Chapter 3 nose

Ryunosuke Akutagawa When it comes to the nose of Zen Zhi Neigong, everyone in Chiwei is familiar with it.It is five or six inches long and hangs from the top of the upper lip to the bottom of the jaw.The shape is as thick as the top and bottom, like a slender thing like a sausage pulled down from the center of the face. ①Inner worship is the abbreviation of inner worship, also called inner worship monks, monks who serve the Lord Buddha. Neigong is over fifty years old, from the time when he was a novice monk until now when he was promoted to enshrine in the inner dojo, he has always been troubled by this nose thing in his heart.Of course, on the surface he also pretended not to mind.Not only because he felt that as a monk who should concentrate on being reborn in the Pure Land, he should not worry about his nose, but more importantly, he didn't want people to know that he cared about his nose.In ordinary conversation, he is most afraid of mentioning the word "nose".

There are two reasons why people hate noses: one is that it is really inconvenient to have a long nose.First of all, I can't even eat by myself.Otherwise, the tip of the nose will stick to the rice in the bowl.Nei Kuo ordered an apprentice to sit opposite, and let him hold his nose with a wooden stick one inch wide and two feet long when eating.However, eating like this is not easy, whether it is an apprentice whose nose was lifted or a confessor who was lifted.Once, a middle boy① came to replace the apprentice. The middle boy sneezed, his hands trembled, and his nose stuck into the porridge.This incident even spread throughout Kyoto at that time.However, this is by no means the main reason why Naiko is so distressed by his nose.To tell the truth, Naiko was troubled because his nose hurt his self-esteem.

① Zhongtongzi is a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy who is used in the monastery. The people in Chiwei thought about Zen Chiuchi, and said that it was a good thing he didn't stay in the world, because according to them, no woman would marry him because of his nose.Some people even commented that it was because of his nose that he became a monk.Neiko doesn't think that the troubles caused by his nose will be reduced a bit when he becomes a monk.Neigong's self-esteem is so easily hurt, he will not be swayed by the fact that he can get a wife or not.Thus, Naiko tried to restore self-esteem both positively and negatively.

His first thought was to make the nose appear shorter than it really was.He would look in the mirror from different angles when no one was present, and concentrate on trying to figure it out.Sometimes he felt that just changing the position of his face was not enough for him, so he put his hands on his cheeks, put his fingers on his chin, and kept looking in the mirror.But no amount of manipulation of the nose ever made it look short enough to satisfy him.Sometimes the more he racked his brains, the more his nose seemed longer.So, Neigong sighed, put the mirror in the box, and reluctantly recited his "Guanyin Sutra" to the scriptures a few times.

The inner priest also constantly pays attention to the noses of others.Monks often preach in Shanwei Temple.In the monastery, there are rows of meditation rooms, and monks boil bath water in the bathroom every day.There is an endless stream of monks coming in and out here.The inner priest took the trouble to study the faces of these people.Because even if there is only one person, he always wants to find someone with a nose as long as his own to chat with and masturbate.So he could neither see the dark blue silk dress nor the white single shirt.As for the orange-yellow hat and dark brown monk's robes, because they are used to seeing them, they would not catch his eyes.Internal confessors don't look at people, they only look at noses: there are hooked noses, but I can't find even one with a nose like his.I kept looking for it but couldn't find it, and the confessor gradually became annoyed.While talking to people, he couldn't help pinching the tip of the stretched nose, and blushed regardless of his age, which was all due to his melancholy mood.

In the end, the inner priest actually wanted to find a person with the same nose as himself in the inner canon and the outer canon, so as to relieve his depression.But there is no record in any scriptures that Mu Jianlian and Shariputra have long noses.The two Bodhisattvas, Nagarjuna and Maming, of course have the same noses as ordinary people.Neigong heard people talking about Zhendan ①, and mentioned that Liu Xuande of the Shu Han had long ears. He thought, if it was a nose, how much it would relieve his heart. ① Aurora is the name given to China by ancient India. On the one hand, Naiku painstakingly masturbates so passively, and on the other hand, he actively tries to shorten his nose, so there is no need to repeat it here.He tried almost everything.He drank old raven's paw soup and dabbed mouse urine on his nose.But no matter what, isn't the five or six inch long nose still drooping to the mouth?

