The Nose and Other Stories

On March 25 an unusually strange event occurred in St. Petersburg. The barber Ivan Yakovlevich, who lives on Ascension Avenue (his last name has been lost, and even on his sign, which depicts a gentleman with a soaped-up cheek and the inscription “And bloodletting too,” nothing more is displayed), the barber Ivan Yakovlevich woke up rather early and caught the scent of hot bread.¹ He raised himself up a little on his bed and saw that his spouse, a rather estimable lady who very much liked to drink coffee, was taking some freshly baked loaves of bread out of the oven.

“Today, Praskovia Osipovna, I’m not going to have coffee,” Ivan Yakovlevich said, “but instead I’d like to eat some nice hot bread with onions.”

(That is, Ivan Yakovlevich would have liked to have both the one and the other, but he knew that it was quite impossible to demand two things at once, for Praskovia Osipovna really disliked such whimsies.) “Let the fool eat bread; that’s better for me,” his spouse thought to herself, “There’ll be an extra portion of coffee left.” And she threw a loaf onto the table.

For the sake of propriety, Ivan Yakovlevich put his tailcoat on over his shirt, sat down at the table, sprinkled salt, prepared two onions, took a knife in his hands, and assuming a dignified air, started cutting the bread. Having cut the loaf of bread into two halves, he looked into the middle, and to his amazement, saw something white. Ivan Yakovlevich poked it cautiously with the knife and felt it with his finger. “It’s solid!” he said to himself. “What could it be?”

He stuck his fingers in and pulled out—a nose! Ivan Yakovlevich dropped his hands in surrender; he started rubbing his eyes and feeling it: a nose, it really was a nose! And it even seemed to be the nose of someone he knew. Horror was depicted on Ivan Yakovlevich’s face. But this horror was as nothing compared to the indignation that took possession of his spouse.

“Where did you cut that nose off, you beast?” she screamed angrily. “You swindler! You drunk! I’ll report you to the police myself! What a bandit! Three different people have told me that when you’re shaving them you pull their noses so hard they barely stay attached.”

But Ivan Yakovlevich was more dead than alive. He had recognized that this nose belonged to none other than Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov, whom he shaved every Wednesday and Sunday.

“Wait, Praskovia Osipovna! I’ll wrap it in a rag and put it in the corner. Let it lie there for a little while, and then I’ll take it out.”

“I don’t even want to hear it! You want me to let a cut-off nose lie around in my room? You piece of overbrowned crust! All he knows how to do is run his razor over his strop, and soon he won’t be in any condition to do his duty, the trollop, the scoundrel! You think I’m going to answer to the police for you? Oh, you slob, you stupid blockhead! Get it out of here! Out! Take it wherever you want! Don’t let me see hide nor hair of it!”

Ivan Yakovlevich stood there as if he’d been struck dead. He thought and thought—and didn’t know what to think.

“The devil knows how this happened,” he finally said, scratching behind his ear. “Whether it’s because I came home drunk last night or not, I can’t tell for sure. But everything indicates that this must be an impossible event: For bread is a baked thing, and a nose is something else entirely. I can’t understand it at all!”

Ivan Yakovlevich fell silent. The thought that the police would find the nose on him and blame him for it caused him to lose his senses. He could already see the policeman’s crimson collar, beautifully embroidered with silver, the sword… and his whole body trembled. Finally, he got his underwear and his boots, pulled on all that stuff, and accompanied by the harsh admonitions of Praskovia Osipovna, wrapped the nose in a rag and went out to the street.

He wanted to stick it under something, either to stick it under a bollard near a gate, or to drop it somehow accidentally, and then turn off into a lane. But as luck would have it, he kept running into acquaintances, who would immediately begin an interrogation: “Where are you going?” or “Who are you going to shave at this hour?”—so that Ivan Yakovlevich just couldn’t find the right moment. Then he had almost managed to drop it, but the policeman on duty pointed his halberd at him, saying, “Pick it up! You dropped something there!” And Ivan Yakovlevich was forced to pick up the nose and hide it in his pocket. He was overcome by despair, especially because there were more and more people on the street as the stores and shops started opening up.

He decided to go to Saint Isaac’s Bridge. Maybe he could succeed in throwing it into the Neva? But I am somewhat remiss for not saying anything yet about Ivan Yakovlevich, a person who was estimable in many respects.

Ivan Yakovlevich, like any respectable Russian artisan, was a terrible drunkard. And although he spent every day shaving other people’s chins, his own was always unshaven. Ivan Yakovlevich’s tailcoat (Ivan Yakovlevich never wore a frock coat) was piebald; that is, it was black, but covered with brownish-yellow and gray spots. His collar was shiny, and in the place of three of his buttons there hung only threads. Ivan Yakovlevich was a great cynic, and when Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov would say to him as usual while he was shaving him: “Ivan Yakovlevich, your hands are always smelly!”—then Ivan Yakovlevich would answer him with a question: “Why should they be smelly?”—“I don’t know, my boy, but they are,” the collegiate assessor would say, and Ivan Yakovlevich, after taking a pinch of snuff, in recompense would spread lather on Kovalyov’s cheek, and under his nose, and behind his ear, and under his chin—in short, wherever he felt like it.

This estimable citizen found himself now on Saint Isaac’s Bridge. First he looked all around, then he bent over the railing, as if he wanted to look under the bridge to see whether there were a lot of fish running, and he quietly threw in the rag with the nose in it. He felt as if a ten-pood weight had suddenly fallen from him; Ivan Yakovlevich even grinned.² Instead of going to shave the chins of civil servants, he set off for an establishment with a sign saying “Snacks and Tea” to order a glass of rum punch, when suddenly at the end of the bridge he noticed a district police inspector of noble appearance, with broadly spreading whiskers, a tricorn hat, and a sword. He froze; and meanwhile the police inspector beckoned him with his finger and said: “Come over here, my good man!”

