Soon, therefore, I perceived the `gentleman' to be no more than a nose. Such is my shortness of sight, you know, that even now, though I see you standing there before me, and see that you have a face, I cannot distinguish on that face the nose, the chin, or anything else. My mother-in-law (my wife's mother) too cannot easily distinguish details."

Kovalev felt almost beside himself.

"Where is the nose now?" cried he. "Where, I ask? Let me go to it at once."

"Do not trouble, sir. Knowing how greatly you stand in need of it, I have it with me. It is a curious fact, too, that the chief agent in the affair has been a rascal of a barber who lives on the Vozkresensky Prospekt, and now is sitting at the police station. For long past I had suspected him of drunkenness and theft, and only three days ago he took away from a shop a button-card. Well, you will find your nose to be as before."

And the officer delved into a pocket, and drew thence the nose, wrapped in paper.

"Yes, that's the nose all right!" Kovalev shouted. "It's the nose precisely! Will you join me in a cup of tea?"

"I should have accounted it indeed a pleasure if I had been able, but, unfortunately, I have to go straight on to the penitentiary. Provisions, sir, have risen greatly in price. And living with me I have not only my family, but my mother-in-law (my wife's mother). Yet the eldest of my children gives me much hope. He is a clever lad. The only thing is that I have not the means for his proper education."

When the officer was gone the Collegiate Assessor sat plunged in vagueness, plunged in inability to see or to feel, so greatly was he upset with joy. Only after a while did he with care take the thus recovered nose in cupped hands, and again examine it attentively.

"It, undoubtedly. It, precisely," he said at length. "Yes, and it even has on it the pimple to the left which broke out on me yesterday."

Sheerly he laughed in his delight.

But nothing lasts long in this world. Even joy grows less lively the next moment. And a moment later, again, it weakens further. And at last it remerges insensibly with the normal mood, even as the ripple from a pebble's impact becomes remerged with the smooth surface of the water at large. So Kovalev relapsed into thought again. For by now he had realised that even yet the affair was not wholly ended, seeing that, though retrieved, the nose needed to be re-stuck.

"What if it should fail so to stick!"

The bare question thus posed turned the Major pale.

Feeling, somehow, very nervous, he drew the mirror closer to him, lest he should fit the nose awry. His hands were trembling as gently, very carefully he lifted the nose in place. But, oh, horrors, it would not _remain_ in place! He held it to his lips, warmed it with his breath, and again lifted it to the patch between his cheeks—only to find, as before, that it would not retain its position.

"Come, come, fool!" said he. "Stop where you are, I tell you."

But the nose, obstinately wooden, fell upon the table with a strange sound as of a cork, whilst the Major's face became convulsed.

"Surely it is not too large now?" he reflected in terror. Yet as often as he raised it towards its proper position the new attempt proved as vain as the last.

Loudly he shouted for Ivan, and sent for a doctor who occupied a flat (a better one than the Major's) on the first floor. The doctor was a fine-looking man with splendid, coal-black whiskers. Possessed of a healthy, comely wife, he ate some raw apples every morning, and kept his mouth extraordinarily clean—rinsed it out, each morning, for three-quarters of an hour, and polished its teeth with five different sorts of brushes. At once he answered Kovalev's summons, and, after asking how long ago the calamity had happened, tilted the Major's chin, and rapped the vacant site with a thumb until at last the Major wrenched his head away, and, in doing so, struck it sharply against the wall behind. This, the doctor said, was nothing; and after advising him to stand a little farther from the wall, and bidding him incline his head to the right, he once more rapped the vacant patch before, after bidding him incline his head to the left, dealing him, with a "Hm!" such a thumb-dig as left the Major standing like a horse which is having its teeth examined.

The doctor, that done, shook his head.

"The thing is not feasible," he pronounced. "You had better remain as you are rather than go farther and fare worse. Of course, I _could_ stick it on again—I could do that for you in a moment; but at the same time I would assure you that your plight will only become worse as the result."

"Never mind," Kovalev replied. "Stick it on again, pray. How can I continue without a nose? Besides, things could not possibly be worse than they are now.