his arms slightly, 'I confess, after such offensive remarks on your part, I have nothing to add…' and left.
He returned home scarcely feeling his legs under him. It was already dark. Dismal or extremely vile his apartment seemed to him after this whole unsuccessful search. Going into the front room, he saw his lackey Ivan lying on his back on the soiled leather sofa, spitting at the ceiling and hitting the same spot quite successfully. The man's indifference infuriated him; he gave him a whack on the forehead with his hat, adding, 'You pig, you're always busy with stupidities!'
Ivan suddenly jumped up from his place and rushed to help him off with his cape.
Going into his bedroom, the major, weary and woeful, threw himself into an armchair and finally, after several sighs, said:
'My God! my God! Why this misfortune? If I lacked an arm or a leg, it would still be better; if I lacked ears, it would be bad, but still more bearable; but lacking a nose, a man is devil knows what: not a bird, not a citizen-just take and chuck him out the window! And if it had been cut off in war or a duel, or if I'd caused it myself-but it vanished for no reason, vanished for nothing, nothing at all!… Only, no, it can't be,' he added, after reflecting briefly.
'It's incredible that a nose should vanish, simply incredible. I must be dreaming, or just imagining it; maybe, by mistake somehow, instead of water I drank the vodka I use to pat my chin after shaving. That fool Ivan didn't take it away, and I must have downed it.'
To make absolutely sure that he was not drunk, the major pinched himself so painfully that he cried out. This pain completely reassured him that he was acting and living in a waking state. He slowly approached the mirror and at first closed his eyes, thinking that the nose might somehow show up where it ought to be; but he jumped back at that same moment, saying:
'What a lampoonish look!'
This was indeed incomprehensible. If it had been a button, a silver spoon, a watch, or something of the sort, that had vanished- but to vanish, and who was it that vanished? and what's more, in his own apartment!… Major Kovalev, having put all the circumstances together, supposed it would hardly be unlikely if the blame were placed on none other than Podtochina, the staff officer's wife, who wished him to marry her daughter. He himself enjoyed dallying with her, but kept avoiding a final settlement. And when the mother announced to him directly that she wanted to give him the girl's hand, he quiedy eased off with his compliments, saying that he was still young and had to serve some five years more, until he turned exactly forty-two. And therefore the staff officer's wife, probably in revenge, decided to put a spell on him, and to that end hired some sorceress, because it was by no means possible to suppose that the nose had been cut off; no one had come into his room; and the barber Ivan Yakovlevich had shaved him on Wednesday, and the nose had been there for the whole of Wednesday, and even all day Thursday-he remembered that and knew it very well; besides, he would have felt the pain, and the wound undoubtedly could not have healed so quickly and become smooth as a pancake. He made plans in his head: to formally summon the staff officer's wife to court, or to go to her in person and expose her. His reflections were interrupted by the light flickering through all the chinks in the door, signifying that Ivan had already lighted a candle in the front room. Soon Ivan himself appeared, carrying it before him and brightly lighting up the whole bedroom. Kovalev's first impulse was to grab the handkerchief and cover the place where his nose had been just the day before, so that the stupid man would not actually start gaping, seeing such an oddity in his master.
Ivan had just gone back to his closet when an unfamiliar voice came from the front room, saying:
'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.
