Balcony Scene

Monty: What light in yonder Kremlin

window breaks?

It is the east and Stalin is the

sun! . . . Stalin: O, Monty, Monty, wherefore art

thou Monty?

Thou art thyself although Montgomery, Wert thou but mine and not

Montgomery !

But how can Monty be a Bolshevik?

Monty: Call me but thine, and I'll be

new baptized,

Henceforth I shall be thy Montgomery.

Stalin: Thou knowst the iron curtain

masks my face Else might I blush, perchance

bepaint my cheek, For meeting thee half way. Dost

love me, Monty?

Monty: Now, by Britannia's word and

bond I swear--Stalin: O, swear not by perfidious Albion

Who monthly visiteth America.

Monty: I swear by the Imperial General

Staff--Stalin: No, no, brave Montyt do not

swear But by mine own Red Star, and

I'll believe.

Inspiration for this Romeo & Juliet parody (by Sagittarius, Britain's shrewdest satirical versifier, in the New Statesman and Nation) was Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery's five-day visit to Moscow, where, as part of his lavish entertainment, he was taken to a gala performance of Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff was feted as few foreigners have been in Moscow. Well aware of the recent British drift, especially among left-wing Laborites, away from the U.S. and toward Russia, the Kremlin was trying its best to encourage the trend.

Monty had a long, warm talk with Stalin, was given a round of receptions and reviews. Out "to establish friendly contact with the Soviet Army," he invited its Chief of Staff, Marshal Alex ander M. Vasilevsky, and other ranking Russian officers to visit England next summer. The Russians promptly accepted.

The night before Field Marshal Montgomery left, the love feast was climaxed by a Kremlin banquet at which Stalin himself kept filling the teetotaling visitor's glass for repeated toasts. Just before the banquet, Monty had been given a caracul cap to replace his famed black beret, and a long grey dress overcoat of a Soviet marshal--reportedly lined with $8,000 worth of sables--to replace the dramatic white sheepskin he had worn to Moscow.

At the airport, in the harsh light of the morning after, the sable lining in Monty's new coat seemed to be merely "brown fur." Said the gallant Monty: "Anyhow, it's a beautiful coat." Wearing it and his caracul cap, taking his white coat with him, he boarded the plane. When he landed in England, he had on his beret.

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