At first the Naigu interpreted this as being due to the change in his features. But by this interpretation it seemed by no means possible to arrive at a full explanation. Of course the reason for the Chūdōji’s and under priests’ laughing must have lain in that. But all the same, there was in the way they laughed something that had not been there in the days when his nose was long. If his unfamiliar short nose looked more ridiculous than his familiar long nose, so much for that. But there seemed to be something more to it.
“They didn’t laugh so constantly before,” the Naigu would murmur sometimes, interrupting the sutra he had started to recite and cocking his bald head on one side. On such occasions, the amiable Naigu was sure to look absentmindedly at a picture of Fugen hanging beside him and, thinking of the time a few days back when his nose was still long, fall into low spirits, thinking, “like unto a man utterly ruined pondering the time of his glory.” Unfortunately he was lacking in the perspicacity to solve this problem.
In the human heart there are two feelings mutually contradictory. Of course there is no one who does not sympathize at the misfortune of another. But if that other somehow manages to escape from that misfortune, then he who has sympathized somehow feels unsatisfied. To exaggerate a little, he is even disposed to cast the sufferer back into the same misfortune once more. And before he is aware of it, he unconsciously comes to harbor a certain hostility against him. What somehow displeased the Naigu, though he did not know the reason, was nothing other than the egoism he indefinably perceived in the attitude of those onlookers, both priests and laymen, at Ike-no-O.
So the Naigu’s humor became worse every day. He scolded everybody ill-naturedly at the slightest provocation. Even the disciple who had operated on his nose finally came to say behind his back that he would be punished for his avarice and cruelty. It was that mischievous Chūdōji who enraged the Naigu most.