In which the bewildered Mr. Golyadkin awakes to find the visitor of the previous night vanished without a trace, and soon encounters a strange and unsettling doppelgänger whose insolent behaviour at the office leaves our hero utterly confounded and deeply humiliated. As he grapples with this mysterious rivalry and the cruel machinations of fate, the poor gentleman steels himself to face the shame and indignity that threaten to unravel his very sense of self.