Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

The Nose
The Nose
The Nose
Ebook40 pages38 minutes

The Nose

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

"The Nose" is divided into three parts and tells the story of Collegiate Assessor ('Major') Kovalyov, who wakes up one morning without his nose. He later finds out that his nose has developed a life of its own, and has apparently surpassed him by attaining the rank of State Councillor. The short story showcases the obsession with social rank that plagued Russia after Peter the Great introduced the Table of Ranks.By allowing commoners to gain hereditary nobility through service to the state, a huge population was given the chance to move up in social status. This opportunity, however, also gave way to large bureaucracies, in which many of Gogol's characters worked.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherGood Press
Release dateNov 9, 2021
ISBN4066338083746
Author

Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was one of nineteenth-century Russia’s greatest writers and a profound influence on Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir Nabokov, and countless other authors. His best-known works include the novel Dead Souls (1842) and the stories “The Overcoat,” “The Nose,” and “Memoirs of a Madman.” In 1852, he burned most of his manuscripts, including the second part of Dead Souls. He died nine days later.  

Read more from Nikolai Gogol

Related to The Nose

Related ebooks

Classics For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for The Nose

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    The Nose - Nikolai Gogol

    Nikolai Gogol

    The Nose

    Published by Good Press, 2022

    goodpress@okpublishing.info

    EAN 4066338083746

    Table of Contents

    I

    II

    III

    THE END

    I

    Table of Contents

    ON 25 March an unusually strange event occurred in St. Petersburg. For that morning Barber Ivan Yakovlevitch, a dweller on the Vozkresensky Prospekt (his name is lost now--it no longer figures on a signboard bearing a portrait of a gentleman with a soaped cheek, and the words: Also, Blood Let Here)--for that morning Barber Ivan Yakovlevitch awoke early, and caught the smell of newly baked bread. Raising himself a little, he perceived his wife (a most respectable dame, and one especially fond of coffee) to be just in the act of drawing newly baked rolls from the oven.

    Prascovia Osipovna, he said, I would rather not have any coffee for breakfast, but, instead, a hot roll and an onion,--the truth being that he wanted both but knew it to be useless to ask for two things at once, as Prascovia Osipovna did not fancy such tricks.

    Oh, the fool shall have his bread, the dame reflected. So much the better for me then, as I shall be able to drink a second lot of coffee.

    And duly she threw on to the table a roll.

    Ivan Yakovlevitch donned a jacket over his shirt for politeness' sake, and, seating himself at the table, poured out salt, got a couple of onions ready, took a knife into his hand, assumed an air of importance, and cut the roll asunder. Then he glanced into the roll's middle. To his intense surprise he saw something glimmering there. He probed it cautiously with the knife--then poked at it with a finger.

    Quite solid it is! he muttered. What in the world is it likely to be?

    He thrust in, this time, all his fingers, and pulled forth--a nose! His hands dropped to his sides for a moment. Then he rubbed his eyes hard. Then again he probed the thing. A nose! Sheerly a nose! Yes, and one familiar to him, somehow! Oh, horror spread upon his feature! Yet that horror was a trifle compared with his spouse's overmastering wrath.

    You brute! she shouted frantically. Where have you cut off that nose? You villain, you! You drunkard! Why, I'll go and report you to the police myself. The brigand, you! Three customers have told me already about your pulling at their noses as you shaved them till they could hardly stand it.

    But Ivan Yakovlevitch was neither alive nor dead. This was the more the case because, sure enough, he had recognised the nose. It was the nose of Collegiate Assessor Kovalev--no less: it was the nose of a gentleman whom he was accustomed to shave twice weekly, on each Wednesday and each Sunday!

    Stop, Prascovia Osipovna! at length he said. "I'll wrap the thing in a clout,

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1