My Body in Nine Parts Read Online Free PDF Page A

told the camera man. Especially now that I’ve been translated into Swahili.
    But I was going to reveal the real reason why my nose is crooked. OK, I’ll say it, even though it will undoubtedly depress me, and put my nose in a bad mood. It doesn’t like it when I tell this story. My nose is very sensitive.
    It’s normal. Noses are naturally sensitive. And mine is hyper-sensitive because it is bigger than just an ordinary nose. The run of the mill. Its dimension and its shape make my nose unique. I would even say that it is a noble nose. An aristocratic nose. It may not be a perfect Roman nose, but it has its own style. And the fact that it is crooked makes it even more unique and original.
    OK, enough procrastination, I now will tell why my nose leans to one side. It’s because when I was a boy my nose was always running, and I was constantly sniffling, even during the summer. My nose was naturally humid. It’s not a crime. That’s how it was.
    It was not my fault if my nose had a tendency to run. I could not control it. And what made it worse, is that I never had a handkerchief to blow my nose. So I would wipe my runny nose with my sleeve. The reason I had to wipe my nose with my sleeve when I was a boy is because we were so poor we couldn’t afford to buy handkerchiefs. So the other boys in school, who had handkerchiefs, always made fun of me because I used the sleeve of my shirt or of my coat as a tire-jus . That’s what we called a handkerchief in school. Un tire-jus . Roughly translated, a juice-puller.
    You cannot believe how poor we were. We were so poor we couldn’t even afford to buy toilet paper. So when we had to go, we wiped ourselves with pieces of newspaper. And let me tell you, it’s not always comfortable. It’s rough to be poor.
    Okay, you’re going to tell me that this toilet paper digression has nothing to do with my nose.
    Well, I’ll replay, it’s in the toilet that my nose smells better than ordinary noses simply because it’s bigger. My nose smells more deeply. It inhales more fully.
    In any case, because my nose was always running I constantly had snot in my nose, and that’s why I had to wipe it with my sleeve since I didn’t have a handkerchief. The older boys always called me petit morveux . Snotty brat.
    Well, so now you know the real reason why my nose goes to one side of my face. I should perhaps specify that it was always with my left sleeve that I wiped my nose because when I was a boy I was left-handed.
    It’s my mother who decided that I should be left-handed when she was shaping me in her womb. She must have known that someday I would be some sort of artist, and she believed that all great artists are left-handed. That’s what she believed. I suppose because she had married an artist.
    That’s probably why my nose deviates to the left since I always wiped it on my sleeve in a quick right to left motion. At least, it’s logical to assume that it deviates to the left, even though I cannot see it myself in the mirror.
    When I broke my left arm at the age of nine, I was forced to become right-handed. I broke my left arm when I fell from a cherry tree, and it was in a cast for many months. But that’s another story which I will tell another time.
    For the time being let’s stay with the story of my crooked nose, and forget the broken left-arm.
    I must emphasize that my nose does not only serve me to smell odors in toilets. It smells all kinds of other odors. Pleasant odors. The smell of flowers, for instance. Or the smell of cheeses. My nose loves to smell cheeses. Especially le Pont-L’Évêque when it’s well done. My nose loves smelly cheeses. And it loves the scent of good wines. And of course, the smell of women. Ah yes, the odor of a woman. My nose loves to smell perfumed women, especially young women who smell like fresh flowers. And also my nose likes to smell itself, its own body,