The Nose (The Art of the Novella) by Nikolai Gogol

Author:Nikolai Gogol [Gogol, Nikolai]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781612193199
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2014-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

III

The world is suffused with perfect nonsense. Sometimes it is completely implausible: suddenly, as though nothing out of the ordinary had ever taken place, that same nose, the one that had stomped its boots around town in the rank of Civil Councillor, returned to its place—that is, directly between Major Kovalyov’s two cheeks. It was the 7th of April. On waking, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and suddenly realized: “My nose!” He grabbed it with his hand. “It is, it’s my nose! Haha!” Kovalyov cried out in his joy, and was about to burst into a Cossack dance when Ivan walked in. So he ordered him to run a bath immediately, and while he was bathing he again caught sight of himself in the mirror: the nose! Later, drying himself with a towel, he caught sight again of himself in the mirror: the nose!

“Look, Ivan, I think I have a pimple on my nose,” he said, and meanwhile he was thinking: “Oh, I will cry calamity if Ivan says, ‘Well, sir, no, no pimple—and no nose neither!’ ”

But what Ivan did say was merely, “No, sir, no pimple—a nice, clear nose!”

“Well, all right, God damn it!” the Major said with a snap of his fingers. Just then, the barber Ivan Yakovlevich peeked through the door, but timidly, like a cat that had been beaten for stealing bacon.

“Tell the truth: are your hands clean?” Kovalyov shouted to him from inside.

“They are.”

“Liar!”

“I swear to God, sir.”

“You just be careful, then.”

Kovalyov took a seat. Ivan Yakovlevich laid down a napkin, and in a minute he had, with his brush’s help, transformed his whole cheek and chin into a puff of cream suitable for a businessman’s birthday cake.

“Get a load of that,” Ivan Yakovlevich muttered to himself as he stole a glance at the nose, and then turned Kovalyov’s head to get a look at the other side. At last, just as charily as you might imagine, he raised two fingers to turn it up at the tip. Such was Ivan Yakovlevich’s system.

“Hey now, look what you’re doing!” Kovalyov cried.

Ivan Yakovlevich dropped his hands, stunned and confused as never before. Finally he began tickling under the chin with his razor, and though it was rather awkward and difficult to shave him without getting a grip on the smelling part of the body, he somehow managed to get his rough thumb across Kovalyov’s cheek and lower jaw, and finally overcame all obstacles and shaved him.

When everything was ready, Kovalyov hurried to get dressed, hired a coach, and drove straight for the confectioner’s. Walking in, he shouted before he had even reached the counter, “Boy, a cup of chocolate!” and he immediately walked over to the mirror: the nose was still on! He happily turned around and began putting on a little act for his own amusement, squinting his eyes in the direction of two soldiers, one of them with a nose no bigger than the buttons on his waistcoat. After that,

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