I
ON 25 March an unusually strange event occurred in St. Petersburg. For
that morning Barber Ivan Yakovlevitch, a dweller on the Vozkresensky
Prospekt (his name is lost now--it no longer figures on a signboard
bearing a portrait of a gentleman with a soaped cheek, and the words:
"Also, Blood Let Here")--for that morning Barber Ivan Yakovlevitch awoke
early, and caught the smell of newly baked bread. Raising himself a
little, he perceived his wife (a most respectable dame, and one
especially fond of coffee) to be just in the act of drawing newly baked
rolls from the oven.
"Prascovia Osipovna," he said, "I would rather not have any coffee for
breakfast, but, instead, a hot roll and an onion,"--the truth being that
he wanted both but knew it to be useless to ask for two things at once,
as Prascovia Osipovna did not fancy such tricks.
"Oh, the fool shall have his bread," the dame reflected. "So much the
better for me then, as I shall be able to drink a second lot of coffee."
And duly she threw on to the table a roll.
Ivan Yakovlevitch donned a jacket over his shirt for politeness' sake,
and, seating himself at the table, poured out salt, got a couple of
onions ready, took a knife into his hand, assumed an air of importance,
and cut the roll asunder. Then he glanced into the roll's middle. To his
intense surprise he saw something glimmering there. He probed it
cautiously with the knife--then poked at it with a finger.
"Quite solid it is!" he muttered. "What in the world is it likely to
be?"
He thrust in, this time, all his fingers, and pulled forth--a nose! His
hands dropped to his sides for a moment. Then he rubbed his eyes hard.
Then again he probed the thing. A nose! Sheerly a nose! Yes, and one
familiar to him, somehow! Oh, horror spread upon his feature! Yet that
horror was a trifle compared with his spouse's overmastering wrath.
"You brute!" she shouted frantically. "Where have you cut off that nose?
You villain, you! You drunkard! Why, I'll go and report you to the
police myself. The brigand, you! Three customers have told me already
about your pulling at their noses as you shaved them till they could
hardly stand it."
But Ivan Yakovlevitch was neither alive nor dead. This was the more the
case because, sure enough, he had recognised the nose. It was the nose
of Collegiate Assessor Kovalev--no less: it was the nose of a gentleman
whom he was accustomed to shave twice weekly, on each Wednesday and each
Sunday!
"Stop, Prascovia Osipovna!" at length he said. "I'll wrap the thing in a
clout, and lay it aside awhile, and take it away altogether later."
"But I won't hear of such a thing being done! As if I'm going to have a
cut-off nose kicking about my room! Oh, you old stick! Maybe you can
just strop a razor still; but soon you'll be no good at all for the rest
of your work. You loafer, you wastrel, you bungler, you blockhead! Aye,
I'll tell the police of you. Take it away, then. Take it away. Take it
anywhere you like. Oh, that I'd never caught the smell of it!"
Ivan Yakovlevitch was dumbfounded. He thought and thought, but did not
know what to think.
"The devil knows how it's happened," he said, scratching one ear. "You
see, I don't know for certain whether I came home drunk last night or
not. But certainly things look as though something out of the way
happened then, for bread comes of baking, and a nose of something else
altogether. Oh, I just can't make it out."
So he sat silent. At the thought that the police might find the nose at
his place, and arrest him, he felt frantic. Yes, already he could see
the red collar with the smart silver braiding--the sword! He shuddered
from head to foot.
But at last he got out, and donned waistcoat and shoes, wrapped the nose
in a clout, and departed amid Prascovia Osipovna's forcible
objurgations.
His one idea was to rid himself of the nose, and return quietly home--to
do so either by throwing the nose into the gutter in front of the gates
or by just letting it drop anywhere. Yet, unfortunately, he kept meeting
friends, and they kept saying to him: "Where are you off to?" or "Whom
have you arranged to shave at this early hour?" until seizure of a
fitting moment became impossible. Once, true, he did succeed in dropping
the thing, but no sooner had he done so than a constable pointed at him
with his truncheon, and shouted: "Pick it up again! You've lost
something," and he perforce had to take the nose into his possession
once more, and stuff it into a pocket. Meanwhile his desperation grew in
proportion as more and more booths and shops opened for business, and
more and more people appeared in the street.
