The Nose and Other Stories

by Nikolai Gogol

  I put on my old overcoat and took my umbrella, because it was pouring rain. There was no one on the streets; all I saw were peasant women covering their heads with the hems of their skirts, and Russian merchants under umbrellas, and errand boys. Of the nobility the only person I saw was a civil servant like me. I saw him at the crossroads. As soon as I saw him, I immediately said to myself: “Hey! No, my dear man, you’re not going to the Department, you’re hurrying after that woman who’s running ahead of you, and you’re looking at her little feet.” What knaves we civil servants are! Honest to God, no officer has anything on us. If some girl in a little hat walks by, one of our kind will hook onto her without fail. While I was thinking this, I saw a coach rolling up to the store I was walking by. I recognized it right away: It was our director’s coach. “But he has no reason to go to a store,” I thought, “It’s probably his daughter.” I pressed up against the wall. A footman opened the doors, and she flitted out of the coach like a little bird. How she looked right and left, how she flashed her eyebrows and eyes… My dear God! I’m ruined, utterly ruined. And why should she go out riding in such rainy weather? Now just try and tell me that women don’t have a great passion for all those rags. She didn’t recognize me, and I tried to wrap myself up as much as possible, because I was wearing a very soiled overcoat, an old-fashioned one to boot. Now people are wearing cloaks with long collars, but my coat had short ones, one on top of the other; and the cloth was not at all decatized.3

  Her little doggie, who hadn’t managed to jump into the store, was left on the street. I know this little doggie. Her name is Madgie. I had been there barely a minute when I suddenly heard a thin little voice: “Hi there, Madgie!” Well, I’ll be! Who is that talking? I looked around and saw two ladies walking under an umbrella: one old, one young; but they had already passed by, and next to me again rang out: “Shame on you, Madgie!” What the devil! I saw Madgie exchanging sniffs with a little doggie who was walking behind the ladies. “Hey!” I said to myself, “this can’t be, am I drunk or something? But that only rarely happens to me.”—“No, Fidèle, you’re quite wrong”—I saw Madgie say it myself—“I was, arf, arf! I was, arf, arf, arf! very ill.” Oh, you little doggie! I confess I was quite amazed to hear her speaking in a human fashion. But later, when I thought it all through carefully, I stopped being amazed. In reality, many such examples have happened in the world before. They say that in England a fish swam out and said two words in such a strange language that scientists have been trying for three years to determine what it is and to this day have not discovered anything. I also read in the newspapers about two cows who came into a shop and asked for a pound of tea.4 But I confess I was much more amazed when Madgie said, “I wrote to you, Fidèle; Polkan probably didn’t bring my letter!” May I not receive my salary! I have never in my life heard that a dog could write.5 Only a nobleman can write correctly. It’s true, there are a few merchant’s clerks and even serfs who can sometimes write a little bit; but their writing is mechanical for the most part: no commas, no periods, no style.

  This amazed me. I confess, recently I’ve begun to sometimes hear and see things that no one else has ever seen or heard. “Let me just follow this little doggie,” I said to myself, “and find out what she is and what she thinks.”

  I opened my umbrella and set off after the two ladies. They crossed over to Gorokhovaya Street, turned into Meshchanskaya Street, from there into Stolyarnaya Street, finally they went toward the Kokushkin Bridge and stopped in front of a large building. “I know that building,” I said to myself. “That’s Zverkov’s House.” What a big, cumbersome building! All kinds of folk live there: so many cooks, so many newcomers! And so many of my sort, civil servants—they’re like dogs, sitting one on top of another. I have a good friend who lives there, who plays the trumpet very well. The ladies went up to the fifth floor.6 “Good,” I thought, “I won’t go there now, but I’ll note the place and will not fail to make use of it at the first opportunity.”

  October 4.

