All Power to Leviathan

Across the damp, chilly autumn Nevsky Prospect in the capital, a government mail coach rattled along. The driver kept whipping a weak little horse, but it helped little—the gentleman sitting in the back was running late for an important meeting and already regretted taking the postal carriage instead of a fast hack.

Arseny Nikolayevich Yagodin, head of the St. Petersburg post office department, was suddenly summoned to the very minister of the Court and Appanages, to the general field marshal Adelberg. Why such an invitation—Arseny Nikolayevich didn’t know, and now, huddled in a padded coat with a fur collar, he went over in his mind every possible service fault and misstep. He loved his job; he was a pedantic and tidy man. Over his lifetime, without patronage, he rose from a low clerk to the head of a department. Among colleagues he enjoyed deserved respect; he had only one passion: he loved painting and mixed with the metropolitan bohemia. But was that really a reason for so urgent a summons to the minister?

At last the bony horse delivered them to the right entryway.
Arseny Nikolayevich climbed to the second floor almost running…