person
Major Kovalev
Kovalev
The vain collegiate assessor of Gogol's story 'The Nose' (1836), whose nose absconds and impersonates a state councillor; invoked here as the signature on a self-satisfied telegram, borrowing his comic vanity.
Reading notes
- This and That (Letters and Telegrams) §40 Major Kovalev
The name of the vain collegiate assessor whose nose absconds and impersonates a state councillor in Gogol's story 'The Nose' (1836) -- a knowing borrowing that casts this telegram-writer's petty vanity in the same comic light.