Anastasia Page #2

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If he were looking for a grand duke...

- he wouldn't find so many.

- Stepan!

Bring her in.

Come over here.

Don't worry.

These two gentlemen are friends.

Here. Sit down.

How about a glass of vodka?

It'll do you good.

Thank you.

There's nothing to fear.

They merely want to examine you.

Examine? Are they doctors?

- They don't help.

- Doctors? No.

- They are not doctors.

- No, no. We should have kept the redhead.

The tsar's daughter

drinks like a cossack.

- May I have a cigarette?

- Sure. Here.

- Where am I?

- I told you. With friends.

- Strange.

- What?

- The resemblance to the other.

- Yes. Both female.

Have you gentlemen considered

what she went through?

The streets, probably.

I can imagine her walk.

- Stand up.

- What did you say?

Ho, ho, ho!

I said, "Stand up. "

We would like to see you walk

over to there, if you please.

Mm, no. At least with the redhead,

we could have dyed her hair.

But a walk? The grand duchesses

learned with books on their heads.

- You could recognize them

by their carriage alone.

Oh. Stone walls.

What's she talking about?

- Chernov?

That bookkeeper who nearly ruined you

twelve years ago in the forgery affair...

Would you recognize

his walk today?

Would you recognize the smile

of a girl you knew ten years ago?

- I didn't think of that.

- You are both fools.

You're examining her as if

she was the real Anastasia.

There is no Anastasia.

She was shot to death ten years ago

by a firing squad.

We're not looking for her,

gentlemen.

We're seeking only

a reasonable facsimile.

Reasonable, yes.

But that is unreasonable.

Please. Let's be constructive.

- What will the committee say?

- Most of them have seen the original.

- How?

At a court ball, from a balcony?

In church, by candlelight,

flickering shadows?

Yes, you saw her.

Many saw her. From a distance.

- Or in the newspapers.

- What about the servants? Some of them are here in exile.

They saw her through devoted tears,

and they will again.

- All right, and the family...

- The family? If it was the immediate family...

I would not try it...

but they are dead.

And do you have faith in the memories

of uncles, aunts, cousins?

- I don't.

- You have faith in nothing.

They will closet themselves in their bedrooms,

and secretly peer at yellow photographs...

- which that woman will resemble.

- That?

Yes, that. Rouge will turn

the mouth up a bit.

Some powder, a new coiffure.

Dresses to suggest

the other period.

Walk, manner, voice

taught along with faces, names, places.

It would be easier if we

could present her to the committee...

- lying in her coffin.

- Yes, no questions, no answers, no mistakes.

- No money, either.

- I know. Now I know!

- Know what?

- It's a cellar. You brought me down here to shoot me!

- Are you mad? This is absurd.

- It's a cellar!

- Sit down. Sit down, I said!

- No!

Pretty good, pretty good.

- A little more rehearsal, perhaps.

- What?

He told her how the real one

was shot in a cellar and instructed...

Don't be stupid.

I told her nothing.

The woman can undoubtedly read.

And certainly, enough has been written

describing their death in the cellar.

- Some say she did not die.

- Huh? Where did you get that?

He just said so:
From a book,

or a story I was told.

- A rumor, a whisper.

- Or it happened.

It did not, and that woman

is too... too something.

Too crazy, too clever,

too tricky.

I don't care what she is.

The important thing is that she fits.

Get up. Go over there.

- What is it?

- Just a drawing. Stand closer.

Turn around.

- The correct height.

- "The correct height!"

Yes. The crown might

belong on her head.

A drawing of whom?

Who is it?

A princess. A Russian

grand duchess who died in 1918.

A princess!

G...

Petrovin, a glass of water.

- It's all right.

- It's all right, Petrovin. Her Highness is better.

- Don't call me that!

- How well you hear.

And how well you know how to use

what you hear, and when.

It was you who told the nun that

you were the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

- Sick people get sick ideas.

- Then you were in that asylum in St. Cloud.

And before that, in Berlin.

- Let me out of here!

- You know you were.

You were and you weren't,

and why and why not?

Questions like that

can only be answered by lies.

- Let me go, let me go!

- Stop it! Stop it!

No. No. Please.

Please, don't. Don't!

- Look at her hand. Go on, look.

- What?

Well, he wants us to look.

All right. Come.

Now, come under the light.

Sit down.

Open your hands.

I told you there were

surprising features.

- On the palm of each hand, a scar.

- As from bullets.

Now, look at her head.

Above the left temple.

A narrow depression, extending

almost to the forehead.

- Just as we were told.

- Where did you get those scars?

A gift from an unknown admirer.

- Where?

- I don't remember.

Wounds like that

and you don't remember?

- Huh! Who are you?

- No one.

- Who are your parents?

- None.

- Where are you from?

- The river.

- Before that?

- A madhouse.

- And before that?

- Another river, and another madhouse.

Oh, come on now.

Who are you?

- You tell me.

- You must be someone!

- Why?

- Nobody, nothing, no one!

- Incredible.

- But most convenient for us.

All right, gentlemen.

Come over here. Add up the facts.

One:
She has a certain resemblance,

which we can heighten.

Two:
She's obviously smart enough

to learn what we teach.

Discrepancies in her memory can be

attributed to the head wound.

Three:
She has

no identity whatsoever.

Which means it will be exceedingly difficult

for anyone to prove she's someone else.

- Four... precisely.

- We have eight days.

All in favor of the candidate...

two to one, elected.

Two to one elected.

Do you realize there are

10 million at stake?

- Ten million?

- Yes, my dear. The inheritance of 10 million...

left by the tsar

in the Bank of England!

And you want to risk it all

on a madwoman.

I must still be in the asylum...

with the one who sat covered and crouched

on the floor because she wasn't born yet.

It's you who are mad!

I'll have no part of this.

Now, now, my dear. The carriage

of the head not quite so high.

Grand duchesses are proud,

but also modest.

- They are to be killed, not to be sold.

- There you are!

Mad as a hatter! Now she

really thinks she is Anastasia.

- I do not! I am not.

- But you can be.

- I can make you Anastasia.

- She is dead. You said so.

- That doesn't matter.

- Please, please. No one will believe it.

- The family. They'll call the lie.

- No matter, they will accept you.

For 10 million, gladly.

They would accept me, and

pretend to love me for money?

- Is that what they are like? No. I'm going.

- Isn't everyone?

- Where? To the river or the madhouse?

- You have no papers.

The police will

pick you up soon enough.

- If you don't die of starvation sooner.

- Oh, come, come.

Why then did you tell

those stories in the hospital?

To the little nun?

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