Shipwreck Read Online Free PDF

combed-back hair and ‘Russian’ beard have been stylishly barbered. In the first part of the scene, there are separate conversations going on. They take turns to occupy the vocal foreground, but they are all continuous.
    HERZEN    You always look at my chandelier.
    TURGENEV    (
about the parcel
) Can we see it? …
    SASHA    Kol-ya … Kol-ya …
    HERZEN    … there’s something about that chandelier …
    BELINSKY    No … I was just …
    HERZEN    … it makes my Russian friends uneasy. It says, ‘Herzen is our first bourgeois worthy of the name! What a loss to the intelligentsia!’
    The Servant offers a tray of titbits to Mother with an aristocratic assurance.
    SERVANT    Madame … may one tempt you?
    MOTHER    No …
    SERVANT    Of course. Perhaps later.
    The Servant offers his tray here and there, then leaves.
    NATALIE    Vissarion, look … look what I found in the toy shop …
    SASHA    Can I see?
    MOTHER    It’s not for you, you’ve got toys of your own, too many.
    Natalie is delayed by Mother.
    MOTHER    (
cont.
) (
upset
) I can’t get used to your servant’s manner.
    NATALIE    Jean-Marie? But he has
beautiful
manners, Granny.
    MOTHER    That’s what I mean—he behaves as if he’s on equal terms, he makes
conversation …
    Turgenev reveals, from its tissue paper, a flamboyant silk robe with a large red design on white. He puts it on.
    TURGENEV    Yes … yes, very nice. You think you know somebody, and then it turns out you don’t.
    BELINSKY    (
embarrassed
) When I said Paris was a swamp of bourgeois greed and vulgarity, I meant apart from my dressing gown.
    NATALIE    It’s beautiful, you were right to get it. (
showing her shopping
) Now, see here, look—you can’t go home without something for your daughter …
    BELINSKY    Thank you …
    SASHA    Look, Kolya …
    NATALIE    Leave it alone! Come on, out you go … (
to Nurse) Prenez les enfants …
    SASHA    (
to Belinsky
) They’re all girls’ things.
    BELINSKY    Yes … I had a little boy, but he died.
    MOTHER    Come on, my lamb, let’s go and see Tata … come, Sasha … a big boy like you, you want to play all the time …
    HERZEN    Oh, let him be a child,
Maman.
    Turgenev takes off the dressing gown. Natalie takes it and wraps it loosely.
    NATALIE    (
to Turgenev
) You’ve been in London?
    TURGENEV    Just for a week.
    NATALIE    Don’t be mysterious.
    TURGENEV    I’m not. Some friends of mine, the Viardots …
    NATALIE    You went to hear Pauline Viardot sing?
    TURGENEV    I wanted to see London.
    NATALIE    (
laughs
) All right, then, tell me what London is like.
    TURGENEV    Very foggy. Streets full of bulldogs …
    Meanwhile, Mother, Sasha and Kolya negotiate their way out with the Nurse. Kolya leaves his top behind.
    They encounter
MICHAEL BAKUNIN
entering. He is thirty-five, grandly bohemian. He greets Mother, kisses the children, and helps himself to a glass from the Servant’s salver.
    BAKUNIN    The Russians are here! (
He kisses Natalie’s hand.
) Natalie.
    HERZEN    Bakunin. Who’s with you?
    BAKUNIN    Annenkov and Botkin. We kept our cab—they’ve gone for two more.
    NATALIE    Good—we’re all going to the station.
    BAKUNIN    Sazonov!
Mon frère
! (
confidentially
) The green canary flies tonight—ten o’clock—usual place—pass it on.
    SAZONOV    I told
you.
    BAKUNIN    (
to George and Emma
) I knew George was here. I could smell eau de cologne in the street. You’re