Young Anna's Mistake

“A person should have everything beautiful: both face and clothes, and the soul and thoughts,” Chekhov wrote. Anton Pavlovich may be forgiven for being mistaken—after all, though he was a doctor, he was a therapist, not a plastic surgeon. If he had been a plastic surgeon, he would have written that everything in a person should be beautiful—and first of all the nose. Even the most beautiful eyes and full lips can be ruined by a “potato” nose. But a delicate, elegant little nose can easily transform even the most boring face. That’s why rhinoplasty is so in demand among patients. Anna V. was a very beautiful girl, and only her slightly too long nose kept her from the ideal. That is exactly what she came to the Nizhny Novgorod clinic “Palukse” for. And then, some time later, in Berg’s office, a phone call rang—another doctor, in tears, begged Alexander to come to Nizhny Novgorod as an expert and help figure out the causes of an unsuccessful operation. And again, surgeon Berg ran into a riddle…