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?