Anastasia Page #8

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- And lonely.

- Never.

- And she...

- Never.

- Livenbaum.

Your Majesty.

Do you know

what he wanted?

- I can imagine, Your Majesty.

- To see that woman.

How easily he swallows

the trick she performs.

And what do they prove? That she can

memorize the teachings of Bounine.

What if there is a resemblance? What

if she does think she is Anastasia?

Wanting a dream

does not make it true.

She's a fraud.

She must be.

- Well, isn't she?

- I... don't know, Your Majesty.

You all think

I'm stubborn, don't you?

I am. Very stubborn.

Perhaps too stubborn.

At what hotel is she staying?

"Believe me, I really tried.

My sincere regrets. "

Sincere.

"Signed, Paul. "

- Miserable handwriting.

- You think he really saw the empress?

What's the difference whether he did

and she refused, or whether he didn't?

The answer's

the same for us:
No.

Hello. Yes.

And who? Thank you.

Baroness von Livenbaum is

on her way up... with a lady.

- What lady?

- I think you'd better go inside, both of you.

- Lady? Do you think it i...

- Yes, I do.

Petrovin, come.

Who is on the way up?

I think the empress.

She's coming here? Now?

I don't think I'll be able to face her.

- Don't be a fool.

- No, I'm not well enough.

Must it be now?

If I only could have some time?

Get ready.

- Your Majesty.

- Wait downstairs, Livenbaum.

I am deeply grateful,

Your Majesty.

I only hope that you will not allow

your opinion of me to interfere...

Bring her in.

Your Highness,

Her Majesty's waiting.

Courage.

Yes.

The resemblance is quite good enough

for a waxworks gallery.

- Don't you recognize me?

- Should I?

Who are you?

Where were you born?

My birth certificate

says Tsarskoie Selo.

But I was really

born in Peterhof.

Daughter, no doubt,

to Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra.

And granddaughter

to Maria Feodorovna...

dowager empress.

I have received too many appeals

from resurrected Romanovs.

The firing squads were such poor shots

it's amazing the revolution succeeded.

Twice I started out

to find you, but...

There were so many days, weeks, even

months when I didn't know who I was.

And now you do?

I thought I did,

but if you don't know me...

Have I changed so much,

Your Majesty?

One does not change,

mademoiselle.

No, not if one is loved.

Perhaps if love

had not been cut off so abruptly...

I would not have changed so much.

You are making vulgar

and sentimental use...

of an episode which is for me

a great personal sorrow.

Forgive me.

I forgot for a moment...

that you would regard that tragedy

as more yours than mine.

I am trying to... You're making it

very difficult for me, Grandmama.

I did not give you permission

to call me that.

I'm sorry.

You think a lonely old woman should be

eager to hear someone call her "Grandmama"?

- My loneliness has been as sharp as yours.

- We are most of us lonely.

And it is mostly

of our own making.

But no masquerade of any kind

can fill the emptiness.

You ask me for recognition.

You do it well.

Your eyes are moist, your voice

blurred with feeling.

I believe you are lonely

and you want love.

Who does not?

But the love you beg from me

belongs to one who is dead.

Are you so sure?

You have won the endorsement of the

sentimental, the greedy. I am none of those.

So you shut me out before

you even open that door.

I was told you would

ask me difficult questions.

You are not even interested enough

to ask me one!

I am not interested in a demonstration

of the tricks taught you...

- by your business associates.

- I care nothing about their business!

- I care nothing about the money!

- Ah, but you know of the inheritance.

I know what they've told me.

I don't want money.

- Tell me to whom it should be given and I'll give it.

- Easily said.

But you cannot give it away

until you have it.

And you cannot get it without

first obtaining my recognition.

It's useless to say that

that is not what I want.

You are so hard.

I remember hearing Father say that in a fight

you were harder than anyone in the family.

I thought at the time that

that was a very strong word to use...

just because you and my mother

were quarreling over a necklace.

Some, some emeralds. Yes.

You wanted to keep them, though

they belonged to the imperial treasure.

Who told you that? Oh, there were

many who could have known.

You wore them with

your last court dress...

Green and gold velvet,

and a long train.

The photograph was

unflattering, but accurate.

My father took my mother's side

in the quarrel.

There they were, all of them

against you, but you were stubborn.

- You kept Figgy's emeralds.

- How did you learn to call Catherine the Great "Figgy"?

We always called her that.

Sometimes we gave the nickname to Maria

because she had such an eye for the men.

- And Olga used to say...

- Stop!

I forbid you

to bandy those names.

I can speak of them if I choose.

They are my sisters.

Impostor!

You call me that.

If you have any decency, end this

charade at once. I will pay you.

- I will give you more than whatever Bounine promised you.

- Go away!

- I'm offering you money.

- Oh, please go.

So, you are giving up.

It wasn't enough to have

suffered the asylum...

Some people trying me,

using me, rejecting me.

And before that,

the cellar and the flight!

The rescue from the very edge

of the grave...

Years of lost memory in an asylum...

excellent material for melodrama.

Long empty days, in which the consciousness

of living came only through pain.

Hardly melodrama.

And then slowly,

finally struggling up...

out of the water,

into the light...

into the air, thinking...

"Yes, perhaps yes, I may be...

"I must be... I am.

I am, and my grandmother

is still alive to tell me so. "

My grandmother is alive to hold out

her hand full of money.

I'd rather you slapped me

across the face with that hand!

The tragic scene of despair.

Well done.

You are forgetting nothing,

are you?

I am sorry, mademoiselle...

that your failure to win me over

is such a cruel disappointment.

Good-bye.

- Oh, don't go.

- But you just told me to.

I promise I will not say anything

more to try and convince you.

- Then what do you want of me?

- A moment or two longer. A moment more to be with you.

To pretend you do not think

what you do.

To close my eyes and pretend

it is years ago.

A terrace in the summer sun.

No, no, no. I promise, I promise

I will not say names or places.

The smell of the sea air.

The sound of a tennis ball. The laughter

from the courts beyond the trees.

And your voice

calling me "Malenkaia".

And then the sudden lightning

in the summer sky.

Are you ill?

I was, but I'm not now.

Have you seen a doctor?

A good one?

I'm well acquainted with doctors.

But it is kind of you to ask.

- I'd better go.

- I'm really not surprised that you do not recognize me.

- I have changed very much indeed.

- You asked for just one moment.

What is strange

is that you have changed so little.

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