My friend describes what it was like to grow up here. He recalls roller-skating across the uninterrupted procession of state rooms on the third level; playing hide-and-seek in the closed rooms; and football in the courtyard, with the somber Roman Emperors for audience and judges. Once, he says, a stray shot, going wide off the goal, knocked Hadrian on the head and – off the pedestal. The ruler of Orbis Cognita fell flat on his face – and broke off his nose. The two boys were unable to hoist him back up alone and had to call in a footman, having first sworn him to total secrecy. The task was accomplished, the Emperor returned to his dignified elevation – and the crime never discovered: apparently no one ever looked at the Emperors close enough or long enough to notice that the nose of one had suddenly gone missing. My friend says he carried the nose in his pocket for many months afterwards, a kind of trophy.
I was reminded of a story by Tanizaki in which a fifteen year old samurai defeats an enemy but fails to take his head, it being too big for him to lop off, and makes away with just the nose instead. All sorts of complications follow when the defeated samurai turns out not to have been quite dead.
Well, yes, but the nose of an emperor!
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