Fantastic Tales

by Italo Calvino

  Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?

  Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.

  NIKOLAI VASILYEVICH GOGOL

  The Nose

  (Nos, 1835)

  Up to this point, I have focused on sinister, macabre, and horrifying themes. To change the atmosphere and represent visionary humor, I present this marvelous tale by Gogol (1809–1852), which develops one of the preeminent themes of fantastic literature: a body part that separates and acts independently from the rest of the body. But that discovery is not what makes “The Nose” a masterpiece; it is set apart by virtue of its power, its inventiveness, and what is unforeseeable about it sentence by sentence. Gogol’s laughter, as we know, is always subtly bitter: as, for instance, in the attempts to reattach the relocated nose to the face.

  In one way, this text is separate from the genre. Fantastic stories usually have an irreproachable internal logic, but Gogol happily mocks all logic, even more than Hoffmann, who is the direct inspiration for this vein of his. If we enter into the symbolic elements in the tale, we see that this nose—like the shadow in Chamisso—does not allow itself to be enclosed within a single interpretation. The story is, no doubt, a satire of the functionary decorum of the Russian bureaucracy, but to say that is really to say nothing.

  Gogol’s entire fantastic production should be included in this anthology, from the early peasant tales about fear (like “Vij,” the marvelous story of the seminary student seduced by the witch) to an example more closely related to the typology of the Romantic fantastic, such as “The Portrait” notable because it exists in two versions (1835 and 1836), and its intent is decidedly moral.

  CHAPTER 1

  AN INCREDIBLE THING happened in Petersburg on March 25th. Ivan Yakovlevich, the barber on Voznesensky Avenue (his last name has been lost and does not even figure on the signboard bearing a picture of a gentleman with a soapy cheek and the inscription WE ALSO LET BLOOD HERE), woke up rather early and detected a smell of newly baked bread. He raised himself a little and saw that his wife, a quite respectable woman and one extremely fond of coffee, was taking fresh rolls out of the oven.

  “Praskovia Osipovna,” he said to his wife, “no coffee for me this morning. I’ll have a hot roll with onions instead.”

  Actually Ivan Yakovlevich would have liked both but he knew his wife frowned on such whims. And, sure enough, she thought:

  “It’s fine with me if the fool wants bread. That’ll leave me another cup of coffee.”

  And she tossed a roll onto the table.

  Mindful of his manners, Ivan Yakovlevich put his frock coat on over his nightshirt, seated himself at the table, poured some salt, got a couple of onions, took a knife and, assuming a dignified expression, proceeded to cut the roll in two.

  Suddenly he stopped, surprised. There was something whitish in the middle of the roll. He poked at it with his knife, then felt it with his finger.

  “It’s quite compact …” he muttered under his breath. “Whatever can it be? …”

  He thrust in two fingers this time and pulled it out. It was a nose.

  He almost fell off his chair. Then he rubbed his eyes and felt the thing again. It was a nose all right, no doubt about it. And, what’s more, a nose that had something familiar about it. His features expressed intense horror.

  But the intensity of the barber’s horror was nothing compared with the intensity of his wife’s indignation.

  “Where,” she screamed, “did you lop off that nose, you beast? You crook,” she shouted, “you drunkard! I’ll report you to the police myself, you thug! Three customers have complained to me before this about the way you keep pulling their noses when you shave them, so that it’s a wonder they manage to stay on at all.”

  But Ivan Yakovlevich, at that moment more dead than alive, was immune to her attack. He had remembered where he had seen the nose before and it was on none other than Collegiate Assessor Kovalev, whom he shaved regularly each Wednesday and Sunday.

  “Wait, my dear, I’ll wrap it in a rag and put it away somewhere in a corner. Let it stay there for a while, then I’ll take it away.”

  “I won’t even listen to you! Do you really imagine that I’ll allow a cut-off nose to remain in my place, you old crumb! All you can do is strop your damn razor and when it comes to your duties, you’re no good. You stupid, lousy, skirt-chasing scum! So you want me to get into trouble with the police for your sake? Is that it, you dirty mug? You’re a stupid log, you know. Get it out of here. Do what you like with it, you hear me, but don’t let me ever see it here again.”

  The barber stood there dumfounded. He thought and thought but couldn’t think of anything.

  “I’ll be damned if I know how it happened,” he said in the end, scratching behind his ear. “Was I drunk last night when I came home? I’m not sure. Anyway, it all sounds quite mad: bread is a baked product while a nose is something else again. Makes no sense to me ….”

  So he fell silent. The thought that the police would find the nose on him and accuse him drove him to despair. He could already see the beautiful silver-braided, scarlet collars of the police and started trembling all over.

  Still, in the end he stirred and went to get his trousers and his boots. He pulled on these sorry garments, wrapped the nose in a rag, and left under Praskovia Osipovna’s unendearing barrage of recriminations.

