Текст книги "The Collected tales of Nikolai Gogol"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

January of the same year, which came after February.

I still cannot understand what sort of country Spain is. The popular customs and court etiquette are absolutely extraordinary. I do not understand, I do not understand, I decidedly do not understand anything. Today they shaved my head, though I shouted with all my might about my unwillingness to be a monk. But I cannot even remember how I felt when they began dripping cold water on my head. I've never experienced such hell before. I was ready to start raging, so that they were barely able to hold me back. I don't understand the meaning of this strange custom at all. A stupid, senseless custom! The folly of the kings, who still have not abolished it, is incomprehensible to me. Judging by all probabilities, I guess I may have fallen into the hands of the Inquisition, and the one I took for the chancellor may be the grand inquisitor himself. Only I still cannot understand how a king can be made subject to the Inquisition. True, this might come from the French side, especially from Polignac. 8 Oh, he's a sly customer, Polignac! He's sworn to injure me as long as I live. And so he persecutes me, per– secutes me; but I know, friend, that you're being led by the Englishman. The Englishman is a great politician. He fusses about everywhere. The whole world knows that when England takes snuff, France sneezes.

The 25th. Today the grand inquisitor came to my room, but, hearing his footsteps from far off, I hid under a chair. Seeing I wasn't there, he began calling out. First he shouted, "Poprishchin!" but I didn't say a word. Then: "Aksenty Ivanovich! Titular councillor! Nobleman!" I kept silent. "Ferdinand VIII, king of Spain!" I wanted to poke my head out, but then thought, "No, brother, you're not going to hoodwink me! We know you: you'll pour cold water on my head again." Nevertheless, he saw me and chased me out from under the chair with his stick. That cursed stick is extremely painful. However, all this has been rewarded by my present discovery: I've learned that every rooster has his Spain, that it's located under his feathers. The grand inquisitor nevertheless left me in wrath and threatened me with some punishment. But I utterly ignored his impotent anger, knowing that he was acting mechanically, as the Englishman's tool.

The of 34 February th, yrea 349.

No, I no longer have the strength to endure. God! what they're doing to me! They pour cold water on my head! They do not heed, do not see, do not listen to me. What have I done to them? Why do they torment me? What do they want from poor me? What can I give them? I have nothing. It's beyond my strength, I cannot endure all their torments, my head is burning, and everything is whirling before me. Save me! take me! give me a troika of steeds swift as the wind! Take the reins, my driver, ring out, my bells, soar aloft, steeds, and carry me out of this world! Farther, farther, so that there's nothing to be seen, nothing. Here is the sky billowing before me; a little star shines in the distance; a forest races by with dark trees and a crescent moon; blue mist spreads under my feet; a string twangs in the mist; on one side the sea, on the other Italy; and there I see some Russian huts. Is that my house blue in the distance? Is that my mother sitting at the window? Dear mother, save your poor son! shed a tear on his sick head! see how they torment him! press the poor orphan to your breast! there's no place for him in the world! they're driving him out! Dear mother! pity your sick child!… And do you know that the Dey of Algiers has a bump just under his nose?

The Nose

O n the twenty-fifth day of March, 1 an extraordinarily strange incident occurred in Petersburg. The barber Ivan Yakovle-vich, who lives on Voznesensky Prospect (his family name has been lost, and even on his signboard-which portrays a gentleman with a soaped cheek along with the words "Also Bloodletting"– nothing more appears), the barber Ivan Yakovlevich woke up quite early and sensed the smell of hot bread. Raising himself a little in bed, he saw that his wife, quite a respectable lady, who very much liked her cup of coffee, was taking just-baked loaves from the oven.

"Today, Praskovya Osipovna, I will not have coffee," said Ivan Yakovlevich, "but instead I'd like to have some hot bread with onion."

(That is, Ivan Yakovlevich would have liked the one and the other, but he knew it was utterly impossible to ask for two things at the same time, for Praskovya Osipovna very much disliked such whims.) "Let the fool eat bread; so much the better for me," the wife thought to herself, "there'll be an extra portion of coffee left." And she threw a loaf of bread on the table.

