ance. 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. Why, yes. And I revise and whip all their articles into
shape. Smirdin gives me forty thousand for it.

ANNA. I suppose, then, that Yury Miroslavsky is yours too.

KHLESTAKOV. Yes, it's mine.

ANNA. I guessed at once.

MARYA. But, mamma, it says that it's by Zagoskin.

ANNA. There! I knew you'd be contradicting even here.

KHLESTAKOV. Oh, yes, it's so. That was by Zagoskin. But there is another
Yury Miroslavsky which was written by me.

ANNA. That's right. I read yours. It's charming.

KHLESTAKOV. I admit I live by literature. I have the first house in
St. Petersburg. It is well known as the house of Ivan Aleksandrovich.
[Addressing the company in general.] If any of you should come to St.
Petersburg, do please call to see me. I give balls, too, you know.

ANNA. I can guess the taste and magnificence of those balls.

KHLESTAKOV. Immense! For instance, watermelon will be served costing
seven hundred rubles. The soup comes in the tureen straight from Paris
by steamer. When the lid is raised, the aroma of the steam is like
nothing else in the world. And we have formed a circle for playing
whist--the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the French, the English and the
German Ambassadors and myself. We play so hard we kill ourselves over
the cards. There's nothing like it. After it's over I'm so tired I
run home up the stairs to the fourth floor and tell the cook, "Here,
Marushka, take my coat"--What am I talking about?--I forgot that I live
on the first floor. One flight up costs me--My foyer before I rise
in the morning is an interesting spectacle indeed--counts and princes
jostling each other and humming like bees. All you hear is buzz, buzz,
buzz. Sometimes the Minister--[The Governor and the rest rise in awe
from their chairs.] Even my mail comes addressed "Your Excellency." And
once I even had charge of a department. A strange thing happened. The
head of the department went off, disappeared, no one knew where. Of
course there was a lot of talk about how the place would be filled,
who would fill it, and all