At last he decided that he would go to the Isaakievsky Bridge, and throw
the thing, if he could, into the Neva. But here let me confess my fault
in not having said more about Ivan Yakovlevitch himself, a man estimable
in more respects than one.
Like every decent Russian tradesman, Ivan Yakovlevitch was a terrible
tippler. Daily he shaved the chins of others, but always his own was
unshorn, and his jacket (he never wore a top-coat) piebald--black,
thickly studded with greyish, brownish-yellowish stains--and shiny of
collar, and adorned with three pendent tufts of thread instead of
buttons. But, with that, Ivan Yakovlevitch was a great cynic. Whenever
Collegiate Assessor Kovalev was being shaved, and said to him, according
to custom: "Ivan Yakovlevitch, your hands do smell!" he would retort:
"But why should they smell?" and, when the Collegiate Assessor had
replied: "Really I do not know, brother, but at all events they do,"
take a pinch of snuff, and soap the Collegiate Assessor upon cheek, and
under nose, and behind ears, and around chin at his good will and
pleasure.
So the worthy citizen stood on the Isaakievsky Bridge, and looked about
him. Then, leaning over the parapet, he feigned to be trying to see if
any fish were passing underneath. Then gently he cast forth the nose.
At once ten puds-weight seemed to have been lifted from his shoulders.
Actually he smiled! But, instead of departing, next, to shave the chins
of chinovniki, he bethought him of making for a certain establishment
inscribed "Meals and Tea," that he might get there a glassful of punch.
Suddenly he sighted a constable standing at the end of the bridge, a
constable of smart appearance, with long whiskers, a three-cornered hat,
and a sword complete. Oh, Ivan Yakovlevitch could have fainted! Then the
constable, beckoning with a finger, cried:
"Nay, my good man. Come here."
Ivan Yaklovlevitch, knowing the proprieties, pulled off his cap at quite
a distance away, advanced quickly, and said:
"I wish your Excellency the best of health."
"No, no! None of that `your Excellency,' brother. Come and tell me what
you have been doing on the bridge."
"Before God, sir, I was crossing it on my way to some customers when I
peeped to see if there were any fish jumping."
"You lie, brother! You lie! You won't get out of it like that. Be so
good as to answer me truthfully."
"Oh, twice a week in future I'll shave you for nothing. Aye, or even
three times a week."
"No, no, friend. That is rubbish. Already I've got three barbers for the
purpose, and all of them account it an honour. Now, tell me, I ask
again, what you have just been doing?"
This made Ivan Yakovlevitch blanch, and----
Further events here become enshrouded in mist. What happened after that
is unknown to all men.
II
COLLEGIATE ASSESSOR KOVALEV also awoke early that morning. And when he
had done so he made the "B-r-rh!" with his lips which he always did when
he had been asleep--he himself could not have said why. Then he
stretched himself, had handed to him a small mirror from the table near
by, and set himself to inspect a pimple which had broken out on his nose
the night before. But, to his unbounded astonishment, there was only a
flat patch on his face where the nose should have been! Greatly alarmed,
he called for water, washed, and rubbed his eyes hard with the towel.
Yes, the nose indeed was gone! He prodded the spot with a hand-pinched
himself to make sure that he was not still asleep. But no; he was not
still sleeping. Then he leapt from the bed, and shook himself. No nose
had he on him still! Finally, he bade his clothes be handed him, and set
forth for the office of the Police Commissioner at his utmost speed.
Here let me add something which may enable the reader to perceive just
what the Collegiate Assessor was like. Of course, it goes without saying
that Collegiate Assessors who acquire the title with the help of
academic diplomas cannot be compared with Collegiate Assessors who
become Collegiate Assessors through service in the Caucasus, for the two
species are wholly distinct, they are----Stay, though. Russia is so
strange a country that, let one but say anything about any one
Collegiate Assessor, and the rest, from Riga to Kamchatka, at once apply
the remark to themselves--for all titles and all ranks it means the same
thing. Now, Kovalev was a "Caucasian" Collegiate Assessor, and had, as
yet, borne the title for two years only. Hence, unable ever to forget
it, he sought the more to give himself dignity and weight by calling
himself, in addition to "Collegiate Assessor," "Major."
