The Inspector-General (13 page)

POSTMASTER. You haven't the power.

GOVERNOR. Do you know that he's going to marry my daughter? That I
myself am going to be a high official and will have the power to exile
to Siberia?

POSTMASTER. Oh, Anton Antonovich, Siberia! Siberia is far away. I'd
rather read the letter to you. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to read
the letter.

ALL. Do read it.

POSTMASTER
(reads)
. "I hasten to inform you, my dear friend, what
wonderful things have happened to me. On the way here an infantry
captain did me out of my last penny, so that the innkeeper here
wanted to send me to jail, when suddenly, thanks to my St. Petersburg
appearance and dress, the whole town took me for a governor-general. Now
I am staying at the governor's home. I am having a grand time and I am
flirting desperately with his wife and daughter. I only haven't decided
whom to begin with. I think with the mother first, because she seems
ready to accept all terms. You remember how hard up we were taking our
meals wherever we could without paying for them, and how once the pastry
cook grabbed me by the collar for having charged pies that I ate to the
king of England? Now it is quite different. They lend me all the money
I want. They are an awful lot of originals. You would split your sides
laughing at them. I know you write for the papers. Put them in your
literature. In the first place the Governor is as stupid as an old
horse—"

GOVERNOR. Impossible! That can't be in the letter.

POSTMASTER
(showing the letter)
. Read for yourself.

GOVERNOR
(reads)
. "As an old horse." Impossible! You put it in yourself.

POSTMASTER. How could I?

ARTEMY. Go on reading.

LUKA. Go on reading.

POSTMASTER
(continuing to read)
. "The Governor is as stupid as an old
horse—"

GOVERNOR. Oh, the devil! He's got to read it again. As if it weren't
there anyway.

POSTMASTER
(continuing to read)
. H'm, h'm—"an old horse. The Postmaster
is a good man, too."
(Stops reading.)
Well, here he's saying something
improper about me, too.

GOVERNOR. Go on—read the rest.

POSTMASTER. What for?

GOVERNOR. The deuce take it! Once we have begun to read it, we must read
it all.

ARTEMY. If you will allow me, I will read it.
(Puts on his eye-glasses
and reads.)
"The Postmaster is just like the porter Mikheyev in our
office, and the scoundrel must drink just as hard."

POSTMASTER
(to the audience)
. A bad boy! He ought to be given a licking.
That's all.

ARTEMY
(continues to read)
. "The Superintendent of Char-i-i—"
(Stammers.)

KOROBKIN. Why did you stop?

ARTEMY. The handwriting isn't clear. Besides, it's evident that he's a
blackguard.

KOROBKIN. Give it to me. I believe my eyesight is better.

ARTEMY
(refusing to give up the letter)
. No. This part can be omitted.
After that it's legible.

KOROBKIN. Let me have it please. I'll see for myself.

ARTEMY. I can read it myself. I tell you that after this part it's all
legible.

POSTMASTER. No, read it all. Everything so far could be read.

ALL. Give him the letter, Artemy Filippovich, give it to him.
(To
Korobkin.)
You read it.

ARTEMY. Very well.
(Gives up the letter.)
Here it is.
(Covers a part of
it with his finger.)
Read from here on.
(All press him.)

POSTMASTER. Read it all, nonsense, read it all.

KOROBKIN
(reading)
. "The Superintendent of Charities, Zemlianika, is a
regular pig in a cap."

ARTEMY
(to the audience)
. Not a bit witty. A pig in a cap! Have you ever
seen a pig wear a cap?

KOROBKIN
(continues reading)
. "The School Inspector reeks of onions."

LUKA
(to the audience)
. Upon my word, I never put an onion to my mouth.

AMMOS
(aside)
. Thank God, there's nothing about me in it.

KOROBKIN
(continues reading)
. "The Judge—"

AMMOS. There!
(Aloud.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I think the letter is far
too long. To the devil with it! Why should we go on reading such trash?

LUKA. No.

POSTMASTER. No, go on.

ARTEMY. Go on reading.

KOROBKIN. "The Judge, Liapkin-Tiapkin, is extremely mauvais ton."
(He
stops.)
That must be a French word.

AMMOS. The devil knows what it means. It wouldn't be so bad if all it
means is "cheat." But it may mean something worse.

KOROBKIN
(continues reading)
. "However, the people are hospitable
and kindhearted. Farewell, my dear Triapichkin. I want to follow your
example and take up literature. It's tiresome to live this way, old boy.
One wants food for the mind, after all. I see I must engage in something
lofty. Address me: Village of Podkatilovka in the Government of
Saratov."
(Turns the letter and reads the address.)
"Mr. Ivan
Vasilyevich Triapichkin, St. Petersburg, Pochtamtskaya Street, House
Number 97, Courtyard, third floor, right."

A LADY. What an unexpected rebuke!

