TATIANA Yes, she is. (Tatiana bursts into tears.)
MICHAEL Tata, Tata, my beloved, don't cry. I renounce all love except pure philosophical love, your love, the love I have for my sisters. The so-called love of talking animals removes people two by two from the only possibility of happiness, which is the communion of beautiful souls.
TATIANA No, no—we don't mind—you'll meet somebody one day.
MICHAEL It's not for me. Don't be angry with Natalie. She thinks it's your fault that I couldn't … that I can't be …
ALEXANDRA What?
Alexander, emerging, sees them from the verandah.
ALEXANDER No spunk, simple as that! (Explains.) Your brother's an army deserter!
MICHAEL (casually) Oh yes, I've resigned my commission.
ALEXANDER He's refusing to return to duty.
MICHAEL On grounds of ill health, Papa. I'm sick of the Army.
ALEXANDER No discipline, that's the problem!
MICHAEL No, it's riddled with discipline, that's the problem. That and Poland.
ALEXANDER Come inside, sir!
MICHAEL Poland is simply impossible.
Alexander goes in. The girls escort Michael, chattering anxiously.
TATIANA AND ALEXANDRA Resigned from the Army? You haven't! Oh, Michael, won't you be in trouble? What did they say? What did you … ?
MICHAEL ‘March here, march there, present arms, where's your cap?'—you've no idea, the whole Army's obsessed with playing at soldiers …
They go together into the house.
AUTUMN 1835
Liubov and Varenka ‘return’ to the garden. Varenka is eight months pregnant. Liubov has a book.
LIUBOV That was the last time everything was all right, in the time of Baron Renne. When we were all on the same side in everything, the way we'd always been. I would rather have married him if I'd known what terrible rows …
VARENKA (lightly) Where was Michael when I needed saving? But Dyakov's all right, if it wasn't for … and that's not his fault, we can't all be philosophers when it comes to love. This has been a godsend, even the feeling sick part, not having to want to. Did you ever want to with Baron Renne?
LIUBOV Oh no!
VARENKA It's the spurs.
LIUBOV Oh, Varenka.
They hug each other, laughing and weeping.
LIUBOV (cont.) (Pause.) Do you think it's ever wonderful, apart from in stories, like in George Sand?
VARENKA I wouldn't mind it with … Eugene Onegin!
LIUBOV Yes!
They giggle complicitly.
LIUBOV (cont.) Don't you think Nicholas Stankevich looks like Onegin ought to look?
VARENKA Perhaps I'll meet my Onegin and run off with him.
LIUBOV (shocked) Varenka! (Pause.) Anyway, in Pushkin's story, Tatiana stayed with her husband.
VARENKA That's because she hadn't read George Sand.
LIUBOV Yes!
VARENKA To follow our heart wherever it leads us! To love where we may, whomever we may, to let love be our guide to the greater good!
LIUBOV (Pause.) Sand doesn't tell you the things you want to know, though.
VARENKA I'll tell you if you want.
LIUBOV No. Well … go on then.
VARENKA You have to ask.
LIUBOV I can't.
VARENKA Remember that time the tinker's jackass got into Betsy's paddock?
LIUBOV Yes!
VARENKA Like that, only you're lying on your back.
LIUBOV Oh …
VARENKA Not as big as that.
They laugh complicity, through Liubov's confusion. Voices are heard within.
LIUBOV Is that them? Don't look.
Michael is seen indoors, with NICHOLAS STANKEVICH, a beautiful dark-haired young man aged twenty-two. Michael, hearing the laughter, has gone to the window.
MICHAEL It's Liubov. Varenka's with her.
STANKEVICH The laughter of women is like the spiritual communion of angels. Women are holy beings. For me, love is a religious experience.
VARENKA I don't think he does it.
LIUBOV Varenka! … (anxiously) Don't you?
VARENKA Nicholas Stankevich is keeping himself for you. The next step has got him baffled. But Michael says Nicholas has the most brilliant mind in the Philosophical Circle, so perhaps an idea will come to him … Ask him if he'd like you to show him the …
LIUBOV The what? The fishpond? (suddenly) Promise not to tell—I've got his keepsake!
Liubov retrieves from ‘next to her heart’ the keepsake, a miniature penknife, an inch or two long when folded.
VARENKA Well, why didn't you say!
LIUBOV (laughing, embarrassed) Right next to my heart!
VARENKA What did he give you? His penknife?
LIUBOV Oh, no … he didn't give it, I … (in tears) I'm a fool. Natalie was just making mischief.
Liubov makes to flee. Varenka catches her and hugs her.
Indoors Michael and Stankevich, pupil and guide, sit at the table with their collection of hooks.
STANKEVICH Schelling's God is the cosmos, the totality of Nature struggling towards consciousness, and Man is as far as the struggle has got, with the animals not too far behind, vegetables somewhat lagging, and rocks nowhere as yet. Do we believe this? Does it matter? Think of it as a poem or a picture. Art doesn't have to be true like a theorem. It can be true in other ways. This truth says the universe is all of a oneness, not just a lot of bits which happen to be lying around together. In other words, it says there is a meaning to it all, and Man is where the meaning begins to show. How do we get the rest of the meaning? Schelling says: by unlocking our innermost being. By letting the meaning flow through us. This is morality. Kant says: but morality has no meaning unless we are free to choose, so it follows that we are the only government of our real lives, the ideal is to be discovered in us, not in some book of social theory written by a Frenchman. Idealism—the self—the autonomous will—is the mark of God's faith in his creations. Well, who'd have