The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (50 page)

“Does the collegiate assessor Kovalev live here?”

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

In came a police officer of handsome appearance, with quite plump cheeks and side-whiskers neither light nor dark, the very same one who, at the beginning of this tale, was standing at the end of St.
Isaac’s Bridge.

“Did Your Honor lose his nose?”

“Right.”

“It has now been found.”

“What’s that you say?” cried Major Kovalev.
Joy robbed him of speech.
He stared with both eyes at the policeman standing before him, over whose plump lips and cheeks the tremulous candlelight flickered brightly.
“How did it happen?”

“By a strange chance: he was intercepted almost on the road.
He was getting into a stage coach to go to Riga.
And he had a passport long since filled out in the name of some official.
The strange thing was that I myself first took him for a gentleman.
But fortunately I was wearing my spectacles, and I saw at once that he was a nose.
For I’m nearsighted, and if you’re standing right in front of me, I’ll see only that you have a face, but won’t notice any nose or beard.
My mother-in-law—that is, my wife’s mother—can’t see anything either.”

Kovalev was beside himself.

“Where is it?
Where?
I’ll run there at once.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.
Knowing you had need of him, I brought him with me.
And it’s strange that the chief participant in this affair is that crook of a barber on Voznesenskaya Street, who is now sitting in the police station.
I’ve long suspected him of being a
drunkard and a thief, and only two days ago he pilfered a card of buttons from a shop.
Your nose is exactly as it was.”

Here the policeman went to his pocket and took out a nose wrapped in a piece of paper.

“That’s it!” cried Kovalev.
“That’s it all right!
Kindly take a cup of tea with me today.”

“I’d consider it a great pleasure, but I really can’t: I must go to the house of correction … The prices of all products have gone up so expensively … I’ve got my mother-in-law—that is, my wife’s mother—living with me, and the children—for the oldest in particular we have great hopes: he’s a very clever lad, but there’s no means at all for his education …”

Kovalev understood and, snatching a red banknote from the table, put it into the hand of the officer, who bowed and scraped his way out, and at almost the same moment Kovalev heard his voice in the street, where he delivered an admonition into the mug of a stupid muzhik who had driven his cart right on to the boulevard.

On the policeman’s departure, the collegiate assessor remained in some vague state for a few minutes, and only after several minutes acquired the ability to see and feel: such obliviousness came over him on account of the unexpected joy.
He carefully took the found nose in his two cupped hands and once again studied it attentively.

“That’s it, that’s it all right!” Major Kovalev kept repeating.
“There’s the pimple that popped out on the left side yesterday.”

The major almost laughed for joy.

But nothing in this world lasts long, and therefore joy, in the minute that follows the first, is less lively; in the third minute it becomes still weaker, and finally it merges imperceptibly with one’s usual state of mind, as a ring in the water, born of a stone’s fall, finally merges with the smooth surface.
Kovalev began to reflect and realized that the matter was not ended yet: the nose had been found, but it still had to be attached, put in its place.

“And what if it doesn’t stick?”

At this question, presented to himself, the major blanched.

With a feeling of inexplicable fear, he rushed to the table and set the mirror before him, so as not to put the nose on somehow askew.
His hands were trembling.
Carefully and cautiously he applied it to its former place.
Oh, horror!
The nose did not stick!… He held it to his mouth, warmed it a little with his breath, and again brought it to the smooth space between his two cheeks; but in no way would the nose hold on.

“Well, so, stay there, you fool!” he said to it.
But the nose was as if made of wood and kept falling to the table with a strange, corklike sound.
The major’s face twisted convulsively.
“Can it be that it won’t grow back on?” he repeated in fear.
But no matter how many times he put it in its proper place, his efforts remained unsuccessful.

