To the Hermitage

by Malcolm Bradbury

  It was the close of the week, a Friday. Nobody had told me what happens to Finns on a Friday night. The truth is, they turn into different people. In half an hour they had gone from misery to good humour. Another half hour took them from grey solemnity to ravening happiness. Around the room everyone who was still upright was laughing at something.

  ‘It’s you,’ explained the shopkeeper kindly, coming over to bring me a huge vodka. ‘You have made them very happy. They are all laughing at you.’

  ‘Oh really?’ I attempted to croak.

  ‘Nothing so wonderful has taken place here for many years. We met you from the train. We provided the band for you. We all came to the Town Hall.’

  I nodded sympathetically.

  ‘And then what did you give us? Nothing. You came a thousand miles and gave us nothing at all. Thank you. It made us very happy tonight.’

  I nodded generously.

  ‘On Friday night we really like to relax. To amuse.’

  And that did appear to be true. Something had indeed transformed the excellent people of O—. The portly police chief was dancing on a table with the drummer from the town band. The head of the gymnasium was undressing the local librarian. The sly governor was lying full-length in a corner, surrounded by a great bevy of the sparky little wives. Only the town drunk seemed unhappy, as he wandered round the place looking sober by comparison with everyone else.

  Half an hour more, and they had all gone again from happiness to near-stupor, from joy to the pits of lachrymose misery. I sat there watching over a beer; by now I’d learned the menace of the vodka. And it was now, as the band played in a confused and senseless discord, that the lady mayoress came over to me. Her blonde hair had now fallen down crazily over one eye. Her dress had split. She was smiling at me warmly.

  ‘She wants to thank you very much for coming to our simple town,’ explained the shopkeeper.

  I nodded.

  ‘She says you have done us a real honour. She has one small request of you, she hopes you will grant it.’

  I nodded again, graciously.

  ‘She would like to have a child by such an eminent person.’

  I raised both eyebrows.

  ‘It need not take long. Her house is very near. And you still have two hours before your train.’

  I croaked again, pointed at my throat.

  ‘She quite understands, but the important thing is not your throat. She does not speak good English anyway.’

  The mayoress beamed, very attractively, and said something graceful in Finnish.

  ‘She says it would be such a nice memento of your stay,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘When we travel we should always leave something behind.’

  I looked at the fecklessly charming woman, who seemed to have become so very different after vodka time, now that her mayoral chair was off and her hair was let down, and that’s why . . .

  ‘I know just what you’re going to say,’ says Manders. ‘This is why you never managed to get to Leningrad. For some strange reason you were delayed that night and you missed your train back to Helsinki.’

  ‘Oh no, I did catch the train all right,’ I said. ‘The mayoress kindly saw me on board.’

  ‘The town band too?’

  ‘No, just the mayoress. She took excellent care of me.’

  ‘So this is the famous Finnish Friday night,’ says Manders admiringly. ‘We know all about that in Sweden.’

  ‘Yes, and then it was a Finnish Friday night on the Helsinki express too,’ I say. ‘I swear to you every single person on board, man or woman, beautiful or ugly, first class or third, from one end of that train to the other, was blind drunk as well.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘There was this beautiful blonde woman sitting opposite me all the way, wearing long black furs and a splendid ermine hat. She spent the entire journey having a loud quarrel with her own reflection in the window. Then, when we rolled into Helsinki station in the early hours of the morning, the porters were all on the platform with their barrows parked outside all the coach doors, waiting to stack the recumbent passengers in large piles on the trolleys and wheel them out to the taxi rank.’

  ‘Does that mean you did make it to the sealed train to Leningrad, after all?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. My translator went, but he went on his own. They arrested him the moment he stepped off at the Finland Station. He spent the next three weeks in a Russian jail. Unpleasant, I believe, though he did say he was able to pass the time translating my book. Finally the Finns protested, or the Russians got tired of him. At any rate, they bundled him in a truck and dumped him over the Finnish border, in the snow.’

  ‘Did the translation ever appear?’

  ‘Yes, it did, the following year. It was very successful. The Finns read a lot of books. It’s the winter, you know, when there’s hardly anything else to do. The critics were very kind, and I had met most of them in the Kafé Kosmos. Some of them even called me the youthful heir of Gogol.’

  ‘Well, you were probably wise not to go. The Russians wouldn’t have let you out that easily. You were heading for real trouble.’

  ‘I expect so, but I didn’t know that then.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? After I got off the train from O—, I went right back to the Hotel Gurki—’

  ‘Gestapo headquarters in the war?’

  ‘That’s the one, and the next morning I woke up delirious, with swollen glands and a raging fever.’

  ‘Tonsillitis, no doubt. You had probably over-exerted yourself on your travels.’

  ‘Quite. My kind publishers got a doctor who said I wasn’t fit to travel anywhere and shot me full of antibiotics. After a couple of days they drove me out to the airport, and I returned to my family and my normal life. Except it took three weeks for my voice to come back. I’ve been to Russia since. But somehow I never did make the journey to the dandy city, always preening itself in front of Europe.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what Gogol called Petersburg. Otherwise Leningrad.’