Ivan Yakovlevich, who knew the formalities, took off his cap while still at a distance, approached nimbly, and said: “Good morning, Your Honor!”

“No, no, my boy, none of that ‘honor’ stuff; just tell me, what were you doing there, standing on the bridge?”

“Honest to God, sir, I was on my way to shave people, and I was just looking to see whether the river was running fast.”

“You’re lying, you’re lying! You’re not going to get off that easily. Be so good as to answer me!”

“I would be happy to shave Your Worship twice or even three times a week without any question,” Ivan Yakovlevich answered.

“No, my friend, that’s nothing! I am shaved by three barbers, and they consider it a great honor. So now be so good as to tell me what you were doing over there?”

Ivan Yakovlevich turned pale… But here the event is completely covered by a fog, and absolutely nothing is known about what happened next.

Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov woke up rather early and went “brrr” with his lips—which is what he always did when he woke up, although he himself could not explain why. Kovalyov stretched and ordered that he be given the little mirror that stood on the table. He wanted to look at a pimple that had popped up on his nose the evening before; but to his extreme amazement, he saw that instead of a nose he had a completely smooth space! Taking fright, Kovalyov ordered some water and wiped his eyes with a towel: Indeed, there was no nose! He began to feel with his hand to see whether or not he was asleep. It seemed he wasn’t asleep. Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov jumped up from the bed and shook himself: There was no nose! He immediately ordered that he be given his clothes so he could get dressed, and he set off flying straight to the chief of the St. Petersburg police.

But meanwhile it is necessary to say something about Kovalyov so that the reader might see what sort of collegiate assessor he was. The collegiate assessors who receive that rank with the help of learned diplomas cannot at all be compared with those collegiate assessors who are created in the Caucasus.³ These are two quite particular types. The learned collegiate assessors… But Russia is such a marvelous land that if you say something about one collegiate assessor, then all the collegiate assessors from Riga to Kamchatka will inevitably take it as referring to themselves. And the same goes for all other ranks and offices. Kovalyov was a collegiate assessor of the Caucasus. He had only been at that rank for two years and therefore could not forget about it for a single moment, and so as to lend himself nobility and weight, he never called himself “Collegiate Assessor,” but always “Major.”⁴ “Listen, honey,” he would usually say when he met a woman selling shirtfronts on the street, “come see me at home; my apartment is on Garden Street. Just ask, does Major Kovalyov live here?—Anyone will show you.” But if he met a really pretty one, he would supplement this with a secret injunction, adding, “Darling, be sure to ask for Major Kovalyov’s apartment.” For this very same reason we will henceforth call this collegiate assessor—major.

Major Kovalyov had the habit of taking a stroll along Nevsky Avenue every day. The collar of his shirtfront was always extremely clean and starched. He had the kind of whiskers that one can still see on provincial and district surveyors, architects, and regimental doctors, as well as people performing various police duties, and in general on men who have plump, ruddy cheeks and who play Boston very well: These whiskers reach the very middle of the cheek and go right up to the nose.⁵ Major Kovalyov wore a multitude of carnelian seals, some with coats of arms and some engraved with “Wednesday,” “Thursday,” “Monday,” etc.⁶ Major Kovalyov had come to St. Petersburg out of necessity, namely to find a position becoming to his rank: if he could manage it, a position as vice-governor, and if not, then as administrator in some prominent department. Major Kovalyov was not averse to getting married as well, but only provided that the bride would bring with her two hundred thousand in capital. And thus the reader can now judge for himself the situation of this Major when he saw instead of a rather handsome and moderate-sized nose a very stupid, flat, and smooth space.

As luck would have it, there was not a single cabby on the street, and he had to go on foot, wrapped up in his cloak and covering his face with a kerchief, pretending he had a nosebleed. “But perhaps I imagined it. It can’t be that a nose would disappear for some foolish reason,” he thought, and went into a pastry shop on purpose to look into the mirror. Luckily, there was nobody in the pastry shop. Little boys were sweeping the rooms and setting up chairs; some of them, with sleepy eyes, were bringing out hot little pies on trays; yesterday’s newspapers, stained with coffee, were lying around on the tables and chairs. “Well, thank God nobody’s here,” he said, “now I can take a look.” He went timidly up to the mirror and took a look. “The devil only knows! What rubbish!” he said, and spat. “If only there were something instead of my nose, but there’s nothing!”

Biting his lips in annoyance, he came out of the pastry shop and decided, contrary to his usual habit, not to look at anyone and not to smile at anyone. Suddenly he stopped dead by the doors of a house. An inexplicable phenomenon occurred before his eyes: A coach stopped in front of the entryway, the coach doors opened, a gentleman in a uniform jumped out, his back bent, and started running up the stairs. What horror and at the same time amazement did Kovalyov feel when he realized that this was his very own nose! At this unusual sight it seemed to him that everything he saw had turned upside down; he felt that he could hardly stay standing, but he resolved to await his return to the coach at all costs, trembling all over as if in a fever. Two minutes later the nose did indeed emerge. He was in a uniform with gold embroidery, with a large stand-up collar; he was wearing suede trousers and had a sword at his side. Judging by his plumed hat he bore the rank of state councillor. All signs indicated that he was going somewhere on a visit. He looked both ways, shouted to the coachman, “Let’s go!”—got into the coach, and rode away.⁷

Poor Kovalyov almost lost his mind. He didn’t know how to even think about such a strange event. Indeed, how could it be that a nose that just yesterday was on his face and could neither ride nor walk—was in a uniform! He started to run after the coach, which luckily went only a little distance and stopped in front of the Kazan Cathedral.⁸

Kovalyov hurried to the cathedral, made his way through a row of old beggar women with their faces bandaged up leaving two openings for their eyes, at whom he always used to have a good laugh, and went into the church. There were not many worshippers in the church. They were all standing around the entrance doors. Kovalyov felt so upset that he had no strength to pray, and he kept looking for that gentleman in all the corners. Finally, he caught sight of him standing off to the side. The nose had completely hidden his face in his big stand-up collar and was praying with an expression of the greatest piety.

