One morning, a barber and his wife are munching on some breakfast when he finds a nose in his bread roll. He recognizes the nose—it belongs to one of his clients, Collegiate Assessor Kovalev. Neither of them is particularly grossed out by this. Still, the barber's wife gets mad at her husband's carelessness, drunkenness, and general crappiness, and she demands that he take the nose away. After some misadventures in the streets, the barber ends up throwing it away into the river.
That same day, Collegiate Assessor Kovalev wakes up and realizes that his nose is gone. He is embarrassed about having to go outside like this and covers his face with a handkerchief. Suddenly, on the street, he sees a highly decorated civil servant get out of a carriage and go into a mansion, and is shocked to realize—it's his nose.
Kovalev follows the nose, but when he gets close enough to talk to him (it?), he gets all stressy about speaking to someone so much higher ranking. The nose denies being his nose and goes about its day like a total weirdo. Kovalev first tries to get the police involved and then tries to put an announcement in the paper, but all he gets for his troubles is a lot of social awkwardness and rudeness.