For the sake of propriety, Ivan Yakovlevich put his tailcoat on over his undershirt and, settling at the table, poured out some salt, prepared two onions, took a knife in his hands, and, assuming a significant air, began cutting the bread. Having cut the loaf in two, he looked into the middle and, to his surprise, saw something white. Ivan Yakovlevich poked cautiously with his knife and felt with his finger. "Firm!" he said to himself. "What could it be?"

He stuck in his fingers and pulled out-a nose!… Ivan Yakovlevich even dropped his arms; he began rubbing his eyes and feeling it: a nose, precisely a nose! and, what's more, it seemed like a familiar one. Terror showed on Ivan Yakovlevich's face. But this terror was nothing compared to the indignation that came over his wife.

"Where did you cut that nose off, you beast?" she shouted wrathfully. "Crook! Drunkard! I'll denounce you to the police myself! What a bandit! I've heard from three men already that you pull noses so hard when you give a shave that they barely stay attached."

But Ivan Yakovlevich was more dead than alive. He recognized this nose as belonging to none other than the collegiate assessor Kovalev, whom he shaved every Wednesday and Sunday.

"Wait, Praskovya Osipovna! I'll wrap it in a rag and put it in the corner. Let it stay there a while, and later I'll take it out."

"I won't hear of it! That I should leave some cut-off nose lying about my room?… You dried-up crust! You only know how to drag your razor over the strop, but soon you won't be able to do your duties at all, you trull, you blackguard! That I should have to answer for you to the police?… Ah, you muck-worm, you stupid stump! Out with it! out! take it wherever you like! so that I never hear of it again!"

Ivan Yakovlevich stood totally crushed. He thought and thought and did not know what to think.

"Devil knows how it happened," he said finally, scratching himself behind the ear. "Whether I came home drunk yesterday or not, I can't say for sure. But by all tokens this incident should be unfeasible: for bread is a baking matter, and a nose is something else entirely. I can't figure it out!…"

Ivan Yakovlevich fell silent. The thought of the police finding the nose at his place and accusing him drove him to complete dis– traction. He could already picture the scarlet collar, beautifully embroidered with silver, the sword… and he trembled all over. Finally he took his shirt and boots, pulled all this trash on him, and, to the accompaniment of Praskovya Osipovna's weighty admonitions, wrapped the nose in a rag and went out.

He wanted to leave it somewhere, in an iron hitching post under a gateway, or just somehow accidentally drop it and turn down an alley. But unfortunately he kept running into someone he knew, who would begin at once by asking, "Where are you off to?" or "Who are you going to shave so early?"-so that Ivan Yakovlevich could never seize the moment. Another time, he had already dropped it entirely, but a policeman pointed to it from afar with his halberd and said: "Pick that up! You've dropped something there!" And Ivan Yakovlevich had to pick the nose up and put it in his pocket. Despair came over him, especially as there were more and more people in the street as the stores and shops began to open.

He decided to go to St. Isaac's Bridge: might he not somehow manage to throw it into the Neva?… But I am slightly remiss for having said nothing yet about Ivan Yakovlevich, a worthy man in many respects.

Ivan Yakovlevich, like every decent Russian artisan, was a terrible drunkard. And though he shaved other people's chins every day, his own was eternally unshaven. Ivan Yakovlevich's tailcoat (Ivan Yakovlevich never went around in a frock coat) was piebald; that is, it was black, but all dappled with brownish-yellow and gray spots; the collar was shiny, and in place of three buttons there hung only threads. Ivan Yakovlevich was a great cynic, and whenever the collegiate assessor Kovalev said to him while being shaved, "Your hands eternally stink, Ivan Yakovlevich"-Ivan Yakovlevich would reply with a question: "And why should they stink?" to which the collegiate assessor would say, "I don't know, brother, but they stink," and for that Ivan Yakovlevich, after a pinch of snuff, would soap him up on the cheeks, and under the nose, and behind the ears, and under the chin-in short, anywhere he liked.

This worthy citizen was already on St. Isaac's Bridge. First he glanced around; then he leaned over the rail, as if looking under the bridge to see if there were lots of fish darting about, and quietly threw down the rag with the nose. He felt as if a three-hundred-pound weight had suddenly fallen from him; Ivan Yakovlevich even grinned. Instead of going to shave the chins of functionaries, he was heading for an institution under a sign that read "Food and Tea" to ask for a glass of punch, when suddenly he saw at the end of the bridge a police officer of noble appearance, with broad side-whiskers, in a three-cornered hat, wearing a sword. He went dead; and meanwhile the policeman was beckoning to him with his finger and saying, "Come here, my good man!"

