Read "The Inspector General" by Nikolai Gogol online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Khlestakov alone.
Khlestakov A bad business if he refuses to let me have anything. I'm so hungry. I've never been so hungry in my life. Shall I try to raise something on my clothes? Shall I sell my trousers? No, I'd rather starve than come home without a St. Petersburg suit. It's a shame Joachim wouldn't let me have a carriage on hire. It would have been great to ride home in a carriage, drive up under the porte-cochère of one of the neighbors with lamps lighted and Osip behind in livery. Imagine the stir it would have created. "Who is it? What's that? " Then my footman walks in draws himself up and imitates and announces: "Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov of St. Petersburg. Will you receive him? " Those country lubbers don't even know what it means to "receive. " If any lout of a country squire pays them a visit, he stalks straight into the drawing-room like a bear. Then you step up to one of their pretty girls and say: "Dee-lighted, madam. " Rubs his hands and bows. Phew! Spits. I feel positively sick, I'm so hungry.