SERVANT. The landlord sent me up to ask what you want.
KHLESTAKOV. Ah, how do you do, brother! How are you? How are you?
KHLESTAKOV. And how are you getting on in the inn? Is business good?
SERVANT. Yes, business is all right, thank you.
KHLESTAKOV. See here, good friend. They haven't sent me dinner yet. Please hurry them up! See that I get it as soon as possible. I have some business to attend to immediately after dinner.
SERVANT. The landlord said he won't let you have anything any more. He was all for going to the Governor to-day and making a complaint against you.
KHLESTAKOV. What's there to complain about? Judge for yourself, friend. Why, I've got to eat. If I go on like this I'll turn into a skeleton. I'm hungry, I'm not joking.
SERVANT. Yes, sir, that's what he said. "I won't let him have no dinner," he said, "till he pays for what he has already had." That was his answer.
KHLESTAKOV. Explain that it's a serious matter, I've got to eat. As for the money, of course--He thinks that because a muzhik like him can go without food a whole day others can too. The idea!
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-cochere 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 an-nounces: "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.
KHLESTAKOV [claps his hands and wriggles in his chair]. Dinner, dinner, dinner!
SERVANT [with plates and napkin]. This is the last time the landlord will let you have dinner.
