The Essential Russian Plays & Short Stories. Максим Горький
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don't need your bed.
KHLESTAKOV [walking up and down the room]. Go see if there isn't some tobacco in the pouch.
OSIP. What tobacco? You emptied it out four days ago.
KHLESTAKOV [pacing the room and twisting his lips. Finally he says in a loud resolute voice]. Listen—a—Osip.
OSIP. Yes, sir?
KHLESTAKOV [In a voice just as loud, but not quite so resolute]. Go down there.
OSIP. Where?
KHLESTAKOV [in a voice not at all resolute, nor loud, but almost in entreaty]. Down to the restaurant—tell them—to send up dinner.
OSIP. No, I won't.
KHLESTAKOV. How dare you, you fool!
OSIP. It won't do any good, anyhow. The landlord said he won't let you have anything more to eat.
KHLESTAKOV. How dare he! What nonsense is this?
OSIP. He'll go to the Governor, too, he says. It's two weeks now since you've paid him, he says. You and your master are cheats, he says, and your master is a blackleg besides, he says. We know the breed. We've seen swindlers like him before.
KHLESTAKOV. And you're delighted, I suppose, to repeat all this to me, you donkey.
OSIP. "Every Tom, Dick and Harry comes and lives here," he says, "and runs up debts so that you can't even put him out. I'm not going to fool about it," he says, "I'm going straight to the Governor and have him arrested and put in jail."
KHLESTAKOV. That'll do now, you fool. Go down at once and tell him to have dinner sent up. The coarse brute! The idea!
OSIP. Hadn't I better call the landlord here?
KHLESTAKOV. What do I want the landlord for? Go and tell him yourself.
OSIP. But really, master—
KHLESTAKOV. Well, go, the deuce take you. Call the landlord.
Osip goes out.
SCENE III
KHLESTAKOV [alone]. I am so ravenously hungry. I took a little stroll thinking I could walk off my appetite. But, hang it, it clings. If I hadn't dissipated so in Penza I'd have had enough money to get home with. The infantry captain did me up all right. Wonderful the way the scoundrel cut the cards! It didn't take more than a quarter of an hour for him to clean me out of my last penny. And yet I would give anything to have another set-to with him. Only I never will have the chance.—What a rotten town this is! You can't get anything on credit in the grocery shops here. It's deucedly mean, it is. [He whistles, first an air from Robert le Diable, then a popular song, then a blend of the two.] No one's coming.
SCENE IV
Khlestakov, Osip, and a Servant.
SERVANT. The landlord sent me up to ask what you want.
KHLESTAKOV. Ah, how do you do, brother! How are you? How are you?
SERVANT. All right, thank you.
KHLESTAKOV. And how are you getting on in the inn? Is business good?
SERVANT. Yes, business is all right, thank you.
KHLESTAKOV. Many guests?
SERVANT. Plenty.
KHLESTAKOV. See here, good friend. They haven't sent me dinner yet. Please hurry them up! See that I get it as soon as possible. I have some business to attend to immediately after dinner.
SERVANT. The landlord said he won't let you have anything any more. He was all for going to the Governor to-day and making a complaint against you.
KHLESTAKOV. What's there to complain about? Judge for yourself, friend. Why, I've got to eat. If I go on like this I'll turn into a skeleton. I'm hungry, I'm not joking.
SERVANT. Yes, sir, that's what he said. "I won't let him have no dinner," he said, "till he pays for what he has already had." That was his answer.
KHLESTAKOV. Try to persuade him.
SERVANT. But what shall I tell him?
KHLESTAKOV. Explain that it's a serious matter, I've got to eat. As for the money, of course—He thinks that because a muzhik like him can go without food a whole day others can too. The idea!
SERVANT. Well, all right. I'll tell him.
The Servant and Osip go out.
SCENE V
Khlestakov alone.
KHLESTAKOV. A bad business if he refuses to let me have anything. I'm so hungry. I've never been so hungry in my life. Shall I try to raise something on my clothes? Shall I sell my trousers? No, I'd rather starve than come home without a St. Petersburg suit. It's a shame Joachim wouldn't let me have a carriage on hire. It would have been great to ride home in a carriage, drive up under the porte-cochere of one of the neighbors with lamps lighted and Osip behind in livery. Imagine the stir it would have created. "Who is it? What's that?" Then my footman walks in [draws himself up and imitates] and an-nounces: "Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov of St. Petersburg. Will you receive him?" Those country lubbers don't even know what it means to "receive." If any lout of a country squire pays them a visit, he stalks straight into the drawing-room like a bear. Then you step up to one of their pretty girls and say: "Dee-lighted, madam." [Rubs his hands and bows.] Phew! [Spits.] I feel positively sick, I'm so hungry.
SCENE VI
Khlestakov, Osip, and later the Servant.
KHLESTAKOV. Well?
OSIP. They're bringing dinner.
KHLESTAKOV [claps his hands and wriggles in his chair]. Dinner, dinner, dinner!
SERVANT [with plates and napkin]. This is the last time the landlord will let you have dinner.
KHLESTAKOV. The landlord, the landlord! I spit on your landlord. What have you got there?
SERVANT. Soup and roast beef.
KHLESTAKOV. What! Only two courses?
SERVANT. That's all.
KHLESTAKOV. Nonsense! I won't take it. What does he mean by that? Ask him. It's not enough.
SERVANT. The landlord says it's too much.
KHLESTAKOV. Why is there no sauce?
SERVANT. There is none.
KHLESTAKOV. Why not? I saw them preparing a whole lot when I passed through the kitchen. And in the dining-room this morning two short little men were eating salmon and lots of other things.
SERVANT. Well, you see, there is some and there isn't.
KHLESTAKOV. Why "isn't"?
SERVANT. Because there isn't any.
KHLESTAKOV. What, no salmon, no fish, no cutlets?
SERVANT. Only for the better kind of folk.
KHLESTAKOV. You're a fool.
SERVANT. Yes, sir.
KHLESTAKOV. You measly suckling pig. Why can they eat and I not? Why the devil can't I eat, too? Am I not a guest the same as they?
SERVANT. No, not the same. That's plain.
KHLESTAKOV. How so?
SERVANT. That's easy. THEY pay, that's it.
KHLESTAKOV. I'm not going to argue with you, simpleton! [Ladles out the soup and begins to eat.] What, you call that soup? Simply hot water poured into a cup. No taste to it at all. It only stinks. I don't want it. Bring me some other soup.
SERVANT.