MADRID - In Nikolai Gogol’s “The Government Inspector”, corrupt officials in a small Russian town panic at the arrival of a young man from St Petersburg. Ivan Khlestakov is a minor clerk, but the locals’ fear of their own embezzlement elevates him to an imperial auditor. His authority derives not from the tsar, but from his hosts’ paranoia. When the mask slips, only the ridicule of the deceived remains.
