A. Of course it's possible. But you can't give protection to every
small potato.

KOROBKIN'S WIFE. Do you hear the way she speaks of us?

GUEST. She's always been that way. I know her. Seat her at table and
she'll put her feet on it.

SCENE VIII

The same and the Postmaster, who rushes in with an unsealed letter in
his hand.

POSTMASTER. A most astonishing thing, ladies and gentlemen! The official
whom we took to be an inspector-general is not an inspector-general.

ALL. How so? Not an inspector-general?

POSTMASTER. No, not a bit of it. I found it out from the letter.

GOVERNOR. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What
letter?

POSTMASTER. His own letter. They bring a letter to the postoffice, I
glance at the address and I see Pochtamtskaya Street. I was struck dumb.
"Well," I think to myself, "I suppose he found something wrong in the
postoffice department and is informing the government." So I unsealed
it.

GOVERNOR. How could you?

POSTMASTER. I don't know myself. A supernatural power moved me. I had
already summoned a courier to send it off by express; but I was overcome
by a greater curiosity than I have ever felt in my life. "I can't,
I can't," I hear a voice telling me. "I can't." But it pulled me and
pulled me. In one ear I heard, "Don't open the letter. You will die
like a chicken," and in the other it was just as if the devil were
whispering, "Open it, open it." And when I cracked the sealing wax, I
felt as if I were on fire; and when I opened the letter, I froze, upon
my word, I froze. And my hands trembled, and everything whirled around
me.

GOVERNOR. But how did you dare to open it? The letter of so powerful a
personage?

POSTMASTER. But that's just the point--he's neither powerful nor a
personage.

GOVERNOR. Then what is he in your opinion?

POSTMASTER. He's neither one thing nor another. The devil knows what he
is.

GOVERNOR [furiously]. How neither one thing nor another? How do you
dare to call him neither one thing nor another? And the devil knows what
besides? I'll put you under arrest.

POSTMASTER. Who--you?

GOVERNOR. Yes, I.

POSTMASTER. You haven't the power.

GOVERNOR. Do you know that he's going to marry my daughter? That I
myself am going to be a high official and will have the power to exile
to Siberia?

POSTMASTER. Oh, Anton Antonovich, Siberia! Siberia is far away. I'd
rather read the letter to you. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to r