“How can I approach him?” Kovalyov thought. “Judging by everything, his uniform, his hat, he is a state councillor. The devil knows how to do it!”

He began coughing gently near him, but the nose did not for a moment abandon his pious position and kept making low bows.⁹

“My dear sir,” Kovalyov said, inwardly forcing himself to take courage, “my dear sir…”

“What can I do for you?” the nose said, turning around.

“It’s strange to me, my dear sir… it seems to me… you should know your place. And suddenly I find you, and where? In a church. You must agree…”

“Pardon me, I cannot make any sense of what you wish to say…. Explain yourself.”

“How can I explain it to him?” Kovalyov thought. He got up his nerve and began:

“Of course, I… by the way, I am a major. You must agree that it is improper for me to walk around without a nose. A tradeswoman who sells peeled oranges on Resurrection Bridge can sit there without a nose; but with plans to obtain… and moreover being acquainted with ladies in many homes: Mrs. Chekhtaryova, the wife of a state councillor, and others… Judge for yourself… I don’t know, my dear sir.” (At this Major Kovalyov shrugged his shoulders.) “Forgive me… if one looks at this in accordance with the rules of duty and honor… you yourself can understand…”

“I understand absolutely nothing,” the nose answered. “Express yourself in a more satisfactory manner.”

“My dear sir…” Kovalyov said with a feeling of his own dignity, “I do not know how to understand your words… The whole affair seems to be quite obvious… Or do you want to… After all, you are my very own nose!”

The nose looked at the major, and his brows knitted slightly.

“You are mistaken, my dear sir. I am my own separate self. Moreover, there cannot be any intimate relations between us. Judging by the buttons on your uniform, you serve in a different department.”

After saying this, the nose turned away and continued praying.

Kovalyov was quite confused and didn’t know what to do or even what to think. At that moment the pleasant rustling of a lady’s dress was heard. A middle-aged lady all decorated with lace came near, and with her a slim girl wearing a white dress that very sweetly showed off her slender waist, as well as a pale-yellow hat as light as a puff pastry. Behind them a tall footman with huge whiskers and as many as a dozen collars came to a stop and opened his snuffbox.

Kovalyov walked up closer to them, pulled out the cambric collar of his shirtfront, straightened the seals that were hanging on his golden chain, and smiling in all directions, directed his attention to the weightless lady, who like a spring blossom was bowing slightly and bringing her little white hand with its half-transparent fingers to her forehead. The smile on Kovalyov’s face grew even broader when from under her hat he caught sight of her round, dazzlingly white little chin and part of her cheek, shaded by the color of the first spring rose. But suddenly he jumped away as if he had burned himself. He recalled that instead of a nose he had absolutely nothing, and tears squeezed out of his eyes. He turned around in order to tell the gentleman in the uniform point-blank that he was only pretending to be a state councillor, that he was a rogue and a rascal, and that he was nothing more than his very own nose… But the nose was no longer there. He had managed to gallop off, probably to go visit someone else.

This plunged Kovalyov into despair. He went back and stood for a minute under the colonnade, looking searchingly in all directions to see if he could tell where the nose was. He remembered very well that his hat was plumed and that his uniform had gold embroidery, but he hadn’t noticed his overcoat, or the color of his coach or his horses, or even whether there was a footman sitting in back and what kind of livery he was wearing. Moreover, there was such a multitude of coaches rushing back and forth and so quickly that it was hard to take note of them. But even if he could take note of one of them, he had no means of stopping it. It was a beautiful sunny day. There were hundreds of people on Nevsky Avenue; a whole flowery waterfall of ladies was pouring onto the sidewalk beginning from the Police Bridge and reaching Anichkov Bridge.¹⁰ Here came a court councillor of his acquaintance, whom he always called lieutenant colonel, especially if there were other people around.¹¹ Here came Yarygin, a desk head in the Senate, a great friend who always lost when he bid eight in a game of Boston.¹² Here was another major who had obtained an assessorship in the Caucasus, waving his arm to beckon Kovalyov over…

“Oh, the devil take it!” Kovalyov said. “Hey, cabby, take me right to the chief of police!”

Kovalyov got into the droshky and kept shouting to the cabby: “Go like a bat out of hell!”¹³

“Is the chief of police in?” he shouted as he came into the entrance hall.

“No, sir,” the doorman answered. “He just left.”

“Well, I never!”

“Yes,” the doorman added, “it wasn’t that long ago, but he left. If you had come just a moment earlier, you might have caught him at home.”

Without taking the kerchief from his face, Kovalyov got back in the cab and shouted in a desperate voice: “Let’s go!”

“Where?” the cabby said.

“What do you mean, straight? There’s a turn here: right or left?”

This question gave Kovalyov pause and caused him to think again. In his situation he ought to appeal to the City Police Board, not because his situation had any direct connection to the police, but because the Police Board’s dispositions would be much faster than those in other offices. To seek satisfaction from the authorities in the office where the nose had declared himself to be serving would be foolhardy, because one could see from the nose’s own replies that nothing was sacred for this person and he would be capable of lying in this case just as he had lied when he claimed that he had never seen him. So Kovalyov was about to give the order to go to the Police Board, when he again had the thought that this rogue and swindler, who had already behaved in such an unscrupulous fashion on their first meeting, might easily take advantage of the opportunity to slip out of town—and then all searching would be in vain or could take a whole month, God forbid. Finally, it seemed that heaven itself made him see the light. He decided to apply directly to the advertising department of the newspaper in order to place a timely announcement with a detailed description of all the nose’s traits, so that anyone who met it could immediately present it to him or at least let him know about its place of residence. And so, having resolved on this, he ordered the cabby to drive to the newspaper advertising department, and the whole way there he never ceased punching him in the back with his fist, saying: “Faster, you rascal! Faster, you swindler!”—“Hey now, master!” the cabby would say, shaking his head and using the reins to lash his horse, whose coat was long-haired, like a lapdog’s. Finally the droshky stopped, and Kovalyov ran panting into a small reception room, where a gray-haired clerk wearing an old tailcoat and glasses was sitting at a desk, his quill pen in his mouth, counting copper coins that had been brought in.

