Fool,
fool; old driveller that I am!
fool; old driveller that I am!
World's Greatest Books - Volume 17 - Poetry and Drama
These people all lend me as much money as ever I
please. The governor is as stupid as a grey gelding. The postmaster is
a tippler. The charity commissioner is a pig in a skull-cap. "
GOVERNOR: I am crushed--crushed--completely crushed. Catch him!
POSTMASTER: How can we catch him? I, as if purposely, specially
ordered for him the very best post-carriage and three horses.
GOVERNOR: What an old fool I am! I have been thirty years in the
service; not a tradesman nor contractor could cheat me; rogues upon
rogues have I outwitted; three governors-general have I deceived!
ANNA ANDREYEVNA: But this cannot be, Antosha. He is engaged to
Mashenka.
GOVERNOR (_enraged_): Engaged! Rubbish! Look, look; all the world,
all Christendom, all of you look how the governor is fooled!
Fool,
fool; old driveller that I am! (_Shakes his fist at himself_) Ah, you
fat-nose! Taking a rag for a man of rank! And now he is jingling his
bells along the road. Who first said he was an inspector-general?
Answer!
[_All point to_ BOBCHINSKI _and_ DOBCHINSKI, _who fall to
accusing each other. A gendarme enters_.
GENDARME: The inspector-general sent by imperial command has
arrived, and requires you to attend him immediately. He awaits you at
the inn.
[_Thunderstruck at this announcement, the whole group
remained as if petrified, and the curtain falls_.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] Nicolai Vasilieyitch Gogol is famous not only as the
prince of Russian humorists, but as the real founder of both the
modern drama and the novel in Russian literature. He was born on
March 31, 1809, in the province of Poltava, in South, or "Little,"
Russia, and died at Moscow on March 3, 1852. His life was replete
with romantic episodes. After a short career on the stage, in St.
Petersburg, followed by the tenure of a minor Government office, he
returned to the South, and at once found his true vocation and achieved
a wide popularity by a collection of stories and sketches of Cossack
life, entitled "Evenings at a Farm House," which appeared in 1830.
please. The governor is as stupid as a grey gelding. The postmaster is
a tippler. The charity commissioner is a pig in a skull-cap. "
GOVERNOR: I am crushed--crushed--completely crushed. Catch him!
POSTMASTER: How can we catch him? I, as if purposely, specially
ordered for him the very best post-carriage and three horses.
GOVERNOR: What an old fool I am! I have been thirty years in the
service; not a tradesman nor contractor could cheat me; rogues upon
rogues have I outwitted; three governors-general have I deceived!
ANNA ANDREYEVNA: But this cannot be, Antosha. He is engaged to
Mashenka.
GOVERNOR (_enraged_): Engaged! Rubbish! Look, look; all the world,
all Christendom, all of you look how the governor is fooled!
Fool,
fool; old driveller that I am! (_Shakes his fist at himself_) Ah, you
fat-nose! Taking a rag for a man of rank! And now he is jingling his
bells along the road. Who first said he was an inspector-general?
Answer!
[_All point to_ BOBCHINSKI _and_ DOBCHINSKI, _who fall to
accusing each other. A gendarme enters_.
GENDARME: The inspector-general sent by imperial command has
arrived, and requires you to attend him immediately. He awaits you at
the inn.
[_Thunderstruck at this announcement, the whole group
remained as if petrified, and the curtain falls_.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] Nicolai Vasilieyitch Gogol is famous not only as the
prince of Russian humorists, but as the real founder of both the
modern drama and the novel in Russian literature. He was born on
March 31, 1809, in the province of Poltava, in South, or "Little,"
Russia, and died at Moscow on March 3, 1852. His life was replete
with romantic episodes. After a short career on the stage, in St.
Petersburg, followed by the tenure of a minor Government office, he
returned to the South, and at once found his true vocation and achieved
a wide popularity by a collection of stories and sketches of Cossack
life, entitled "Evenings at a Farm House," which appeared in 1830.
