bourgeois intellectuals. With all my heart I wish
that you do this quickly. All the best. Yours, Lenin. P.S. For you are not writing anything!'

NADYA
: Once in 1919 we went to a concert in the Kremlin and an actress started declaiming something by Mayakovsky.
Mayakovsky was celebrated even before the revolution, when he used to shout his fractured lines in a yellow blazer with blue roses painted on his cheeks. Ilyich was in the front row, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

LENIN
: Memo to A. V. Lunacharsky, Commissar for Education – ‘Aren't you ashamed for printing 5,000 copies of Mayakovsky's new book? It is nonsense, stupidity, double-dyed stupidity and affectation.'

CARR
(
Simultaneously
): … ‘Nonsense, stupidity, double-dyed stupidity and affectation.'

LENIN
: ‘Mayakovsky should be whipped for his Futurism.'

CARR
: Mayakovsky shot himself in 1930. Tzara got fat and died in Paris in 1963. With modern art, you see, you have to pick your time and place.

NADYA
: I remember when we were in London in 1903 how Ilyich longed to go to the Moscow Art Theatre to see
The Lower Depths
. We did so after the revolution. Well, the over-acting irritated him. After seeing
The Lower Depths
he avoided the theatre for a long time. But once we went to see
Uncle Vanya
which he liked very much. And finally the last time we went to the theatre, in 1922, we saw a stage version of Charles Dickens's
Cricket on the Hearth
. After the first act Ilyich found it dull. The saccharine sentimentality got on his nerves, and during the conversation between the old toy-maker and his blind daughter he could stand it no longer and we left.
(
The Appassionata Sonata of Beethoven is quietly introduced
.
CARR
closes his book and sighs
.)

CARR
: Yes, I would have enjoyed a crack with Old Vladimir Ilyich – talking about art and literature in the cafés, strolling along the Bahnhofstrasse discussing Tolstoy and Dosty – the other one. It wasn't the same with Tzara and Joyce – never hit it off with them, never saw eye to eye. But Lenin and I… if only I'd known! But he had a train to catch and then it was too late.
Pity. (
Hegoes upstage
.)

NADYA
: But I remember him one evening, at a friend's house in Moscow, listening to a Beethoven Sonata …

LENIN
: I don't know of anything greater than the Appassionata. Amazing, superhuman music. It always makes me feel, perhaps naively, it makes me feel proud of the miracles that human beings can perform. But I can't listen to music often. It affects my nerves, makes me want to say nice stupid things and pat the heads of those people who while living in this vile hell can create such beauty. Nowadays we can't pat heads or we'll get our hands bitten off. We've got to
hit
heads, hit them without mercy, though ideally we're against doing violence to people… Hm, one's duty is infernally hard … (
CARR
leaves the Room
.
LENIN
leaves the Library. The music continues
.)

NADYA
: Once when Vladimir was in prison – in St Petersburg – he wrote to me and asked that at certain times of day I should go and stand on a particular square of pavement on the Shpalernaya. When the prisoners were taken out for exercise it was possible through one of the windows in the corridor to catch a momentary glimpse of this spot. I went for several days and stood a long while on the pavement there. But he never saw me. Something went wrong. I forget what.
(
The Appassionata swells in the dark.)
(The Room
:
GWEN
is seated. There are tea things on the table.
The Appassionata degenerates absurdly into ‘Mr Gallagher and Mr Shean'
.
BENNETT
enters, followed by
CECILY
.
The rhyme-scheme of the song is fairly evident. The verses are of ten lines each, the first line being a non-rhyming primer
.)

BENNETT
: Miss Carruthers …

CECILY
:        Cecily Carruthers …

GWEN
: Cecily Carruthers! What a pretty name!
According to the Consul
'Round the fashionable fonts you'll
often hear the Cecily's declaimed.

CECILY
: Oh dear Miss Carr, oh dear Miss Carr,
pleasure remain exactly where you are –
I beg you don't get up –

GWEN
: (
TO
BENNETT
) I think we'll need another cup –
Pray sit down, Miss Carruthers,

CECILY
:        So kind of you, Miss Carr.

(
Exit
BENNETT
.)

GWEN
: Miss Carruthers, oh Miss Carruthers …
I hope that you will call me Gwendolen.
I feel I've known you long
And I'm never ever wrong –
Something tells me that we're going to be great friends.

CECILY
: (
Upper class
) Oh Gwendolen! Oh, Gwendolen!
It sounds ez pretty
ez
a mendolen!
I hope that you'll feel free
to call me Cecily …

GWEN
: Absolutely, Cecily.

