Kovaloff, the member of the Municipal Committee, awoke fairly early that morning, and made a
droning noise—" Brr ! Brr ! "—through his lips, as he always did, though he could not say why. He
stretched himself, and told his valet to give him a little mirror which was on the table. He wished to
look at the heat-boil which had appeared on his nose the previous evening; but to his great
astonishment, he saw that instead of his nose he had a perfectly smooth vacancy in his face.
Thoroughly alarmed, he ordered some water to be brought, and rubbed his eyes with a towel. Sure
enough, he had no longer a nose! Then he sprang out of bed, and shook himself violently ! No, no nose
any more ! He dressed himself and went at once to the police superintendent.
But before proceeding further, we must certainly give the reader some information about
Kovaloff, so that he may know what sort of a man this member of the Municipal Committee really was.
These committee-men, who obtain that title by means of certificates of learning, must not be
compared with the committee-men appointed for the Caucasus district, who are of quite a different
kind. The learned committee man—but Russia is such a wonderful country that when one committeeman is spoken of all the others from Eiga to Kamschatka refer it to themselves. The same is also true
of all other titled officials. Kovaloff had been a Caucasian committee-man two years previously, and could not forget that he had occupied that position; but in order to enhance his own importance, he
never called himself "committee-man" but "Major."
"Listen, my dear," he used to say when he met an old woman in the street who sold shirtfronts;
"go to my house in Sadovaia Street and ask 'Does Major Kovaloff live here?' Any child can tell you
where it is."
Accordingly we will call him for the future Major Kovaloff. It was his custom to take a daily walk
on the Neffsky Avenue. The collar of his shirt was always remarkably clean and stiff. He wore the same
style of whiskers as those that are worn by governors of districts, architects, and regimental doctors ;
in short, all those who have full red cheeks and play a good game of whist. These whiskers grow
straight across the cheek towards the nose.
Major Kovaloff wore a number of seals, on some of which were engraved armorial bearings, and
others the names of the days of the week. He had come to St Petersburg with the view of obtaining
some position corresponding to his rank, if possible that of vice-governor of a province ; but he was
prepared to be content with that of a bailiff in some department or other. He was, moreover, not
disinclined to marry, but only such a lady who could bring with her a dowry of two hundred thousand
roubles. Accordingly, the reader can judge for himself what his sensations were when he found in his
face, instead of a fairly symmetrical nose, a broad, flat vacancy.
To increase his misfortune, not a single droshky was to be seen in the street, and so he was
obliged to proceed on foot. He wrapped himself up in his cloak, and held his handkerchief to his face
as though his nose bled. "But perhaps it is all only my imagination ; it is impossible that a nose should
drop off in such a silly way," he thought, and stepped into a confectioner's shop in order to look into
the mirror.
Fortunately no customer was in the shop; only small shop-boys were cleaning it out, and
putting chairs and tables straight. Others with sleepy faces were carrying fresh cakes on trays, and
yesterday's newspapers stained with coffee were still lying about. "Thank God no one is here!" he said
to himself. "Now I can look at myself leisurely."
He stepped gingerly up to a mirror and looked.
" What an infernal face !" he exclaimed, and spat with disgust. "If there were only something
there instead of the nose, but there is absolutely nothing."
He bit his lips with vexation, left the confectioner's, and resolved, quite contrary to his habit,
neither to look nor smile at anyone on the street. Suddenly he halted as if rooted to the spot before a
door, where something extraordinary happened. A carriage drew up at the entrance ; the carriage door
was opened, and a gentleman in uniform came out and hurried up the steps. How great was Kovaloff's
terror and astonishment when he saw that it was his own nose ! The nose looked at the Major and wrinkled its forehead. "There you are wrong, respected sir; I
am myself. Besides, there can be no close relations between us. To judge by the buttons of your
uniform, you must be in quite a different department to mine." So saying, the nose turned away.
Kovaloff was completely puzzled; he did not know what to do, and still less what to think. At
this moment he heard the pleasant rustling of a lady's dress, and there approached an elderly lady
wearing a quantity of lace, and by her side her graceful daughter in a white dress which set off her
slender figure to advantage, and wearing a light straw hat. Behind the ladies marched a tall lackey
with long whiskers.
Kovaloff advanced a few steps, adjusted his cambric collar, arranged his seals which hung by a
little gold chain, and with smiling face fixed his eyes on the graceful lady, who bowed lightly like a
spring flower, and raised to her brow her little white hand with transparent fingers. He smiled still
more when he spied under the brim of her hat her little round chin, and part of her cheek faintly
tinted with rose-colour. But suddenly he sprang back as though he had been scorched. He
remembered that he had nothing but an absolute blank in place of a nose, and tears started to his eyes.
He turned round in order to tell the gentleman in uniform that he was only a state-councillor in
appearance, but really a scoundrel and a rascal, and nothing else but his own nose; but the nose was
no longer there. He had had time to go, doubtless in order to continue his visits.