In the autumn of one year, the apprentice of Neigong went to Beijing to work, and learned the unique skill of shortening the long nose from a well-versed doctor.The doctor originally came across the sea from Sindan, and was serving as an enshrined monk in the Buddhist hall of Changle Temple. Nai Kuo pretended to be indifferent to the nose as usual, not to mention trying this method right away.But at the same time, he said in a relaxed tone that he troubled his disciples every meal, and he couldn't help feeling uneasy.In fact, he hoped that his apprentice would persuade him to try this method.The disciples may not understand the painstaking efforts of Nei Gong.This didn't arouse the apprentice's disgust, but rather, it seems that the neiko used this set of scheming secrets to win the apprentice's sympathy.So, he tried his best to persuade him to confess.Neigong got his wish, and finally complied with this enthusiastic advice.

The method is extremely simple, just scald the nose with hot water first, and then let people step on the nose with their feet. The bathrooms in the monastery routinely boil water every day.Immediately, the apprentice fetched boiling water from the bathroom with a pail that was so hot that he couldn't stick his fingers into it.If you stick your nose straight into the pail, you are afraid that the steam will damage your face (huotong).So, I drilled a hole in the wooden paper tray, covered it with the pail, and stuck my nose into the hot water through the hole.Only this nose didn't feel hot when it was immersed in boiling water.After a while, the apprentice said, "It's hot enough."

Neigu smiled wryly.Because he thought, just listening to this sentence, no one would think that it refers to the nose.His nose was itchy from the boiling water (Huo Tong), as if bitten by a flea. After the inner priest pulled the nose out of the hole in the wooden paper tray, the apprentice stepped on the steaming nose vigorously with both feet.Lying there on his side, Naiko stuck his nose to the floor and watched his apprentice's feet move up and down before his eyes.The apprentice showed apology from time to time, looked down at the bald head of the nephew, and asked, "Does it hurt? The doctor said to step on it hard, but, does it hurt?"

Neigu wanted to shake his head to show that it didn't hurt.But the nose was stepped on, and the head could not be shaken.He rolled his eyes, looked at his apprentice's chapped feet, and said in a slow angry voice, "It doesn't hurt." To tell you the truth, the nose is itching, not so much pain, but rather comfortable. Stepping on and stepping on, things like rice grains began to emerge from the nose.It looks like a whole roasted bird with its feathers plucked.The apprentice stopped when he saw it, and seemed to be talking to himself, "It is said that I will use tweezers to pull this out."

