CURATOR OF CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS, INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS, JUDGE, CAPTAIN OF POLICE, DOCTOR, TWO SERGEANTS OF POLICE

_Burgomaster._ Gentlemen, I have called you together to give you a very disagreeable piece of news: a Revizór is coming.

_Judge._ What, a Revizór?

_Curator._ What, a Revizór?

_Burgomaster._ A Revizór from St. Petersburg, incognito, and with secret instructions, if you please.

_Judge._ I declare!

_Curator._ Things have been too easy with us, so there it is.

_Inspector._ Good gracious! With secret instructions!

_Burgomaster._ I really had a presentiment of it: last night I did nothing but dream of two extraordinary rats. I tell you, I never saw the like of them; they were black and of unusual size. They came, nosed around, and went away. I ’ll read to you the letter I received from Andréy Ivánovich Chmýkhov whom you, Artémi Filíppovich (Curator), know. This is what he writes: “Dear friend, and benefactor” (_mutters in a whisper as he runs down the lines_)----“and to let you know.” Ah, here it is: “among other things I hasten to inform you that an official is here with instructions to inspect the whole Government, and especially our county (_significantly raises his finger_). I have learned this from most trustworthy people, although he passes himself for a private individual. Knowing that, like all people, you have some peccadilloes, for you are a clever fellow and don’t let things slip through your fingers----” (_Stops._) Oh, that ’s private----“I advise you to take the proper precaution, for he is likely to come any hour, if he has not arrived yet and is not living somewhere incognito----Yesterday”----Oh, these are family matters: “sister Anna Kirílovna has been visiting us with her husband; Iván Kirílovich has grown very stout, and is all the time playing the fiddle----” and so forth, and so forth. So that ’s the way it stands!

_Judge._ But that ’s an unusual affair. There must be something back of it.

_Inspector._ But what is that all for, Antón Antónovich (Burgomaster)? Why is the Revizór coming to us?

_Burgomaster_ (_sighing_). Why! It ’s evidently our fate! (_Sighing again._) Thanks to the Lord, they have come down on other towns before this; but now our turn has come.

_Judge._ I think, Antón Antónovich, that there is a delicate reason of a political nature behind all this. It ’s simply this: Russia, you see, is about to wage war, and the Minister has sent a special official to find out whether there is not any treason here.

_Burgomaster._ What a guess! And you call yourself a clever man! Treason in a county town! Does it lie on the border, eh? Why, you ’d have to gallop three years from here to get to another country.

_Judge._ No, let me tell you. You don’t----no, you don’t----The government is pretty shrewd about things: never mind its being far away, but the government is on the lookout.

_Burgomaster._ Let it be or not, but I have given you warning, gentlemen, so take notice! I, for my part, have taken some precautions, and I advise you to do the same. Especially you, Artémi Filíppovich! No doubt, the official will first of all want to inspect the charitable institutions under your charge, and so you had better give everything a decent appearance. Let there be clean caps, and don’t let the patients look like blacksmiths, as they generally appear.

_Curator._ Oh, that is not hard! I see no reason for not putting on clean caps.

_Burgomaster._ Yes. And let there also be written over every bed in Latin, or some other language----that ’s your business, Christian Ivánovich,--the name of every illness: when any of them got ill, what day of the month----It is not right for your patients to smoke such strong tobacco that one has to sneeze upon entering. Yes, it also would be better if there were not so many of them, for it will be ascribed to improper care or the physician’s lack of skill.

_Curator._ Oh, Christian Ivánovich and I have taken our measures in regard to the doctoring: the nearer to nature, the better; we do not employ expensive medicaments. A man is a simple affair: if he is to die, he ’ll die anyway; and if he is to get well, he ’ll get well anyway. Besides, it would not be an easy matter for Christian Ivánovich to carry on a conversation with them, he does not know a word of Russian.

(_Christian Ivánovich emits a sound, somewhere between_ ee _and_ eh.)

_Burgomaster._ I should advise you also, Ammós Fédorovich, to direct your attention to the court-house. In the antechamber, where the people wait with their petitions, your janitors have been raising geese with their goslings that continually get between one’s legs. I admit it is praiseworthy to raise your own geese, and there is no reason why janitors should not rear them; only, don’t you know, it is n’t quite the thing to raise them in that place----I had in mind to tell you that before, but I somehow forgot.

_Judge._ Well, I ’ll order them to be taken to the kitchen this very day. Can’t you come and take dinner with me?

