Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress | Page 6

her! What do you mean? [To the
General.] She is there, sir.
STRAMMFEST. Tell them to send her up. I shall have to receive her
without even rising, without kissing her hand, to keep up appearances
before the escort. It will break my heart.
SCHNEIDEKIND [into the receiver]. Send her up...Tcha! [He hangs up
the receiver.] He says she is halfway up already: they couldn't hold her.
The Grand Duchess bursts into the room, dragging with her two
exhausted soldiers hanging on desperately to her arms. She is
enveloped from head to foot by a fur-lined cloak, and wears a fur cap.
SCHNEIDEKIND [pointing to the bench]. At the word Go, place your
prisoner on the bench in a sitting posture; and take your seats right and
left of her. Go.

The two soldiers make a supreme effort to force her to sit down. She
flings them back so that they are forced to sit on the bench to save
themselves from falling backwards over it, and is herself dragged into
sitting between them. The second soldier, holding on tight to the Grand
Duchess with one hand, produces papers with the other, and waves
them towards Schneidekind, who takes them from him and passes them
on to the General. He opens them and reads them with a grave
expression.
SCHNEIDEKIN. Be good enough to wait, prisoner, until the General
has read the papers on your case.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [to the soldiers]. Let go. [To Strammfest].
Tell them to let go, or I'll upset the bench backwards and bash our three
heads on the floor.
FIRST SOLDIER. No, little mother. Have mercy on the poor.
STRAMMFEST [growling over the edge of the paper he is reading].
Hold your tongue.
THE GRAND DUCHESS [blazing]. Me, or the soldier?
STRAMMFEST [horrified]. The soldier, madam.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Tell him to let go.
STRAMMFEST. Release the lady.
The soldiers take their hands off her. One of them wipes his fevered
brow. The other sucks his wrist.
SCHNEIDKIND [fiercely]. 'ttention!
The two soldiers sit up stiffly.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, let the poor man suck his wrist. It may
be poisoned. I bit it.
STRAMMFEST [shocked]. You bit a common soldier!
GRAND DUCHESS. Well, I offered to cauterize it with the poker in
the office stove. But he was afraid. What more could I do?
SCHNEIDEKIND. Why did you bite him, prisoner?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. He would not let go.
STRAMMFEST. Did he let go when you bit him?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. [Patting the soldier on the back]. You
should give the man a cross for his devotion. I could not go on eating
him; so I brought him along with me.
STRAMMFEST. Prisoner--
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Don't call me prisoner, General Strammfest.

My grandmother dandled you on her knee.
STRAMMFEST [bursting into tears]. O God, yes. Believe me, my
heart is what it was then.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Your brain also is what it was then. I will
not be addressed by you as prisoner.
STRAMMFEST. I may not, for your own sake, call you by your
rightful and most sacred titles. What am I to call you?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. The Revolution has made us comrades. Call
me comrade.
STRAMMFEST. I had rather die.
THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then call me Annajanska; and I will call
you Peter Piper, as grandmamma did.
STRAMMFEST [painfully agitated]. Schneidekind, you must speak to
her: I cannot--[he breaks down.]
SCHNEIDEKIND [officially]. The Republic of Beotia has been
compelled to confine the Panjandrum and his family, for their own
safety, within certain bounds. You have broken those bounds.
STRAMMFEST [taking the word from him]. You are I must say it--a
prisoner. What am I to do with you?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. You should have thought of that before you
arrested me.
STRAMMFEST. Come, come, prisoner! do you know what will
happen to you if you compel me to take a sterner tone with you?
THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. But I know what will happen to you.
STRAMAIFEST. Pray what, prisoner?
THE GLAND DUCHESS. Clergyman's sore throat.
Schneidekind splutters; drops a paper: and conceals his laughter under
the table.
STRAMMFEST [thunderously]. Lieutenant Schneidekind.
SCHNEIDEKIND [in a stifled voice]. Yes, Sir. [The table vibrates
visibly.]
STRAMMFEST. Come out of it, you fool: you're upsetting the ink.
Schneidekind emerges, red in the face with suppressed mirth.
STRAMMFEST. Why don't you laugh? Don't you appreciate Her
Imperial Highness's joke?
SCHNEIDEKIND [suddenly becoming solemn]. I don't want to, sir.
STRAMMFEST. Laugh at once, sir. I order you to laugh.

SCHNEIDEKIND [with a touch of temper]. I really can't, sir. [He sits
down decisively.]
STRAMMFEST [growling at him]. Yah! [He turns impressively to the
Grand Duchess.] Your Imperial Highness desires me to address you as
comrade?
THE GRAND DUCHESS [rising and waving a red handkerchief].
Long