The Inspector-General Read Free Page B

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. He says his nurse struck him when he
was a child, and ever since he has smelt of vodka.
    GOVERNOR. Well, I just wanted to call your attention to it. As regards
the internal administration and what Andrey Ivanovich in his letter
calls "little peccadilloes," I have nothing to say. Why, of course,
there isn't a man living who hasn't some sins to answer for. That's the
way God made the world, and the Voltairean freethinkers can talk against
it all they like, it won't do any good.
    AMMOS. What do you mean by sins? Anton Antonovich? There are sins and
sins. I tell everyone plainly that I take bribes. I make no bones about
it. But what kind of bribes? White greyhound puppies. That's quite a
different matter.
    GOVERNOR. H'm. Bribes are bribes, whether puppies or anything else.
    AMMOS. Oh, no, Anton Antonovich. But if one has a fur overcoat worth
five hundred rubles, and one's wife a shawl—
    GOVERNOR.
(testily)
. And supposing greyhound puppies are the only bribes
you take? You're an atheist, you never go to church, while I at least am
a firm believer and go to church every Sunday. You—oh, I know you. When
you begin to talk about the Creation it makes my flesh creep.
    AMMOS. Well, it's a conclusion I've reasoned out with my own brain.
    GOVERNOR. Too much brain is sometimes worse than none at all.—However,
I merely mentioned the courthouse. I dare say nobody will ever look at
it. It's an enviable place. God Almighty Himself seems to watch over it.
But you, Luka Lukich, as inspector of schools, ought to have an eye on
the teachers. They are very learned gentlemen, no doubt, with a college
education, but they have funny habits—inseparable from the profession,
I know. One of them, for instance, the man with the fat face—I forget
his name—is sure, the moment he takes his chair, to screw up his face
like this.
(Imitates him.)
And then he has a trick of sticking his hand
under his necktie and smoothing down his beard. It doesn't matter, of
course, if he makes a face at the pupils; perhaps it's even necessary.
I'm no judge of that. But you yourself will admit that if he does it to
a visitor, it may turn out very badly. The Inspector, or anyone else,
might take it as meant for himself, and then the deuce knows what might
come of it.
    LUKA. But what can I do? I have told him about it time and again. Only
the other day when the marshal of the nobility came into the class-room,
he made such a face at him as I had never in my life seen before. I
dare say it was with the best intentions; But I get reprimanded for
permitting radical ideas to be instilled in the minds of the young.
    GOVERNOR. And then I must call your attention to the history teacher. He
has a lot of learning in his head and a store of facts. That's evident.
But he lectures with such ardor that he quite forgets himself. Once
I listened to him. As long as he was talking about the Assyrians
and Babylonians, it was not so bad. But when he reached Alexander of
Macedon, I can't describe what came over him. Upon my word, I thought a
fire had broken out. He jumped down from the platform, picked up a chair
and dashed it to the floor. Alexander of Macedon was a hero,