[adapted]

by
Nikolai Gogol

I

On the 25th of March, 18—, something very strange happened in St. Petersburg. On Ascension Avenue, there lived a barber named Ivan Jakovlevitch. He had lost his last name, and on his shop sign, there was a picture of a man’s head with one soapy cheek. The only words on the sign said, “Blood-letting done here.”

On this morning, he woke up pretty early. He smelled fresh-baked bread and sat up a little in bed. He saw his wife, who loved coffee, taking fresh bread out of the oven.

“Today, Prasskovna Ossipovna,” he said, “I don’t want any coffee; I would like some fresh bread with onions.”

“That fool can eat just bread for all I care,” said his wife to herself. “Then I can have the coffee.” And she threw a loaf of bread onto the table.

To be polite, Ivan Jakovlevitch put on a coat over his shirt, sat down at the table, shook out some salt, got two onions ready, made a serious face, and began to cut the bread. After he had cut the loaf in half, he looked down—and was very surprised to see something white inside it. He carefully poked around it with his knife and touched it with his finger.

“It’s stuck in there tight!” he whispered into his beard. “What could it be?”

He stuck his finger in and pulled out—a nose!

Ivan Jakovlevitch first dropped his hands in shock. Then he rubbed his eyes and started to feel it. A nose—an actual nose! And even more, it looked like the nose of someone he knew! Ivan’s face showed fear and worry. But those feelings were nothing compared to how disgusted his wife felt.

“Whose nose have you cut off, you monster?” she shouted, her face red with anger. “You scoundrel! You drunkard! I will go straight to the police! You awful man! Many of your customers have told me that when you shave them, you hold their noses so tight they can hardly sit still!”

But Ivan Jakovlevitch felt more dead than alive. He knew right away that this nose could only belong to Kovaloff, a man on the town committee whom he shaved every Sunday and Wednesday.

“Wait, Prasskovna Ossipovna! I’ll wrap it in a piece of cloth and put it in the corner. It can stay there for now. Later, I’ll take it away.”

“No, not there! Do you think I’ll let a cut-off nose stay in my room? You only know how to sharpen a razor. You don’t understand what it means to be a proper man. You lazy good-for-nothing! You fool! Do you want me to be the one blamed at the police station? Oh, you soap-slinger! You blockhead! Take it away—take it anywhere! Just don’t let me see it again!”

Ivan Jakovlevitch stood there, very confused. He thought and thought, but didn’t know what to think.

“The devil only knows how this happened!” he said at last, scratching behind his ear. “I don’t know if I came home drunk last night or not. But this must be something really strange. A loaf is something baked, and a nose is something different. I don’t understand this at all.” And Ivan Jakovlevitch said no more. The idea that the police might catch him with a nose he shouldn’t have made him panic. He started imagining himself wearing a red collar with shiny silver and a sword—and he began shaking all over.

Finally, he got dressed, and while his wife shouted angrily at him, he wrapped the nose in a cloth and went out into the street.

He wanted to get rid of it somewhere—maybe leave it at someone’s door, or in a public square, or down a narrow street. But just then, to make things worse, he ran into someone he knew, who started asking him questions. “Hey, Ivan Jakovlevitch! Who are you going to shave so early this morning?” and so on. Because of that, he couldn’t find a good time to drop the nose. Later he did let it fall, but a guard saw it and came over with his big weapon.

“Watch out! You dropped something!” the guard said, and Ivan Jakovlevitch had to pick it up and put it back in his pocket.

He began to feel hopeless. It got even worse as the streets filled up with more people and the shops started to open. At last, he decided to go to Isaac Bridge. Maybe there, he could throw the nose into the river Neva.

But I feel a little bad that I haven’t yet said more about Ivan Jakovlevitch, who was a good man in many ways.

Like many honest Russian tradesmen, Ivan Jakovlevitch was a heavy drinker. And although he shaved other people’s faces every day, his own face was never shaved. His coat (he never wore an overcoat) was covered in spots. It had once been black, but had turned brownish-yellow. The collar was very shiny, and where three buttons should have been, there were only loose threads.

Ivan Jakovlevitch was a very rude man, and when Kovaloff, the member of the Municipal Committee, would say while being shaved, “Your hands always smell, Ivan Jakovlevitch!”—he would answer, “What do they smell of?” “I don’t know, my friend, but they smell very strong.” Then Ivan Jakovlevitch would take a pinch of snuff, and to get back at him, he would soap Kovaloff’s cheek, upper lip, behind the ears, the chin—everywhere.

Now this strange man stood on Isaac Bridge. First, he looked around. Then he leaned on the railing of the bridge, as if he were just looking down to see how many fish were in the water, and quietly threw the nose—still wrapped in cloth—into the river. He felt like a huge weight had been taken off his shoulders, and he laughed with relief. But instead of going to shave any more people, he turned and walked toward a building with a sign that said “Teas served here.” He wanted a glass of punch. Just then, at the other end of the bridge, he saw a police inspector. The man looked very serious—he had long sideburns, a three-cornered hat, and a sword hanging at his side. Ivan Jakovlevitch almost fainted. But the police inspector waved at him and said, “Come here, my dear sir.”

Ivan Jakovlevitch, knowing how to act like a polite man, quickly took off his hat, walked toward the police inspector, and said, “I hope you are feeling well.”

