To the Hermitage

by Malcolm Bradbury

  But wait. Just a minute. Sitting with his head bowed in an enormous chair over there – isn’t it, surely it’s, no, it can’t be . . . Voltaire??? He’s not sure. He’s loved, often hated, the wicked old fellow for all his adult life. Everyone links them together, sometimes imagining the one is the other, or the two are one, like the name of some . . . well, Metro station – Diderot-Voltaire. But in truth the two have never met directly; person to person, as it were, self to self, face to face. One’s always been in exile while the other is at home. So they have Boxed and Coxed, and their intimate relations are all on paper; the actual meeting has been consigned to the great plot of Destiny, still printing in the big book above. It will come, he knows it will. But not here, surely? What can he be doing in the Palmyra of the North? Is it possible his own journey has drawn the clever octogenarian fox out of his rich Swiss lair? Surely not. Arouet is far too old, far too clever, and at Potsdam he’s learned the sense of paying his homage and radiating his influence from the groves of a safe republican retreat.

  Surely it’s a haunting. Yet there he sits: woolly-haired, clad as for one of his own dramas in a Roman toga, vain-looking as ever, usual impish grin all over his face. Better move closer. Yes, it’s Arouet all right: the grand old master, the creator of roguish Candide and the wise but innocent Zadig. It’s glorious Voltaire; but not the man in the flesh. His living, pulsing meat is still doubtless at Ferney, among the cow pastures, pouring out those innumerable tracts and fictions, those novels and histories and dramas, that even put his own prodigious production to shame. There he’ll be, raging and conniving, protesting and mocking, infuriating priests and kings, looking after his great brood of tip-tapping watchmakers, entertaining all those innumerable guests for whom he puts on dramatic performances, wryly observing the decline of France. He’s not flesh, he’s stone. Not a man but a statue has travelled. What sits here is a complete simulacrum, a life-size likeness, Voltaire confronting Posterity already. Then it comes back. It’s the image done at Ferney by dear and distinguished Houdon, who’s also sculpted Our Sage himself, if not so wonderfully.

  So, large as life, though a good deal quieter, the Second Sage sits there four-square, squatting in his own favourite armchair. It’s an ugly fellow, it has to be said. ‘My trade,’ he has pronounced, ‘is to say what I think. What trade is better?’ And there he sits as he will continue to sit, ever present to the Empress. So it is written in the great Book of Destiny above. It is also written that, as times change, as Russia swells, as revolutions happen, as Vladimir Ilich pushes out his beard, this statue will move. From Petersburg to Petrograd, Petrograd to Leningrad, and then to Moscow when the Prussians come again. It will be heaved out of windows, thrown aboard trains. The same with his library, which will come to this Hermitage to sit with Our Sage’s own. But that is later; the point is he’s here, determined to be present as our man meets his empress. Mischievously grinning, staring with that critical, almost obscene little glance of his, he watches stonily as our man walks on on his suddenly more nervous way . . .

  Down the mirrored and art-filled corridor, walking behind the little page. Past a line of silent hussars, on toward the intimate apartments. Out there in the checkerboard city, it seems to be freezing hard; here he suddenly finds he is passing through hanging gardens. Lush real flowers bloom and fade, amid a sward of bright green lawn. Here indoors one can see small gravelled walks, a neat grove of evergreen trees. In the branches bright, feathered songbirds from the tropics flutter and chirp. Rooms lie off the corridors, filled with people. In one a crowd of young women in men’s clothes are playing a game of billiards. In another courtiers in silk are playing at games of chess. And Lui is right; as one goes further the court inclines ever more toward the informal. Cooks walk by, carrying grinning dead fish on platters. Children romp, dogs bark.

  A court lady appears, wearing a shift, and carrying an open slop-pail. It’s the Princess Dashkova! These two have met before, in different circumstances, when the lady came to Paris once. There’s pleasure, delight. They embrace. She hands over the stinking pail to a grenadier, she brusquely dismisses the page. Then she leads him toward the inner sanctum, the private sitting room. In the doorway a bustle of courtiers, guardsmen, footmen, counsellors, tiny pages. Generals and dwarves, mob-cabbed housemaids and imperial favourites, all flit in and out. On the far wall there hangs a great painting: the Imperial Mother herself, dressed in male regimentals, sitting aside her great horse, Brilliant, on which Falconet has mounted Peter the Great.

  Beneath the simulacrum there sits the real thing. She’s big as big, clad in a shot-silk, low-necked day-dress. There’s a grand jewel at her shoulder, a large sash cast across her noble bows. Two huge-eyed English hunting greyhounds lie lethargically beside her on the large throne-like couch. There are nuts and sweetmeats on the table; a samovar noisily bubbles in the corner. She looks up, smiles. Her face is quite plain and rougeless. He halts, he bows, bends over as far as, a gentleman of sixty, he is able. The imperial hand comes out; he reaches to kiss it.

  And so it begins. And so it will continue – day after day, for week after week to come, as is written in the great Book of Destiny above:

  DAY ONE

  HE stands, in his black philosophical suit. SHE sits. HE reaches out to kiss her hand.