“Who is it here who accepts advertisements?” Kovalyov shouted. “Oh, hello there!”

“My compliments, sir,” the gray-haired clerk said, raising his eyes for a moment and lowering them again to the piles of money that were laid out.

“I wish to publish…”

“Permit me. Please wait a moment,” the clerk said, writing a number on a piece of paper with one hand and moving two beads on an abacus with the fingers of his left hand.

A footman with braiding on his livery, whose appearance showed that he resided in an aristocratic home, was standing by the desk with a note in his hands, and considered it seemly to display his sociability: “Would you believe it, sir, the little doggie isn’t worth eighty kopecks, at least I wouldn’t pay even four kopecks for it; but the Countess loves it, honest to God, she loves it—and so the person who finds it will get a hundred rubles! If we’re talking in a seemly way, the way you and I are talking right now, people really don’t share their tastes in common. If you’re a dog fancier, then get a pointer or a poodle. Don’t begrudge five hundred rubles, pay a thousand, but you should get a good dog for that.”

The estimable clerk listened to this with a dignified air and at the same time was calculating how many letters there were in the note the footman had brought. To either side stood a multitude of old women, merchants’ clerks, and yard sweepers, all holding notes. In one it was stated that a coachman of sober conduct was being offered for service; another offered to sell a gently used carriage that had been exported from Paris in 1814; another was offering a nineteen-year-old serving girl trained for laundry work and good for other types of work as well; a durable droshky missing all its springs; a fiery young dapple-gray horse, seventeen years of age; new turnip and radish seeds received from London; a country villa with all the appurtenances: two horse stalls and an area on which one might cultivate a superb birch or fir grove; there was also a call to those wishing to buy old shoe soles, with an invitation to appear at the auction house every day from eight to three in the morning.¹⁴ The room that was accommodating this whole company was small, and the air in it was extremely dense, but Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov could not catch the scent, because he had covered himself with a kerchief and because his nose itself was located in God knows what locality.

“My dear sir, permit me to ask you to… I have a great need,” he finally said impatiently.

“Right away! Right away! Two rubles forty-three kopecks! This very minute! One ruble sixty-four kopecks!” the gray-haired gentleman said, tossing the notes into the faces of the old women and yard sweepers. “What can I do for you?” he finally said, turning to Kovalyov.

“I ask you to,…” Kovalyov said, “A great swindle or roguery has occurred, to this moment I have not been able to find out what. I am only asking you to publish a notice that the person who presents this rascal to me will receive a handsome reward.”

“Permit me to ask, what is your last name?”

“No, why do you need my last name? I cannot tell you that. I have many acquaintances: Chekhtaryova, the wife of a state councillor, Palageya Grigoryevna Podtochina, the wife of a staff officer… What if they find out, God forbid! You can simply write: a collegiate assessor, or even better, a person occupying the rank of major.”

“And is it your house-serf who’s run away?”

“What house-serf? That wouldn’t be such a big swindle! The runaway is my… nose…”

“Hmm! What a strange name! And did this Mr. Nosov steal a large sum from you?”

“Not Nosov, nose… You’re on the wrong track! My nose, my own nose has disappeared to an unknown location. The devil wanted to play a trick on me!”

“In what manner did it disappear? For some reason I can’t fully understand this.”

“I have no way of telling you in what manner, but the main thing is that he is now riding around town and calling himself a state councillor. And for that reason, I ask you to announce that the person who catches him should present him to me immediately and at the earliest possible moment. Judge for yourself—indeed, how can I be without such a noticeable part of the body? This isn’t some little toe that I could hide in my boot, and no one would see it wasn’t there. I frequent the home of Chekhtaryova, the wife of a state councillor, on Thursdays. Palageya Grigoryevna Podtochina, the wife of a staff officer, and her very pretty daughter, are also very good acquaintances of mine, and you can judge for yourself, how can I now… I can’t go see them now at all.”

The clerk was lost in thought, as was signified by his firmly compressed lips.

“No, I cannot place such an advertisement in the newspapers,” he said finally, after a long silence.

“Just so. The newspaper might lose its reputation. If anyone can write that his nose ran away, then… As it is, they’re saying that a lot of preposterous things and false rumors are being printed.”

“In what way is this preposterous? There’s nothing of the sort here.”

“It only seems to you that there isn’t. Just last week we had a case. A civil servant came in just the way you did now, he brought a note, it came to two rubles seventy-three kopecks, and the whole advertisement said only that a poodle with a black coat had run away. It would seem there was nothing in it. But it turned out to be a libelous pasquinade: The poodle was a paymaster, I don’t remember in what department.”

“But I’m not advertising about a poodle, but about my very own nose, which means, almost the same as about my own self.”

“No, I absolutely cannot place such an advertisement.”

“Even though my nose really has disappeared!”

“If it’s disappeared, then that’s a case for a physician. They say there are people who can attach any kind of nose you want. But by the way, I see you must be a person of a cheerful nature who likes to have a joke in good company.”

“I swear to you, as God is my witness! All right, if it’s come to that, I’ll show you.”

“Why trouble yourself!” the clerk continued, taking a pinch of snuff. “But all right, if it isn’t too much trouble,” he added with a gesture of curiosity, “then I would like to take a look.”

The collegiate assessor removed the kerchief from his face.

“Indeed, it’s extremely strange!” the clerk said, “The place is quite smooth, like a freshly cooked pancake. Yes, it is unbelievably flat!”

“Well, now are you going to argue with me? You can see for yourself that you simply must print the advertisement. I will be particularly grateful to you, and I am very glad that this accident afforded me the pleasure of making your acquaintance…”

The major, as one can see, had decided on this occasion to be a bit of a toady.