  He wanted to get rid of the nose, to leave it under a seat, stick it in a doorway, or just drop it as if by accident and then rush down a side street. But he kept meeting acquaintances who immediately proceeded to inquire where he was going or whom he was planning to shave so early in the morning, and he missed every opportunity. At one point he actually dropped the nose, but a watchman pointed to it with his halberd and informed him that he’d lost something. And Ivan Yakovlevich had to pick up the nose and stuff it back into his pocket. Things began to look completely hopeless for him when the stores began opening and the streets became more and more crowded.

  Then he decided to try throwing the nose into the Neva from the Isakievsky Bridge ….

  But, at-this point, we should say a few words about Ivan Yakovlevich, a man who had a number of good points.

  Like every self-respecting Russian tradesman, Ivan Yakovlevich was a terrible drunkard. And although he shaved other people’s chins every day, his own looked permanently unshaven. His frock coat (he never wore an ordinary coat) was piebald. That is to say, it had been black originally but now it was studded with yellowish brown and gray spots. His collar was shiny and three threads dangling from his coat indicated where the missing buttons should have been. Ivan Yakovlevich was a terrible cynic.

  While being shaved the collegiate assessor often complained:

  “Your hands always stink, Ivan Yakovlevich!”

  He would answer: “How can they stink?”

  “I don’t know how, man, but they st
ink!” the other would say.

  In answer Ivan Yakovlevich would take a pinch of snuff and proceed to soap Kovalev’s cheeks and under his nose and behind his ears and under his chin, in fact, anywhere he felt like.

  By and by, this worthy citizen reached the Isakievsky Bridge. He glanced around and then, leaning over the parapet, peered under the bridge as if to ascertain the whereabouts of some fish. But actually he discreetly dropped the rag containing the nose. He felt as if a three-hundred-pound weight had been taken off his back. He let out a little laugh and, instead of going back to shave the chins of government employees, he decided he had to recuperate. He was setting out for an establishment which operated under the sign MEALS AND TEA, to treat himself to a glass of punch, when all of a sudden he saw a police inspector of most imposing appearance—handlebar mustache, three-cornered hat, saber and all. He froze in his tracks. The policeman beckoned to him and said:

  “Just step over here, fellow!”

  Having great respect for this particular uniform, Ivan Yakovlevich pulled off his cap while he was still a good distance away, trotted toward the policeman and said:

  “Good morning, officer.”

  “Instead of good morning, you’d better tell me what you were doing in the middle of the bridge over there.”

  “I was on my way to shave people, officer, and I wanted to see whether the current was fast—”

  “You’re lying, man. You won’t get away with it. You’d better answer my question.”

  “Officer, I’ll give you two … no, three free shaves every week … what do you say, officer?” said Ivan Yakovlevich.

  “Not a chance. I have three barbers to shave me as it is. And they consider it a great honor, too. So you get on with it and explain what you were doing.”

  Ivan Yakovlevich turned ashen …. But here the incident becomes befogged and it is completely unknown what happened after this point.

  CHAPTER 2

  That morning Collegiate Assessor Kovalev had awakened rather early. He went brrr … brrr with his lips as he always did upon waking, although he himself could not explain why. He stretched himself and asked his man for the small mirror that stood on his dressing table. He needed it to examine a pimple that had broken out on his nose the day before. But he was bewildered to find that instead of his nose there was nothing but a bare smooth surface. Horrified, he asked for water and rubbed his eyes with a towel. There was no doubt about it: his nose was not there. He felt himself all over to make sure he was not asleep. It seemed he wasn’t. Collegiate Assessor Kovalev jumped up then and shook himself. Still no nose. He called for his clothes and rushed directly to the police inspector.

  But, in the meantime, a few things should be said about Kovalev to show what sort of collegiate assessor he was. Collegiate assessors who reach their positions by obtaining academic degrees cannot be compared with the collegiate assessors that used to be appointed in the Caucasus. They are two completely unrelated species. The collegiate assessors equipped with learning …

  But Russia is a strange place and if we say something about one collegiate assessor, all of them, from Riga to Kamchatka, will take it personally. The same is true of all vocations and ranks.

  Kovalev was a Caucasus-made collegiate assessor. Moreover, he had been a collegiate assessor for only two years. In order to feel distinguished and important he never referred to himself as a collegiate assessor but employed the equivalent military rank of major.

  “Look here, my good woman,” he used to say when he met a woman selling shirt fronts in the street, “I want you to deliver them to my place. I live on Sadovaya Street. Just ask for Major Kovalev’s, anybody’ll show you.”

  And if he met someone pretty, he would whisper to her discreetly: “You just ask for Major Kovalev’s apartment, deary.”