His disappearance plunged Kovaloff into despair. He went back and stood for a moment under
a colonnade, looking round him on all sides in hope of perceiving the nose somewhere. He
remembered very well that it wore a hat with a plume in it and a gold-embroidered uniform; but he
had not noticed the shape of the cloak, nor the colour of the carriages and the horses, nor even
whether a lackey stood behind it, and, if so, what sort of livery he wore. Moreover, so many carriages
were passing that it would have been difficult to recognise one, and even if he had done so, there
would have been no means of stopping it.
The day was fine and sunny. An immense crowd was passing to and fro in the Neffsky Avenue; a
variegated stream of ladies flowed along the pavement. There was his acquaintance, the Privy
Councillor, whom he was accustomed to style "General," especially when strangers were present.
There was Iarygin, his intimate friend who always lost in the evenings at whist; and there another
Major, who had obtained the rank of committee-man in the Caucasus, beckoned to him.
"Go to the deuce !" said Kovaloff sotto voce. ' ' Hi ! coachman, drive me straight to the
superintendent of police." So saying, he got into a droshky and continued to shout all the time to the
coachman "Drive hard! "
"Is the police superintendent at home?" he asked on entering the front hall.
"No, sir," answered the porter," he has just gone out."
"Ah, just as I thoughtYes," continued the porter, "he has only just gone out; if you had been a moment earlier you
would perhaps have caught him."
Kovaloff, still holding his handkerchief to his face, re-entered the droshky and cried in a
despairing voice "Drive on !
""Where?" asked the coachman.
"Straight on!"
"But how? There are cross-roads here. Shall I go to the right or the left?"
This question made Kovaloff: reflect. In his situation it was necessary to have recourse to the
police ; not because the affair had anything to do with them directly but because they acted more
promptly than other authorities. As for demanding any explanation from the department to which the
nose claimed to belong, it would, he felt, be useless, for the answers of that gentleman showed that he
regarded nothing as sacred, and he might just as likely have lied in this matter as in saying that he had
never seen Kovaloff.
But just as he was about to order the coachman to drive to the police-station, the idea occurred
to him that this rascally scoundrel who, at their first meeting, had behaved so disloyally towards him,
might, profiting by the delay, quit the city secretly ; and then all his searching would be in vain, or
might last over a whole month. Finally, as though visited with a heavenly inspiration, he resolved to go
directly to an advertisement office, and to advertise the loss of his nose, giving all its distinctive
characteristics in detail, so that anyone who found it might bring it at once to him, or at any rate
inform him where it lived. Having decided on this course, he ordered the coachman to drive to the
advertisement office, and all the way he continued to punch him in the back—"Quick, scoundrel !
quick !"
"Yes, sir !" answered the coachman, lashing his shaggy horse with the reins.
At last they arrived, and Kovaloff, out of breath, rushed into a little room where a grey haired
official, in an old coat and with spectacles on his nose, sat at a table holding his pen between his teeth,
counting a heap of copper coins.
"Who takes in the advertisements here?" exclaimed Kovaloff.
"At your service, sir," answered the grey haired functionary, looking up and then fastening his
eyes again on the heap of coins before him.
"I wish to place an advertisement in your paper—"
"Have the kindness to wait a minute," answered the official, putting down figures on paper with
one hand, and with the other moving two balls on his calculating-frame.
A lackey, whose silver-laced coat showed that he served in one of the houses of the nobility, was
standing by the table with a note in his hand, and speaking in a lively tone, by way of showing himself sociable. " Would you believe it, sir, this little dog is really not worth twenty-four kopecks, and for my
own part I would not give a farthing for it; but the countess is quite gone upon it, and offers a hundred
roubles' reward to anyone who finds it. To tell you the truth, the tastes of these people are very
different from ours; they don't mind giving five hundred or a thousand roubles for a poodle or a
pointer, provided it be a good one."
The official listened with a serious air while counting the number of letters contained in the
note. At either side of the table stood a number of housekeepers, clerks and porters, carrying notes.
The writer of one wished to sell a barouche, which had been brought from Paris in 1814 and had been
very little used; others wanted to dispose of a strong droshky which wanted one spring, a spirited
horse seventeen years old, and so on. The room where these people were collected was very small, and
the air was very close ; but Kovaloff was not affected by it, for he had covered his face with a
handkerchief, and because his nose itself was heaven knew where.
"Sir, allow me to ask you—I am in a great hurry," he said at last impatiently.
"In a moment ! In a moment ! Two roubles, twenty-four kopecks—one minute ! One rouble,
sixty-four kopecks !" said the grey-haired official, throwing their notes back to the housekeepers and
porters. " What do you wish?" he said, turning to Kovaloff.
"I wish—" answered the latter, "I have just been swindled and cheated, and I cannot get hold of
the perpetrator. I only want you to insert an advertisement to say that whoever brings this scoundrel
to me will be well rewarded."
" What is your name, please?
"Why do you want my name? I have many lady friends—Madame Tchektyriev, wife of a statecouncillor, Madame Podtotchina, wife of a Colonel. Heaven forbid that they should get to hear of it.
You can simply write 'committeeman' or, better, 'Major.'"
"And the man who has run away is your serf."
"Serf! If he was, it would not be such a great swindle ! It is the nose which has absconded."
