禅智内供の鼻と云えば、池尾で知らない者はいない。長さは五六寸あって上唇の上から顎の下まで下がっている。形は元も先も同じように太い。云わば細長い腸詰めのような物が、顔のまん中からぶら下がっているのである。
Speaking of Zenchi Naigu's nose, there was no one in Ike-no-o who did not know of it. It was five or six inches long and hung from above his upper lip down to below his chin. Its shape was equally thick from the base to the tip. One might say that something like a long, thin sausage was dangling from the middle of his face.
内供は五十歳を越えた当時に至るまで、心中では常にこの鼻を苦に病んできた。表面ではさほど気にならないように振る舞っていたが、内心では誰にも相談できず、ただ自分の鼻が少しでも短く見える工夫はないかと、そればかり考えていたのである。経文を読むふりをしながら、鏡を取り出してはさまざまな角度から顔を映してみる始末であった。
Naigu had constantly suffered in his heart over this nose until he reached the age of over fifty. While he behaved on the surface as if it did not concern him much, in his heart he could not consult with anyone, and he thought only of whether there was some way to make his nose look even slightly shorter. He would go so far as to take out a mirror and reflect his face from various angles while pretending to read Buddhist scriptures.
ある年の秋、内供の弟子が京都へ上ったついでに、知己の医者から鼻を短くする法を教わってきた。それは、湯で鼻を茹でて、その鼻を人に踏ませるという極めて特異な方法であった。内供は最初、そんな方法など信じられないごとき態度をとっていたが、弟子が熱心に勧めるのにほだされて、ついにはその法を試すことに同意したのである。
In the autumn of a certain year, a disciple of Naigu, on the occasion of going up to Kyoto, learned a method for shortening the nose from a physician acquaintance. It was an extremely peculiar method: boiling the nose in hot water and then having someone trample on it. At first, Naigu took an attitude as if such a method could not be believed, but moved by the disciple's earnest recommendation, he finally agreed to try that method.
熱い湯で茹でた後、弟子に両足で思い切り鼻を踏ませた。痛くはないかと尋ねる弟子に対し、内供は平気な顔をして「痛くはない」と答えたが、実際にはその奇妙な光景は滑稽といったらありはしなかった。そして、毛抜きで鼻の毛穴から脂を抜き取り、もう一度茹でると、不思議なことにあれほど長かった鼻が、普通の短い鼻になっていたのである。
After boiling it in hot water, he had the disciple stomp on the nose with both feet with all his might. To the disciple who asked if it hurt, Naigu replied with a composed face, "It doesn't hurt," but in fact, that strange sight was nothing if not comical. Then, after extracting fat from the pores of the nose with tweezers and boiling it once more, mysteriously, the nose that had been so long had become an ordinary short nose.
内供はこれで誰からも笑われることはないと安心した。ところが、二三日経つと事情が違ってきたのである。鼻が短くなった内供の顔を見て、人々は以前にも増して露骨に笑うようになった。人間の心には、他人の不幸に同情する一面がある一方で、その人が不幸を切り抜けると、かえって物足りなく思い、再び元の不幸に突き落としてやりたくなるという感情があるのだ。
Naigu felt relieved that now no one would laugh at him. However, after two or three days had passed, the situation changed. Seeing Naigu's face with the shortened nose, people began to laugh even more blatantly than before. In the human heart, while there is an aspect of sympathizing with others' misfortune, on the other hand, once that person overcomes the misfortune, one instead feels somewhat unsatisfied and a feeling arises of wanting to thrust them back into their original misfortune again.
結局、内供は次第に不機嫌になり、短い鼻を怨むようになった。そしてある秋の朝、目を覚ますと、鼻が元の長い鼻に戻っていることに気づいた。その瞬間、内供は「これでまた、誰も自分を笑う者はいないに違いない」と、長かった鼻が元通りになったことを心から喜んだのである。
In the end, Naigu gradually became ill-humored and came to resent the short nose. Then, on an autumn morning, when he woke up, he noticed that his nose had returned to its original long nose. At that moment, Naigu rejoiced from his heart that the long nose had returned to normal, thinking, "With this, there is no doubt that no one will laugh at me again."