Anastasia Page #3

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- 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...

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