WITH all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s
fancy——with so many family prejudices—and ten decades of such tales
running on for ever along with them——how was it possible with such
exquisite——was it a true nose?——That a man with such exquisite feelings
as my father had, could bear the shock at all below stairs——or indeed
above stairs, in any other posture, but the very posture I have
described?
——Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times——taking care only to
place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you do
it—But was the stranger’s nose a true nose, or was it a false one?
To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the
best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth
decade, which immediately follows this.
This tale, cried _Slawkenbergius_, somewhat exultingly, has been
reserved by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right
well, that when I shall have told it, and my reader shall have read it
thro’—’twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book;
inasmuch, continues _Slawkenbergius_, as I know of no tale which could
possibly ever go down after it.
’Tis a tale indeed!
This sets out with the first interview in the inn at _Lyons_, when
_Fernandez_ left the courteous stranger and his sister _Julia_ alone in
her chamber, and is over-written.