How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
Akaky Akakievich went on in a happy frame of mind: he even started to run, without knowing why, after some lady, who flew past like a flash of lightning, and whose whole body was endowed with an extraordinary amount of movement. But he stopped short, and went on very quietly as before, wondering whence he had got that gait. (77)
This is the first hint the narrator gives us that the story will soon become much more than a tale of the ordinary, if unfortunate, life of a low-ranking official.
Quote #2
Visions incessantly appeared to him, each stranger than the other: now he saw Petrovich, and ordered him to make a coat, with some traps for robbers, who seemed to him to be always under the bed; and he cried, every moment, to the landlady to pull one robber from under his coverlet: then he inquired why his old "mantle" hung before him when he had a new overcoat[...] (99)
Why do you think that Akaky has these visions? How does this foreshadow the rest of the story? How do you think Akaky wished the story had gone?
Quote #3
But who could have imagined that this was not the end of Akaky Akakievich—that he was destined to raise a commotion after death, as if in compensation for his utterly insignificant life? But so it happened, and our poor story unexpectedly gains a fantastic ending. (102)
We wouldn't have guessed. Did you? Do you think that Gogol intended to surprise us?