The Inspector-General | Page 8

government, and your district especially. [Raises his finger significantly.] I have learned of his being here from highly trustworthy sources, though he pretends to be a private person. So, as you have your little peccadilloes, you know, like everybody else--you are a sensible man, and you don't let the good things that come your way slip by--" [Stopping] H'm, that's his junk --"I advise you to take precautions, as he may arrive any hour, if he hasn't already, and is not staying somewhere incognito. --Yesterday--" The rest are family matters. "Sister Anna Krillovna is here visiting us with her husband. Ivan Krillovich has grown very fat and is always playing the fiddle"--et cetera, et cetera. So there you have the situation we are confronted with, gentlemen.
AMMOS. An extraordinary situation, most extraordinary! Something behind it, I am sure.
LUKA. But why, Anton Antonovich? What for? Why should we have an Inspector?
GOVERNOR. It's fate, I suppose. [Sighs.] Till now, thank goodness, they have been nosing about in other towns. Now our turn has come.
AMMOS. My opinion is, Anton Antonovich, that the cause is a deep one and rather political in character. It means this, that Russia--yes--that Russia intends to go to war, and the Government has secretly commissioned an official to find out if there is any treasonable activity anywhere.
GOVERNOR. The wise man has hit on the very thing. Treason in this little country town! As if it were on the frontier! Why, you might gallop three years away from here and reach nowhere.
AMMOS. No, you don't catch on--you don't-- The Government is shrewd. It makes no difference that our town is so remote. The Government is on the look-out all the same--
GOVERNOR [cutting him short]. On the look-out, or not on the look-out, anyhow, gentlemen, I have given you warning. I have made some arrangements for myself, and I advise you to do the same. You especially, Artemy Filippovich. This official, no doubt, will want first of all to inspect your department. So you had better see to it that everything is in order, that the night-caps are clean, and the patients don't go about as they usually do, looking as grimy as blacksmiths.
ARTEMY. Oh, that's a small matter. We can get night-caps easily enough.
GOVERNOR. And over each bed you might hang up a placard stating in Latin or some other language--that's your end of it, Christian Ivanovich--the name of the disease, when the patient fell ill, the day of the week and the month. And I don't like your invalids to be smoking such strong tobacco. It makes you sneeze when you come in. It would be better, too, if there weren't so many of them. If there are a large number, it will instantly be ascribed to bad supervision or incompetent medical treatment.
ARTEMY. Oh, as to treatment, Christian Ivanovich and I have worked out our own system. Our rule is: the nearer to nature the better. We use no expensive medicines. A man is a simple affair. If he dies, he'd die anyway. If he gets well, he'd get well anyway. Besides, the doctor would have a hard time making the patients understand him. He doesn't know a word of Russian.
The Doctor gives forth a sound intermediate between M and A.
GOVERNOR. And you, Ammos Fiodorovich, had better look to the courthouse. The attendants have turned the entrance hall where the petitioners usually wait into a poultry yard, and the geese and goslings go poking their beaks between people's legs. Of course, setting up housekeeping is commendable, and there is no reason why a porter shouldn't do it. Only, you see, the courthouse is not exactly the place for it. I had meant to tell you so before, but somehow it escaped my memory.
AMMOS. Well, I'll have them all taken into the kitchen to-day. Will you come and dine with me?
GOVERNOR. Then, too, it isn't right to have the courtroom littered up with all sorts of rubbish--to have a hunting-crop lying right among the papers on your desk. You're fond of sport, I know, still it's better to have the crop removed for the present. When the Inspector is gone, you may put it back again. As for your assessor, he's an educated man, to be sure, but he reeks of spirits, as if he had just emerged from a distillery. That's not right either. I had meant to tell you so long ago, but something or other drove the thing out of my mind. If his odor is really a congenital defect, as he says, then there are ways of remedying it. You might advise him to eat onion or garlic, or something of the sort. Christian Ivanovich can help him out with some of his nostrums.
The Doctor makes the same sound as before.
AMMOS. No, there's no cure for it.