Ivan Yakovlevich, knowing the rules, took off his peaked cap while still far away and, approaching rapidly, said:

"Good day to your honor!"

"No, no, brother, never mind my honor. Tell me what you were doing standing on the bridge."

"By God, sir, I'm on my way to give a shave and just stopped to see if the river's flowing fast."

"Lies, lies! You won't get off with that. Be so good as to answer!"

"I'm ready to shave you twice a week, sir, or even three times, with no objections," Ivan Yakovlevich answered.

"No, friend, that's trifles. I have three barbers to shave me, and they consider it a great honor. Kindly tell me what you were doing there."

Ivan Yakovlevich blanched… But here the incident becomes totally shrouded in mist, and of what happened further decidedly nothing is known.

II

The collegiate assessor Kovalev woke up quite early and went "brr…" with his lips-something he always did on waking up, though he himself was unable to explain the reason for it. Kovalev stretched and asked for the little mirror that stood on the table. He wished to look at a pimple that had popped out on his nose the previous evening; but, to his greatest amazement, he saw that instead of a nose he had a perfectly smooth place! Frightened,

Kovalev asked for water and wiped his eyes with a towel: right, no nose! He began feeling with his hand to find out if he might be asleep, but it seemed he was not. The collegiate assessor Kovalev jumped out of bed, shook himself: no nose!… He ordered his man to dress him and flew straight to the chief of police.

But meanwhile it is necessary to say something about Kovalev, so that the reader may see what sort of collegiate assessor he was. Collegiate assessors who obtain that title by means of learned diplomas cannot in any way be compared with collegiate assessors who are made in the Caucasus. 2 They are two entirely different sorts. Learned collegiate assessors… But Russia is such a wondrous land that, if you say something about one collegiate assessor, all collegiate assessors, from Riga to Kamchatka, will unfailingly take it to their own account. The same goes for all ranks and titles. Kovalev was a Caucasian collegiate assessor. He had held this rank for only two years, and therefore could not forget it for a moment; and to give himself more nobility and weight, he never referred to himself as a collegiate assessor, but always as a major. "Listen, dearie," he used to say on meeting a woman selling shirt fronts in the street, "come to my place; I live on Sadovaya; just ask, 'Where does Major Kovalev live?'-anyone will show you." And if he met some comely little thing, he would give her a secret order on top of that, adding: "Ask for Major Kovalev's apartment, sweetie." For which reason, we shall in future refer to this collegiate assessor as a major.

Major Kovalev had the habit of strolling on Nevsky Prospect every day. The collar of his shirt front was always extremely clean and starched. His side-whiskers were of the sort that can still be seen on provincial and regional surveyors, architects, and regimental doctors, as well as on those fulfilling various police duties, and generally on all men who have plump, ruddy cheeks and play a very good game of Boston: these side-whiskers go right across the middle of the cheek and straight to the nose. Major Kovalev wore many seals, of carnelian, with crests, and the sort that have Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, and so on, carved on them. Major Kovalev had come to Petersburg on business-namely, to seek a post suited to his rank: as vice-governor if he was lucky, or else as an executive in some prominent department. Major Kovalev would not have minded getting married, but only on the chance that the bride happened to come with two hundred thousand in capital. And therefore the reader may now judge for himself what the state of this major was when he saw, instead of a quite acceptable and moderate nose, a most stupid, flat, and smooth place.

As ill luck would have it, not a single coachman appeared in the street, and he had to go on foot, wrapping himself in his cloak and covering his face with a handkerchief as if it were bleeding. "But maybe I just imagined it that way: it's impossible for a nose to vanish so idiotically," he thought and went into a pastry shop on purpose to look at himself in the mirror. Luckily there was no one in the pastry shop; the boys were sweeping the rooms and putting the chairs in place; some of them, sleepy-eyed, brought out hot pastries on trays; yesterday's newspapers, stained with spilt coffee, lay about on tables and chairs. "Well, thank God nobody's here," he said. "Now I can have a look." He timidly approached a mirror and looked: "Devil knows, what rubbish!" he said, spitting. "There might at least be something instead of a nose, but there's nothing!…"

