Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov Monologue from The Inspector-General

From The Inspector-General by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

male · defiant · 1:10 min

No, I won't go. What's that got to do with me? Must I go to jail because you have a wife and little children? Great! (Bobchinsky looks in at the door and disappears in terror.) No, much obliged to you. I will not go. GOVERNOR (trembling). It was my inexperience. I swear to you, it was nothing but my inexperience and insufficient means. Judge for yourself. The salary I get is not enough for tea and sugar. And if I have taken bribes, they were mere trifles--something for the table, or a coat or two. As for the officer's widow to whom they say I gave a beating, she's in business now, and it's a slander, it's a slander that I beat her. Those scoundrels here invented the lie. They are ready to murder me. That's the kind of people they are.

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