Mr. Prohartchin: Short Story

Mr. Prohartchin lives a miserable life. To his neighbors he is a man to be pitied, living in a bare apartment with little more than a mattress on the floor. His meals are sparse and frugal, and he is isolated from society. However, when his landlady investigates his apartment upon his death, she finds that there was more to Mr. Prohartchin than she and her other tenants ever could have guessed.

“Mr. Prohartchin” was first published in Annals of the Fatherland in 1846 and was inspired by a tr...