“Don’t worry about my health. Tell me, my friend, why were you standing on the bridge?”

“By heaven, kind sir, I was on my way to my customers and just looked down to see if the river was flowing fast.”

“That’s a lie! You won’t get away with that. Tell the truth.”

“I would be happy to shave Your Honor two or even three times a week for free,” said Ivan Jakovlevitch.

“No, my friend, don’t bother! Three barbers already shave me, and they think it a great honor that I let them show their skills. Now then, speak up! What were you doing there?”

Ivan Jakovlevitch turned pale. But here the strange story becomes unclear, and no one knows what happened next.

II

Kovaloff, the member of the Municipal Committee, woke up quite early that morning. As usual, he made a humming sound—“Brr! Brr!”—with his lips, though he didn’t know why. He stretched and told his servant to hand him the small mirror from the table. He wanted to check a heat-boil that had appeared on his nose the night before. But to his great surprise, instead of his nose, there was just smooth skin on his face. Shocked and scared, he asked for some water and rubbed his eyes with a towel. But it was true—his nose was gone!

He jumped out of bed and shook himself hard. Still no nose! He quickly got dressed and went right away to the police superintendent.

But before we go on, we should tell the reader a little more about Kovaloff, so you can understand what kind of man this Municipal Committee member really was. These committee-men, who get their title by earning certificates of education, are not the same as those who are appointed in the Caucasus region—they are a different kind.

Kovaloff had been a Caucasian committee-man two years ago, and he still remembered that. To make himself sound more important, he never called himself a “committee-man,” but always said “Major.”

“Listen, my dear,” he would say to an old woman selling shirt-fronts in the street, “go to my house on Sadovaia Street and ask, ‘Does Major Kovaloff live here?’ Any child can show you where it is.”

So, we will now call him Major Kovaloff.

He liked to walk every day on Neffsky Avenue. His shirt collar was always very clean and stiff. He had whiskers like the kind worn by governors, architects, and army doctors—in short, men with full, red cheeks who play a good game of cards. These whiskers grew straight across the cheeks toward the nose.

Major Kovaloff wore several seal-rings. Some had family symbols carved on them, and others had the names of the days of the week. He had come to St. Petersburg hoping to get a job that matched his rank—maybe even to become vice-governor of a province. But he was also ready to accept a smaller job, like a clerk in a government office. He was also thinking about getting married, but only to a woman who had a dowry of two hundred thousand roubles.

So, you can imagine how he felt when, instead of a nice, even nose, he found a big, flat space in the middle of his face.

To make things worse, there were no carriages (called droshkys) on the street, so he had to walk. He wrapped himself in his coat and held a handkerchief over his face as if his nose was bleeding. “Maybe I’m just imagining things,” he thought. “A nose can’t just fall off like that for no reason.” To check, he went into a pastry shop to look in a mirror.

Luckily, there were no customers in the shop. Only a few young workers were cleaning up and putting the chairs and tables in order. Others with sleepy faces were bringing in fresh cakes, and yesterday’s newspapers with coffee stains were still lying around.

“Thank goodness no one’s here!” he thought. “Now I can take my time and look.”

He walked carefully over to a mirror and looked at himself.

“What a horrible face!” he said, and spit in disgust. “If there were at least something there instead of a nose… but there’s nothing at all!”

He bit his lips in frustration, left the pastry shop, and decided—not like he usually did—not to look at anyone or smile as he walked. Suddenly he stopped, frozen in place, in front of a doorway where something very strange happened. A carriage came up to the entrance. The door opened, and a man in uniform stepped out and went quickly up the steps. Kovaloff was shocked and scared when he saw that the man was… his own nose!

At this unbelievable sight, the world seemed to spin around him. He felt like he could hardly stand. But even though he was shaking like he had a fever, he decided to wait and watch until the nose came back to the carriage. About two minutes later, the nose did come back out. It was wearing a fancy uniform with gold trim, a stiff, high collar, yellowish pants, and a sword at its side. Its hat had a big feather, showing that it had the high rank of a state-councillor. It was clear the nose was making official visits. It looked around, told the coachman “Drive on,” and got back into the carriage, which rolled away.

Poor Kovaloff was close to losing his mind. He didn’t know what to think about this strange event. How could it be that the nose, which had been on his face just yesterday, and couldn’t walk or ride a carriage, was now wearing a uniform? He ran after the carriage, which luckily had stopped not far away in front of the Grand Bazar in Moscow. He rushed over and pushed through a crowd of poor women with their heads wrapped up in cloths, leaving just holes for their eyes—women he had often laughed at before.

There weren’t many people outside the Bazar. Kovaloff was so shaken up he didn’t know what to do. He looked everywhere for the nose. At last, he saw it standing in front of a shop. It looked like it was sunk deep into its stiff collar and was carefully examining the items for sale.

“How can I get close to it?” Kovaloff thought. “Everything about it—the uniform, the hat—shows that it’s a state-councillor. How in the world did that happen?”

He started to cough quietly nearby, hoping the nose would notice him, but the nose didn’t pay any attention.

“Sir,” said Kovaloff at last, getting up his courage, “excuse me, sir.”

“What do you want?” asked the nose, turning around.

“Well, it just seems very strange to me, sir. You must know where you belong… and yet I find you here! Think about it yourself.”