orld acknowledges as honourable and noble.

It would be difficult to find another man who lived so entirely for his
duties. It is not enough to say that Akakiy laboured with zeal: no,
he laboured with love. In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable
employment. Enjoyment was written on his face: some letters were even
favourites with him; and when he encountered these, he smiled, winked,
and worked with his lips, till it seemed as though each letter might
be read in his face, as his pen traced it. If his pay had been in
proportion to his zeal, he would, perhaps, to his great surprise, have
been made even a councillor of state. But he worked, as his companions,
the wits, put it, like a horse in a mill.

Moreover, it is impossible to say that no attention was paid to him. One
director being a kindly man, and desirous of rewarding him for his long
service, ordered him to be given something more important than mere
copying. So he was ordered to make a report of an already concluded
affair to another department: the duty consisting simply in changing
the heading and altering a few words from the first to the third person.
This caused him so much toil that he broke into a perspiration, rubbed
his forehead, and finally said, "No, give me rather something to copy."
After that they let him copy on forever.

Outside this copying, it appeared that nothing existed for him. He gave
no thought to his clothes: his undress uniform was not green, but a sort
of rusty-meal colour. The collar was low, so that his neck, in spite of
the fact that it was not long, seemed inordinately so as it emerged from
it, like the necks of those plaster cats which wag their heads, and are
carried about upon the heads of scores of image sellers. And something
was always sticking to his uniform, either a bit of hay or some trifle.
Moreover, he had a peculiar knack, as he walked along the street, of
arriving beneath a window just as all sorts of rubbish were 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 in the street; while it is well known that his
young brother officials train the range of their glances till they
can see when any one's trouser straps come undone upon the opposite
sidewalk, which always brings a malicious smile to their faces. But
Akakiy Akakievitch saw in all things the clean, even strokes of his
writt