Plot : The Government Inspector (Ревизор)

Plot : The Government Inspector
Ревизор
Nikolai Gogol

The top officials of a small provincial town, headed by the Mayor, react with terror to the rumors of an incognito inspector (the revizor) to be sent to their town for an undercover inspection. The flurry of activity to cover up the various misdeeds and clean up the town is interrupted by the report that a suspicious person from Saint Petersburg (at that time, the capital of Russia) has already arrived two weeks ago and is staying at the inn. That person, however, is not an inspector; it is Khlestakov, a young light-headed and ambitious office clerk from the capital who is travelling to his parents' estate and remains in the hotel simply because he ran out of money.

Blinded by their fear, unclean consciences, and deeply embedded servility, the Mayor and his retinue do not hesitate to mistake this comically insignificant dandy for the dreadful inspector. For quite some time, the pseudo-inspector does not even realize that he is mistaken for someone else; he enjoys the officials' servility, dines with them, extracts huge bribes from them, and ends up engaged to the Mayor's daughter.

Luckily for him, upon advice from his more sober servant, he flees the town (promising but not intending to return) just before the town's high society is astonished by the discovery (from an intercepted letter) of his true identity. The Mayor himself speaks to the audience, announcing that they are only laughing at themselves. While we hear the officials arguing, the play is ended with the message that the real Government Inspector has arrived and wants to see the Mayor immediately, upon which the characters freeze on stage.