- Poprishchin (or should we call him the king of Spain?) says his manager came to visit him to tell him to go to the office. He hasn't been to work for over three weeks.
- He says he agreed to go to the office just as a joke, didn't apologize for not showing up before, and didn't touch the papers that were placed in front of him.
- When someone hands him a paper to be signed, he writes "Ferdinand VIII."
- He says there was a "reverent silence" (stunned silence, more likely), and he walks out, headed to the director's apartment.
- The director isn't home, but his daughter is. Uh-oh.
- Poprishchin bursts into her room. He doesn't tell her he is the king of Spain, but instead tells her they'll end up together even though their enemies will try to keep them apart. She doesn't exactly seem thrilled at this news. In fact, she backs away from him.
- Poprishchin then comments in his diary that he's finally figured out what women are and who they really love—the Devil. Great idea, Poprishchin. We'll try that next time we're rejected.
- It's all the doing of some barber on Gorokhovaya Street (a main street in Saint Petersburg) who has been scheming, with the help of a midwife, to spread Mohammedanism. (That's another name for Islam.) It must have been just peachy to be a Muslim in the Russian Empire.
- He claims the majority of France is now Muslim as a result of this scheme.