  Manders looks at me. ‘And the mayoress?’ he asks. ‘Up there in your Let Us Call It O—, by the Arctic Circle? Is there perhaps a little professor now?’

  ‘No, no,’ I say, feeling rather embarrassed. ‘You should understand, I was extremely moral in those distant days. In those days the world wasn’t a screwfest. We discussed the moral life all the time. It was when we believed in virtue, followed the good and the true.’

  ‘I suppose we all did then. Even in Sweden.’

  ‘Especially in Sweden. But I always felt a little rude about leaving like that. When she and the others were all being so very nice to me.’

  ‘I hope so. The town band and everything.’

  ‘Do you suppose she made an offer like that to all the visitors?’

  ‘I don’t know Finland all that well, but I doubt it. She was entirely taken by your charms, I’m quite sure.’

  ‘I must admit I was by hers. She really was a most attractive woman. I was never quite sure, though, whether she really meant it or just wanted to make sure I didn’t go home thinking my trip had been totally wasted. And I suppose at that time I was just too young and foolish to accept the irresponsibility.’

  ‘You know, I seem to remember Diderot said something about all this,’ says Manders, getting up and going to stare out over the rail.

  ‘Really? I don’t remember.’

  ‘Yes, in the essay he wrote about Bougainville’s voyage to the South Seas, when the French sailors met all those wonderful noble savages. I seem to recall he took the multi-cultural approach and the sexual freedom line.’

  ‘Do what you like, you mean?’

  ‘“Be monks in France and savages in Tahiti,” that was how he put it.’

  ‘But he did believe in the moral approach as well. The rule of virtue. Didn’t he also say: “You can put on the costume of the country you visit, but always remember to keep the suit of clothes you ne
ed to go home in.”’

  ‘It’s true,’ says Manders.

  ‘Anyway, now you can see why I feel such a soft spot for Finland,’ I say. ‘In fact to tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind a bit if we didn’t go to Petersburg and this ship changed tack and rerouted to Helsinki.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t think it’s going to do that,’ says Manders, leaning windblown over the rail.

  ‘You never know,’ I say.

  ‘I think I do,’ says Manders, looking out at the channel.

  ‘Do you see that island showing up ahead? I know that. It’s Kotlin. That’s Kronstadt castle.’

  I get up to look out too. A huge and battlemented land-shadow is rising from the cold oily waters in front of us, surrounded by a mass of moving grey ships. On the decks down below us, sensing a change in the climate, the Diderot pilgrims have suddenly begun to appear again: Agnes and Sonnenberg, Verso and the Swedish nightingale, Bo and Alma, looking happy and chattering warmly as they stare out over the side. Here, in a hurry, comes Lars Person.

  ‘Kronstadt?’ I say.

  ‘Revolution Island,’ says Manders. ‘Where the sailors started the Russian Revolution. And where Catherine the Great came to arrest her own husband Peter, so she could jail him and take over the throne.’

  ‘This means we’re getting near then?’

  ‘Kronstadt’s where the old harbour used to be. Just beyond is the sea-terminal at Vasilyevsky Island. You see, you really are going to Petersburg, after all.’

  TWENTY (THEN)

  DAY SIX

  SHE sits on the sofa. HE comes in, and looks round. Today there is no chair.

  HE

  No chair, Your Imperial Highness?

  SHE

  No. Surely you know why?

  HE

  Something’s wrong?

  SHE looks at him furiously.

  SHE

  The Secret Office has warned me about you. They advise me you’re a spy sent here by the King of France.

  HE

  The King of France sends me nowhere, Your Highness. Except to his prisons now and then.

  SHE

  Now I understand your dreams of Sankt Peterburg. Your attacks on Frederick. You’re trying to bind me to the French court.

  HE

  Not at all, Your Majesty. All I said was I wished you were monarch of France instead of the one we have.

  SHE

  You would not be the first French spy to come to court. One came to attend the last tzarina, a man dressed as a woman—

  HE

  That was the Chevalier d’Eon, Your Highness. Everyone knew cross-dressing was his common habit. The moment the little dragoon got back from gutting enemies on the battlefield he was back into his corsets and petticoats.

  SHE

  The Tzarina Elizabeth had no idea it was his common habit. She let him attend her as a lady of the bedchamber.

  DASHKOVA

  That is how she found out, Your Imperial Highness. But it’s said once she knew she didn’t discourage him.

  HE

  Many people were confused by him. My dear friend Beaumarchais got engaged to him once.

  SHE stares at him relentlessly.

  SHE

  There was no confusion about it. He came as a spy and sought access to the last tzarina’s body. Now you are here trying to do the same.

  HE

  Simply to pay my homage and share my thoughts.

  SHE (rising)

  You deny you were commissioned by Durand de Distroff, the worst French ambassador we ever had?

  HE

  He did approach me, it’s true, but—

  SHE

  Approached you to do what?

  HE holds out a paper.

  HE

  Give you this memorandum from the King of France.