_Burgomaster._ Then again, it ’s wrong for all kinds of rags to be hung out in the court-room to get dry, and on the case with the documents lies a hunting-whip. I know you are fond of the chase; but it would be better for the time being to take it away, and as soon as the Revizór has gone, I don’t see why you can’t hang it back there again. Then again your assessor----, of course, he is a clever fellow; but there is an odour about him as if he had just come out of a still,--that won’t do either. I had intended to tell you about that long ago, but something or other drew my attention away from it. There are means against it, if it is, indeed, as he says, a natural odour with him: you might recommend him to eat garlic, onions, or something else. In this case Christian Ivánovich might help him with some of his medicaments.

(_Christian Ivánovich emits the same sound as before._)

_Judge._ No, you can’t drive it out of him: he says that his nurse once hurt him when he was a baby, and ever since he has had a brandy smell about him.

_Burgomaster._ I only mention it to you. As to the internal disposition and what Andréy Ivánovich in his letter calls “peccadilloes,” I can’t say anything. Strange to say, there is not a man who has not some sin to answer for. God Himself has arranged it so, and the followers of Voltaire are in vain preaching against it.

_Judge._ What do you call peccadilloes, Antón Antónovich? There are peccadilloes and peccadilloes. I tell everybody openly that I take bribes, but what bribes? Greyhound pups. That ’s an entirely different matter.

_Burgomaster._ Pups or anything else, it ’s bribes all the same.

_Judge._ Not at all, Antón Antónovich. But suppose a man’s fur-coat costs five hundred roubles, and his wife’s shawl----

_Burgomaster._ What of it if your bribes consist in greyhound pups? But you don’t believe in God; you never go to church. I am, at least, firm in my faith and attend church regularly every Sunday; whereas you----Oh, I know you: when you begin to talk about the creation of the world, my hair simply stands on end.

_Judge._ I have reasoned it out all by myself, with my own intellect.

_Burgomaster._ Well, in this case much intelligence is worse than none at all. However, I only mentioned the County Court. To tell the truth, there is not much likelihood of anybody’s looking in there: it ’s an enviable place, and God Himself protects it. But you, Lúka Lukích, as Inspector of Schools, must take especial care of the teachers. They are, of course, knowing people, and have been educated in all kinds of colleges, but they have very strange ways about them, no doubt inseparable from their learned profession. One of them, for example,--the one with the fat face, I can’t think of his name,--can’t get along, upon standing on the platform, without making a grimace like this (_imitates him_), then he begins to claw his beard under the necktie. Of course, it does not matter much if he makes such a face to a pupil of his, and maybe that is necessary, for I am not a judge of that; but judge yourself,--if he should do so to a visitor, it might have a bad effect: the Revizór, or someone else, might take it to himself. The devil knows what that might lead to.

_Inspector._ I declare I don’t know what to do. I have talked several times to him about it. Only a few days ago, when the Marshal of the Nobility entered his classroom, he made a face I had never seen before. He did it from the goodness of his heart, but I had a reprimand for instilling radical thoughts into the youths.

_Burgomaster._ I must also draw your attention to the teacher of history. He is a learned man, that ’s evident, and is chockful of knowledge, only he lectures with such fervour that he forgets himself. I once listened to his lecture: as long as he was talking of Assyrians and Babylonians, things went tolerably well; but when he got to Alexander the Great, I can’t tell you what became of him. I thought there was a fire, upon my word! He ran down from the platform and with all his might and main smashed a chair against the floor! I ’ll admit Alexander the Great was a hero, but why break chairs over him? There is only a loss to the Crown from it.

_Inspector._ Yes, he is fiery! I have remarked so to him several times. He says: “I don’t care, I ’ll not spare my life for the sake of science!”

_Burgomaster._ Yes, such is the inexplicable law of fate: a clever fellow is either a drunkard, or he makes faces so that you have to carry out the holy images.

_Inspector._ God preserve us from being schoolmasters. You are afraid of everything! Everybody meddles with you, everybody wants to show that he, too, is a clever fellow.

_Burgomaster._ All that could pass,--but the accursed incognito! He ’ll suddenly poke in his nose: “Ah, there you are, my darling! Who,” will he say, “is the judge here?”--“Lyápkin-Tyápkin.”--“Fetch me in Lyápkin-Tyápkin! And who is the Curator of the Charitable Institutions?”--“Zemlyaníka.”--“Fetch in Zemlyaníka!” That ’s what is bad.