Ninotchka Page #15

NINOTCHKA:

I will start with you.

LEON:

That's great. I'm thirty-five years

old. Just over six feet tall. I weigh

a hundred and eighty-two pounds

stripped.

NINOTCHKA:

And what is your profession?

LEON:

Keeping my body fit, keeping my mind

alert, keeping my landlord appeased.

That's a full-time job.

NINOTCHKA:

And what do you do for mankind?

LEON:

For mankind not a thing -- for

womankind the record is not quite so

bleak.

NINOTCHKA:

You are something we do not have in

Russia.

LEON:

Thank you. Thank you.

NINOTCHKA:

That is why I believe in the future

of my country.

LEON:

I begin to believe in it myself since

I've met you. I still don't know

what to make of it. It confuses me,

it frightens me a little, but it

fascinates me, Ninotchka.

NINOTCHKA:

You pronounce it incorrectly. Ni-

notchka.

LEON:

Ni-notchka.

NINOTCHKA:

That is correct.

LEON:

Ninotchka, do you like me just a

little bit?

NINOTCHKA:

Your general appearance is not

distasteful.

LEON:

Thank you.

NINOTCHKA:

Look at me. The whites of your eyes

are clear. Your cornea is excellent.

LEON:

Your cornea is terrific. Tell me --

you're so expert on things -- can it

be that I'm falling in love with

you?

NINOTCHKA:

You are bringing in wrong values.

Love is a romantic designation for a

most ordinary biological, or shall

we say chemical, process. A lot of

nonsense is talked and written about

it.

LEON:

Oh, I see. What do you use instead?

NINOTCHKA:

I acknowledge the existence of a

natural impulse common to all.

LEON:

What can I possibly do to encourage

such an impulse in you?

NINOTCHKA:

You don't have to do a thing.

Chemically we are already quite

sympathetic.

LEON:

(bewildered, and yet

completely intrigued)

You're the most improbable creature

I've ever met in my life, Ninotchka,

Ninotchka...

NINOTCHKA:

You repeat yourself.

LEON:

I'd like to say it a thousand times.

NINOTCHKA:

Don't do it, please.

LEON:

I'm at a loss, Ninotchka. You must

forgive me if I appear a little old-

fashioned. After all, I'm just a

poor bourgeois.

NINOTCHKA:

It's never too late to change. I

used to belong to the petty

bourgeoisie myself. My father and

mother wanted me to stay and work on

the farm, but I preferred the bayonet.

LEON:

(bewildered)

The bayonet? Did you really?

NINOTCHKA:

I was wounded before Warsaw.

LEON:

Wounded? How?

NINOTCHKA:

I was a sergeant in the Third Cavalry

Brigade. Would you like to see my

wound?

LEON:

(dumfounded)

I'd love to.

(she pulls the blouse

off her shoulder and

shows him her scar)

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

NINOTCHKA:

A Polish lancer. I was sixteen.

LEON:

Poor Ninotchka. Poor, poor Ninotchka.

NINOTCHKA:

(readjusting her blouse)

Don't pity me. Pity the Polish lancer.

After all, I'm alive.

More and more puzzled and fascinated, Leon sits down close

to her.

LEON:

What kind of a girl are you, anyway?

NINOTCHKA:

Just what you see. A tiny cog in the

great wheel of evolution.

LEON:

You're the most adorable cog I ever

saw in my life. Ninotchka, Cogitska,

let me confess something. Never did

I dream I could feel like this toward

a sergeant.

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