The Nose by Nikolay Gogol Summary

Ivan Yakovlevich is a barber and is considered something of an artisan. He lives with his wife Praskovya Osipovna in the same building in which his shop is located. A habitual drunkard, Ivan wakes one morning and asks his wife for bread and onions. She sets down a fresh loaf and he readies his onions and salt. Cutting into a fresh loaf, Ivan discovers a foreign object embedded in the bread and quickly determines that it is a human nose. His wife accuses him of accidentally severing it while shaving someone drunk—Ivan acknowledges but doubts the possibility, although he recognizes the nose as having once belonged to Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov, a regular customer. Ivan wraps the nose in cloth and walks about the town, looking for a likely place to dispose of it...