new vodka
is quite good, 30 proof.
Vodka should be at least 40 proof,
not 30, that's number one.
And number two, one can never tell
what muck they put into it nowadays.
- Can you tell me what may occur to them?
- Anything.
That's just what l think.
And now, lvan Arnoldovitch,
gulp this little bit at once.
And if you tell me you don't like it,
you are my sworn enemy for life.
You don't like it? You don't?
Answer me, dear Doctor.
- lt's excellent. - l should think so. Mind
you, lvan Arnoldovitch, that the only people,
...who take vodka with cold collations and
soup are a few remaining landlords whom
the bolshevicks didn't have time to murder.
Anybody with a spark of self-respect
takes his hors d'oeuvres hot.
And of all the hot hors d'oeuvres
in Moscow, this is the best one.
Once they used to do them magnificently
in "laviansky Bazar".
There, take it.
lf you feed a dog at table, afterward you
won't get him out of here for love or money.
l don't mind.
The poor thing's starved.
Food, lvan Arnoldovich, is a subtle
thing. One must know how to eat.
And yet just think of it that most people
don't know how to eat at all.
One must not only know what to eat, but
when and how, and what to say while eating.
lf you care about your digestion,
my advice is:
...don't talk about Bolshevism
or medicine at table.
And, God forbid - never read oviet
newspapers before dinner.
- But there are no other newspapers.
- o don't read any at all.
l once made thirty tests in my clinic.
And guess what?
Those of my patients whom
l forced to read "Pravda"...
...lost weight.
And to top it off they had retarded
knee reflexes, lost appetite...
...and exhibited symptoms
of general depression. Yes.
The difficult years of fighting
for the liberty of this
country are gone.
The ones that follow them
are also difficult.
Zina, my dear, what's that noise?
- They're having another general meeting.
- What, again?
Oh well, so it's started.
This is the end of this house.
Mow they'll get things rolling.
First of all, there'll be community
singing every evening, then the pipes
will freeze in the lavatories...
...then the steam-heating pipes
will blow up, and so on.
You paint too grim a picture,
Philip Philipovich.
They're very different now.
And l won't mention the boiler,
my dear...
Let them! When there's a social revolution
going on, one does without central heating.
But l ask you, why all this,
when did it all start...
...Why is everybody marching up
and down the marble staircase
in dirty galoshes and felt boots?
Just listen to that!
Why must we still keep galoshes
under lock and key...
...and put a soldier on guard over them
to prevent them from being stolen?
He could well be making money speaking
at meetings. A First rate speaker.
Why was the carpet removed
from the main staircase?
ls it that Karl Marx forbids people
to cover staircases with carpets?
Did Karl Marx write somewhere, that
the front door Number Two of the house
on Prechistenka treet...
...should be boarded up, so
that people have to go around
and come in by the back door?
What good does it do to anybody?
Why can't the proletariat leave...
...his dirty galoshes downstairs
instead of dirtying the marble?
- But the proletarians don't have any
galoshes at all, Philip Philipovich.
- Nothing of the sort.
They do have galoshes now
and those galoshes are mine!
The very same galoshes
that disappeared in 1918.
o the question is who pinched
them? Me? lmpossible.
ablin the bourgeois? Polozov,
the sugar manufacturer? On no account.
lt was done by those
songbirds up there.
Bu if only they would take them off
when they go upstairs.
Why on earth did they have to remove
flowers from the landings?
Why does the electricity, which if
l remember right only failed twice
in the past twenty years...
...now go out regularly twice a day?
- lt's Disruption, Philip Philipovich. - And
what does this "disruption" of