  HE

  Your most serene and magnificent imperial mightiness . . .

  SHE looks highly irritable.

  SHE

  For heaven’s sake, my dear Mr Philosopher. Don’t you know you are now in my private apartments? Can’t you read the notices on the walls? Have none of my chamberlains explained to you that this is a place of superior equals – where when you enter, you set aside your hat, your rank, your flattery and your sword . . .

  HE

  I never did bear a sword, Your Imperial Highness. An umbrella, perhaps.

  SHE

  Set aside whatever you like. But let’s abolish all these puffs and titles and little flatteries.

  HE

  Excuse me, Your Majesty, I am French, and have hardly ever left the city of Paris. I’m afraid I only know the manners of Versailles.

  SHE

  Oh, do you go there often?

  HE

  Rarely, Your Highness. If not never. Perhaps you know our present king is no friend at all to philosophers. We worship in quite the wrong church.

  SHE

  I know he bans your books and drives his talents into exile. That’s why I invited you to my court.

  HE

  And who could be more sensible of the honour?

  SHE

  And yet it’s taken you, what, ten years to get here?

  HE

  Work, Your Highness. I do think very hard.

  SHE

  And the mistress you couldn’t leave – she’s well?

  HE

  As well as can be expected in my absence.

  SHE

  Well, I hope you’re well accommodated. You mean to lodge with Monsieur Falconet, do you not? I trust you’ll remind him that when a monarch commands, an artist obeys. Your friend’s a problem. He takes too much time, he spends too much money, and he won’t listen to what his empress has to say . . .

  HE

  I fear the fellow’s French, Your Highness.

  SHE

  It’s no excuse.

  HE

  And art has its own reasons. I assure you that when the Horseman is unveiled, you’ll step back in total wonder. You’ll catch your breath, leap high into the air. It’s a masterpiece. In fact you may quote me . . .

  SHE

  Oh yes? And why should I?

  HE

  In any case, he hasn’t received me. I’m the guest of Prince Alexei Narishkin, who so kindly brought me from Holland, at his palace at Isaakiyevskaya Ploshchad.

  SHE

  Ah. You speak Russian?

  HE

  Indeed I do, Your Highness. And now you have heard the whole of it.

  SHE

  The Nar
ishkin Palace, I know it very well.

  HE

  It has the most splendid ceilings.

  SHE looks at him suspiciously.

  SHE

  So I believe. And a magnificent view. Which I hope to extend substantially in the course of your stay.

  HE

  My stay, Your Highness. Do you suppose it to be long?

  SHE

  I hope so. What is the matter with you, Mr Philosopher? You are jiggling up and down very uncomfortably.

  HE

  A small matter, Your Highness, to do with thinking. My thinking. Usually I think wonderfully well on the wing, like a little bird. But my journey here has taken me some months—

  SHE

  Because you took your time about it.

  HE

  I have ridden for weeks in a springless carriage. Now I can hardly speak for the state of my spine and my buttocks.

  COURTIERS snigger.

  SHE

  You have a bad back, sir? Piles, perhaps?

  HE (hastily)

  No, Your Majesty. I definitely don’t have piles—

  SHE

  For goodness sake, why are you telling me this?

  HE

  I know in the presence of an imperial majesty it’s always proper to stand. But my experience of the dialogues of the best philosophers is that their thoughts generally come best when seated . . .

  SHE

  Ah. You want to sit down, is that it?

  HE

  Only if Your Majesty thinks I am not requesting some improper liberty.

  SHE

  I thought in your philosophy liberty was never improper. Look, Mr Philosopher, if you want to stand, stand. If you wish to sit, sit. But for goodness sake do the one or the other. Which shall it be?

  HE

  Sit, Your Imperial Highness.

  SHE

  Very well. Find the philosopher an armchair, someone.

  An armchair is brought. HE sits, removes some rather unusual knitted gloves, rubs his hands vigorously.

  HE

  May I tell you how much I like Sankt Peterburg? Quite the most magnificent city I have ever visited.

  SHE

  How many cities have you visited?

  HE

  None other, it’s true. Apart fom Paris, of course.

  SHE

  And now you are going to tell me how deeply it has pained you to leave it. That is what all Frenchmen say. How strange it never keeps them at home—

  HE

  When a great monarch calls—

  SHE

  . . . there is profit to be had from it, isn’t that right? I should say you were very well out of it. I know our cousin King Louis likes to put his great philosophical minds into jail with great regularity.

  HE

  And give their books to the hangman for burning with even more regularity. That is why his wise men must search out their wise monarch elsewhere. That’s why our eyes turn so fondly to the wonderful Amazon of the North.

  SHE

  And do you really think a philosopher has anything of use to say to a monarch?

  HE

  Surely. To whom should he address himself if not to a noble sovereign? We must always remember philosophy can never be a power of itself. It can only share itself with a sovereign power, like your noble majesty, and speak for reason and the spirit of humanity.

  SHE

  How?

  HE

  As truthfully as truth will permit. As wisely as wisdom will proceed. As reasonably as reason can devise.

  SHE

  And would you speak against the sovereign?

