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.