"Look here, good woman," once he said to a shirts' vendor whom he met in
the street, "come and see me at my home. I have my flat in Sadovaia
Street. Ask merely, `Is this where Major Kovalev lives?' Anyone will
show you." Or, on meeting fashionable ladies, he would say: "My dear
madam, ask for Major Kovalev's flat." So we too will call the Collegiate
Assessor "Major."
Major Kovalev had a habit of daily promenading the Nevsky Prospekt in an
extremely clean and well-starched shirt and collar, and in whiskers of
the sort still observable on provincial surveyors, architects,
regimental doctors, other officials, and all men who have round, red
cheeks, and play a good hand at "Boston." Such whiskers run across the
exact centre of the cheek--then head straight for the nose. Again, Major
Kovalev always had on him a quantity of seals, both of seals engraved
with coats of arms, and of seals inscribed "Wednesday," "Thursday,"
"Monday," and the rest. And, finally, Major Kovalev had come to live in
St. Petersburg because of necessity. That is to say, he had come to live
in St. Petersburg because he wished to obtain a post befitting his new
title--whether a Vice-Governorship or, failing that, an
Administratorship in a leading department. Nor was Major Kovalev
altogether set against marriage. Merely he required that his bride
should possess not less than two hundred thousand rubles in capital. The
reader, therefore, can now judge how the Major was situated when he
perceived that instead of a not unpresentable nose there was figuring on
his face an extremely uncouth, and perfectly smooth and uniform patch.
Ill luck prescribed, that morning, that not a cab was visible throughout
the street's whole length; so, huddling himself up in his cloak, and
covering his face with a handkerchief (to make things look as though his
nose were bleeding), he had to start upon his way on foot only.
"Perhaps this is only imagination?" he reflected. Presently he turned
aside towards a restaurant (for he wished yet again to get a sight of
himself in a mirror). "The nose can't have removed itself of sheer
idiocy."
Luckily no customers were present in the restaurant--merely some waiters
were sweeping out the rooms, and rearranging the chairs, and others,
sleepy-eyed fellows, were setting forth trayfuls of hot pastries. On
chairs and tables last night's newspapers, coffee-stained, were strewn.
"Thank God that no one is here!" the Major reflected. "Now I can look at
myself again."
He approached a mirror in some trepidation, and peeped therein. Then he
spat.
"The devil only knows what this vileness means!" he muttered. "If even
there had been something to take the nose's place! But, as it is,
there's nothing there at all."
He bit his lips with vexation, and hurried out of the restaurant. No; as
he went along he must look at no one, and smile at no one. Then he
halted as though riveted to earth. For in front of the doors of a
mansion he saw occur a phenomenon of which, simply, no explanation was
possible. Before that mansion there stopped a carriage. And then a door
of the carriage opened, and there leapt thence, huddling himself up, a
uniformed gentleman, and that uniformed gentleman ran headlong up the
mansion's entrance-steps, and disappeared within. And oh, Kovalev's
horror and astonishment to perceive that the gentleman was none other
than--his own nose! The unlooked-for spectacle made everything swim
before his eyes. Scarcely, for a moment, could he even stand. Then,
deciding that at all costs he must await the gentleman's return to the
carriage, he remained where he was, shaking as though with fever. Sure
enough, the Nose did return, two minutes later. It was clad in a
gold-braided, high-collared uniform, buckskin breeches, and cockaded
hat. And slung beside it there was a sword, and from the cockade on the
hat it could be inferred that the Nose was purporting to pass for a
State Councillor. It seemed now to be going to pay another visit
somewhere. At all events it glanced about it, and then, shouting to the
coachman, "Drive up here," re-entered the vehicle, and set forth.