He called Ivan and sent him for the doctor, who occupied the best apartment on the first floor of the same building.
This doctor was an imposing man, possessed of handsome, pitch-black side-whiskers and of a fresh, robust doctress, ate fresh apples in the morning, and kept his mouth extraordinarily clean by rinsing it every morning for nearly three quarters of an hour and polishing his teeth with five different sorts of brushes.
The doctor came that same minute.
Having asked him how long ago the misfortune had occurred, he raised Major Kovalev’s face by the chin and flicked him with his thumb in the very place where the nose had formerly been, which made the major throw his head back so hard that it struck the wall behind.
The physician said it was nothing, advised him to move away from the wall a bit, told him to tip his head to the right first, and, having palpated the spot where the nose had been, said, “Hm!” Then he told him to tip his head to the left, said, “Hm!” and in conclusion flicked him again with his thumb, which made Major Kovalev jerk his head back like a horse having its teeth examined.
After performing this test, the physician shook his head and said:

“No, impossible.
You’d better stay the way you are, because it might come out still worse.
Of course, it could be attached; I could perhaps attach it for you now; but I assure you it will be the worse for you.”

“Well, that’s just fine!
How can I stay without a nose?” said Kovalev.
“It can’t be worse than now.
This is simply devil knows what!
Where can I show myself with such lampoonery!
I have good acquaintances; today alone I have to be at soirees in two houses.
I know many people: Chekhtareva, a state councillor’s wife, Podtochina, a staff officer’s wife … though after this act I won’t deal with her except through the police.
Do me the kindness,” Kovalev said in a pleading voice, “isn’t there some remedy?
Attach it somehow—maybe not perfectly, so long as it holds; I can even prop it up with my hand on dangerous occasions.
Besides, I don’t dance, so I can’t injure it with some careless movement.
Regarding my gratitude for your visits, rest assured that everything my means will permit …”

“Believe me,” the doctor said in a voice neither loud nor soft but extremely affable and magnetic, “I never treat people for profit.
That is against my rules and my art.
True, I take money for visits, but solely so as not to give offense by refusing.
Of course, I could attach your nose; but I assure you on my honor, if you do not believe my word, that it will be much worse.
You’d better leave it to the effect of nature herself.
Wash it frequently with cold water, and I assure you that you’ll be as healthy without a nose as with one.
As for the nose, I advise you to put it in a jar of alcohol, or, better still, add two tablespoons of aquafortis and warm vinegar—then you’ll get decent money for it.
I’ll even buy it myself, if you don’t put too high a price on it.”

“No, no!
I won’t sell it for anything!” cried the desperate Major Kovalev.
“Better let it perish!”

“Excuse me!” said the doctor, bowing out.
“I wished to be of use to you … Nothing to be done!
At least you’ve seen how I tried.”

Having said this, the doctor, with a noble bearing, left the room.
Kovalev did not even notice his face but, plunged in profound insensibility, saw only the cuffs of his shirt, clean and white as snow, peeking out from the sleeves of his black tailcoat.

He resolved to write to the staff officer’s wife the next day, before filing a complaint, on the chance that she might agree to return to him what she owed without a fight.
The content of the letter was as follows:

My dear madam, Alexandra
⁵
Grigorievna!

I am unable to understand this strange act on your part.
Rest assured that in behaving in this fashion you gain nothing and will by no means prevail upon me to marry your daughter.
Believe me, I am perfectly well informed concerning the story of my nose, as well as the fact that none other than the two of you are the main participants in it.
Its sudden detachment from its place, its flight, its disguising itself first as an official and now finally as its own self, are nothing else but the results of witchcraft, performed either by you or by those who exercise similarly noble occupations.
I, for my part, consider it my duty to warn you: if the above-mentioned nose of mine is not back in place this same day, I shall be forced to resort to the shelter and protection of the law.

Nevertheless, with the utmost respect for you, I have the honor of being

    Your humble servant,

Platon Kovalev

My dear sir, Platon Kuzmich!