  As a rule, Major Kovalev went out for a daily walk’ along Nevsky Avenue. The collar of his shirt was always clean and well starched. He had whiskers such as are still to be found on provincial surveyors, and architects if they happen to be Russian, among persons performing various police functions, and, in general, on men who have full faces, ruddy cheeks, and play a strong hand at certain games of chance. Whiskers of this type flow straight across the middle of the cheek up to the very nostrils.

  Major Kovalev always carried with him a great quantity of seals, both seals engraved with coats of arms and others on which were carved WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, MONDAY, and that sort of thing. He had come to Petersburg on business, namely, to find a position commensurate with his rank. He hoped, if lucky, to get a Vice-Governorship; otherwise, he would consider a post as executive in some administration. Nor was Major Kovalev averse to matrimony, as long as the bride happened to have a capital of about two hundred thousand rubles.

  And now that all this has been said about the major, it can be imagined how he felt when, instead of a quite acceptable-looking, medium-sized nose, he found an absurd, smooth flatness.

  And, to make things worse, there was not a cab to be seen in the street and he was forced to walk all the way wrapped in his cloak, his face covered with a handkerchief, pretending he was bleeding, and repeating to himself:

  “Maybe it’s just imagination. How could I possibly have lost my nose so stupidly? …”

  He entered a tearoom simply to have a look in a mirror. Fortunately the place was empty except for waiters sweeping the floor and moving chairs around and some others who, with sleepy eyes, were carrying trays with hot buns somewhere. Yesterday’s newspapers spotted with coffee were strewn around on tables and chairs.

  “Well, thank heaven there’s no one here,” he said. “I’ll be able to have a look.”

  Gingerly he approached the mirror and looked.

  “Filth,” he said, spitting, “goddammit. If only there was something to take the nose’s place! But it’s completely blank!”

  He bit his lip in anger and, leaving the tearoom, decided that, contrary to his usual custom, he wouldn’t look at the people he met or smile at anyone. Suddenly he stopped dead near the entrance door of a house. An incredible sequence of events unrolled before his eyes. A carriage stopped at the house entrance. Its door opened. A uniformed gentleman appeared. Stooping, he jumped out of the carriage, ran up the steps and entered the house. A combination of horror and amazement swept over Kovalev when he recognized the stranger as his own nose. At this eerie sight, everything swayed before his eyes. But although he could hardly stand on his feet, he felt compelled to wait until the nose returned to the carriage. He waited, shaking as though he had malaria.

  After two minutes or so, the nose emerged from the house. He wore a gold-braided, brightly colored uniform, buckskin breeches, a three-cornered hat, and a saber. The plumes on his hat indicated the rank of state councilor. From everything else it could be inferred that he was setting off on some sort of official visit. He looked left, then right, called out to the coachman to bring the carriage up to the very door, got in and was off.

  This almost drove poor Kovalev insane. He could no longer think coherently about the whole affair. No, really, how was it possible that the nose, until yesterday on his face, utterly incapable of walking or driving around, should show up like this today and, what’s more, wearing a uniform! And Kovalev ran after the carriage, which, luckily for him, did not have far to go. It stopped before Kazan Cathedral.

  Kovalev reached the spot and, rushing after the nose, had to elbow his way through a throng of old beggar-women who used to make him laugh because of the way they kept their faces completely wrapped in rags, leaving only slits for their eyes. He entered the cathedral. There were a few worshippers around, all standing near the entrance. Kovalev was in such a depressed state that he could not possibly muster the strength to pray and instead his eyes scrutinized every recess in search of the gentleman. Finally he discovered him standing in a corner. The nose’s face was completely concealed by his high, stand-up collar and he was praying with an expression of the utmost piety.

  “How shall I ad
dress him?” Kovalev wondered. “From his uniform, his hat, everything about him, he must be a state councilor. Damned if I know what to do ….”

  He approached and cleared his throat. But the nose never even changed his pious posture and remained absorbed in his worship.

  “Excuse me, sir …” Kovalev said, scraping up all his courage.

  “Yes?” the nose said, turning around.

  “I don’t know how to put it, sir … I would say … it seems … it seems you ought to know where you belong, and where do I find you? Of all places, in church. You must surely agree—”

  “Pardon me, but I can make neither head nor tail of what you’re saying. Just what do you want?”

  Kovalev tried to think how he could explain to the nose what he had in mind and, taking a deep breath, said:

  “Of course, sir, for my part … but, after all, I am a major, you know, and it’s most improper, in my position, to walk around without a nose. Some old woman selling peeled oranges by the Voskresensky Bridge might be able to get along without a nose. But for someone who is almost certain of a high administrative appointment … you can judge for yourself, sir. I really fail to understand …” At this point Kovalev shrugged. “You’ll excuse me, but if this affair were handled according to the code of honor and duty … You can see for yourself—”