Poor Kovalev felt almost demented. The astounding event left him utterly
at a loss. For how could the nose which had been on his face but
yesterday, and able then neither to drive nor to walk independently, now
be going about in uniform?--He started in pursuit of the carriage,
which, luckily, did not go far, and soon halted before the Gostiny
Dvor.[*]
[* Formerly the "Whiteley's" of St. Petersburg.]
Kovalev too hastened to the building, pushed through the line of old
beggar-women with bandaged faces and apertures for eyes whom he had so
often scorned, and entered. Only a few customers were present, but
Kovalev felt so upset that for a while he could decide upon no course of
action save to scan every corner in the gentleman's pursuit. At last he
sighted him again, standing before a counter, and, with face hidden
altogether behind the uniform's stand-up collar, inspecting with
absorbed attention some wares.
"How, even so, am I to approach it?" Kovalev reflected. "Everything
about it, uniform, hat, and all, seems to show that it is a State
Councillor now. Only the devil knows what is to be done!"
He started to cough in the Nose's vicinity, but the Nose did not change
its position for a single moment.
"My good sir," at length Kovalev said, compelling himself to boldness,
"my good sir, I----"
"What do you want?" And the Nose did then turn round.
"My good sir, I am in a difficulty. Yet somehow, I think, I think,
that--well, I think that you ought to know your proper place better. All
at once, you see, I find you--_where_? Do you not feel as I do about
it?"
"Pardon me, but I cannot apprehend your meaning. Pray explain further."
"Yes, but how, I should like to know?" Kovalev thought to himself. Then,
again taking courage, he went: on:
"I am, you see--well, in point of fact, you see, I am a Major. Hence you
will realise how unbecoming it is for me to have to walk about without a
nose. Of course, a peddler of oranges on the Vozkresensky Bridge could
sit there noseless well enough, but I myself am hoping soon to receive
a----Hm, yes. Also, I have amongst my acquaintances several ladies of
good houses (Madame Chektareva, wife of the State Councillor, for
example), and you may judge for yourself what that alone signifies. Good
sir"--Major Kovalev gave his shoulders a shrug--"I do not know whether
you yourself (pardon me) consider conduct of this sort to be altogether
in accordance with the rules of duty and honour, but at least you can
understand that----"
"I understand nothing at all," the Nose broke in. "Explain yourself more
satisfactorily."
"Good sir," Kovalev went on with a heightened sense of dignity, "the one
who is at a loss to understand the other is I. But at least the
immediate point should be plain, unless you are determined to have it
otherwise. Merely--you are my own nose."
The Nose regarded the Major, and contracted its brows a little.
"My dear sir, you speak in error," was its reply. "I am just
myself--myself separately. And in any case there cannot ever have
existed a close relation between us, for, judging from the buttons of
your undress uniform, your service is being performed in another
department than my own."
And the Nose definitely turned away.
Kovalev stood dumbfounded. What to do, even what to think, he had not a
notion.
Presently the agreeable swish of ladies' dresses began to be heard. Yes,
an elderly, lace-bedecked dame was approaching, and, with her, a slender
maiden in a white frock which outlined delightfully a trim figure, and,
above it, a straw hat of a lightness as of pastry. Behind them there
came, stopping every now and then to open a snuffbox, a tall, whiskered
beau in quite a twelve-fold collar.
Kovalev moved a little nearer, pulled up the collar of his shirt,
straightened the seals on his gold watch-chain, smiled, and directed
special attention towards the slender lady as, swaying like a floweret
in spring, she kept raising to her brows a little white hand with
fingers almost of transparency. And Kovalev's smiles became broader
still when peeping from under the hat he saw there to be an alabaster,
rounded little chin, and part of a cheek flushed like an early rose. But
all at once he recoiled as though scorched, for all at once he had
remembered that he had not a nose on him, but nothing at all. So, with
tears forcing themselves upwards, he wheeled about to tell the uniformed
gentleman that he, the uniformed gentleman, was no State Councillor, but
an impostor and a knave and a villain and the Major's own nose. But the
Nose, behold, was gone! That very moment had it driven away to,
presumably, pay another visit.
