do have sympathy.
- You grudge fifty kopecks?
- No.
- Why then?
- I don't want them.
You know, Professor, if you were not
a luminary known throughout Europe...
...if you hadn't been interceded for by
certain people in the most disgraceful way...
...you should be arrested.
- What for?
- You don't like the proletariat.
- No, I don't like the proletariat.
Zina, dear, do please, serve the supper.
With your permission, ladies and gentlemen?
Doctor Bormenthal, pray, leave
the caviar alone, will you.
I'd like to give you a piece of sound
advice, pour yourself some Russian vodka...
...instead of the English vodka.
- With the blessing of the state?
How could you, my dear fellow.
Darya Petrovna prepares excellent
homemade vodka herself.
I wouldn't say that,
Philip Philipovich...
...everybody says that the 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 I think.
And now, Ivan 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.
- It's excellent. - I should think so. Mind
you, Ivan 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 "Slaviansky Bazar".
There, take it.
If you feed a dog at table, afterward you
won't get him out of here for love or money.
I don't mind.
The poor thing's starved.
Food, Ivan 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.
If you care about your digestion,
my advice is:
...don't talk about Bolshevism
or medicine at table.
And, God forbid - never read Soviet
newspapers before dinner.
- But there are no other newspapers.
- So don't read any at all.
I once made thirty tests in my clinic.
And guess what?
Those of my patients whom
I 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 I won't mention the boiler,
my dear...
Let them! When there's a social revolution
going on, one does without central heating.
But I 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?
Is 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 Street...
...should be boarded up, so
that people have to go around
and come in by the back door?
What good does it do