Koretsakov leaves the town with money

Khlestakov’s departure turns the town’s mistaken respect for him into a practical windfall: he leaves after soliciting money from officials and merchants, then obtains a further four hundred rubles from Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky. The exit is staged not as a revelation or reckoning but as a hurried journey wrapped in reassurance. Khlestakov says he will return the next day, while the Governor continues to imagine a future opened by his supposed influence at court.

Loans Before the Departure

The departure follows a series of exchanges in which Khlestakov presents money as a loan rather than a bribe. When Anton Antonovich offers assistance to a stranger in town, Khlestakov asks for two hundred rubles, or less, saying he needs to settle with the innkeeper. Later, after Ammos Fiodorovich Liapkin-Tiapkin introduces himself as the district judge, Khlestakov asks him to lend money as well. The requests make the visitor’s apparent need for cash a means of drawing money from the very officials who believe they must please him.

The Town merchants offer a different package of deference: they bring sugar and a basket of wine, while also asking Khlestakov to send the Governor away. He refuses the gifts as bribes but says he will accept a loan of three hundred rubles. When they agree, they proffer the money on a silver tray and invite him to take the tray too. The scene makes the distinction between gift and loan conspicuous without making it a meaningful safeguard. Khlestakov names the transaction a loan; the merchants furnish money while seeking his favor against the Governor.

The Excuse for Leaving

Osip announces that the horses are ready, prompting the Governor to ask whether Khlestakov is leaving. Khlestakov confirms that he is. The answer breaks the expectation that the visitor will remain as a prospective son-in-law: the Governor recalls that Khlestakov seemed to hint at a wedding. Khlestakov shrinks that promise to a moment, saying he is going for a day to visit a rich old uncle and will be back tomorrow. His account offers the household a short, ordinary explanation for an exit that might otherwise threaten the marriage and the Governor’s imagined connection to a powerful official.

Khlestakov kisses Marya Antonovna’s hand before the Governor asks whether he needs anything for the road. The offer is grounded in the Governor’s memory that his guest had been short of cash. Khlestakov initially says he does not need anything, but then turns the offer into another request. He recalls that the Governor gave him two hundred rubles, immediately corrects himself to four hundred, and asks for the same amount again so that the sum will come to an even eight hundred. The Governor agrees. The shift from a modest request at the inn to this final appeal shows how the language of temporary assistance has enabled Khlestakov to keep collecting money without openly naming the exchange as a bribe.

The Exit and Its Immediate Effect

Once the Governor consents, the departure proceeds with little resistance. The Governor says they would not presume to hold Khlestakov back and wishes him a safe return. The scene therefore preserves the fiction that the visitor’s absence is temporary, even as the horses stand ready and he has secured another loan. The postilion calls for the horses to get up; the bell rings, and the curtain drops. The stage action closes the journey decisively, while the promised return remains in the characters’ minds rather than being tested within this scene.

The Governor’s Unchanged Hopes

After Khlestakov has gone, Anton Antonovich turns immediately toward advancement. He asks Anna Andreyevna whether, because the visitor is on familiar terms with the ministers and visits the court, he might rise to high rank and eventually become a general. She affirms that he could. The departure thus leaves the Governor not chastened by the visitor’s repeated requests for money, but more confident in the imagined patronage behind them. The contrast is central to the episode’s comic force: Khlestakov departs on borrowed cash under a convenient family pretext, while the official who has supplied it treats the connection as a path to promotion.