Writing A Play In Her Mind
Anastasia, the Tsar's youngest daughter, followed the
courtly group as they moved, all dressed in evening
wear and as they bowed and curtsied she was writing
a play in her mind - I shall bring in this part of the plot,
and that, and have the courtiers stop - when she had
to greet a dignitary she automatically did it correctly,
but in her mind the play-writing went on: I shall make
it a moral play, analyze the why and wherefore of every-
thing that happened that day - in a white diaphanous
dress Anastasia continued on her way, blissfully
unaware of everyone's stare as she passed looking
quite wonderfully like a shining star - And I shall add
another moral lesson of course, the storyline must
not stop - Once again, interrupting her train of thought,
a kindly courtier led the distracted young author, who
was supposed to be concentrating on her royal duties,
to her assigned place at the table, cursory glances of
perfunctory kindness for the pre-occupied young girl
still eluding her, as if in a daze she took her place and
sitting down, mechanically took cutlery and serviette
but just sat there holding these as the feverish play-
writing in her mind never stopped: And I shall assign
meaning to various things to point out the symbolism
for all to see, and I visualize my young heroine-author
going to her secluded study and taking pen and scroll;
and such was a night of royal entertainment spent by
Anastasia, the only Royal known to date who remained
so oblivious to her exalted state that she imagined herself
a second Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte concocting moral
tales similar to a remarkable degree, to that magical moral
reprobate, William Topaz McGonagall ----
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The next day when the royal lectures commenced
Anastasia was quite unprepared, she came clutching
her canvas bag with hand-written papers - but when
the royal tutor demanded to see her historical essay
she blushed, totally flustered & flushed she stammered,
I'm so sorry Herr Professor Doktor Kohnke, but I've
forgotten to write my essay - and that studious dignitary
was not amused - So what do you have in your hand,
he icily demanded - and took the sheaf of papers from her
then to general amusement he started reading her essay,
about a naughty little princess who never concentrated and
fell downstairs and ran away and climbed onto the Palace's
roof with her brother Peter-Ian to play, the very Peter-Ian who
had hammered wooden planks into the large Jacaranda into
which he and the princess climbed for escape - one day she
was climbing into the rafters just as Catherine the Great
returned from her duties, the little princess was so flustered,
she glided down the wall and a long nail scratched her arm,
she did not realize it was bleeding as she quickly left her
illegal hiding place and curtsied to Lady Catherine The
Great, then the princess saw the gash in her right arm
and she told the Scullery Maid who was ironing outside,
this being a rational, common-sense girl, she ran inside
and told Lady Catherine who immediately called her grand-
child to her side and demanded to see her arm - Oh, the
scar still is there today - Lady Catherine was shocked on
perceiving the inner layer spilling from her right arm and
bundled the princess into the great coach in which she
drove about visiting Potemkin villages - taking her to see
Rasputin, royal advisor and medical charlatan, the arm
was sutured and finely stitched to lady Catherine's delight
Total silence reigned in the royal apartment as her tutors
tried to make sense of the story she had written and she
herself was crimson with embarrassment...
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