Biting his lips in vexation, he walked out of the pastry shop and decided, contrary to his custom, not to look at anyone or smile to anyone. Suddenly he stopped as if rooted outside the doors of one house; before his eyes an inexplicable phenomenon occurred: a carriage stopped at the entrance; the door opened; a gentleman in a uniform jumped out, hunching over, and ran up the stairs. What was Kovalev's horror as well as amazement when he recognized him as his own nose! At this extraordinary spectacle, everything seemed to turn upside down in his eyes; he felt barely able to stand; but, trembling all over as if in a fever, he decided that, whatever the cost, he would await his return to the carriage. Two minutes later the nose indeed came out. He was in a gold-embroidered uniform with a big standing collar; he had kidskin trousers on; at his side hung a sword. From his plumed hat it could be concluded that he belonged to the rank of state councillor. By all indications, he was going somewhere on a visit. He looked both ways, shouted, "Here!" to the coachman, got in, and drove off.

Poor Kovalev nearly lost his mind. He did not know what to think of such a strange incident. How was it possible, indeed, that the nose which just yesterday was on his face, unable to drive or walk-should be in a uniform! He ran after the carriage, which luckily had not gone far and was stopped in front of the Kazan Cathedral.

He hastened into the cathedral, made his way through a row of old beggar women with bandaged faces and two openings for the eyes, at whom he had laughed so much before, and went into the church. There were not many people praying in the church: they all stood just by the entrance. Kovalev felt so upset that he had no strength to pray, and his eyes kept searching in all corners for the gentleman. He finally saw him standing to one side. The nose had his face completely hidden in his big standing collar and was praying with an expression of the greatest piety.

"How shall I approach him?" thought Kovalev. "By all tokens, by his uniform, by his hat, one can see he's a state councillor. Devil knows how to go about it!"

He began to cough beside him; but the nose would not abandon his pious attitude for a minute and kept bowing down.

"My dear sir," said Kovalev, inwardly forcing himself to take heart, "my dear sir…"

"What can I do for you?" the nose said, turning.

"I find it strange, my dear sir… it seems to me… you should know your place. And suddenly I find you, and where?-in a church. You must agree…"

"Excuse me, I don't understand what you're talking about… Explain, please."

"How shall I explain it to him?" thought Kovalev, and, gathering his courage, he began:

"Of course, I… anyhow, I'm a major. For me to go around without a nose is improper, you must agree. Some peddler woman selling peeled oranges on Voskresensky Bridge can sit without a nose; but, having prospects in view… being acquainted, moreover, with ladies in many houses: Chekhtareva, the wife of a state councillor, and others… Judge for yourself… I don't know, my dear sir…" (Here Major Kovalev shrugged his shoulders.) "Par– don me, but… if one looks at it in conformity with the rules of duty and honor… you yourself can understand…"

"I understand decidedly nothing," replied the nose. "Explain more satisfactorily."

"My dear sir…" Kovalev said with dignity, "I don't know how to understand your words… The whole thing seems perfectly obvious… Or do you want to… But you're my own nose!"

The nose looked at the major and scowled slightly.

"You are mistaken, my dear sir. I am by myself. Besides, there can be no close relationship between us. Judging by the buttons on your uniform, you must serve in a different department."

Having said this, the nose turned away and continued praying.

Kovalev was utterly bewildered, not knowing what to do or even what to think. At that moment the pleasant rustle of a lady's dress was heard; an elderly lady all decked out in lace approached, followed by a slim one in a white dress that very prettily outlined her slender waist, wearing a pale yellow hat as light as a pastry. Behind them a tall footman with big side-whiskers and a full dozen collars stopped and opened his snuffbox.

Kovalev stepped closer, made the cambric collar of his shirt front peek out, straightened the seals hanging on his gold watch chain, and, smiling to all sides, rested his attention on the ethereal lady who, bending slightly like a flower in spring, brought her white little hand with its half-transparent fingers to her brow. The smile on Kovalev's face broadened still more when he saw under her hat a rounded chin of a bright whiteness and part of a cheek glowing with the color of the first spring rose. But he suddenly jumped back as if burnt. He remembered that in place of a nose he had absolutely nothing, and tears squeezed themselves from his eyes. He turned with the intention of telling the gentleman in the uniform outright that he was only pretending to be a state councillor, that he was a knave and a scoundrel, and nothing but his own nose… But the nose was no longer there; he had already driven off, again probably to visit someone.

