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.