t 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
pleasure the time which is left to them, one bolder than the rest,
going to the theatre; another; into the street looking under the
bonnets; another, wasting his evening in compliments to some pretty
girl, the star of a small official circle; another--and this is the
common case of all--visiting his comrades on the third or fourth
floor, in two small rooms with an ante-room or kitchen, and some
pretensions to fashion, such as a lamp or some other trifle which has
cost many a sacrifice of dinner or pleasure trip; in a word, at the
hour when all officials disperse among the contracted quarters of
their friends, to play whist, as they sip their tea from glasses with
a kopek's worth of sugar, smoke long pipes, relate at time some bits
of gossip which a Russian man can never, under any circumstances,
refrain from, and when there is nothing else to talk of, repeat
eternal anecdotes about the commandant to whom they had sent word that
the tails of the horses on the Falconet Monument had been cut off;
when all strive to divert themselves, Akaky Akakiyevich indulged in no
kind of diversion. No one could even say that he had seen him at any
kind of evening party. Having written to his heart's content, he lay
down to sleep, smiling at the thought of the coming day--of what God
might send him to copy on the morrow.

Thus flowed on the peaceful life of the man, who, with a salary of
four hundred rubles, under