"Come, brother," he says, "and have dinner with me."
I just drop in the office for a couple of minutes to say this is to be done so, and that is to be done that way.
There's a rat of a clerk there for copying letters who does nothing but scribble all the time—tr, tr—They even wanted to make me a college assessor, but I think to myself, "What do I want it for?"
And the doorkeeper flies after me on the stairs with the shoe brush.
"Allow me to shine your boots for you, Ivan Aleksandrovich," he says. [To the Governor.] Why are you standing, gentleman?
Please sit down.
{GOVERNOR.
Our rank is such that we can very
Together { well stand. {ARTEMY.
We don't mind standing.
{LUKA.
Please don't trouble.
KHLESTAKOV.
Please sit down without the rank. [The Governor and the rest sit down.] I don't like ceremony.
On the contrary, I always like to slip by unobserved.
But it's impossible to conceal oneself, impossible.
I no sooner show myself in a place than they say,
"There goes Ivan Aleksandrovich!"
Once I was even taken for the commander-in-chief. The soldiers rushed out of the guard-house and saluted.
Afterwards an officer, an intimate acquaintance of mine, said to me:
"Why, old chap, we completely mistook you for the commander-in-chief."
ANNA.
Well, I declare!
KHLESTAKOV.
I know pretty actresses.
I've written a number of vaudevilles, you know.
I frequently meet literary men.
I am on an intimate footing with Pushkin.
I often say to him:
"Well, Pushkin, old boy, how goes it?"
"So, so, partner," he'd reply, "as usual."
He's a great original.
ANNA.
So you write too?
How thrilling it must be to be an author!
You write for the papers also, I suppose?
KHLESTAKOV.
Yes, for the papers, too.
I am the author of a lot of works—The Marriage of Figaro, Robert le Diable, Norma.
I don't even remember all the names.
I did it just by chance. I hadn't meant to write, but a theatrical manager said,
"Won't you please write something for me?"
I thought to myself:
"All right, why not?"
So I did it all in one evening, surprised everybody.
I am extraordinarily light of thought.
All that has appeared under the name of Baron Brambeus was written by me, and the The Frigate of Hope and The Moscow Telegraph.
ANNA.
What! So you are Brambeus?
KHLESTAKOV.