"H'm! What a strange name. And this Mr Nose has stolen from you a considerable sum?"
"Mr Nose! Ah, you don't understand me! It is my own nose which has gone, I don't know where.
The devil has played a trick on me."
"How has it disappeared? I don't understand."
"I can't tell you how, but the important point is that now it walks about the city itself a state
councillor. That is why I want you to advertise that whoever gets hold of it should bring it as soon as
possible to me. Consider; how can I live without such a prominent part of my body? It is not as if it
were merely a little toe ; I would only have to put my foot in my boot and no one would notice its
absence. Every Thursday I call on the wife of M. Tchektyriev, the state councillor; Madame Podtotchina, a Colonel's wife who has a very pretty daughter, is one of my acquaintances; and what
am I to do now? I cannot appear before them like this."
The official compressed his lips and reflected. "No, I cannot insert an advertisement like that,"
he said after a long pause.
"What! Why not?"
"Because it might compromise the paper. Suppose everyone could advertise that his nose was
lost. People already say that all sorts of nonsense and lies are inserted."
"But this is not nonsense ! There is nothing of that sort in my case."
"You think so? Listen a minute. Last week there was a case very like it. An official came, just as
you have done, bringing an advertisement for the insertion of which he paid two roubles, sixty-three
kopecks; and this advertisement simply announced the loss of a black-haired poodle. There did not
seem to be anything out of the way in it, but it was really a satire ; by the poodle was meant the cashier
of some establishment or other."
"But I am not talking of a poodle, but my own nose; i.e. almost myself."
"No, I cannot insert your advertisement."
"But my nose really has disappeared !"
"That is a matter for a doctor. There are said to be people who can provide you with any kind of
nose you like. But I see that you are a witty man, and like to have your little joke."
"But I swear to you on my word of honour. Look at my face yourself."
"Why put yourself out?" continued the official, taking a pinch of snuff." All the same, if you
don't mind," he added with a touch of curiosity, "I should like to have a look at it."
The committee-man removed the handkerchief from before his face.
"It certainly does look odd," said the official. "It is perfectly flat like a freshly fried pancake. It is
hardly credible."
"Very well. Are you going to hesitate any more? You see it is impossible to refuse to advertise
my loss. I shall be particularly obliged to you, and I shall be glad that this incident has procured me
the pleasure of making your acquaintance." The Major, we see, did not even shrink from a slight
humiliation.
"It certainly is not difficult to advertise it," replied the official;" but I don't see what good it
would do you. However, if you lay so much stress on it, you should apply to someone who has a skilful
pen, so that he may describe it as a curious, natural freak, and publish the article in the Northern Bee"
(here he took another pinch) "for the benefit of youthful readers (he wiped his nose), "or simply as a
matter worthy of arousing public curiosity The committee-man felt completely discouraged. He let his eyes fall absent-mindedly on a daily
paper in which theatrical performances were advertised. Eeading there the name of an actress whom
he knew to be pretty, he involuntarily smiled, and his hand sought his pocket to see if he had a blue
ticket—for in Kovaloffs opinion superior officers like himself should not take a lesser-priced seat; but
the thought of his lost nose suddenly spoilt everything.
The official himself seemed touched at his difficult position. Desiring to console him, he tried to
express his sympathy by a few polite words. "I much regret," he said, "your extraordinary mishap. Will
you not try a pinch of snuff? It clears the head, banishes depression, and is a good preventive against
haemorroids."
So saying, he reached his snuff-box out to Kovaloff, skilfully concealing at the same time the
cover, which was adorned with the portrait of some lady or other.
This act, quite innocent in itself, exasperated Kovaloff. "I don't understand what you find to joke
about in the matter," he exclaimed angrily. "Don't you see that I lack precisely the essential feature for
taking snuff? The devil take your snuff-box. I don't want to look at snuff now, not even the best,
certainly not your vile stuff!"
So saying, he left the advertisement office in a state of profound irritation, and went to the
commissary of police. He arrived just as this dignitary was reclining on his couch, and saying to
himself with a sigh of satisfaction, "Yes, I shall make a nice little sum out of that."
It might be expected, therefore, that the committee-man's visit would be quite inopportune.
This police commissary was a great patron of all the arts and industries; but what he liked above
everything else was a cheque. "It is a thing," he used to say, "to which it is not easy to find an
equivalent ; it requires no food, it does not take up much room, it stays in one's pocket, and if it falls, it
is not broken."
The commissary accorded Kovaloff a fairly frigid reception, saying that the afternoon was not
the best time to come with a case, that nature required one to rest a little after eating (this showed the
committee-man that the commissary was acquainted with the aphorisms of the ancient sages), and
that respectable people did not have their noses stolen.
The last allusion was too direct. We must remember that Kovaloff was a very sensitive man. He
did not mind anything said against him as an individual, but he could not endure any reflection on his
rank or social position. He even believed that in comedies one might allow attacks on junior officers,
but never on their seniors.
The commissary's reception of him hurt his feelings so much that he raised his head proudly,
and said with dignity, "After such insulting expressions on your part, I have nothing more to say." And
he left the place.