I am extremely astonished by your letter.
I confess to you in all frankness, I never expected, the less so with regard to unjust reproaches on your part.
I warn you that I have never received the official you mention in my house, either disguised or as his real self.
True, Filipp Ivanovich Potanchikov used to visit me.
And though he indeed sought my daughter’s hand, being himself of good, sober behavior and great learning, I never gave him reasons for any hope.
You also mention a nose.
If by that you mean that I supposedly led you by the nose and intended to refuse you formally, I am surprised that you speak of it, since I, as you know, was of the completely opposite opinion, and if you were to propose to my daughter in a lawful fashion right now, I would be ready to satisfy you at once, for this has always constituted the object of my liveliest desire, in hopes of which I remain, always ready to be at your service,

Alexandra Podtochina

“No,” said Kovalev, after reading the letter.
“She’s clearly not guilty.
She can’t be!
The way the letter’s written, it couldn’t have been written by a person guilty of a crime.” The collegiate assessor was informed in such matters, because he had been sent on investigations several times while still in the Caucasus.
“How, then, how on earth did it happen?
The devil alone can sort it all out!” he finally said, dropping his arms.

Meanwhile, rumors of this remarkable incident spread all over the capital, and, as usually happens, not without special additions.
Just then everyone’s mind was precisely attuned to the extraordinary: only recently the public had been taken up with experiments on the effects of magnetism.
What’s more, the story about the dancing chairs on Konyushennaya Street was still fresh, and thus it was no wonder people soon began saying that the nose of the collegiate assessor Kovalev went strolling on Nevsky Prospect at exactly three o’clock.
Hordes of the curious thronged there every day.
Someone said the nose was supposed to be in Junker’s shop
⁶
—and such a crowd and crush formed outside Junker’s that the police even had to intervene.
One speculator of respectable appearance, with side-whiskers, who sold various kinds of cookies at the entrance to the theater, had some fine, sturdy wooden benches specially made, which he invited the curious to stand on for eighty kopecks per visitor.
One worthy colonel left home earlier specifically for that and made his way through the crowd with great difficulty; but to his great indignation, he saw in the shop window, instead of the nose, an ordinary woolen jacket and a lithograph portraying a girl straightening a stocking and a fop with a turned-back waistcoat and a small beard peeping at her from behind a tree—a picture that had been hanging in the same place for over ten years.
He walked off saying vexedly, “How is it possible to upset people with such stupid and implausible rumors?”

Then the rumor spread that Major Kovalev’s nose went strolling not on Nevsky Prospect but in the Tavrichesky Garden, and had long been going there; that when Khozrev-Mirza
⁷
lived there, he wondered greatly at this strange sport of nature.
Some students from the College of Surgeons went there.
One noble, respectable lady, in a special letter, asked the overseer of the garden to show
this rare phenomenon to her children and, if possible, with an explanation instructive and edifying for the young.

All these events were an extreme joy for those inevitable frequenters of social gatherings who delight in making the ladies laugh and whose stock was by then completely exhausted.
A small portion of respectable and right-minded people was extremely displeased.
One gentleman said with indignation that he did not understand how such preposterous inventions could be spread in our enlightened age and that he was astonished that the government paid no attention to it.
This gentleman was obviously one of those gentlemen who wish to mix the government into everything, even their daily quarrels with their wives.
After that … but here again the whole incident is shrouded in mist, and what came later is decidedly unknown.

III

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world.
Sometimes there is no plausibility at all: suddenly, as if nothing was wrong, that same nose which had driven about in the rank of state councillor and made such a stir in town was back in place—that is, precisely between the two cheeks of Major Kovalev.
This happened on the seventh of April.
Waking up and chancing to look in the mirror, he saw: the nose!
He grabbed it with his hand—yes, the nose!
“Aha!” said Kovalev, and in his joy he nearly burst into a trepak all around the room, but Ivan hindered him by coming in.
He ordered a wash at once and, as he was washing, again glanced in the mirror: the nose!
Drying himself with a towel, he again glanced in the mirror: the nose!