Yet, unfortunately, he kept meeting friends, and they kept saying to him: "Where are you off to?" or "Whom have you arranged to shave at this early hour?" until seizure of a fitting moment became impossible. Once, true, he did succeed in dropping the thing, but no sooner had he done so than a constable pointed at him with his truncheon, and shouted: "Pick it up again! You've lost something," and he perforce had to take the nose into his possession once more, and stuff it into a pocket. Meanwhile his desperation grew in proportion as more and more booths and shops opened for business, and more and more people appeared in the street.

At last he decided that he would go to the Isaakievsky Bridge, and throw the thing, if he could, into the Neva. But here let me confess my fault in not having said more about Ivan Yakovlevitch himself, a man estimable in more respects than one.

Like every decent Russian tradesman, Ivan Yakovlevitch was a terrible tippler. Daily he shaved the chins of others, but always his own was unshorn, and his jacket (he never wore a top-coat) piebald—black, thickly studded with greyish, brownish-yellowish stains—and shiny of collar, and adorned with three pendent tufts of thread instead of buttons. But, with that, Ivan Yakovlevitch was a great cynic. Whenever Collegiate Assessor Kovalev was being shaved, and said to him, according to custom: "Ivan Yakovlevitch, your hands do smell!" he would retort: "But why should they smell?" and, when the Collegiate Assessor had replied: "Really I do not know, brother, but at all events they do," take a pinch of snuff, and soap the Collegiate Assessor upon cheek, and under nose, and behind ears, and around chin at his good will and pleasure.

So the worthy citizen stood on the Isaakievsky Bridge, and looked about him. Then, leaning over the parapet, he feigned to be trying to see if any fish were passing underneath. Then gently he cast forth the nose.

At once ten puds-weight seemed to have been lifted from his shoulders. Actually he smiled! But, instead of departing, next, to shave the chins of chinovniki, he bethought him of making for a certain establishment inscribed "Meals and Tea," that he might get there a glassful of punch.

Suddenly he sighted a constable standing at the end of the bridge, a constable of smart appearance, with long whiskers, a three-cornered hat, and a sword complete. Oh, Ivan Yakovlevitch could have fainted! Then the constable, beckoning with a finger, cried:

"Nay, my good man. Come here."

Ivan Yaklovlevitch, knowing the proprieties, pulled off his cap at quite a distance away, advanced quickly, and said:

"I wish your Excellency the best of health."

"No, no! None of that `your Excellency,' brother. Come and tell me what you have been doing on the bridge."

"Before God, sir, I was crossing it on my way to some customers when I peeped to see if there were any fish jumping."

"You lie, brother! You lie! You won't get out of it like that. Be so good as to answer me truthfully."

"Oh, twice a week in future I'll shave you for nothing. Aye, or even three times a week."

"No, no, friend. That is rubbish. Already I've got three barbers for the purpose, and all of them account it an honour. Now, tell me, I ask again, what you have just been doing?"

This made Ivan Yakovlevitch blanch, and——

Further events here become enshrouded in mist. What happened after that is unknown to all men.

Chapter 2

 

COLLEGIATE ASSESSOR KOVALEV also awoke early that morning. And when he had done so he made the "B-r-rh!" with his lips which he always did when he had been asleep—he himself could not have said why. Then he stretched himself, had handed to him a small mirror from the table near by, and set himself to inspect a pimple which had broken out on his nose the night before. But, to his unbounded astonishment, there was only a flat patch on his face where the nose should have been! Greatly alarmed, he called for water, washed, and rubbed his eyes hard with the towel. Yes, the nose indeed was gone! He prodded the spot with a hand-pinched himself to make sure that he was not still asleep. But no; he was not still sleeping. Then he leapt from the bed, and shook himself. No nose had he on him still! Finally, he bade his clothes be handed him, and set forth for the office of the Police Commissioner at his utmost speed.

Here let me add something which may enable the reader to perceive just what the Collegiate Assessor was like. Of course, it goes without saying that Collegiate Assessors who acquire the title with the help of academic diplomas cannot be compared with Collegiate Assessors who become Collegiate Assessors through service in the Caucasus, for the two species are wholly distinct, they are——Stay, though. Russia is so strange a country that, let one but say anything about any one Collegiate Assessor, and the rest, from Riga to Kamchatka, at once apply the remark to themselves—for all titles and all ranks it means the same thing. Now, Kovalev was a "Caucasian" Collegiate Assessor, and had, as yet, borne the title for two years only. Hence, unable ever to forget it, he sought the more to give himself dignity and weight by calling himself, in addition to "Collegiate Assessor," "Major."

"Look here, good woman," once he said to a shirts' vendor whom he met in the street, "come and see me at my home. I have my flat in Sadovaia Street. Ask merely, `Is this where Major Kovalev lives?' Anyone will show you." Or, on meeting fashionable ladies, he would say: "My dear madam, ask for Major Kovalev's flat." So we too will call the Collegiate Assessor "Major."

Major Kovalev had a habit of daily promenading the Nevsky Prospekt in an extremely clean and well-starched shirt and collar, and in whiskers of the sort still observable on provincial surveyors, architects, regimental doctors, other officials, and all men who have round, red cheeks, and play a good hand at "Boston." Such whiskers run across the exact centre of the cheek—then head straight for the nose.