To the Hermitage (61 page)

It’s a rich and solemn church funeral. But why not? All this religion is paid for out of the atheistical
Encyclopedia
. As the priests intone, the remains are solemnly lowered beneath the stone slabs of the Chapel of the Virgin, the elegant domed chapel at the heart of this splendid church, beneath the great stuccoes by Falconet, depicting Glory and the Annunciation. But how odd, how very very odd . . . When, only a short time later, these same slabs are lifted up again, both the coffin and the body have completely disappeared. Neither the one nor the other has been seen anywhere since. ‘Diderot le philosophe? Disparu,’ the sacristan will tell you, if, as I do, you care to visit Saint-Roch today. But he who laughs last laughs best, or that’s what they always say . . .

Books breed books; many helped breed this one. Beside Furbank’s biography I used Arthur M. Wilson’s formidable and two-volume
Diderot
(New York, 1972), Lester G. Crocker’s
Diderot: The Embattled Philosopher
(New York/London, 1966), John Hope Mason’s
The Irresistible Diderot
(London, 1982), J. Proust’s
Diderot et l’Encyclopédie
(Paris, 1962), Peter France (ed.),
Diderot’s Letters to Sophie Volland: A Selection
(London, 1972), Paul Verniere (ed.),
Diderot: Memoires pour Catherine II
(Paris, 1966), and Maurice Tourneaux,
Diderot et Catherine II
(rep. Geneva, 1970). I used Simon Schama’s wonderful
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
(London, 1989), Robert Darnton’s
The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie
(Cambridge/London, 1979), Carl Becker’s
The Heavenly City of the 18th Century Philosophers
(New Haven, 1932), and Durand Eccheveria’s
Mirage in the West: A History of the French Image of American Society
(Princeton, 1956). Like everyone in the field, I drew on Theodore Besterman’s
Voltaire
(London, 1969), as well as A. Lentin (ed.),
Voltaire and Catherine the Great: Selected Correspondence
(Cambridge, 1974). Among the many studies of Jefferson, I am especially grateful to William Howard Adams’
The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson
(New Haven, 1997) and Conor Cruise O’Brien’s provocative
The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution
(London, 1996).

I also used A. G. Cross’s
Russia and the West in the Eighteenth Century
(Newtonville, Mass., 1983), Katherine Anthony (tr.),
Memoirs of Catherine the Great
(New York, 1927), Dominique Maroger (ed.),
The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
(London, 1955), Kyril Fitzlyon (tr.),
The Memoirs of Princess Dashkov
(London, 1958), Henri Troyat,
Catherine the Great
(London, 1981), John Alexander,
Catherine the Great: Life and Legend
(New York, 1989), Montgomery Hyde,
The Empress Catherine and Princess Dashkov
(London, 1935), Vincent Cronin,
Catherine, Empress of All the Russias
(London, 1978), and Carolly Erickson,
Great Catherine
(London, 1998). I gained much from Boris Otmetev and John Stuart,
Saint Petersburg: Portrait of an Imperial City
(London, 1990), Solomon Volkov’s delightful
St. Petersburg: A Cultural History
(London, 1996), Lawrence Kelly’s
St Petersburg: A Travellers’ Companion
(London, 1981), and Geraldine Norman’s terrific
The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum
(London, 1997).

I was greatly helped by David Remnick’s two panoramic studies of Russia in the 1990s:
Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
(London, 1994) and
Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia
(London, 1999). I am very grateful for John Wells’s brilliant translation of Beaumarchais’
The Figaro Plays
(London, 1977), as well as to Cynthia Cox’s
The Real Figaro: The Extraordinary Career of Caron de Beaumarchais
(London, 1962) and F. Grendel’s
Beaumarchais: The Man Who Was Figaro
(London, 1977). I cheated with
Eugene Onegin
; my references are not to any libretto but to James Falen’s translation of the poem (Oxford World’s Classics, 1995). I cheated too over the reburial of Laurence Sterne. A more truthful version (giving the fine sermon of Canon Cant) may be found in Arthur H. Cash and John M. Stedmond (eds.),
The Winged Skull: Bicentenary Conference Papers on Lawrence Sterne
(London, 1971). I am much indebted to the late Kenneth Monkman, the restorer of Shandy Hall, and Jacques Berthoud, Tony Cross, Edward Acton, Jon Cook, Breon Mitchell, and Douglas R. Hofstadter, all of whom gave friendly help. One more debt. At Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1997, as I was working on this, I saw John Corigliano and William H. Hoffman’s splendid opera bouffe
The Ghosts of Versailles
, brilliantly performed by the Music School: another great stimulus . . .