“To print it is, of course, not a large matter,” the clerk said, “but I can foresee no profit in it for you. If you wish, give the note to someone with a skillful pen to describe it as a rare product of nature and publish a brief article in the Northern Bee” (here he took another dose of snuff) “for the benefit of youth” (here he wiped his nose) “or just for general interest.”

The collegiate assessor was utterly bereft of hope. He lowered his eyes to the bottom of the newspaper, where plays were announced. His face was getting ready to smile, seeing the name of a pretty actress, and his hand reached for his pocket to see if there was a dark-blue five-ruble note in it, because in Kovalyov’s opinion, staff officers should sit in orchestra seats—but the thought of the nose ruined everything!

The clerk himself, it seemed, was touched by Kovalyov’s awkward situation. Wishing to lighten his affliction somewhat, he considered it seemly to express his sympathy in the following words: “Truly, I find it deplorable that such an anecdote has happened to you. Would you not care to take a little snuff? It dispels headaches as well as inclinations toward sadness. It’s good even with respect to hemorrhoids.”

Saying this, the clerk extended his snuffbox to Kovalyov, deftly tucking under it the lid bearing the portrait of a lady in a hat.

This thoughtless action made Kovalyov lose his patience.

“I don’t understand how you can find a place for jokes,” he said angrily, “do you really not see that the thing I would need for sniffing is precisely what I don’t have? The devil take your snuff! I can’t even look at it, and not only your nasty cheap stuff, but even if you were offering me rappee.”¹⁵

After saying this, he left the newspaper office, deeply frustrated, and set off to see the district police superintendent, who was a great lover of sugar. In his house the entire entrance hall, which was also his dining room, was filled with loaves of sugar that had been brought to him by merchants wishing to show their friendship. At that moment the cook was removing the superintendent’s uniform jackboots; his sword and all his military paraphernalia were already hung in their peaceful corners, and his little three-year-old son was already touching his terrifying tricorn hat; and he, after his life of battle and fighting, was preparing to taste the pleasures of peacetime.

Kovalyov came in just when he had stretched, grunted, and said, “Aahh, I’m going to have a nice sleep for a couple of hours!” And thus one could anticipate that the collegiate assessor’s arrival came at a quite inopportune moment. I’m not sure that he would have been received very cordially even if he had brought several pounds of tea or broadcloth along with him. The superintendent was a great patron of the arts and manufactures, but he preferred a government banknote to everything else. “This is a real thing,” he would usually say, “there is nothing better than this thing. It doesn’t ask for anything to eat, it doesn’t take up much space, it always fits into your pocket, if you drop it, it doesn’t get hurt.”

The superintendent received Kovalyov somewhat coldly and said that the after-dinner hour was not the right time to carry out an investigation, that nature itself had decreed that after a person has eaten his fill he should rest a little while (from this the collegiate assessor could see that the superintendent was not unfamiliar with the sayings of the ancient sages), that a respectable man would not have had his nose torn off, and that there are all kinds of majors in the world who don’t even keep their underwear in a seemly condition and who hang around in indecent places.

That hit him right between the eyes! We must note that Kovalyov was a person who was extremely quick to take offense. He could forgive everything that was said about himself but could never excuse anything that related to his office or rank. He even considered that in theatrical plays one could let pass everything that related to subaltern officers, but that it was quite impermissible to attack staff officers.¹⁶ The reception by the superintendent so affronted him that he shook his head and said with a feeling of dignity, spreading his arms somewhat apart: “I confess, after such offensive remarks on your part I cannot add anything more,” and went out.

He came home nearly dead on his feet. It was already dusk. After all these failed pursuits, his apartment seemed sad or extremely disgusting. As he came into the entrance hall, he saw his footman Ivan on the stained leather divan, lying on his back spitting at the ceiling and repeatedly hitting the very same spot rather successfully. Such indifference on the part of his servant enraged him. He hit him on the forehead with his hat, saying, “You pig, you’re always wasting your time doing stupid things!”

Ivan suddenly jumped up from his place and rushed to take off Kovalyov’s cloak.

As he entered his room, the major, tired and sad, flung himself into an armchair, and after sighing a few times, said: “My God! My God! Why such a misfortune? If I were missing an arm or a leg—all the same, it would be better; if I were missing my ears—it would be terrible, but still bearable; but without a nose a person is the devil knows what: not a bird, not a citizen, just take him and throw him out the window! And it would be one thing if it had been cut off in war or at a duel, or if I myself were the cause, but it disappeared for no reason at all, it disappeared in vain, for nothing! But no, it cannot be,” he added after thinking a bit. “It’s unbelievable that my nose disappeared. It can’t be believed at all. Probably it is either happening in a dream, or I’m simply having a vision. Perhaps somehow by mistake I drank the vodka I rub on my chin after shaving instead of water. That idiot Ivan didn’t take it away and I probably grabbed it by mistake.”

In order to convince himself that he was indeed not drunk, the major pinched himself so painfully that he shrieked. This pain convinced him that he was acting and living in waking reality. He slowly approached the mirror and squinted his eyes at first, thinking that perhaps the nose would appear in its place, but at the same moment he jumped back, saying: “What a pasquinadesque appearance!”

