all sorts of rubbish was being flung out of it; hence he always bore
about on his hat scraps of melon rinds, and other such articles. Never
once in his life did he give heed to what was going on every day to
the street; while it is well known that his young brother officials
trained the range of their glances till they could see when any one's
trouser-straps came undone upon the opposite sidewalk, which always
brought a malicious smile to their faces. But Akaky Akakiyevich saw in
all things the clean, even strokes of his written lines; and only when
a horse thrust his nose, from some unknown quarter, over his shoulder,
and sent a whole gust of wind down his neck from his nostrils, did he
observe that he was not in the middle of a line, but in the middle of
the street.

On reaching home, he sat down at once at the table, sipped his
cabbage-soup up quickly, and swallowed a bit of beef with onions,
never noticing their taste, and gulping down everything with flies and
anything else which the Lord happened to send at the moment. When he
saw that his stomach was beginning to swell, he rose from the table,
and copied papers which he had brought home. If there happened to be
none, he took copies for himself, for his own gratification,
especially if the document was noteworthy, not on account of its
style, but of its being addressed to some distinguished person.

Even at the hour when the grey St. Petersburg sky had quite
disappeared, and all the official world had eaten or dined, each as he
could, in accordance with the salary he received and his own fancy;
when, all were resting from the department jar of pens, running to and
fro, for their own and other people's indispensable occupations', and
from all the work that an uneasy man makes willingly for himself,
rather than what is necessary; when, officials hasten to dedicate to