  Today is Wednesday, and therefore I was working in our supervisor’s private study. I purposely came early, sat down, and sharpened all the quill pens. Our director must be a very intelligent man. His whole study is filled with bookcases full of books. I read the titles of some of them. It’s all erudition, such erudition that there’s no access for people like me: It’s all either in French or in German. And just look into his face. Whew, what importance shines in his eyes! I have never once heard him say a superfluous word. Except perhaps when you give him a paper, he’ll ask: “What’s it like outside?”—“It’s wet out, Your Excellency!” No, there’s no comparing him with people like me! A statesman. I notice, however, that he has a particular liking for me. If his daughter too… Oh, canaillerie!… It’s nothing, it’s nothing, silence!7

  I started reading the Bee. What a stupid folk the French are! What is it that they want? Honest to God, they should take them all and flog them with birch rods! In the same paper I read a very pleasant depiction of a ball, described by a Kursk landowner. Kursk landowners write very well.8 After this I noticed that it had already struck half past twelve, and our boss hadn’t come out of his bedroom. But at around one thirty, an event occurred that no pen could describe. The door opened, I thought it was the director, and I jumped up from the chair with some papers; but it was she, she herself! Saints alive, how she was dressed! The dress she was wearing was as white as a swan! Whew, how sumptuous! And the look she gave: the sun, honest to God, the sun! She bowed and said: “Has Papá not been here?” Oh, my, my! What a voice! A canary, truly, a canary! “Your Excellency,” I wanted to say, “do not give the order to execute me, but if you want to execute me, then execute me with your own little hand, my general.” But damn it, my tongue refused to obey me, and I said only: “He has not, madam.” She looked at me, at the books, and dropped her kerchief. I rushed headlong, slipped on the damned parquet floor and very nearly unstuck my nose from my face, but I caught myself and retrieved the kerchief. Oh, Holy Ones, what a kerchief! So fine, made of cambric—ambergris, perfect ambergris! It simply breathes General-hood. She thanked me and just barely grinned, so that her sugary little lips almost didn’t move, and then she went out. I sat there for another hour, when suddenly a footman came and said: “Go home, Aksenty Ivanovich, the master has left the house.” I cannot abide the society of footmen. They’re always lounging around in the anteroom, and they can never be bothered even to nod. And that’s not all: once one of those knaves took it into his head to offer me snuff without getting up from his seat. Do you have any idea, you stupid lackey, that I am a civil servant, I am of noble descent. But I took my hat and put my overcoat on myself, because these gentlemen will never give you your hat, and I left. At home I mostly just lay on my bed. Then I copied out some very good lines of verse: “An hour passed without my sweetie, / I thought a year had passed instead; / My life is hateful, yes, indeedy, / Sometimes I think I’m better dead.” Pushkin must have written it.9 In the evening I wrapped myself up in my overcoat, walked to Her Excellency’s front entrance, and waited a long time for her to come out and get in her coach, so that I could see her one more little time—but no, she didn’t come out.

  November 6.

  The head of our section made me furious. When I arrived at the Department, he called me over and started talking to me like this: “Now please tell me, what are you doing?”—“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m not doing anything,” I replied. “Well, you just think things over! After all, you’re over forty now—it’s time to get some sense into your head. What are you imagining? You think I don’t know all your pranks? You’re dangling after the director’s daughter! Well, just look at yourself, just think, what are you? You’re a zero, nothing more. You don’t have a penny to your name. Just look in the mirror at your face, you don’t have a chance in the world!” Damn it, he thinks just because his face looks like an apothecary’s vial, and he has a wisp of hair on his head that’s curled into a forelock, and
he holds it upright and smears it with some kind of “Rosette” pomade, because of all that he thinks that he’s the only one who can do anything. I understand, I understand why he’s so mad at me. He’s envious; perhaps he saw some signs of good favor that were rendered to me preferentially. I spit on him! What a big deal, to be a court councillor! He’s hung a gold chain on his watch, he orders boots that cost thirty rubles a pair—damn him to hell! What am I, a commoner, a tailor, or a noncommissioned officer’s child? I am a nobleman. I can earn a good rank myself. I’m only forty-two years old—that’s the time when your career gets going in earnest. Just you wait, my friend! I’ll get to be a colonel, too, and maybe, God willing, something even bigger. I’ll make myself a reputation even better than yours. How did you get it into your head that there are no decent people besides yourself? Give me a Rutsch tailcoat of a fashionable cut and let me tie on a necktie just like yours—then you won’t be able to hold a candle to me.10 I don’t have any affluence—that’s the problem.