‘A sweeping, engrossing and overwhelmingly impressive piece of work’
David Horspool,
Daily Telegraph

‘A master of the revels, Bradbury is playful and self-deprecating . . . History is nothing if not a joker, and Malcolm Bradbury, in cracking faux-naif form, teaches us how to deal with its laughter’
David Coward,
Times Literary Supplement

‘Bradbury is clever, tricky, hugely entertaining . . .
To the Hermitage
is delightfully stimulating. As readers, we watch and admire Bradbury’s intellectual fireworks display. His set pieces are brilliant, incisive, funny’
Brian Martin,
Financial Times

‘Astoundingly energetic and remarkably funny’
Teresa Waugh,
The Oldie

‘The book is vastly but lightly erudite. Just when you think it is becoming excessively playful . . . Bradbury injects some serious point about culture, music, philosophy. And should the philosophy threaten to turn weighty, back comes the humour . . . To mix past and present, fact and fiction, humour and sobriety as freely as Bradbury does . . . is a bold technique, but Bradbury has the right qualifications and more than gets away with it’
George Walden,
Sunday Telegraph

‘Playful, erudite, funny and thoroughly enjoyable’
Simon Sebag Montefiore,
Spectator

‘Entertaining, informative, easily read . . . this is an intensely literary novel . . . [Bradbury] wears his learning lightly, handles it and deploys it deftly’
Allan Massie,
Scotsman

‘The novel itself dispenses with the notion that writing ought to be spare and minimal; this is a BIG novel. It reads with the fluidity only such an accomplished narrator can control . . . A demanding and deeply rewarding novel’
John F. Deane,
Irish Independent

‘
To the Hermitage
is Bradbury at his playfully erudite best’
Lucy Beresford,
Daily Mail

‘This is a delightful book. Bradbury clearly enjoyed its creation. He is a fine satirist’
Tobias Hill,
The Observer

‘His formidable depth of knowledge, held in check by the warm-hearted generosity of a born teacher, is never overwhelming’
Maria Fairweather,
Mail on Sunday

M
ALCOLM
B
RADBURY
was a well-known novelist, critic and academic. He set up the famous creative writing department of the University of East Anglia, whose students have included Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. He was the author of seven novels:
Eating People is Wrong
(1959);
Stepping Westward
(1965);
The History Man
(1975), which won the Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Prize;
Rates of Exchange
(1983), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize;
Cuts
(1987);
Doctor Criminale
(1992); and
To the Hermitage
(2000). He wrote several works of non-fiction, humour and satire, including
Who Do You Think You Are?
(1976),
All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go
(1982) and
Why Come to Slaka?
(1991). He was an active journalist and a leading television writer, responsible for the adaptations of
Porterhouse Blue
,
Cold Comfort Farm
, and many TV plays and episodes of
Inspector Morse
,
A Touch of Frost
,
Kavanagh QC
, and
Dalziel and Pascoe
. He was awarded a knighthood in 2000 and died the same year.

A
LSO BY
M
ALCOLM
B
RADBURY

Eating People is Wrong
 (1959) 

Stepping Westward
 (1965) 

The History Man
 (1975) 

Who Do You Think You Are?
 (1976) 

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go
 (1982) 

Rates of Exchange
 (1983) 

Cuts
 (1987) 

Why Come to Slaka?
 (1991) 

Doctor Criminale
 (1992) 

First published 2000 by Picador

This edition published 2001 by Picador

This electronic edition published 2011 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-447-20567-8 EPUB

Copyright © Malcolm Bradbury 2000

The right of Malcolm Bradbury to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The tributes to Malcolm Bradbury are copyright © David Lodge and Ian McEwan 2000
Both tributes appeared originally in the
Guardian.
The piece by David Lodge is a revised and expanded version of the original article.

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