  SHE

  And now you dare hand it to me?

  HE

  Yes, forgive me. But I was promised a spell in the Bastille if I didn’t put it under your pillow.

  SHE

  Under my pillow? Have you read it? What does it say?

  HE

  The King of France wishes to offer you all his services in negotiating a peace between you and the Turks.

  SHE

  And now you’re about to advise me to accept it?

  HE

  No, I don’t think so, Your Imperial Highness. It would really be most unwise.

  SHE

  No?

  HE

  No. I’m no diplomat, and I scarcely comprehend these things. But as I see it, King Louis’s intention is to weaken you if he can, and drive Russia back from its new enlightenment to its old obscurity. What he wishes is to see the three wolves turn and rend each other—

  SHE

  The wolves?

  HE

  Russia, Prussia, Austria. Then he will strengthen his own hand with your enemy Sweden and make his own alliance with the Sublime Porte. But understand I know nothing about these things. Diplomacy confuses me. I’m all innocence and candour. I don’t know how to spy, conspire or conceal—

  SHE reaches out her hand.

  SHE

  Give that to me.

  HE

  Forgive me. I wish I’d never brought it here.

  SHE

  Surely you wouldn’t conceal it from me?

  HE

  No, Your Majesty, indeed not.

  SHE reads the king’s letter.

  SHE

  Mr Philosopher, you really are a useless spy and a sorry patriot. Aren’t you?

  HE

  I hope so. I should always prefer to be a good man before I am a good patriot.

  SHE

  You are right about his intentions, of course.

  HE

  Of course what I have said and done could be the ruin of myself and my Posterity when I return to France—

  SHE

  Don’t go then. Stay here.

  HE

  My loved ones, Your Highness.

  SHE

  Your wife, you mean?

  HE

  Her as well.

  SHE looks again at the paper.

  SHE

  This letter. What do you advise me to do with it?

  HE

  It is not at all for me to say. But I do notice the day’s very cold.

  SHE

  Our stove could do with stoking, you mean?

  HE

  I really don’t mean anything. All I ask before I suffer a hideous traitor’s fate and die torn to pieces on the gallows is that I should be the object of your trust, and not of your suspicion—

  SHE goes over to the stove and puts the paper in. It flares up splendidly.

  SHE

  There then. You may tell your ambassador you’ve delivered it. Tell him too you’ve seen exactly what I think of it. Then tell him I have done with it just exactly what I have done with it.

  HE

  I will, Your Imperial Highness.

  SHE

  And now you know I should dismiss you from this court and send you back from Russia at once?

  HE

  It would be the just action of a just monarch.

  SHE

  However, you will stay, sir. It’s your ambassador who will be departing before long. Under my pillow, did you say, sir? Well, Dashkova, go . . . Fetch the philosopher his chair . . .

  END OF DAY SIX

  And it’s that same night, as he’s lying in his cavern of a bed near the nightstove in the Narishkin Palace, that our man has quite the strangest of dreams. He’s following the usual daily summons, crossing the great imperial square, making his approach to the grand Hermitage. Yet it’s all in the half-light, and the place is oddly empty. No sentries are standing stiffly in the boxes, no guardsmen wait inside in the halls. No footmen stand at the top of the great staircase, no servants flit about the corridors. The mirrors reflect nothing, not even the emptiness. All the stairwells are silent. He walks alone and unattended along the many long corridors, wh
ich are lighted only by the moon. Every one of them is empty of people, except for just one. There is the betoga-ed figure of Voltaire. He’s grinning, waving, rising from his marble armchair. His hair is white as wool, his eyes are little flames of fire. He strips off his toga, and, standing there, ancient and naked, he shouts a warning, something quite mysterious about sunshine and the Turks . . .

  Up on the walls are the huge paintings he’s sent in his homage all the way from Paris. But they’re scratched and stabbed through, some of them running in water, others covered in thick layers of dust. There are statues along the corridor, lit up strangely by the moon. But the Canovas have lost a hand or two, and some are without their heads. Falconet’s sculptured angels now have the fangs of devils, and the paintings of ancient ruins seem to have come alive. Loud rude voices are shouting in distant corridors, and glass shatters in a window somewhere close. He goes on toward the indoor garden – but the plants are all wilting, the birds do not sing. He passes all those imperial ante-rooms, and every one is empty. In one the chess pieces lie scattered across the chessboard. In another the billiard table has been draped with a huge grey shroud. He enters, as he’s learned to do, the imperial drawing room. But today there is no chatter. No ambassadors or emissaries sit waiting. No courtiers stand about, no maids-in-waiting. And over the sofa her portrait has grown dusty too.

  Yet, beneath it, there she is. She’s lying there, head on a pillow, spread out grand and comfortable, naked. Her breasts are large and pendulous, her stomach a wide imperial tract of territory, a vast expanse of tundra. To the lover of Rubens, this is majestic grandeur. She looks him up and down, and it grows apparent that the black philosopher’s suit he wears for court is missing. All the time he has been buck-naked too.