The Nose, by Nikolai Gogol ("The Nose")

THE NOSE

I 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

198 \

The Nose

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.

The Nose

\ 199

200 \

The Nose

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.

II 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 The Nose

\ 201

202 \

The Nose

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, The Nose

\ 203

204 \

The Nose

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 . . .”

PR AISE FOR THE NOSE A ND OTHER ST OR IES “Crazy, colorful, delightful, and sad, Nikolai Gogol’s short stories are among the great gems of Russian literature. Susanne Fusso’s scholarly and stylish new translations bring them alive once again and make this selection a pleasure to read.”

—DAVID BELLOS, author of Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything “The first major English translation of Gogol’s stories in more than twenty years, The Nose and Other Stories captures his humor and complexity brilliantly. This volume will prove to be a great read for students and Russian literature enthusiasts alike.”—BRUCE HOLL, Trinity University Columbia University Press New York cup.columbia.edu Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN: 978-0-231-19068-8