This threw Kovalev into despair. He went back and paused for a moment under the colonnade, looking carefully in all directions, in case he might spot the nose. He remembered very well that he was wearing a plumed hat and a gold-embroidered uniform; but he had not noted his overcoat, nor the color of his carriage, nor of his horses, nor even whether he had a footman riding behind and in what sort of livery. Besides, there were so many carriages racing up and down, and at such speed, that it was even difficult to notice anything; and if he had noticed one of them, he would have had no way of stopping it. The day was beautiful and sunny. There were myriads of people on Nevsky; a whole flowery cascade of ladies poured down the sidewalk from the Police to the Anich-kin Bridge. There goes an acquaintance of his, a court councillor whom he called Colonel, especially if it occurred in front of strangers. And there is Yarygin, a chief clerk in the Senate, a great friend who always called remise when he played eight at Boston. There is another major who got his assessorship in the Caucasus, waving his arm, inviting him to come over…

"Ah, devil take it!" said Kovalev. "Hey, cabby, drive straight to the chief of police!"

Kovalev got into the droshky and kept urging the cabby on: "Gallop the whole way!"

"Is the chief of police in?" he cried, entering the front hall.

"No, he's not," the doorman replied, "he just left."

"Worse luck!"

"Yes," the doorman added, "not so long ago, but he left. If you'd have come one little minute sooner, you might have found him at home."

Kovalev, without taking the handkerchief from his face, got into a cab and shouted in a desperate voice:

"Drive!"

"Where to?" said the cabby.

"Straight ahead!"

"How, straight ahead? There's a turn here-right or left?"

This question stopped Kovalev and made him think again. In his situation, he ought first of all to address himself to the Office of Public Order, not because it was related directly to the police, but because its procedures were likely to be much quicker than elsewhere; to seek satisfaction from the authorities in the place where the nose claimed to work would be unreasonable, because it could be seen from the nose's own replies that nothing was sacred for this man, and he could be lying in this case just as he lied when he insisted that he never saw him before. And so Kovalev was about to tell the cabby to drive to the Office of Public Order when it again occurred to him that this knave and cheat, who had already behaved so shamelessly at their first encounter, might again conveniently use the time to slip out of the city somehow, and then all searching would be in vain, or might, God forbid, go on for a whole month. In the end it seemed that heaven itself gave him an idea. He decided to address himself directly to the newspaper office and hasten to take out an advertisement, with a detailed description of all his qualities, so that anyone meeting him could bring him to him or at least inform him of his whereabouts. And so, having decided on it, he told the cabby to drive to the newspaper office, and all the way there he never stopped hitting him on the back with his fist, saying: "Faster, you scoundrel! Faster, you cheat!" "Eh, master!" the coachman replied, shaking his head and whipping up his horse, whose coat was as long as a lapdog's. The droshky finally pulled up, and Kovalev, breathless, ran into a small reception room, where a gray-haired clerk in an old tailcoat and spectacles sat at a table, holding a pen in his teeth and counting the copper money brought to him.

"Who here takes advertisements?" cried Kovalev. "Ah, how do you do!"

"My respects," said the gray-haired clerk, raising his eyes for a moment and lowering them again to the laid-out stacks of coins.

"I wish to place…"

"Excuse me. I beg you to wait a bit," said the clerk, setting down a number on a piece of paper with one hand, and with the fingers of the left moving two beads on his abacus.

A lackey with galloons and an appearance indicating that he belonged to an aristocratic household, who was standing by the table with a notice in his hand, deemed it fitting to display his sociability:

"Believe me, sir, the pup isn't worth eighty kopecks, I mean, I wouldn't give eight for it; but the countess loves it, by God, she loves it-and so whoever finds it gets a hundred roubles! To put it proper, between you and me, people's tastes don't correspond at all: if you're a hunter, keep a pointer or a poodle, it'll cost you five hundred, a thousand, but you'll have yourself a fine dog."

