Tonight’s match featured the Count, who sent down a few range-finders against his countryman Vladimir Mayakovsky and then opened the throttle with a towering service game. There’s something about Mayakovsky when he’s got his back to the wall, however, and he summoned his reserves today, stood his ground and fought his way to a remarkable victory. In a match that went out live and was seen by an astonishing 27 per cent of the population of western Europe, Mayakovsky ran the legs off the older man, got to the net and dictated terms. In the final set he stood back and beat him at his own game. The Count knew it was all over and afterwards observed, ‘All victories are the same but every defeat is a defeat in its own way.’
Mayakovsky put it for many: ‘Without Leo Tolstoy the game in Russia would still be played with sticks and dried manure. More than any other player of his era, he is one of us.’
Round 4
Day 24
Malraux v. Einstein • Bernhardt v. Hodgkins • Nijinsky and Pavlova v. Benchley and Parker • Kafka v. Wittgenstein
Most courts were back in action today as doubles matches enriched a program of fourth-round singles. The deceptive Dutchman Escher was ambushed with little ceremony by the likeable Waller. Malraux put up a good fight against the superior firepower of Einstein but could do little to combat a service game that seemed to have no cracks whatever. Bernhardt was bemused by Hodgkins for a set until she turned the power on and went away. Then a pall was thrown over events by the failure of Rosa Luxemburg to make an appearance for her singles match.
On outside courts, seeded doubles combination Brecht and Weill were outclassed by Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and Hope and Crosby played entertaining tennis in taking out Bakst and the Russian Blok, formerly the Soviet Blok. In the women’s doubles the Americans Roosevelt and Luce were beaten by Lotte Lenya and Marlene Dietrich. Second-seeded mixed doubles combination Nijinsky and Pavlova looked great but they only just beat Benchley and Dorothy Parker, whose approach might be described as ‘social’. Aside from his own service Nijinsky did not hit a ball and it was left to Pavlova to sprint about the place spinning and twirling, leaping and diving. She finished the match completely exhausted, surrounded by flowers thrown from the stands, while Nijinsky stood at the net, glaring at a cloud.
Kafka said after their match that Wittgenstein had ‘played very well. I couldn’t work out what I was up against.’
‘Interesting,’ said Wittgenstein. ‘I thought you played better than I did. I couldn’t work out what I was doing.’
‘Whatever you were doing, you did it very well,’ said Kafka. ‘I just couldn’t work out what it was.’
‘You hit the ball beautifully,’ said Wittgenstein. ‘For two sets you sat me on my arse.’
‘Yes, but you won three sets,’ insisted Kafka.
‘I didn’t say you beat me,’ clarified Wittgenstein. ‘I said you played better tennis than I did. I didn’t know what I was doing.’
‘You were beating me,’ offered Kafka.
‘That was a consequence of what I was doing,’ corrected Wittgenstein.
‘It must have been, in part, a consequence of what I was doing,’ parried Kafka.
‘I thought you said you didn’t know what you were up against.’
Kafka looked confused and said rather elliptically that he was glad nothing had fallen on him.
The news about Rosa Luxemburg was contained in an official communiqué. ‘The troubled Polish star,’ it began, ‘finds that due to other commitments she must withdraw from the tournament.’
Reaction was immediate. ‘It is not the truth,’ said George Orwell, preparing for his match against Munch tomorrow. ‘Look at the language of the communiqué. It hides the truth. It is necessary to make the statement only because it is not true. Where is Rosa Luxemburg?’
A large deputation of women players registered a formal protest. Sarojini Naidu, beaten by Luxemburg in the previous round and half of the Naidu–Pandit team that took out the fashionable Schiaparelli–Chanel combination today, was distraught. ‘This is a lie full of lies. Rosa is not troubled, is not a star, has no other commitments and has not withdrawn from the tournament. Rosa’s friend Karl Liebknecht has been murdered, and now she has been abducted herself. Rosa is being persecuted and possibly tortured because of her thinking about the game. This is a defining moment. Rosa Luxemburg must be brought back here immediately and allowed to play. Moreover, she and every other participant must be given a guarantee of safety by the tournament itself.’
Tournament officials are tonight ‘considering the position’.
Day 25
Stravinsky v. Rodo • Munch v. Orwell • Proust v. Dali • Arendt v. Mandelstam • Chekhov and Miller v. Lardner and Fitzgerald • Riefenstahl and Hari v. Mead and Stark
Igor Stravinsky slipped past Diego Rivera in the first round and played a Homeric five-setter against Pasternak before a tough exam against Sean O’Casey in the third round.
His opponent today, Uruguayan qualifier José Rodo, has lifted the profile of South American tennis and was not disgraced today by any means but there is an experimental quality to everything Stravinsky does and it’s not always obvious what he is about. Today he seemed scrappy and loose but there was never any doubt about the score.
‘Look at the score,’ he said afterwards. ‘Read it. It’s all there.’
‘Were you nervous?’ asked Norman Mailer.
‘Nervous?’
‘Yes,’ Mailer continued. ‘You seemed anxious.’
‘Anxious?’ he asked. ‘How?’
‘Your playing seems anxious.’
‘My playing seems anxious?’ repeated Stravinsky. ‘In what way?’
‘Your playing makes the crowd anxious. It is not soothing. It is not calming.’
Stravinsky held up his hand. ‘The crowd should be soothed?’
‘Perhaps if the crowd is anxious,’ Mailer explained, ‘it should be soothed.’
Stravinsky was still not clear. ‘Are you saying