Nei Kuo puffed up his cheeks in dissatisfaction, and let the disciples do it without saying a word.Of course, he didn't know that the apprentice had good intentions.But it was unpleasant to treat my nose like a thing.The inner priest looked like a patient who was operated on by a doctor he didn't trust, hesitatingly glanced at his apprentice using tweezers to force out the fat from the pores of his nose.The shape of the fat is like the root of a bird's feather, and when you pull it out, it will grow by four quarters. After making a mistake, the apprentice breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Just one more burn and it will be done." The inner priest still frowned, his face was warm, and he let his apprentice do what he wanted. Stretching out the scalded nose twice, it turned out to be much shorter than before, just like a normal hooked nose.While stroking his shortened nose, the inner priest shyly looked at the mirror that his apprentice took out for him. The nose—the one that drooped below the jaw, had shrunk incredibly, and was now a wimpy remnant of the upper lip.There are red spots all over it, maybe it is the trace of stepping on it.In this way, no one will laugh at him again. ——The face of Naifu in the mirror, facing the face of Naifu outside the mirror, filled his plump eyes with satisfaction. But throughout the day, I was worried that my nose would grow back.Whether he was chanting sutras or eating, whenever he was free, he would reach out and gently touch the tip of his nose.The nose stayed well above the lips and showed no sign of drooping.After sleeping all night, when he woke up early the next morning, Neiku first touched his nose.The nose is still short.The internal offerings seem to have accumulated the merits of copying the "Lotus Sutra", and I haven't felt so comfortable for many years. However, two or three days later, the neiko discovered something unexpected. A samurai came to Chiwei Temple to handle errands. He put on a look of more amused expression than before, and he didn't even speak seriously, just He was staring at the inner priest's nose. What's more, the middle boy who had accidentally let the inner priest's nose get stuck in the porridge, when he passed the inner priest outside the lecture hall, he lowered his head at first Suppressed laughter; at last he probably couldn't hold it anymore, and burst out laughing. When he gave jobs to the monks and monks, they listened respectfully to their faces, but as soon as he turned around, He secretly laughed, and this happened more than once or twice. Uchiko initially thought it was because his appearance had changed.However, this explanation alone seems not thorough enough. ——Of course, this must be the reason why the middle boy and the handyman monks laughed.It's the same smile, but it's not the same as when his nose was long in the past.If it is said that an unfamiliar short nose is more ridiculous than an accustomed long nose, that's all.But there seem to be other reasons. When chanting sutras, he would often stop, tilt his bald head and murmur, "Why haven't you smiled so openly before?" At this moment, the amiable Neifu Zhunding stared blankly at the portrait of Samantabhadra hanging beside him, recalling that four or five days ago when his nose was still long, he felt depressed and felt like "sighing the current desolation and recalling the glory of the past". feel.It is a pity that the confession is not wise enough to answer this question. —There are two contradictory feelings in the hearts of men.Of course, there is no one who does not sympathize with the misfortunes of others.But when that person manages to shake off misfortune, this side somehow feels like something is missing.It was exaggerated, and even wanted that person to fall into the misfortune of the past again.So, although the attitude is negative, but unknowingly hostile to that person. ——Although Neigu didn't know the secret, he felt unhappy, and this was simply because he perceived the egoism of the bystanders from the attitude of monks and laymen in Ikeo. Neigui's temper became more and more perverse.No matter who he was, he scolded him viciously without saying a word.In the end, even the apprentice who fixed his nose secretly said: "Naiku will be punished for committing a crime of violence." The naughty Zhongtong especially liked his anger.One day, the nephew heard the dog barking, so he casually walked out of the house to see that Zhongtong was chasing a bony long-haired poodle with a two-foot-long wooden stick.It's all just chasing and playing, and he chased and shouted: "Don't hit your nose, hey, don't hit your nose!" The inner priest snatched the wooden stick from the middle boy and beat him on the face. .It turned out that it was the wooden stick used to support the nose earlier. On the contrary, the nose is short, but Nai Kuo regrets it. One night, probably after sunset, there was a sudden wind, and the noise of the wind chimes on the tower came to my pillow.In addition, the weather suddenly cooled down, and the elderly Naigu couldn't sleep.He was writhing in bed, and suddenly felt his nose was unusually itchy, and when he touched it, it was a little swollen, and it even seemed to be hot there. The inner priest pressed his nose in the pious posture of offering flowers in front of the Buddha, and muttered: "Maybe it was because it was forced to be shortened, something went wrong." The next day, Uchiko woke up early in the morning as usual.I opened my eyes and saw that the ginkgo and horse chestnut trees in the temple had lost all their leaves overnight, and the garden was as bright as if covered with gold.Probably because of the frost that fell on the top of the tower, the nine wheels shone brightly in the morning light.The protective screen had been opened, and Zen Zhi Naigu stood in the porch and took a deep breath. Just then, Naiko regained a feeling he had almost forgotten. He quickly reached out to touch his nose.What I felt was not the short nose from last night, but the long nose from before, which was five or six inches long from the upper lip to the lower jaw.Naiko knew that his nose became as long as before overnight.At the same time he felt, as when the nose had been shortened, somehow brightened up again. Neiguo dangled his long nose in the autumn wind at dawn, and thought to himself, "In this way, no one will laugh at me anymore." (January 1916) translated by Wen Jieruo