The worthy clerk listened to this with a significant air and at the same time made an estimate of the number of letters in the notice. Around them stood a host of old women, shop clerks, and porters holding notices. One announced that a coachman of sober disposition was available for hire; another concerned a little-used carriage brought from Paris in 1814; elsewhere a nineteen-year-old serf girl was released, a good laundress and also fit for other work; a sturdy droshky lacking one spring; a hot young dapple-gray horse, seventeen years old; turnip and radish seeds newly received from London; a country house with all its appurtenances-two horse stalls and a place where an excellent birch or pine grove could be planted; next to that was an appeal to all those desiring to buy old shoes, with an invitation to come to the trading center every day from eight till three. The room into which all this company crowded was small and the air in it was very heavy; but the collegiate assessor Kovalev could not smell it, because he had covered his face with a handkerchief, and because his nose itself was in God knows what parts.

"My dear sir, allow me to ask… It's very necessary for me," he finally said with impatience.

"Right away, right away! Two roubles forty-three kopecks! This minute! One rouble sixty-four kopecks!" the gray-haired gentleman was saying as he flung the notices into the old women's and porters' faces. "What can I do for you?" he said at last, turning to Kovalev.

"I ask…" said Kovalev, "some swindling or knavery has occurred-I haven't been able to find out. I only ask you to advertise that whoever brings this scoundrel to me will get a sufficient reward."

"What is your name, if I may inquire?"

"No, why the name? I can't tell you. I have many acquaintances: Chekhtareva, wife of a state councillor, Palageya Grigorievna Pod– tochina, wife of a staff officer… God forbid they should suddenly find out! You can simply write: a collegiate assessor, or, better still, one holding the rank of major."

"And the runaway was your household serf?"

"What household serf? That would be no great swindle! The one that ran away was… my nose…"

"Hm! what a strange name! And did this Mr. Nosov steal a large sum of money from you?"

"Nose, I said… you've got it wrong! My nose, my own nose, disappeared on me, I don't know where. The devil's decided to make fun of me!"

"Disappeared in what fashion? I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"I really can't say in what fashion; but the main thing is that he's now driving around town calling himself a state councillor. And therefore I ask you to announce that whoever catches him should immediately present him to me within the shortest time. Consider for yourself, how indeed can I do without such a conspicuous part of the body? It's not like some little toe that I can put in a boot and no one will see it's not there. On Thursdays I call on the wife of the state councillor Chekhtarev; Palageya Grigorievna Pod-tochina, a staff officer's wife-and she has a very pretty daughter– they, too, are my very good acquaintances, and consider for yourself, now, how can I… I can't go to them now."

The clerk fell to pondering, as was indicated by his tighdy compressed lips.

"No, I can't place such an announcement in the newspaper," he said finally, after a long silence.

"What? Why not?"

"Because. The newspaper may lose its reputation. If everybody starts writing that his nose has run away, then… People say we publish a lot of absurdities and false rumors as it is."

"But what's absurd about this matter? It seems to me that it's nothing of the sort."

"To you it seems so. But there was a similar incident last week. A clerk came, just as you've come now, brought a notice, it came to two roubles seventy-three kopecks in costs, and the whole announcement was that a poodle of a black coat had run away. Nothing much there, you'd think? But it turned out to be a lampoon: this poodle was the treasurer of I forget which institution."

"But I'm giving you an announcement not about a poodle, but about my own nose: which means almost about me myself."

"No, I absolutely cannot place such an announcement."

"But my nose really has vanished!"

"If so, it's a medical matter. They say there are people who can attach any nose you like. I observe, however, that you must be a man of merry disposition and fond of joking in company."

"I swear to you as God is holy! Very well, if it's come to that, I'll show you."

"Why trouble yourself!" the clerk went on, taking a pinch of snuff. "However, if it's no trouble," he added with a movement of curiosity, "it might be desirable to have a look."

The collegiate assessor took the handkerchief from his face.

"Extremely strange, indeed!" said the clerk. "The place is per-fecdy smooth, like a just-made pancake. Yes, of an unbelievable flatness!"

"Well, are you going to argue now? You can see for yourself that you've got to print it. I'll be especially grateful to you; and I'm very glad that this incident has afforded me the pleasure of making your acquaintance…"

The major, as may be seen from that, had decided to fawn a bit this time.

"Of course, printing it is no great matter," said the clerk, "only I don't see any profit in it for you. If you really want, you should give it to someone with a skillful pen, who can describe it as a rare work of nature and publish the little article in The Northern Bee" 3 (here he took another pinch of snuff), "for the benefit of the young" (here he wiped his nose), "or just for general curiosity."