It was indeed inexplicable. If a button had disappeared, or a silver spoon, or a watch, or something like that; but to disappear, and who was it who disappeared? And in his own apartment at that! After taking all these circumstances into consideration, Major Kovalyov speculated that the likeliest explanation was that the blame fell on none other than Podtochina, the staff officer’s wife, who wanted him to marry her daughter. He did like to flirt with her, but he always avoided a definitive outcome. When the staff officer’s wife announced to him point-blank that she wanted to marry her daughter off to him, he quietly sailed away with his compliments, saying that he was still young, that he needed to be in the service for another five years so that he would be exactly forty-two years old. And so the staff officer’s wife, probably in revenge, had decided to ruin him, and for this purpose she had hired some witchy-women, because it was impossible to imagine that the nose had been cut off. No one had come into his room; the barber Ivan Yakovlevich had shaved him on Wednesday, and all day Wednesday and even all day Thursday his nose had been intact. He remembered and knew this very well; moreover, he would have felt pain, and no doubt the wound could not have healed so quickly and been as smooth as a pancake. He tried to make plans mentally: Should he bring the staff officer’s wife to court by formal procedure, or should he go to see her himself and establish her guilt? His meditations were interrupted by a light that shone through all the cracks in the doors, which made him aware that Ivan had lit the candle in the entrance hall. Soon Ivan himself appeared, carrying it in front of him and brightly illuminating the whole room. Kovalyov’s first movement was to grab the kerchief and cover the place where his nose had been yesterday, so that the servant, who was indeed stupid, would not gape at this oddity on his master.

Ivan had hardly had time to go off into his kennel when an unfamiliar voice was heard in the entrance hall, saying: “Does Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov live here?”

“Come in. Major Kovalyov is here,” Kovalyov said, hastily jumping up and opening the door.

There entered a handsome police official with whiskers that were not too light but not dark either and somewhat plump cheeks, the same one who was standing at the end of Saint Isaac’s Bridge at the beginning of our story.

“Pray tell, did you lose your nose?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“It has been found.”

“What are you saying?” Major Kovalyov shouted. Joy took away his power of speech. He stared alertly at the police officer standing before him, on whose plump lips and cheeks the flickering light of the candle was gleaming. “How did it happen?”

“By a strange accident. We intercepted him when he was almost on his way out of town. He had already gotten into a post chaise and was planning to go to Riga. He had a passport that had long ago been drawn up in the name of a certain civil servant. The strange thing is that at first, I took him for a gentleman. But luckily, I had my glasses with me, and I immediately saw that it was a nose. You see, I’m nearsighted, and if you stand in front of me all I can see is that you have a face, but I can’t perceive either your nose or your beard, nothing. My mother-in-law, that is, my wife’s mother, also can’t see at all.”

Kovalyov was beside himself.

“Where is it? Where? I’ll run over there right now.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. Knowing that you need it, I brought it with me. The strange thing is that the main accessory in this affair is a swindler of a barber on Ascension Street, who is now sitting in the lockup. I’ve long suspected him of drunkenness and theft, and three days ago he swiped a dozen buttons from a store. Your nose is exactly the same as it was.”

At this the policeman reached into his pocket and pulled out the nose, wrapped in a piece of paper.

“Yes, that’s it!” Kovalyov shouted. “That’s really it! Please stay and have a cup of tea with me.”

“I would be most pleased to do so, but I cannot. From here I have to run over to the jail… The prices for all sorts of provisions have risen enormously… My mother-in-law lives with us, that is, my wife’s mother, and we have children; the eldest in particular shows great promise. He’s a very intelligent little boy, but we have absolutely no means of providing for his education.”

Kovalyov took the hint and, grabbing a red ten-ruble note from the table, he stuck it into the inspector’s hands. The inspector clicked his heels, went out the door, and at almost the same moment Kovalyov could hear his voice out on the street, where he was giving an admonition right in the teeth to a stupid peasant who had just driven his cart onto the boulevard.

After the policeman left, the collegiate assessor remained in a kind of indefinite state for a few minutes, and only several minutes later was he capable of seeing and feeling: such was the oblivion into which his unexpected joy had plunged him. He took the recovered nose into his cupped hands protectively and again inspected it attentively.

“Yes, that’s it, it’s really it!” Major Kovalyov said. “There’s the pimple on the left side that popped up yesterday.”

The major nearly burst out laughing from joy.

But nothing on this earth lasts for a long time, and thus even joy is not as vivid the second moment as it is the first; the third moment, it becomes still weaker, and finally it merges unnoticeably with the normal state of one’s soul, just as a circle created on the water by a falling pebble finally merges with the smooth surface. Kovalyov began meditating and realized that the business was not over yet: The nose had been recovered, but it had to be stuck on, situated in its place.

“What if it won’t stick?”

At this question he had posed to himself, the major turned pale.

With a feeling of inexplicable terror, he rushed to the table and pulled the mirror close to him, so he would not by chance stick the nose on crookedly. His hands were trembling. Carefully and deliberately he applied it to its former place. Oh, horrors! The nose would not stick! He brought it up to his mouth, warmed it a little with his breath, and again brought it up to the smooth place located between his two cheeks; but the nose would not stay on by any means.

“Come on! Come on, now! Get on there, you idiot!” he said to it. But the nose seemed to be made of wood and kept falling to the table with a strange sound, as if it were a cork. The major’s face twisted convulsively. “Will it really not grow back on?” he said in fright. But no matter how many times he tried to put it into its very own place, his efforts were as unsuccessful as before.

He called Ivan and sent him to get the doctor who occupied the best apartment on the bel étage of the same building.¹⁷ This doctor was an impressive-looking man with beautiful pitch-black whiskers and a fresh, healthy doctor’s wife, a man who ate fresh apples in the morning and kept his mouth exceptionally clean, rinsing it every morning for almost three quarters of an hour and polishing his teeth with five different sorts of little brushes. The doctor arrived immediately. After asking how long ago the misfortune had occurred, he lifted Major Kovalyov by the chin and flicked him with his thumb on the very place where his nose had been before, causing the Major to throw his head back so hard that he hit the back of it against the wall. The physician said that this was all right, and after advising him to move away from the wall a little bit, he told him to first bend his head to the right, and after feeling the place where the nose had been before, he said, “Hmm!” Then he told him to bend his head to the left, and said, “Hmm!”—and in conclusion he again flicked him with his thumb, so that Major Kovalyov jerked his head like a horse whose teeth are being inspected. After carrying out this test, the physician shook his head and said: “No, it’s impossible. You’d better leave it like that, because you could make it even worse. Of course, one could stick it back on. I could probably stick it back on for you right now, but I assure you it would be worse for you.”

