A TENDANCY TO CHANGE SHAPE

TONI.-– My tender, patient wifey!.. She’s waiting for me after a long day of hard intensive
work. Forgive me, darling, I’m a bit late.
AMANDA.– A bit?.. Since when drinking liquor in a bar has been called “hard work”?
TONI.– I wouldn’t like to repeat what I’ve said many times, Amanda, but you know well that
my working day duration isn’t fixed by common regulations. Today I had to have dinner with
important people…
AMANDA.– And yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and on Tuesday…
TONI.– … which I had warned you about, by the way!
AMANDA.– Oh yes, you’re a man of word, that can’t be denied. You promised to come at nine
at the latest and, look! It’s not even twelve yet, and here you are!
TONI.– You’re getting nervous, darling, you’re worried about me – it’s so natural: you do love
me!
AMANDA.-– I’d explain to you the difference between love and hatred about to burst, if it
weren’t so late and you were a bit soberer!
TONI.– It’s far too strange to hear such words from the woman I have considered perfect these
many years!.. Calm, Mister Morandi, calm!.. Man must withstand reverses of fortune with courage.
Especially those connected with women… And are there any which are not connected with them?..
Then your feelings towards me, Amanda, have changed from positive to negative this evening…
Then why are you sitting at such a late hour and waiting for me, as before?
AMANDA.- – It hasn’t happened today, darling. Much earlier! But you were so sure of my
perfection that you refused to believe it even if you had suspicions. And, most probably, you didn’t
have any.
1
TONI.– Why are you sitting here and waiting for me?
AMANDA.– I’ve been reading. I got absorbed in a book by a trendy author – his name will tell
you nothing – who unexpectedly turned out to be not so mediocre as I had supposed.
TONI.– Absorbed, you say?.. And why?
AMANDA.– Remember the times when you spoke and I listened? For hours!.. You spoke
sensibly, ironically, defiantly. Perhaps, that was what conquered my heart. I know we can’t get
those times back – either you’ve got numb, or I’ve got deaf, perhaps both, - but I miss them,
anyway. And today a few phrases from a book, chosen at random, reminded me those times.
TONI.– Interesting!.. You doubt not only my faith in you, my feelings towards you, my efforts
aimed at… how to put it more precisely… at keeping our feelings fit, but also some of my virtues,
which, by the way, you have never denied.
AMANDA.– “Keeping our feelings fit”… That’s great, Toni! There’s as much brilliance in these
words as in a creak of a hundred-year-old wine barrel which has just been emptied out of the
fermented wine. Though, I must say you smell the same… Enough! We’re engaging ourselves in
discussion, and you aren’t prepared for it today. I’m going to bed.
TONI. – I’m following you, darling.
AMANDA.– There are six bedrooms in this house; five out of them are vacant. You can choose
any.
TONI.– Why must I spend the night without my charming little wife?
AMANDA.– First, you’ve been doing so regularly, especially lately. And second, your today’s
condition evidently contradicts your charming wife’s principles. Perhaps somebody’s able to spend
the night embracing a wine barrel. But not me!
TONI.– First, I spend nights without you only when I have to leave New-York.
AMANDA. – Without me all right. The question is: who with?
TONI.– Seems like I’m not the only one here to speak “sensibly and ironically”… And second,
2
your constant hinting at my chronic alcoholism is absolutely groundless. I’m tired, I’m annoyed,
I’ve got lots of problems, I have to be in Detroit tomorrow morning. Yes, I drank a couple of
cocktails at dinner, but if this number is the mark of a double-dyed drunk, then such are the
majority of the city’s residents.
AMANDA.– You are tired! You are annoyed! You’ve got a lot of problems!.. Perhaps you’re not
good at pronouns, because in that whole exciting monologue neither me, nor us were mentioned.
TONI.– I love you, Amanda.
AMANDA.– Words, words…
TONI.– In the beginning there was the Word, too.
AMANDA.- – In the beginning there’s always a word, but then it wouldn’t hurt to confirm it
with some action. Perhaps, I was wrong talking about good old times when I was able to listen to
you for hours. I haven’t lost my hearing, you haven’t lost your eloquence, but maybe now it’s not
enough any more? You were nattering on about keeping our feelings fit; perhaps, you meant my
feelings towards you? Tell me, how do you do that?
TONI.– You know perfectly well how I do that. I do everything for you! Open any newspaper,
look at the high life chronicle section – whose name appears there more often than yours? You
aren’t just my wife. You glitter! Or, to be precise, I wanted to say that you glitter not just because of
your numerous virtues, but also because you are my wife!
AMANDA.– Our supposed round-the-world journey has been delayed for two years. The villa on
Balearic Islands which you, with your inherent wittiness, call a “rancho”, is in such a state, that it
won’t survive the first rain. It’s scary to step onto the yacht deck – it’ll sink right at the mooring.
Remember how long ago we last bought a new car? I’ll remind – it was two years ago! You taught
me yourself what prestige worth is, and how easy it is to lose it, and how difficult it is to regain it…
I’m afraid to read high life chronicles section: at two latest presentations of the firm I was wearing
the same dress! Molly Richardson called me expressly to announce this knockout news.
3
TONI.– This whore?