  November 8.

  I went to the theater. They were doing the Russian idiot Filatka. I laughed a lot. They also did a vaudeville with funny verses about attorneys, especially a certain collegiate registrar; they were written with great licentiousness, so that I was amazed that the censor had passed them, and about merchants they said right out that they deceive people and that their sons go on benders and try to become noblemen.11 There was also a very funny couplet about journalists, that they love to abuse everything and that the author asks the public to defend him. Writers are writing very funny plays these days. I love to go to the theater. As soon as you have half a kopeck in your pocket, you just can’t help going. Some of my fellow civil servants are such pigs, though. They won’t go to the theater at all, the peasants; maybe only if you give them a free ticket. One actress sang so well. I recalled the other one… eh, canaillerie!… it’s nothing, it’s nothing… silence.

  November 9.

  At eight o’clock I set off for the Department. The head of our section pretended that he didn’t notice me coming in. I also pretended that there was nothing between us. I looked over some papers and collated them. I left at four o’clock. I went by the director’s apartment, but no one was to be seen. After dinner I mostly just lay on my bed.

  November 11.

  Today I was sitting in our director’s private study, I sharpened twenty-three quill pens for him and for her, ay! ay!… for Her Excellency I sharpened four pens. He really likes to have a lot of pens standing ready. Ooh! The head he must have! He’s always silent, but in his head, I think, he’s constantly thinking things over. I would like to know what he thinks about most of all, what is brewing in that head. I would like to take a closer look at the life of these gentlemen, all these équivoques and courtly tricks—what are they like, what do they do in their society—that is what I would like to know!12 I planned several times to strike up a conversation with His Excellency, but damn it, my tongue just wouldn’t obey me: All I could say was whether it was cold or warm outside, and I couldn’t utter another word. I would like to peek into the parlor where you can sometimes see the door open, and beyond the parlor into another room. Oh, what rich décor! What mirrors and porcelains! I would like to peek in there, into the part of the house where Her Excellency is—that’s where I would like to go! Into the boudoir: to see all those little jars, little vials, flowers of a kind you’re afraid to breathe on; how her clothes lie there strewn about, clothes that are more like air than clothes. I would like to peek into the bedroom… that’s where the miracles are, I bet, that’s where there’s a kind of paradise that doesn’t exist in heaven. To look at the little bench on which she puts her little foot when she gets out of bed, how she puts a little stocking as white as snow on that little foot… ay! ay! ay! It’s nothing, it’s nothing… silence.

  But today it was as if a light shone on me: I remembered that conversation between the two little doggies that I had heard on Nevsky Avenue. “Good,” I thought to myself, “I’ll find out everything now. I must take possession of the correspondence those wretched little doggies carried on with each other. I’ll probably find out a thing or two from it.” I confess, once I was about to call Madgie over and say: “Listen, Madgie, we’re alone now; I’ll even lock the door, if you wish, so no one will see—tell me everything you know about the young lady, who is she really and what is she like? I swear to you that I will not reveal it to anyone.” But the cunning little doggie tucked in her tail, shrank up to half her size, and went out the door quietly, as if she hadn’t heard anything. I have long suspected that dogs are much more intelligent than people. I was even convinced that they can talk, but that they are obstinate somehow. The dog is an extraordinary politician: It notices everything, all a person’s steps. No, no matter what, I will go to Zverkov’s House tomorrow, interrogate Fidèle, and if possible, take possession of all the letters that Madgie wrote to her.

