ce. Soon
there spread before him those deserted streets, which are not cheerful
in the daytime, to say nothing of the evening. Now they were even more
dim and lonely: the lanterns began to grow rarer, oil, evidently, had
been less liberally supplied. Then came wooden houses and fences: not
a soul anywhere; only the snow sparkled in the streets, and mournfully
veiled the low-roofed cabins with their closed shutters. He approached
the spot where the street crossed a vast square with houses barely
visible on its farther side, a square which seemed a fearful desert.

Afar, a tiny spark glimmered from some watchman's box, which seemed
to stand on the edge of the world. Akakiy Akakievitch's cheerfulness
diminished at this point in a marked degree. He entered the square, not
without an involuntary sensation of fear, as though his heart warned him
of some evil. He glanced back and on both sides, it was like a sea about
him. "No, it is better not to look," he thought, and went on, closing
his eyes. When he opened them, to see whether he was near the end of
the square, he suddenly beheld, standing just before his very nose, some
bearded individuals of precisely what sort he could not make out. All
grew dark before his eyes, and his heart throbbed.

"But, of course, the cloak is mine!" said one of them in a loud voice,
seizing hold of his collar. Akakiy Akakievitch was about to shout
"watch," when the second man thrust a fist, about the size of a man's
head, into his mouth, muttering, "Now scream!"

Akakiy Akakievitch felt them strip off his cloak and give him a push
with a knee: he fell headlong upon the snow, and felt no more. In a few
minutes he recovered consciousness and rose to his feet; but no one was
there. He felt that it was cold in the square, and that his cloak was
gone; he began to shout, but his voice did not appear to reach to the
outskirts of the square. In despair, but without ceasing to shout,
he started at a run across the square, straight towards the watchbox,
beside which stood the watchman, leaning on his halberd, and apparently
curious to know what kind of a customer was running towards him and
shouting. Akakiy Akakievitch ran up to him, and began in a sobbing voice
to shout that he was asleep, and attended to nothing, and did not see
when a man was robbed. The watchman replied that he had seen two men
stop him in the middle of the square, but supposed that they were
friends of his; and that, instead of sc