“That’s a fine thing! How am I supposed to remain without a nose?” Kovalyov said. “It couldn’t be any worse than it is now. It’s simply the devil knows what! Where can I show myself with this kind of pasquinadery? I have a fine set of acquaintances. For example, today I’m supposed to appear at evening parties in two different homes. I am acquainted with many people: the state councillor’s wife Chekhtaryova; Podtochina, the staff officer’s wife… although after what she’s done now, I won’t have any dealings with her except through the police. Would you be so kind,” Kovalyov uttered in an imploring voice, “is there no remedy? Just stick it on somehow. Even if it isn’t good, if only it would stay on. I could even prop it up with my hand a little in dangerous situations. Moreover, I’ll refrain from dancing, so as not to harm it by some incautious movement. Be assured, everything that relates to gratitude for your house calls, as far as my means allow…”

“Would you believe it,” the doctor said in a voice that was neither loud nor soft, but extremely affable and magnetic, “I never treat people for mercenary motives. That is against my principles and my healing art. It’s true, I do charge for house calls, but solely in order not to offend people by refusing. Of course, I would stick your nose back on, but I assure you on my honor, if you do not trust my words alone, that it would be much worse. You’d do better to leave it up to the action of nature itself. Wash the place often with cold water, and I assure you that without a nose you will be just as healthy as if you had it. And the nose itself I advise you to put into a jar full of alcohol or, even better, to pour in two tablespoons of aqua regia and warmed-up vinegar—and then you can charge a decent sum for it.¹⁸ I would even take it myself, as long as you don’t ask too high a price.”

“No, no! I won’t sell it for any sum!” Major Kovalyov screamed in desperation. “It would be better if it disappeared!”

“Excuse me!” the doctor said, taking his leave. “I just wanted to help you… What is to be done! At least you saw how hard I tried.”

After saying this, the doctor left the room with a noble bearing. Kovalyov had not even perceived his face, and in his deep oblivion he saw only the cuffs of his shirt, white and clean as snow, peeping out of the sleeves of his black tailcoat.

He resolved the very next day, before making a formal complaint, to write to the staff officer’s wife to see whether she would agree to return to him that which she owed him. The content of the letter was as follows:

My Dear Madam, Alexandra Grigoryevna!¹⁹

I cannot understand this strange action on your part. Please be assured that, by acting in such a manner, you will not gain anything and will not in the slightest coerce me into marrying your daughter. Please believe me, I know all about the story with regard to my nose, just as the fact that you and no one other than you are the main accessories in this business. Its sudden separation from its place, its flight and disguise, now in the form of a civil servant, now in the form of itself, are nothing more than the result of sorcery carried out either by you or those who practice the same noble occupations as yourself. For my part I consider it my duty to advise you: If the abovementioned nose is not back in its place this very day, I will be compelled to resort to the defense and protection of the law.

However, with the greatest respect for you, I have the honor of being

Your obedient servant,

Platon Kovalyov

My Dear Sir, Platon Kuzmich!

Your letter amazed me exceedingly. I must frankly admit that I did not at all expect it, especially with regard to the unjust reproaches on your part. I advise you that I never received in my home the civil servant you mention, either in disguise or in his true form. It’s true, Filipp Ivanovich Potanchikov has visited me. And although indeed he has sought the hand of my daughter, being himself of good, sober conduct and great erudition, I never gave him any hopes. You also mention a nose. If you mean by this that I wished to lead you around by the nose, that is, to give you a formal refusal, I am amazed that you yourself are saying that, when I, as you well know, was of the exact opposite opinion, and if you are now asking in a legitimate fashion for my daughter’s hand in marriage, I am prepared this very minute to give you satisfaction, for this has always been the object of my most keen desire, in hopes of which I remain always at your service,

Alexandra Podtochina²⁰

“No,” Kovalyov said after he had read the letter. “She is truly not guilty. It cannot be! The letter is written in a way that could not be written by a person who was guilty of a crime.” The collegiate assessor was conversant in this matter, because he had been sent on investigations several times when he was still in the Caucasus region. “By what means, by what fates did this occur? Only the devil can figure it out!” he said finally, dropping his hands in surrender.

Meanwhile rumors about this unusual event had spread throughout the whole capital, and as usual, not without special additions. At that time, everyone’s minds were attuned to the extraordinary. Not long ago the public had been fascinated by the experiments in the operation of magnetism. Also, the story of the dancing chairs on Stables Street was still fresh, and thus it is not surprising that soon people began to say that the nose of Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov was going for a walk on Nevsky Avenue every day at exactly three o’clock.²¹ Every day a multitude of curious people would gather. Someone said that supposedly the nose had been in Junker’s store—and such a crowd and crush formed near Junker’s store that the police had to intervene. One speculator of estimable appearance, with side-whiskers, who would sell various dry confectionary pastries in front of the entrance to the theater, built beautiful, durable wooden benches on purpose, and invited the curious to stand on them for eighty kopecks per customer. One distinguished colonel left home early in the morning for this very purpose and made his way through the crowd with great difficulty. But to his great indignation, he saw in the shop window instead of a nose an ordinary woolen undershirt and a lithographed picture depicting a girl straightening her stocking and a dandy with an open waistcoat and a small beard looking at her from behind a tree—a picture that had been hanging in the same place for more than ten years now. Walking away, he said in vexation: “How can they confuse the people with such stupid and implausible rumors?”

Then a rumor spread that it wasn’t on Nevsky Avenue that Major Kovalyov’s nose was taking his walk, but in the Tauride Gardens, that supposedly he’d been there for a long time now; that when Khosrow Mirza had still been residing there, he had been quite amazed at this strange sport of nature.²² Several of the students from the Surgical Academy set off there. One prominent, estimable lady sent a special letter to the keeper of the gardens asking him to show her children this rare phenomenon and, if possible, to accompany it with an explication that would be instructive and edifying for youths.

