The story begins with the description of a man who works in a certain department of the civil service in St. Petersburg. This man is named Akakiy Akakievitch, and he fulfills the role of “titular councillor” at the unnamed department, meaning he is a clerk who performs menial tasks. At his birth, his mother was given many choices of names to give the child, none of which she liked. She named the boy after his father, who was also called Akakiy, which created his humorous name, Akakiy Akakievitch.

Akakiy Akakievitch carefully copies official documents at his office. He is treated with little respect by his fellow employees. The young officials even go so far as to tease Akakievitch and drop bits of trash on his head. They insinuate that he is beaten by his landlady and also that he may marry her. He tolerates these jokes until his actual work is interrupted, at which point he pleads to be left alone to do his work. His cries of “Leave me alone!” affect at least one young official very deeply.

Akakievitch lives for his work and enjoys copying documents all day long and even into the night at his home. For all his enthusiasm, he doesn’t make much money at his job. He is so obsessed with work that he does not notice things happening on the street around him, and he ends up covered in the trash being thrown out of windows above the street. The other officials at his job are far more focused on how they look and how everyone else looks. Akakievitch has a shabby appearance. He eats alone at home and hardly tastes his food before swallowing it. He goes right to bed instead of seeing friends or drinking tea like the rest of the residents of St. Petersburg.

A problem arises for Akakievitch when winter arrives. His overcoat is far too thin and shabby to protect him from the cold gusts of wind and snow. He takes his worn-out overcoat upstairs to a tailor, Petrovitch, who lives in his building. Petrovitch has only one eye and is often drunk, but he is a good tailor and has mended the garment for Akakievitch many times before. This time, however, Petrovitch refuses to patch up the overcoat. He claims there is no fabric left to attach the patches to and that Akakievitch must purchase a new overcoat, which comes as disastrous news to the impoverished Akakievitch.

Akakievitch tries to meet with the tailor again when he might be in a better mood, but Petrovitch still refuses to mend the old coat. The new overcoat will cost far more than Akakievitch has stashed away, so he embarks on months of saving every last scrap of money he can. He walks more carefully in his boots so that they won’t need mending. He spends as much time as he can in his nightshirt to prevent his clothes from wearing out. He eats less. He has no tea in the evenings and burns no candles. Akakievitch gets used to this frugal lifestyle, and he even begins to relish his spendthrift behavior.

Finally, with a bonus from work and his new savings, he can afford the new coat. He and Petrovitch carefully buy the best fabric he can afford. When the new overcoat is finished, it is a fine garment and Akakievitch is overjoyed. When he wears the coat out to go to work, the tailor follows him in the street to admire his own handiwork. At the office, everyone notices the new coat and congratulates Akakievitch. One department sub-chief even offers to throw a party to “christen” the coat with an evening out. Akakievitch does not want to go, but he cannot refuse. He relishes the new level of acceptance he receives, and he feels excited to wear the coat in the evening.

Later that night, Akakievitch journeys through the cold to the better part of town where the sub-chief lives. He attends the party and even drinks two glasses of champagne, but he quickly tires out. He does not know how to act or what to say and leaves early. He makes his way back through the wealthier part of town to his own poor neighborhood around midnight. At a dimly lit town square, disaster strikes. A gang of men viciously mug Akakievitch and steal the overcoat. Akakievitch accosts the watchman who did nothing while he was robbed. The watchman simply tells him to go to the police the next day to report the robbery.

Akakievitch’s landlady says to call the police or else nothing will be done. When Akakievitch finally gets to see the district chief, he is met with probing questions. The district chief thinks he has been out late at some “disorderly” house. Nothing is done about the robbery, and Akakievitch finds himself left without his new prized overcoat. Stunned, he returns to work in his shabby overcoat. His co-workers take little pity on him. Some ridicule him once more. One colleague advises him to visit a local “prominent personage,” or man of high rank, who may be able to use his position to help poor Akakievitch to get his cloak back.

Akakievitch visits the prominent personage and is forced to wait because he is of such low rank. When he finally sees the prominent personage, the man talks down to Akakievitch and scolds him for not going through official channels. Akakievitch tries to describe how he has already done this with nothing coming of it. The prominent personage refuses to listen to his arguments, and he dismisses Akakievitch with harsh words.

The next day Akakievitch comes down with a fever. The doctor visits and says that Akakievitch will soon die and that the landlady should order his cheap coffin now. Akakievitch says wretched things in his sickness. He finally talks back to the prominent personage and the district chief, but does so from his lonely bed. He dies. After a few days, his office tries to figure out why Akakievitch has not shown up for work and they find out he is dead.  Akakievitch's replacement isn’t nearly as skilled at his job, but nobody seems to notice or mind.

Soon, people begin to talk about a dead man appearing on Kalinkin Bridge at night, demanding the location of a stolen overcoat. When people do not give this dead man a good answer, he tries to rip off their cloaks. The police are tasked with catching this dead man at his attempted robberies, but when they grab him, they cannot get a good hold of him.

Meanwhile, the prominent personage feels remorse over his treatment of the late Akakievitch. Inquiring after the man he had talked down to, he learns that Akakievitch has died from a fever. He wishes to distract himself from the guilt he feels, and so he attends a party full of people of his own rank.
There, he drinks champagne and begins to feel cheerful. He feels so cheerful that he plans to visit a lady, not his wife, later on that night. 

While the prominent personage is on his way in a coach, the ghostly Akakievitch accosts him and rips off his fancy cloak. The prominent personage returns home terrified. From that point on, he is less mean to anyone below his social rank. After this event, no one sees Akakievitch again since the cloak he took seems to fit around his shoulders nicely. One night, a policeman sees another ghost wearing a fancy cloak and is told off in a haughty manner. He leaves the ghost alone. He must be somebody else as he is taller and more impressive than Akakievitch ever looked in his life.

Take a Study Break