Public-Domain Comedy by Branislav Nušić

Branislav Nušić's comedy „Сумњиво лице“ turns official language into a machine for private ambition. The short exchange below comes from Act I, scene VI, in the public-domain Wikisource transcription. It shows Jerotije, a district captain, hearing a confidential telegram and immediately imagining the promotion it could bring him.

Edition and Quotation Policy

The teaching text follows that digital transcription's words and stage directions. Capitalization of speaker names is retained, while quotation marks and spacing are normalized to current Serbian typographic practice. It is therefore a reading transcription, not a diplomatic reproduction of Nušić's manuscript or the first printed edition. The main excerpt is one complete run of consecutive turns; supplementary quotations later on are identified as context from immediately before it.

Complete Short Exchange

The English translation makes the implicature explicit. Класа literally means a class or grade; in this bureaucratic setting it is advancement in official rank. The telegram does not mention a promotion. Jerotije supplies it because that is what he wants the state emergency to “carry.”

Line-by-Line Grammar

Address forms: господине Вићо and господине капетане

The title and the personal name both stand in the vocative: nominative господин Вића becomes господине Вићо. Likewise, господин капетан becomes господине капетане.

Nušić repeats the titles until politeness itself becomes comic. Jerotije speaks down to Vića while ceremoniously calling him господине; Vića confirms the captain's fantasy with the deferential dative вама. The forms signal hierarchy, not intimacy. The broader system appears in address and titles.

Clitic rhythm around commands

Immediately before the selected exchange, Jerotije orders Vića to reread the telegram:

In прочитај ми ... ту депешу, dative clitic ми follows the finite imperative and means “read it for/to me.” In молим те, accusative clitic те follows the first prosodic word молим. Nušić alternates requests and abrupt commands:

• прочитај ми — read to me;
• молим те — please / I ask you;
• дај и ја да прочитам — give it here so I can read too;
• читај даље — keep reading.

The clitics are small, but the scene's rhythm depends on them. English can place me and please more freely; Serbian clitics attach to an early prosodic host. Moving ми mechanically to the end—прочитај ту депешу ми—would be unnatural.

Official nominal style

The telegram uses dense administrative phrases: према сазнању, до сада уоченоме, извесно сумњиво лице, тачан опис, непознат је властима. Agents disappear. The message does not say who learned the information or who observed the lead.

That style remains recognizable in modern administration, though individual lexical choices and inflections differ. Уоченоме is an older long adjectival locative form; neutral contemporary prose would normally use уоченом. A modern paraphrase of the telegram could begin Према досадашњим сазнањима и уоченим траговима... This is a paraphrase, not Nušić's line.

Marked order: непознат је властима

Neutral conversation might say властима није познат тачан опис. The telegram instead fronts the predicate непознат, places clitic је after it, and delays dative властима. This impersonal, document-like order makes the missing description sound official rather than incompetent.

English typically turns the authority into a subject—“the authorities do not know”—but Serbian can make the information itself the grammatical subject and the knower a dative experiencer.

Pragmatic Implicature and the Joke

Jerotije asks шта носи ова депеша? The literal answer should concern the telegram's information. Instead he says носи класу: it carries his next rank. The comedy emerges from a collision of frames:

1. the state presents a possible political threat;
2. the official treats it as a career opportunity;
3. Vića immediately understands and flatters him: Вама.

Nothing in Вама, господине капетане! explicitly says “you are selfish.” The satire is implicature: both men expose the motive through their effortless shared understanding.

Register and Historical Distance

The dialogue mixes (administrative/historical) telegram language with (colloquial) particles: дедер, боме, дабоме. All three remain recognizable, but дедер sounds dated, folksy, or theatrical today. Боме adds emphatic assent or hesitation; дабоме means “of course,” often with a self-satisfied tone here.

That sentence conveys Jerotije's surface request without copying his theatrical Дедер. Learners should recognize period dialogue but not reproduce every marked particle as neutral office Serbian. For register choices, compare administrative language with literary register.

Common Mistakes

Leaving names and titles in the nominative when addressing someone

Moving a clitic to English-like final position

Reading класа only as a school class

Treating official wording as the author's neutral narration

Key Takeaways

• Vocatives господине Вићо and господине капетане enact hierarchy.
• Clitics ми and те create natural second-position rhythm in requests.
• Administrative nominal style hides agents and lends authority to incomplete information.
• Класа means promotion in context; the telegram never promises it.
• The quoted text is a normalized reading transcription, not a diplomatic manuscript edition.

Reuse Exercises

1. Rewrite the telegram's first two sentences as a neutral contemporary phone message. Restore human agents where possible and explain what happens to the official tone.
2. Perform the exchange twice: once with sincere urgency and once with obvious careerist excitement. Mark which words receive contrastive emphasis, without adding accent marks to the written text.
3. Create a four-line office satire using one vocative, one dative clitic, and an object whose practical value the characters deliberately misread.