The woman with the long nose

Once upon a time there was a woman who had a very long nose. She could curl it up as we do with our toes. When she woke up in the morning she could put the kettle on to boil with her nose, and switch the cooker on without getting out of bed. She could stretch her nose out into the hall and fetch the newspaper, pick up her tea-cup from the kitchen and switch on the light by the door.

Her nose had learned all these tricks because it wanted desperately to perform in a circus. At night the nose dreamt that the woman came riding into the ring on an elephant, and that she juggled with burning torches, while she conducted the music with her long nose.

The woman found the dream most enjoyable and thought how much she would like to work in an circus. But when she woke up she daren't even think of it. Therefore, nothing ever came of the nose's secret wish. It rested instead on a stand in the woman's office and was bored to tears. Even though the woman had found lots of clever uses for a long nose, she also found that it often got in the way. For instance when she bent over to put her shoes on she stubbed her nose on the floor before her hands could reach down. Then she had to put her foot on a stool and rest her nose on the table to tie her shoe-laces.

 When she tried to ring someone's doorbell her nose got in the way so she couldn't reach far enough. She had to lean her head sideways and the couldn't always see which bell to ring. She frequently rang the wrong bell, and quite often a grumpy man would appear, who fist told her off and then made fun of her long nose.

 There were lots of things about her long nose that irritated her. For example, when se wanted to put a sweater on, she always had to pull it over her nose first, and then over her head. She couldn't lift her nose too high either. Several times she had torn down the lamps from the ceiling while getting dressed.

 People looked at her oddly when she was in town. They pointed at her and laughed and shouted nasty remarks after her. "Look at her, she can poke her nose into just about everything". Or: "What size handkerchief do you use? You need a whole sheet to blow that nose". They carried on like this until they made the woman sad and miserable.

 Once, when she tried to get on the bus her nose got stuck in the door. People had, on occasion, hung their coats on it, thinking it was a coat-rack. No, it wasn't easy. Eventually she began to consider getting rid of it.

 So, one day she went to the doctor. "Do you think you could do something to make my nose smaller and more attractive?" she asked. The doctor said: "Yes, that's no problem at all, but I think your nose is just fine as it is. You should be proud of the way you look." The woman sighed deeply. "But you've no idea what its like to have such a long nose. This is the sort of nose people grab because they think it is a stick to throw to their dog. How much fun do you think that is?"

 The doctor didn't think it was especially amusing. "Or when people use it as a handrail to pull themselves upstairs. Or when people hang up a swing for their children on it. Some boys once thought it was a branch ant tried to build a tree house on it". Then the doctor nodded sympathetically. Now he understood why the woman wanted to get rid of such a troublesome nose. They then agreed that the nose should be cut off.

 Several days later the woman lay on an operating table in the hospital. Solemn looking doctors wearing green gowns and with masks over their mouths cut off the long nose and made an ordinarily little nose instead. They packed the long nose down in a cardboard box.

 The long nose lay all alone in the dark and felt very sorry for itself. All its circus dreams were shattered. It was no longer carried about. It was no longer blown when it dripped, and the woman no longer patted it as she used to when it lay on the pillow at night. The nose just lay there in the cardboard box feeling completely useless and terribly sad. This is the end of my life as a nose," it thought, "and I had so many plans."

 That night in the hospital the woman didn't dream any more about juggling blazing torches on the back of an elephant. She was disappointed, as she had got used to that dream. Then she remembered that her long nose had been cut off. She jumped out of bed and looked at herself in the mirror. "Look how attractive I am now with a pretty little nose like everyone else!" She tanked the doctors for doing such a good job, and went home with the cardboard box tucked under her arm.

 She smiled at everybody she met on her way, because she felt so pretty. But no-one seemed to notice her any more. Nobody looked at her, nobody pointed at her, and nobody spoke to her.

 That evening she sat down to watch the television, and then she discovered something annoying. Her nose had been so long that she could sit on the sofa and switch on the TV without getting up. She had used her nose to stir the food in the saucepans when making dinner, and when people came calling she had often opened the door with her nose. Now that it had been removed she remembered all its advantages.

 She sat up in bed to read a magazine instead of watching the TV, but her glasses kept sliding down her short nose so that she had to hold them in place with her hand. She noticed an advertisement in the magazine. It said that there was an exiting job at the circus for the woman with the longest nose.

 "Perhaps that's something for me," she thought. But then she remembered that her fantastic long nose lay in the cardboard box, and that she had only an ordinary little everyday sort of a nose now.

 It hadn't been such a good idea to remove her nose after all. She looked in the mirror and no longer thought that a little nose was so splendid. Luckily she hadn't thrown her long nose away. She opened the cardboard box and took the long nose out. "Oh, my lovely long nose", she said, and gave it a hug. "Perhaps I can have you put back on again?"

 As soon as it was light next morning she hurried off to the doctor. "Doctor, doctor, you were quite right - it's best to be yourself, long nose and all. I regret having it taken off, do you think you could put it back on again?" The doctor said seriously: "Yes, it's possible, but there will be a scar where it was cut off and then sewn back on". The woman considered this for a while and then said. "I don't care, I want my nose back regardless".

 The doctors in their green gowns and masks couldn't believe that this mad woman, who had insisted on having her nose removed the day before, had returned to have it put back on again. But she just smiled at them. "You see, when you are used to having such a fine long nose, then you should keep it." The doctors found her difficult to understand. "If you had long noses you could hang your instruments on them, or clip your stethoscope right on the end and use your noses to listen to your patients," she explained.

 They heard all her arguments about the advantages of a long nose. "You could hang notes on them in order not to forget anything during an operation. If the air in the operating theatre got stale you could poke the tips of your noses out of the window while you continued working. After a while the doctors got so tired of listening to her that they put her to sleep and sewed her nose back on again. When she woke up and found her long nose in place once more she was very pleased, - and so was her nose.

 When the nose left the hospital and breathed in the fresh summer air again it was so happy as can be. "Thank goodness she had me sewn back on," it thought. "Perhaps she will consider taking me to the circus now?" The woman was also delighted. She could live as she had done before. People looked at her again as she walked through the streets, and she found she liked to be watched. Children pointed at her and laughed at her as they always had done and cars stopped for her when she poked her nose out in the street. She went home and tried on her reading glasses, and switched the TV on and off.

 There are thousand of uses for a long nose, and now the woman tried them all out, to celebrate that her nose was back in place. She stirred the food in the saucepans, opened the door, hung out the washing, and switched the light off at night without getting out of bed. That night she laid her nose on the pillow and stroke it fondly. She dreamt that she performed at the circus, rode into the ring on the back of an elephant and juggled with blazing torches. Next day she went out for the circus.

 © Martin Nygaard - Illustration Clas Hansen