Morris Winchevsky, “Reformed Noses,” 1890. Translated by Vivi Lachs
My grandson came home from school today with an important piece of news. A friend of his told him that one of his other friends heard that his father had read in the paper that some clever bloke in America said that he had found a way to reshape noses. What an amazing place America is! The world’s youngest daughter (if you don’t include the “baby,” Australia) gets cleverer by the day, like her mother, Mrs. Europe, and her grandmother, Mrs. Asia, and she’s growing in leaps and bounds. Every single day America thinks up something else new! A real success story, as sure as I am a Jew!
One day America realised that human ears weren’t good enough. “There are loads of big ears,” America said, “but they can’t hear anything at a distance.” So they got down to work and invented a telephone. But not completely happy with that, America said: “Human beings have got really long tongues and very big mouths, but what they say, can only be heard when they say it, and no later.” Again they got down to the task and came up with a gramophone. Now, America is starting on noses.
* * *
As my grandson says, the plan is not to make noses better at smelling (in this respect the Yankees don’t need better noses) but to make noses more attractive. The nose reformer says he can make flat noses prominent and protruding noses flatter; he can make long noses short and short noses long; he can make pointy noses rounder, and noses that look like squashed potatoes a bit pointier; he can make wide noses narrower and narrow noses wider; he can make milky-white noses redder, and ruddy noses paler. To sum up, he is a sort of magician who can make your nose look however you like.
* * *
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Cleopatra’s nose or the nose of Napoleon the First, and many other famous historical noses, but I’ve just been thinking about them. Take Napoleon, for instance: he always chose men with big long noses for his generals and liked people with long noses above all. Surely you must have heard of the Duke of Alba’s nose: that was the kind Napoleon really liked. It could be that Napoleon, who wanted to lead the world by the nose, liked that sort of nose because you can grip it more easily with your hand.
* * *
Then many of my English Jewish acquaintances come to mind. Whether they are gentlemen or not, the most important thing is to look English, and what prevents them from looking English is their unfortunate nose. What a fortune the nose-reformer would make at the Eastern Wall of the Bayswater Synagogue! For, as you must know, although the Jewish aristocrats are Jews in the synagogue, everywhere else they strive to be John-Bull Englishmen, and their long. beaked noses torment them. They console themselves with the fact that Gladstone has a big nose and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Goschen, has a long nose, and that the late Gambetta had a broad nose. But Gladstone studies the Bible, and it could be that he comes from one of the ten lost tribes. Goschen is certainly descended from Jews, and Gambetta was too clever not to be Jewish… just look at all the money he accumulated in his few short years; and don’t forget that he was a friend of the people, a one-eyed friend who had to smell out with his long nose what he couldn’t see with his blind eye. In short, it’s not much consolation. The sideburns, the pointy laced-up boots, the clothes, the speech ̶ everything is English apart from the nose. May it catch a cold!
* * *
And Alexander the Third’s bloodhounds! If the great American nose reformer took this on, Tsar Alex would drown him in money! Because there must be something wrong with the noses of his spies. They don’t sniff everything out, and as many as they are, and as hard as they sniff, the revolutionary spirit grows, as the saying goes, right under their noses. If it’s necessary to make his faithful bloodhounds’ noses more pointed, or stretch them out – I don’t know what because I’m no nose-reformer (not a reformer of any kind) ̶ he, the American, would already know what needs to be done; he would find a way.
As you can see, because of my grandson’s bit of news, I’ve been thinking hard about noses. Believe it or not, I’m telling you that I’ve started to think that if the nose manufacturer comes over here to London, I might do a bit of business in partnership with him. We could publish a newspaper together. I would write the political items, and he the scientific articles, because someone who can turn a beaky schnozzle into a beautiful Greek nose must be a very learned man. In five minutes, I’ve concocted a whole plan. First, I establish a newspaper called “The Nose,” and I write a lovely editorial in which I of course explain that the paper is called ”The Nose” not because it is a national Jewish newspaper, but because it campaigns for general nose reform. I’ve even composed a little ditty that you can see here in print.
Readers bring your noses
My partner here proposes
To reform them into what your heart desires.
Long ones shorter,
Narrow, broader,
He’ll just do whatever it requires.
Large to slight,
Thin put right,
Amaze your sense of smell along the way.
Pale or glowing,
Straight or flowing
Never again ashamed from this day.
With brand new flair
When sunk in prayer
Complements will fly then to and fro.
So bring your noses
To smell the roses
But before you do that you must first…
Blow? That’s not so poetic. Now, where do you get hold of this chap? We’ll talk about this a bit more.