GOVERNOR. He has cut my throat and cut it for good. I'm done for,
completely done for. I see nothing. All I see are pigs' snouts instead
of faces, and nothing more. Catch him, catch him!
(Waves his hand.)

POSTMASTER. Catch him! How? As if on purpose, I told the overseer to
give him the best coach and three. The devil prompted me to give the
order.

KOROBKIN'S WIFE. Here's a pretty mess.

AMMOS. Confound it, he borrowed three hundred rubles from me.

ARTEMY. He borrowed three hundred from me, too.

POSTMASTER
(sighing)
. And from me, too.

BOBCHINSKY. And sixty-five from me and Piotr Ivanovich.

AMMOS
(throwing up his hands in perplexity)
. How's that, gentlemen?
Really, how could we have been so off our guard?

GOVERNOR
(beating his forehead)
. How could I, how could I, old fool?
I've grown childish, stupid mule. I have been in the service thirty
years. Not one merchant, not one contractor has been able to impose on
me. I have over-reached one swindler after another. I have caught crooks
and sharpers that were ready to rob the whole world. I have fooled three
governor-generals. As for governor-generals,
(with a wave of his hand)
it is not even worth talking about them.

ANNA. But how is it possible, Antosha? He's engaged to Mashenka.

GOVERNOR
(in a rage)
. Engaged! Rats! Fiddlesticks! So much for your
engagement! Thrusts her engagement at me now!
(In a frenzy.)
Here, look
at me! Look at me, the whole world, the whole of Christendom. See what
a fool the governor was made of. Out upon him, the fool, the old
scoundrel!
(Shakes his fist at himself.)
Oh, you fat-nose! To take an
icicle, a rag for a personage of rank! Now his coach bells are jingling
all along the road. He is publishing the story to the whole world. Not
only will you be made a laughing-stock of, but some scribbler, some
ink-splasher will put you into a comedy. There's the horrid sting. He
won't spare either rank or station. And everybody will grin and clap his
hands. What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself, oh you!
(Stamps his feet.)
I would give it to all those ink-splashers! You
scribblers, damned liberals, devil's brood! I would tie you all up in a
bundle, I would grind you into meal, and give it to the devil.
(Shakes
his fist and stamps his heel on the floor. After a brief silence.)
I
can't come to myself. It's really true, whom the gods want to
punish they first make mad. In what did that nincompoop resemble an
inspector-general? In nothing, not even half the little finger of an
inspector-general. And all of a sudden everybody is going about saying,
"Inspector-general, inspector-general." Who was the first to say it?
Tell me.

ARTEMY
(throwing up his hands)
. I couldn't tell how it happened if I had
to die for it. It is just as if a mist had clouded our brains. The devil
has confounded us.

AMMOS. Who was the first to say it? These two here, this noble pair.
(Pointing to Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky.)

BOBCHINSKY. So help me God, not I. I didn't even think of it.

DOBCHINSKY. I didn't say a thing, not a thing.

ARTEMY. Of course you did.

LUKA. Certainly. You came running here from the inn like madmen. "He's
come, he's come. He doesn't pay." Found a rare bird!

GOVERNOR. Of course it was you. Town gossips, damned liars!

ARTEMY. The devil take you with your inspector-general and your tattle.

GOVERNOR. You run about the city, bother everybody, confounded
chatterboxes. You spread gossip, you short-tailed magpies, you!

AMMOS. Damned bunglers!

LUKA. Simpletons.

ARTEMY. Pot-bellied mushrooms!

All crowd around them.

BOBCHINSKY. Upon my word, it wasn't I. It was Piotr Ivanovich.

DOBCHINSKY. No, Piotr Ivanovich, you were the first.

BOBCHINSKY. No, no. You were the first.

The same and a Gendarme.

GENDARME. An official from St. Petersburg sent by imperial order has
arrived, and wants to see you all at once. He is stopping at the inn.

All are struck as by a thunderbolt. A cry of amazement bursts from the
ladies simultaneously. The whole group suddenly shifts positions and
remains standing as if petrified.

The Governor stands in the center rigid as a post, with outstretched
hands and head thrown backward. On his right are his wife and daughter
straining toward him. Back of them the Postmaster, turned toward the
audience, metamorphosed into a question mark. Next to him, at the edge
of the group, three lady guests leaning on each other, with a most
satirical expression on their faces directed straight at the Governor's
family. To the left of the Governor is Zemlianika, his head to one side
as if listening. Behind him is the Judge with outspread hands almost
crouching on the ground and pursing his lips as if to whistle or say:
"A nice pickle we're in!" Next to him is Korobkin, turned toward the
audience, with eyes screwed up and making a venomous gesture at the
Governor. Next to him, at the edge of the group, are Dobchinsky and
Bobchinsky, gesticulating at each other, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
The other guests remain standing stiff. The whole group retain the same
position of rigidity for almost a minute and a half. The curtain falls.