  HE

  If the sovereign so wishes.

  SHE

  And why would a sovereign wish it? Philosopher, ask yourself this. Any fool can understand why a travelling philosopher, an ill-paid man at best, should have reason to seek the patronage of a monarch. But why should a monarch seek the views of a philosopher? As a thinking man, would you truly advise it?

  HE

  I can only say, Your Highness, that I did not come to you on my own account, I answered a summons. Look at me, my lady. I’m simply a poor fool, a strange old person who plays at philosophy in a Paris garret.

  SHE

  Well?

  HE

  I possess a restless mind, which teases me all the time with ideas of goodness and virtue, humanity and liberty, reality and appearance. I ask myself how the universe works, and how we understand it. I reflect on human nature, and what’s true or good or beautiful. I examine the world, and our purpose in it. I speculate on dreams and fantasies, follies and grandeurs. I ask how great acts are done and fine and noble things are achieved. I consider how reason can advance us towards peace and decency. Sometimes I conceive the most glorious new societies, sometimes I contemplate the follies of old ones. I reflect on life – as if my own life depended on it.

  SHE

  As well it might. Life – that’s a very serious matter.

  HE

  I argue with myself. I talk to myself, and everyone else too. Sometimes I feel quite divine, sometimes I feel quite absurd. I talk all the time to others. And I never mind being denied or refuted, because I’m always denying and refuting myself. My aim is the quest for truth, not the announcement of it.

  SHE

  Of course it’s easy to dream of fine new societies or create glorious notions of progress, when your head’s lying on a downy pillow.

  HE

  I’m quite aware of it. I deal in reveries, you deal in realities. That is why the thinker needs a monarch.

  SHE

  And the monarch a thinker?

  HE

  Without reveries we would never improve the realities. It may be we never will. All we seek is the one wise and perfect monarch who will listen . . .

  SHE

  And if she does listen, just what would she hear?

  HE

  All I wish is to perform the office of philosopher before your eyes. I should behave quite unlike a priest of religion, pursuing you with divine commandments and eternal truths. I’m an honest thinking man, which means I don’t know any. I shall forbear from asking you to turn your soul toward the contemplation of eternity, since I know of nothing that’s eternal. I work by reason and by speculation.

  SHE looks at him.

  SHE

  I understand you are an atheist, the man who believes in nothing.

  HE

  Precisely. But I disbelieve with the very greatest conviction, Your Highness.

  SHE

  So is your morality the same as a believer’s?

  HE

  Why not, if one is an honest man?

  SHE

  Do you practise that morality?

  HE

  Like many of us, I do my best.

  SHE

  You don’t rape, don’t murder, don’t pillage?

  HE

  I promise you, very rarely.

  SHE

  Then why not accept religion?

  HE

  I did. I was a little priest myself once, a would-be Jesuit. But I saw religion was just like marriage, it brought joy to a few and misery to many. For some people it’s a way to perform good deeds they would have done anyway. For others it’s just an excuse for evil.

  SHE

  So a philosopher’s a failed priest?

  HE

  You can call me a priest without a religion, a prophet without a message, a thinker without a system—

  SHE

  In that case you seem to be of remarkably little use.

  HE

  I work by reason. The reasoner asks questions. I should like to be known for my questions, not my answers. Praised for making people think – not telling them what they should think.

  SHE

  But you do wish to be praised? Vanity, Mr Librarian.

  HE

  It’s what I share with kings. Why else would they create huge armies, build vast cities and put up statues to themselves?


  SHE

  You’d ask questions? What kinds of questions?

  HE

  I’ve spent my life dreaming with eyes wide open. I ask myself, how we come to be in the universe. How we might understand it by understanding ourselves. How human beings can learn to advance and prosper, grow free of false ideas, superstitions and despotisms. How they can discover life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness—

  SHE

  Oh, now, sir. If you do that, might human beings not decide to get rid of the monarchs you’re so keen to advise?

  HE

  Surely if people are educated and enlightened, the first thing they’ll want are great leaders who’ll bring out all that’s noble and reasonable in them.

  SHE looks at him.

  SHE

  Mr Philosopher, I do wonder if you know life? I can show you people who are eternal unchangeable brutes.

  HE

  They are not properly educated, Your Highness.

  SHE

  I can show you highly educated brutes. I can show you the vilest thugs with doctorates from Tübingen.

  HE

  Those are people who have learned to study but not to reason. They’re not true philosophers, madame.

  SHE

  I’m not sure I believe in the reasonableness of reason.

  HE

  I admit it, I’m not too sure either. We know even the reasonable man does wild and involuntary things, because we’re all creatures of passion as well as common sense. I can only tell you I would rather have good sense than not have it . . .

  SHE

  You admit you cannot rely on human nature.

  HE

  I admit man is animal as well as human. He’s prey to fantasy, madness, erotic delusion, atrocity. He gets sick with envy, sharp with malice, hungry with lust.

  SHE

  So reason betrays us, telling us what’s not so? I’m no longer sure I want the company of wise and reasonable men.

  HE

  Indeed. But if you don’t, you will never be anything more than a child.