had never lived there. A being disappeared, who was protected by none,
dear to none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to
himself the attention of those students of human nature who omit no
opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly and examining it
under the microscope. A being who bore meekly the jibes of the
department, and went to his grave without having done one unusual
deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his life, appeared a
bright visitant in the form of a cloak, which momentarily cheered his
poor life, and upon him, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune
descended, just as it descends upon the heads of the mighty of this
world!

Several days after his death, the porter was sent from the department
to his lodgings, with an order for him to present himself there
immediately, the chief commanding it. But the porter had to return
unsuccessful, with the answer that he could not come; and to the
question, "Why?" replied, "Well, because he is dead! he was buried
four days ago." In this manner did they hear of Akaky Akakiyevich's
death at the department. And the next day a new official sat in his
place, with a handwriting by no means so upright, but more inclined
and slanting.

But who could have imagined that this was not really the end of Akaky
Akakiyevich, that he was destined to raise a commotion after death, as
if in compensation for his utterly insignificant life? But so it
happened, and our poor story unexpectedly gains a fantastic ending.

A rumour suddenly spread through St. Petersburg, that a dead man had
taken to appearing on the Kalinkin Bridge, and its vicinity, at night
in the form of an official seeking a stolen cloak, and that, under the