This drove Kovalev to the last pitch of desperation. He went back to the
mansion, and stationed himself under its portico, in the hope that, by
peering hither and thither, hither and thither, he might once more see
the Nose appear. But, well though he remembered the Nose's cockaded hat
and gold-braided uniform, he had failed at the time to note also its
cloak, the colour of its horses, the make of its carriage, the look of
the lackey seated behind, and the pattern of the lackey's livery.
Besides, so many carriages were moving swiftly up and down the street
that it would have been impossible to note them all, and equally so to
have stopped any one of them. Meanwhile, as the day was fine and sunny,
the Prospekt was thronged with pedestrians also--a whole kaleidoscopic
stream of ladies was flowing along the pavements, from Police
Headquarters to the Anitchkin Bridge. There one could descry an Aulic
Councillor whom Kovalev knew well. A gentleman he was whom Kovalev
always addressed as "Lieutenant-Colonel," and especially in the presence
of others. And there there went Yaryzhkin, Chief Clerk to the Senate, a
crony who always rendered forfeit at "Boston" on playing an eight. And,
lastly, a like "Major" with Kovalev, a like "Major" with an Assessorship
acquired through Caucasian service, started to beckon to Kovalev with a
finger!
"The devil take him!" was Kovalev's muttered comment. "Hi, cabman! Drive
to the Police Commissioner's direct."
But just when he was entering the drozhki he added:
"No. Go by Ivanovskaia Street."
"Is the Commissioner in?" he asked on crossing the threshold.
"He is not," was the doorkeeper's reply. "He's gone this very moment."
"There's luck for you!"
"Aye," the doorkeeper went on. "Only just a moment ago he was off. If
you'd been a bare half-minute sooner you'd have found him at home,
maybe."
Still holding the handkerchief to his face, Kovalev returned to the cab,
and cried wildly:
"Drive on!"
"Where to, though?" the cabman inquired.
"Oh, straight ahead!"
"'Straight ahead'? But the street divides here. To right, or to left?"
The question caused Kovalov to pause and recollect himself. In his
situation he ought to make his next step an application to the Board of
Discipline--not because the Board was directly connected with the
police, but because its dispositions would be executed more speedily
than in other departments. To seek satisfaction of the the actual
department in which the Nose had declared itself to be serving would be
sheerly unwise, since from the Nose's very replies it was clear that it
was the sort of individual who held nothing sacred, and, in that event,
might lie as unconscionably as it had lied in asserting itself never to
have figured in its proprietor's company. Kovalev, therefore, decided to
seek the Board of Discipline. But just as he was on the point of being
driven thither there occurred to him the thought that the impostor and
knave who had behaved so shamelessly during the late encounter might
even now be using the time to get out of the city, and that in that case
all further pursuit of the rogue would become vain, or at all events
last for, God preserve us! a full month. So at last, left only to the
guidance of Providence, the Major resolved to make for a newspaper
office, and publish a circumstantial description of the Nose in such
good time that anyone meeting with the truant might at once be able
either to restore it to him or to give information as to its
whereabouts. So he not only directed the cabman to the newspaper office,
but, all the way thither, prodded him in the back, and shouted: "Hurry
up, you rascal! Hurry up, you rogue!" whilst the cabman intermittently
responded: "Aye, barin," and nodded, and plucked at the reins of a steed
as shaggy as a spaniel.
The moment that the drozhki halted Kovalev dashed, breathless, into a
small reception-office. There, seated at a table, a grey-headed clerk in
ancient jacket and pair of spectacles was, with pen tucked between lips,
counting sums received in copper.
"Who here takes the advertisements?" Kovalev exclaimed as he entered.
"A-ah! Good day to you."
"And my respects," the grey-headed clerk replied, raising his eyes for
an instant, and then lowering them again to the spread out copper heaps.
"I want you to publish----"
"Pardon--one moment." And the clerk with one hand committed to paper a
figure, and with a finger of the other hand shifted two accounts
markers. Standing beside him with an advertisement in his hands, a
footman in a laced coat, and sufficiently smart to seem to be in service
in an aristocratic mansion, now thought well to display some
knowingness.
