While they raised their hands
to wipe them, the dead man vanished completely, so that they
positively did not know whether they had actually had him in their
grip at all. Thereafter the watchmen conceived such a terror of dead
men that they were afraid even to seize the living, and only screamed
from a distance. "Hey, there! go your way!" So the dead official began
to appear even beyond the Kalinkin Bridge, causing no little terror to
all timid people.
But we have totally neglected that certain prominent personage who may
really be considered as the cause of the fantastic turn taken by this
true history. First of all, justice compels us to say, that after the
departure of poor, annihilated Akaky Akakiyevich, he felt something
like remorse. Suffering was unpleasant to him, for his heart was
accessible to many good impulses, in spite of the fact that his rank
often prevented his showing his true self. As soon as his friend had
left his cabinet, he began to think about poor Akaky Akakiyevich. And
from that day forth, poor Akaky Akakiyevich, who could not bear up
under an official reprimand, recurred to his mind almost every day.
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