All these incidents greatly gladdened the hearts of all those society men, indispensable guests at evening receptions, who loved to make ladies laugh, and whose reserves had been completely exhausted at this time. A small group of estimable and well-intentioned people were extremely unhappy. One gentleman said indignantly that he did not understand how in this enlightened age such absurd inventions could be spread, and that he was amazed that the government did not turn its attention to it. This gentleman, as we see, belonged to the category of gentlemen who would like to get the government mixed up in everything, even in their daily quarrels with their wives. Following this… but here again the whole event is hidden by a fog, and absolutely nothing is known about what happened then.

Utter nonsense happens in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all: Suddenly that very nose who drove around in the rank of state councillor and caused such commotion in the city found himself, as if nothing had happened, in his place, that is, namely, between Major Kovalyov’s two cheeks. This happened on the seventh of April.²³ After waking up and looking by chance into the mirror, he saw: the nose!—he grabbed it with his hand—it was really the nose! “Oho!” Kovalyov said, and in his joy he nearly started dancing a barefoot trepak all over his room, but the entrance of Ivan prevented him.²⁴ He ordered that he be given his washing accoutrements immediately, and as he washed he looked at himself in the mirror one more time: the nose! As he dried himself with a towel, he looked in the mirror again: the nose!

“Ivan, take a look, it seems I have a pimple on my nose,” he said, and meanwhile he was thinking, “It’ll be bad if Ivan says: No, sir, not only is there no pimple, there’s no nose either!”

But Ivan said: “No, sir, there’s no pimple: The nose is clean!”

“Excellent, the devil take it!” the major said to himself and snapped his fingers. At that moment the barber Ivan Yakovlevich peeped in the door, but as timorously as a cat who’s just been whipped for stealing fatback.

“Tell me in advance: Are your hands clean?” Kovalyov shouted at him when he was still at a distance.

“Yes, they are.”

“You’re lying!”

“Honest to God, sir, they’re clean.”

“Well, just watch out.”

Kovalyov took a seat. Ivan Yakovlevich covered him with a cloth, and in one instant, with the help of his brush, he turned his whole chin and part of his cheek into the kind of crème that is served at merchants’ birthday parties.

“Just look at that!” Ivan Yakovlevich said to himself, looking at the nose, and then he bent Kovalyov’s head the other way and looked at it from the side. “There it is! Well, really, what do you know,” he continued, and looked at the nose for a long time. Finally, gently, with the kind of protectiveness one can only imagine, he raised two fingers in order to grab it by its little tip. This was Ivan Yakovlevich’s system.

“Now, now, now, watch out!” Kovalyov shouted.

Ivan Yakovlevich dropped his hands in surrender. He was dumbfounded and more flustered than he had ever been. Finally he began carefully tickling Kovalyov under his chin with the razor, and although it was extremely inconvenient and difficult for him to shave without holding onto the sniffing part of the body, nevertheless, somehow resting his rough thumb on Kovalyov’s cheek and lower gum, he finally overcame all obstacles and shaved him.

When everything was done, Kovalyov hastened to get dressed immediately, hired a cab, and went right to the pastry shop. As he entered, he shouted while still at a distance: “Boy, give me a cup of hot chocolate!” And at the same moment he went up to the mirror: There was the nose! He cheerfully turned back and with a satirical air, slightly squinting, looked at two military men, one of whom had a nose no bigger than a waistcoat button. Then he set off for the office of the department in which he was trying to wangle a position as a vice-governor, and if that failed, then as an administrator. Passing through the waiting room, he glanced into the mirror: There was the nose! Then he went to see another collegiate assessor, or major, a great joker, to whom he often said in reply to various prickly remarks: “Oh, I know you, you’re a real needler!” On the way he thought: “If even the Major doesn’t split his sides laughing when he sees me, then that’s a sure sign that every blessed thing is sitting in its proper place.” But the collegiate assessor showed no sign. “Good, good, the devil take it!” Kovalyov thought to himself. Along the way he encountered the staff officer’s wife Podtochina with her daughter, bowed to them, and was greeted with joyful exclamations: That meant it was all right, he had no visible damage. He spent a long time talking to them and, taking out his snuffbox on purpose, he spent a long time in front of them stuffing his nose at both entrances, saying to himself, “There you go, you womenfolk, you tribe of hens! And all the same I won’t marry your daughter. Just for the fun of it, par amour, if you wish!” And from that time Major Kovalyov went promenading around, as if nothing had happened, on Nevsky Avenue, and in the theaters, and everywhere. And the nose also sat on his face as if nothing had happened, showing no sign that he had absented himself in all directions. And after that Major Kovalyov was always seen in a good humor, smiling, running after absolutely all the pretty ladies, and even stopping once at a store in the Gostiny Dvor shopping arcade and buying the ribbon for an Order of some sort, no one knows for what reason, because he himself was not a knight of any Order at all.

So that is the story that happened in the northern capital city of our vast nation! Only now, after thinking it all over, do we see that there is a lot about it that is implausible. Not even to speak of the fact that the supernatural separation of the nose and his appearance in various places in the form of a state councillor is indeed strange—how did Kovalyov not realize that you cannot go to a newspaper office to place an advertisement about a nose? I’m not saying this because I think it costs too much to pay for an advertisement: That’s nonsense, and I am not one of those mercenary people. But it’s unseemly, it’s awkward, it’s not good! And also—how did the nose find itself in a baked loaf of bread, and what about Ivan Yakovlevich himself?… No, I can’t understand this at all, I absolutely do not understand! But the strangest and most incomprehensible thing of all—is that writers can choose such plots. I confess, this is quite unfathomable, this is really… no, no, I do not understand at all. In the first place, there is absolutely no benefit to the fatherland; in the second place… but in the second place there’s no benefit either. I simply do not know what it is…