AMANDA.– How do you know that? It doesn’t matter anyway… Twice in the same dress!..
TONI.– Perhaps, next you’ll think of the times when you wore the same jeans both in the corn
field in the morning and at a dance party in the evening? Good times at the farm in Iowa, which
didn’t crumble with the first rain just because fortunately there were no rains that autumn, and
where the only entertainment, with the exception of the above mentioned dances, was the sunset
watching. The sunrise was also not bad, but you had no possibility to admire it, because by that time
you had been toiling away in the field with your father and degenerate brother.
AMANDA.– He’s an unsophisticated guy, but not a degenerate!
TONI.– Degenerates can be found even among lords – social origin has got nothing to do with it.
However, he might just as well have become one after I had bought you a new farm and Freddy got
an opportunity to hire other people instead of working himself. He would stick on the terrace for a
whole day, watching now the sunrise, now the sunset, now a fly’s way from the stables to the
kitchen and back, and in the evening he would beer up – that would blow your top, willy-nilly! We
haven’t changed cars for two years? And how old was your mare which you rode when going for
foodstuff to town, where I actually met you, and which finally died of old age soon after you agreed
to change the wholesome air of that land to the local smog? Twice in the same dress?.. Of course, if
you’re skeptical about the offers of local fashion designers and prefer dresses by Armani made
especially for you and one of a kind!, which is brought from overseas for you to try on… The cost
of such a dress is amounted to a figure with several zeros, let alone transport expenses… These are
hard times, Amanda. You know how much money I invested in modernization of production. But it
was necessary. For our own sake. For the sake of our future. We have a nice house. There’s
everything required in it and even more. Only the new dress by Armani has to wait. You’re free to
go to any store and choose a dozen of dresses, if you like. By the way, we’ll save on it. You may
say they’re all by Armani. Molly Richardson doesn’t understand a thing in it. And in other things,
4
neither.
AMANDA. – A store?.. You said – a store?!
TONI.– Well, a boutique, what’s the big difference?
AMANDA.– You have never – you hear – never! – taken the liberty of insulting me like this!
I’m going to blow up with rage! What day is it? It’s just a few minutes to midnight, so the day’s the
same. I have to remember it well, because it’s a historical day! The day when I saw the light! I was
such a fool when I hang onto your every word. But I’ll be even more fool if I forgive you the things
I’ve heard from you today. And, be so kind, there’s no need to keep our feelings fit from now on.
Because there are no more feelings.
TONI.– I must admit there’s some sense in your arguments, Amanda! Any woman would be
insulted if suggested buying two or three thousand dollar dresses.
AMANDA. – You said you were going to Detroit tomorrow morning? Look at me! Look at me
well, Toni! Because when you get back you won’t have such possibility any more!
TONI.– You’ll rush to Iowa to your mother and degenerate brother?
AMANDA.– Perhaps he’s indeed a moron, but I know someone who has walked this way much
further.
TONI.– I have only one wish, but alas, it’s unrealizable.
AMANDA.– To doss down quick? It’s quite realizable!
TONI.– Wrong guessed. I’d like you to walk in my shoes for at least a day. Perhaps then you
would understand a lot of things which, being obscure, make this conversation possible. For
example, why there’s nothing to be ashamed of in a suggestion to appear in public in a dress not by
Armani.
AMANDA.– And I wouldn’t recommend you to put yourself in my place. You wouldn’t endure
it!.. Pity: that would be a nice opportunity for a man jealous of my brother Fred’s laurels to
understand that it’s not the matter of dress. Toni!
5
TONI.- Yes?
AMANDA.– Do you remember the words you said on the day you first saw me?
TONI.– You dashingly jumped off the horse, headed to the small shop where your humble
servant was loafing about on verandah, waiting for his car to get repaired in a workshop opposite.
You gave me a look which had much more than just curiosity, and then there went my cue. It
sounded like this: “Who must I thank for my presence here at this very moment?”
AMANDA.– If I knew who, I would thank him indeed, that’s for sure!
Amanda rushes out of the room. The door shuts with a bang.
TONI.You’ve forgotten how to ride a horse, Amanda. And, although you drive your car
recklessly, unfortunately, that’s not the same thing. To be sincere, old chap, you, too, have lost
something since one sunny morning in Iowa when a lovely vision visited you, riding a bay horse.
To keep our feelings fit… At this moment I can carry this out only in theory, for things look bad,
Amanda, and not just bad, but very bad. Thank God you don’t know that. And it’s strange you don’t
know… sounds like everybody knows. How must a man feel when he still can pay his bills, and
already people point at him behind his back “Here goes once rich and powerful man, and now just
about a bankrupt?” He feels rotten. At such moments you must look to your close relations for
comfort, and who’s closer to me than you, Amanda?.. And I’ll up and go looking for someone!
/Makes an attempt to get up, but falls back on the sofa/ A pure perfection and a wine barrel without
wine… It’s really hard to imagine a less promising union… I drink because it calms me down…
These words began a career of any amateur drunk just before becoming a professional. Toni.
Sleep!.. Tomorrow is a hard day, but we’ll struggle yet… We’ll struggle…Struggle…
Toni lies down on the sofa. The lights go out. The clock starts striking – one, two, three, four,
6
five…
7