"Sir," he said to the clerk, "I do assure you that the puppy is not
worth eight grivni even. At all events _I_ wouldn't give that much for
it. Yet the countess loves it--yes, just loves it, by God! Anyone
wanting it of her will have to pay a hundred rubles. Well, to tell the
truth between you and me, people's tastes differ. Of course, if one's a
sportsman one keeps a setter or a spaniel. And in that case don't you
spare five hundred rubles, or even give a thousand, if the dog is a good
one."
The worthy clerk listened with gravity, yet none the less accomplished a
calculation of the number of letters in the advertisement brought. On
either side there was a group of charwomen, shop assistants,
doorkeepers, and the like. All had similar advertisements in their
hands, with one of the documents to notify that a coachman of good
character was about to be disengaged, and another one to advertise a
koliaska imported from Paris in 1814, and only slightly used since, and
another one a maid-servant of nineteen experienced in laundry work, but
prepared also for other jobs, and another one a sound drozhki save that
a spring was lacking, and another one a grey-dappled, spirited horse of
the age of seventeen, and another one some turnip and radish seed just
received from London, and another one a country house with every
amenity, stabling for two horses, and sufficient space for the laying
out of a fine birch or spruce plantation, and another one some
second-hand footwear, with, added, an invitation to attend the daily
auction sale from eight o'clock to three. The room where the company
thus stood gathered together was small, and its atmosphere confined; but
this closeness, of course, Collegiate Assessor Kovalev never perceived,
for, in addition to his face being muffled in a handkerchief, his nose
was gone, and God only knew its present habitat!
"My dear sir," at last he said impatiently, "allow me to ask you
something: it is a pressing matter."
"One moment, one moment! Two rubles, forty-three kopeks. Yes, presently.
Sixty rubles, four kopeks."
With which the clerk threw the two advertisements concerned towards the
group of charwomen and the rest, and turned to Kovalev.
"Well?" he said. "What do you want?"
"Your pardon," replied Kovalev, "but fraud and knavery has been done. I
still cannot understand the affair, but wish to announce that anyone
returning me the rascal shall receive an adequate reward."
"Your name, if you would be so good?"
"No, no. What can my name matter? I cannot tell it you. I know many
acquaintances such as Madame Chektareva (wife of the State Councillor)
and Pelagea Grigorievna Podtochina (wife of the Staff-Officer), and, the
Lord preserve us, they would learn of the affair at once. So say just `a
Collegiate Assessor,' or, better, `a gentleman ranking as Major.'"
"Has a household serf of yours absconded, then?"
"A household serf of mine? As though even a household serf would
perpetrate such a crime as the present one! No, indeed! It is my nose
that has absconded from me."
"Gospodin Nossov, Gospoding Nossov? Indeed a strange name, that![*] Then
has this Gospodin Nossov robbed you of some money?"
[* Nose is _noss_ in Russian, and Gospodin equivalent to the English
"Mr."]
"I said nose, not Nossov. You are making a mistake. There has
disappeared, goodness knows whither, my nose, my own actual nose.
Presumably it is trying to make a fool of me."
"But how could it so disappear? The matter has something about it which
I do not fully understand."
"I cannot tell you the exact how. The point is that now the nose is
driving about the city, and giving itself out for a State Councillor
--wherefore I beg you to announce that anyone apprehending any such nose
ought at once, in the shortest possible space of time, to return it to
myself. Surely you can judge what it is for me meanwhile to be lacking
such a conspicuous portion of my frame? For a nose is not like a toe
which one can keep inside a boot, and hide the absence of if it is not
there. Besides, every Thurdsay I am due to call upon Madame Chektareva
(wife of the State Councillor): whilst Pelagea Grigorievna Podtochina
(wife of the Staff-Officer, mother of a pretty daughter) also is one of
my closest acquaintances. So, again, judge for yourself how I am
situated at present. In such a condition as this I could not possibly
present myself before the ladies named."
Upon that the clerk became thoughtful: the fact was clear from his
tightly compressed lips alone.
"No," he said at length. "Insert such an announcement I cannot."
"But why not?"
"Because, you see, it might injure the paper's reputation. Imagine if
everyone were to start proclaiming a disappearance of his nose! People
would begin to say that, that--well, that we printed absurdities and
false tales."