  November 12.

  At two o’clock in the afternoon I set off with the firm intention of seeing Fidèle and interrogating her. I cannot stand cabbage, the smell of which comes billowing out of all the groceries on Meshchanskaya Street; moreover, such a hell can be smelled coming out from under the gates of every building that I held my nose and ran as fast as I could. And the vile craftsmen send out such a quantity of soot and smoke from their workshops that it’s absolutely impossible for a noble person to take a stroll here. When I made my way to the sixth floor and rang the bell, a girl came out, not entirely bad-looking, with little freckles. I recognized her. She was the same one who had been walking with the old woman. She blushed slightly, and I immediately put two and two together: You’re looking for a suitor, my little darling. “What do you want?” she said. “I need to have a talk with your little doggie.” The girl was so stupid! I immediately recognized how stupid she was! The doggie ran up, barking. I wanted to seize her, but the filthy little thing almost caught my nose with her teeth. But I caught sight of her bed in the corner. Oh, that’s just what I need! I went up to it, rummaged through the straw in the wooden box and, to my unusual satisfaction, I pulled out a small sheaf of little pieces of paper. When the nasty little doggie saw this, she first bit me on the calf, and then when she sniffed out that I had taken the papers, she began to squeal and nuzzle up to me, but I said: “No, my darling, farewell!”—and I took off running. I think the girl mistook me for a madman, because she got extremely scared. When I got home I wanted to get to work right away and decipher these letters, because I have some trouble seeing by candlelight. But Mavra took it into her head to wash the floor. These stupid Finns are always worried about cleanliness at the wrong moment. So I went out to take a stroll and think this incident over. Now, finally, I will find out all their doings, their thoughts, all these mainsprings, and I will finally find out everything. These letters will reveal everything to me. Dogs are an intelligent folk, they know all the political relationships, and therefore it’s certain that everything will be there: the portrait of that man and all his dealings. There will also be something about the one who… it’s nothing, silence! I came home toward evening. I mostly just lay on my bed.

  November 13.

  Well, all right, let’s see: The letter is fairly legible. But all the same there’s still something doggy about the handwriting. Let’s read it:

  Dear Fidèle, I simply cannot get used to your petit-bourgeois name. Really, couldn’t they have given you a better one? Fidèle, Rose—how vulgar! But let’s set all that aside. I am very glad that we got the idea of writing to each other.

  The letter is written very correctly. The punctuation and even the letter yat are all in the right place.13 Even the head of our section would have a hard time writing this well, although he’s always saying he studied in a university somewhere. Let’s keep going:

  It seems to me that to share one’s thoughts, feelings, and impressions with another is one of the highest blessings on earth.

  Hmm! This idea has been gleaned from a certain work translated
from the German. I can’t remember the title.

  I say this based on experience, although I have not run around the world any farther than the gates of our house. Does not my life flow by in pure pleasure? My young lady, whom Papá calls Sophie, loves me madly.

  Ay, ay!…. It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Silence!

  Papá often caresses me too. I drink tea and coffee with cream. Oh, ma chère, I must tell you that I see absolutely no pleasure in the huge gnawed-up bones that our Polkan gobbles in the kitchen. Bones are good only when they come from game birds, and then only if no one has sucked the marrow out of them. It’s very nice to mix several gravies together, but only if there are no capers or greens in them; but I know nothing worse than the custom of giving dogs pieces of bread rolled up into little balls. Some gentleman sitting at the table, who’s had all sorts of trash in his hands, starts crumbling up the bread with those hands, calls you to him, and sticks the little ball in your mouth. It’s impolite to refuse, so you eat it; it’s disgusting, but you eat it….

  The devil only knows what this is! What nonsense! As if there weren’t some better subject to write about. Let’s look at another page. Maybe there’ll be something more sensible.

  I am most willing to inform you about all the events that take place in our house. I have already told you a few things about the main gentleman, whom Sophie calls Papá. He is a very strange person.