Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan, volume 2.pdf/119



There was no one at Ikeno-o who was not familiar with the nose of Zenchi, the ‘Naigu’ (a high priest of a Buddhist temple). Its length was about five or six inches, and it hung down from above his upper lip to beneath his jaw. It was equally thick from the bridge down to the tip; in fact, it had the appearance of a long sausage hanging untidily from the middle of his face.

The Naigu was more than fifty years of age, and in his innermost mind he had never ceased worrying about his nose through the days and years which had passed since he was a Shami (a young man entering priesthood), until now, when he had reached the happy position of ‘Naidojo-gubu’ (an abbot of a Buddhist lecture hall attached to the Imperial House). But externally one could not discern any trace of worry, for he rather gave himself airs, as if he cared little about his long nose. This came from the fact that he had convinced himself that it would be rather a bad thing for a Buddhist priest—who had an intense and fervent desire to enter the Buddhist Paradise when his time came—to show any anxiety about having a long nose. He also hated to feel that people knew he worried about it. More than anything else in the world he had a horror of hearing the word ‘nose’ mentioned in everyday conversation.