At length one of the officials, assistant to the head clerk, in order to show that he was not at all proud, and on good terms with his inferiors, said: 

“So be it, only I will give the party instead of Akaky Akakiyevich; I invite you all to tea with me to-night.  It just happens to be my name-day too.”

The officials naturally at once offered the assistant clerk their congratulations, and accepted the invitation with pleasure.  Akaky Akakiyevich would have declined; but all declared that it was discourteous, that it was simply a sin and a shame, and that he could not possibly refuse.  Besides, the notion became pleasant to him when he recollected that he should thereby have a chance of wearing his new cloak in the evening also.

That whole day was truly a most triumphant festival for Akaky Akakiyevich.  He returned home in the most happy frame of mind, took off his cloak, and hung it carefully on the wall, admiring afresh the cloth and the lining.  Then he brought out his old, worn-out cloak, for comparison.  He looked at it, and laughed, so vast was the difference.  And long after dinner he laughed again when the condition of the “cape” recurred to his mind.  He dined cheerfully, and after dinner wrote nothing, but took his ease for a while on the bed, until it got dark.  Then he dressed himself leisurely, put on his cloak, and stepped out into the street.

Where the host lived, unfortunately we cannot say.  Our memory begins to fail us badly.  The houses and streets in St. Petersburg have become so mixed up in our head that it is very difficult to get anything out of it again in proper form.  This much is certain, that the official lived in the best part of the city; and therefore it must have been anything but near to Akaky Akakiyevich’s residence.  Akaky Akakiyevich was first obliged to traverse a kind of wilderness of deserted, dimly-lighted streets.  But in proportion as he approached the official’s quarter of the city, the streets became more lively, more populous, and more brilliantly illuminated.  Pedestrians began to appear; handsomely dressed ladies were more frequently encountered; the men had otter skin collars to their coats; shabby sleigh-men with their wooden, railed sledges stuck over with brass-headed nails, became rarer; whilst on the other hand, more and more drivers in red velvet caps, lacquered sledges and bear-skin coats began to appear, and carriages with rich hammer-cloths flew swiftly through the streets, their wheels scrunching the snow.

Akaky Akakiyevich gazed upon all this as upon a novel sight.  He had not been in the streets during the evening for years.  He halted out of curiosity before a shop-window, to look at a picture representing a handsome woman, who had thrown off her shoe, thereby baring her whole foot in a very pretty way; whilst behind her the head of a man with whiskers and a handsome moustache peeped through the doorway of another room.  Akaky Akakiyevich shook his head, and laughed, and then went on his way.  Why did he laugh?  Either because he had met with a thing utterly unknown, but for which every one cherishes, nevertheless, some sort of feeling, or else he thought, like many officials, “Well, those French!  What is to be said?  If they do go in for anything of that sort, why—­” But possibly he did not think at all.