CECILY
:         Then that's settled Gwendolen.

CECILY
: Oh Gwendolen, Oh, Gwendolen …
I fear you don't remember where we met.
I'm not so picturesque
when seen behind a desk –

GWEN
: Of
course
, my dear –
how
could I forget?
Oh, Cecily, Oh, Cecily,
Accept my sincere apology!
Now be absolutely frank,
is there trouble at the bank?

CECILY
: At the Libr'ry, Gwendolen.

GWEN
:        At the
Libr'ry
, Cecily!

CECILY
: Oh Gwendolen, Oh Gwendolen …
I dread to state the reason for my call.
The fact is there's a fee
due on Homer's
Odyssey
and the
Irish Times
for June 1904.

GWEN
: Oh Cecily, Oh Cecily,
A friend of mine is writing
Ulysses!
I'm sure he never knew
that the books were overdue –

CECILY
: Since October, Gwendolen.

GWEN
:        On my ticket, Cecily!

(
Enter
BENNETT
with cup. There is a certain amount of tea-pouring and tea-sipping to come, not to mention the cup suddenly clinked down on the saucer
, and
all that; but directions to this effect are omitted
.)

GWEN
: Oh Cecily, Oh Cecily…
Aren't you the girl who has that Russian friend?
I pass him every day
by Economics A to K –

CECILY
: (
Sadly
) It's never going to be the same again.
Oh Gwendolen, Oh Gwendolen!
He left this afternoon on the three-ten.
I've just come from the train.
But we'll hear of him again…

GWEN
: (
Insincerely
) Absolutely, Cecily…

CECILY
:        
Positively
, Gwendolen!

(
Exit
BENNETT
.)

CECILY
: Oh Gwendolen, Oh Gwendolen …
The Library is going to seem so sad.
Apart from Mr Tzara
all the Bolsheviki are a–
board that special choo-choo bound for Petrograd.

GWEN
: Excuse me, Cecily, dear Cecily…
This Mr Tzara, does he spell it with a T?
T-Z-A-R-A?
A Bolshevik, you say?

CECILY
: Absolutely, Gwendolen.

GWEN
:        You surprise me, Cecily

GWEN
: Oh Cecily, oh Cecily…
I must admit you've taken me aback.
I shall certainly insist on
a tête-à-tête with Tristan –

CECILY
: With Tristan? – No, I mean his brother Jack.
Oh Gwendolen, Oh Gwendolen!
Tristan's quite another thing again.

GWEN
: Brother Jack is news to me –

CECILY
: They kept it in the family –

GWEN
: Relatively, Cecily.

CECILY
:        Imminently, Gwendolen.

CECILY
: Oh Gwendolen, Oh Gwendolen
I'd like you to be the first to know…
Tristan's hanging up his hat
for the proletariat.
We have an understanding –

GWEN
: (
Rising
)        Just a mo–
(
Sitting
) ment, Cecily, dear Cecily,
Tristan's understanding is with me.
What he writes (or draws)
is no concern of yours.

CECILY
: Relatively, Gwendolen –

GWEN
:        
Absolutely,
Cecily!

GWEN
: Oh, Cecily… Oh Cecily …
you have made an unfortunate mistake.
Forgive me if I say
(
Producing her diary
)
Tristan mentioned yesterday
he delectetes his art for its own sake.

CECILY
: Oh Gwendolen, Oh Gwendolen
Clearly he has changed his mind since then.
(
Producing her diary
)
Today he said, ‘My heart's
no longer in the arts
excepting, Cecily, as a means towards an end.'

GWEN
: (
Frigid
) Oh Cecily, Oh Cecily…
To say this gives me physical distress
but one of Joyce's chapters
sent Tristan into raptures
on the subject of the stream of consciousness.

CECILY
: Oh Gwendolen, Oh Gwendolen,
it harrows me to contradict a friend,
but his consciousness of class
is the one that's going to last –

GWEN
: Lower middle, Cecily?

CECILY
:        Are you really, Gwendolen?

GWEN
: (
Rising
) Miss Carruthers,

CECILY
: (
Ditto
)        Yes, Miss Carr.

GWEN
: I do not wish to trespass on your time.

CECILY
: I hope that I will see
you at the Library
should you ever get around to pay your fine.
Miss Carr. (
Bows.)

(
To the door
.)

GWEN
:        Miss Carruthers,
Is it done to wish you luck with all the others?
I'm not awfully au fait
with manners down your way –

CECILY
: And up yours, Miss Carr –
Tristan!