In the distance, God knows how far, a tiny flame glimmered in a watchman’s box, which seemed to verge on the edge of the world. Akaki Akakievich’s cheerfulness diminished here perceptibly. He entered the square not without a certain involuntary fear; not without some foreboding of evil. He glanced behind him and on both sides—a sea appeared to surround him. “No, it is better not to look,” he thought, and walked on with closed eyes; and when he opened them to see whether or not he had reached the end of the square, he suddenly beheld before him, almost under his very nose, some bearded individuals, precisely what sort he could not distinguish. Everything grew dark before his eyes, and his heart began to throb.
“But, I say, the cloak is mine,” said one of the men in a loud voice, seizing him by the collar.
Akaki Akakievich wished to cry out, “Help!” when the other man put his fist, the size of an official’s head, to his very mouth, and said, “Just try to make a noise!”
Akaki Akakievich only felt conscious of how they removed the cloak from his shoulders, then gave him a parting kick, which sent him headlong into the snow; after that he felt no more.
In a few minutes he recovered consciousness and rose to his feet, but no one was to be seen. He felt cold, and the absence of his cloak; he began to shout, but his voice did not seem to reach the bounds of the square. Desperate, not ceasing to shout, he started to run across the square straight towards the watchman’s box, beside which stood the watchman, leaning upon his halberd, and looking, as it were, with eager expectancy for an explanation as to this strange fellow’s running and shouting. Akaki Akakievich, having reached him, began to shout in a gasping voice that he was asleep and did not attend to his business, and let people rob a man. The watchman replied that he saw nothing except two men stop and talk to him in the middle of the square, and that he thought they were his friends; he also suggested that rather than waste time on talk he should report the matter to the police captain, and that he would find the man who had taken the cloak.
Akaki Akakievich arrived home in complete disorder. His hair, which thrived in no large numbers upon his temples and the back of his head, was in a dishevelled state; while his entire body was covered with snow. His old landlady, on hearing a loud knocking on the door, sprang quickly out of bed, and with only one shoe on ran to open the door, holding her night-gown, out of modesty, to her breast. Having opened the door, she drew back upon seeing the condition of her lodger. When he explained what had happened she wrung her hands and advised him to inform the district chief of police at once; that a lesser official would only promise without doing anything; besides, she had some acquaintance with the chief, because Anna, her former cook, had just become a nurse at his house. She saw him very often pass her house, and, moreover, she knew that he went to church every Sunday, and that as he prayed he looked cheerily at the same time upon all, and therefore was, to all appearances, a good man. Having listened to this suggestion, Akaki Akakievich very sadly betook himself to his room, and how he spent the night there may be imagined by those who have the faculty of putting themselves in the place of others.
Early next morning he visited the district chief and was told that he was asleep; he went again at ten, with the same result; at eleven they told him the chief was not at home; when he went at dinner-time, the clerks in the anteroom would not admit him, but demanded to know the business that brought him; so that finally Akaki Akakievich for once in his life showed a spark of courage and said firmly that he must see the district chief personally, that they dared not refuse him, as he came from the department upon official business, and that if they persisted he would present a complaint against them, which would make them sorry. The clerks dared not reply to this, and one of them went in to call the chief.
Instead of directing his attention to the important point of the case, he began to cross-examine Akaki Akakievich. Why was he returning home so late? Did he stop on the way in any disorderly house? In the end Akaki Akakievich was so completely confused that he went out not knowing whether anything would be done about the cloak or not.
The entire day he did not appear in the department—the first time in his life. The next day he arrived at his place looking very pale and in his old cape, which had grown even sadder-looking. The news of the robbery of the cloak—notwithstanding the fact that some of the officials did not permit even this opportunity to pass without laughing at Akaki Akakievich—nevertheless touched many. They decided to take up a collection for him, but succeeded in obtaining a mere trifle; as the officials had already spent considerable money in subscribing for the director’s portrait, and for a book, at the suggestion of the chief of the bureau, who was a friend of the author; hence the insignificance of the sum.
Some one, out of pity, wished at least to help Akaki Akakievich with good advice; and so he told him not to go to the captain, for though the captain might really wish to earn the approbation of the chiefs and find the cloak in some way or other, the cloak itself would nevertheless remain with the police, unless he could show legal proof that it was his; he ought therefore to apply to a certain important personage; and this important personage, by dealing with the proper persons, could hasten and expedite matters. There was nothing else to do but to turn to the important personage.