Sh—sh! Bandy-legged bears—thumping their boots on the floor!
Bump, bump as if a thousand pounds were being unloaded from a wagon.
Where in the devil have you been knocking about?
DERZHIMORDA.
I had your order—
GOVERNOR.
Hush! [Puts his hand over Derzhimorda's mouth.] Like a bull bellowing. [Mocking him.]
"I had your order—" Makes a noise like an empty barrel. [To Osip.] Go, friend, and get everything ready for your master.
And you two, you stand on the steps and don't you dare budge from the spot.
And don't let any strangers enter the house, especially the merchants.
If you let a single one in, I'll—The instant you see anybody with a petition, or even without a petition and he looks as if he wanted to present a petition against me, take him by the scruff of the neck, give him a good kick, [shows with his foot] and throw him out.
Do you hear?
Hush—hush!
He goes out on tiptoe, preceded by the Sergeants.
CURTAIN
ACT IV
SCENE: Same as in Act III.
SCENE I
Enter cautiously, almost on tiptoe, Ammos Fiodorovich, Artemy Filippovich, the Postmaster, Luka Lukich, Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky in full dress-uniform.
AMMOS.
For God's sake, gentlemen, quick, form your line, and let's have more order.
Why, man alive, he goes to Court and rages at the Imperial Council.
Draw up in military line, strictly in military line.
You, Piotr Ivanovich, take your place there, and you, Piotr Ivanovich, stand here. [Both the Piotr Ivanoviches run on tiptoe to the places indicated.]
ARTEMY.
Do as you please, Ammos Fiodorovich, I think we ought to try.
AMMOS.
Try what?
ARTEMY.
It's clear what.
AMMOS.
Grease?
ARTEMY.
Exactly, grease.
AMMOS.
It's risky, the deuce take it. He'll fly into a rage at us. He's a government official, you know.
Perhaps it should be given to him in the form of a gift from the nobility for some sort of memorial?
POSTMASTER.
Or, perhaps, tell him some money has been sent here by post and we don't know for whom?
ARTEMY.
You had better look out that he doesn't send you by post a good long ways off.
Look here, things of such a nature are not done this way in a well-ordered state.
What's the use of a whole regiment here?
We must present ourselves to him one at a time, and do—what ought to be done, you know—so that eyes do not see and ears do not hear.
That's the way things are done in a well-ordered society.
You begin it, Ammos Fiodorovich, you be the first.
AMMOS.
You had better go first. The distinguished guest has eaten in your institution.
ARTEMY.
Then Luka Lukich, as the enlightener of youth, should go first.