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160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
But what was real in this world, and what was not real? Wasn’t it a kind of sickness that people could walk around holding onto their own ego? – that whole chaos of voices, faces, and memories that they only dared to let slip from themselves drop by drop, and never could be certain of retrieving again.
Preoccupied with other things, she hadn't taken care of the face, and at the very last moment it was replaced by a new one, stolen from a dead or sleeping person, who then had to make do as best he could. It was either too big or too small, and it bore traces of a life that didn't belong to the new owner. And yet, when you got used to it, glimpses of the original face would appear, just the way old wallpaper will crack and reveal patches of the hidden layer underneath, still fresh and well-preserved and filled with memories of the former tenants of the house.
[...]
But it was most apparent in children who were still growing. You couldn't fix them with your gaze; it would reflect off them, as empty as a mirror that you've stared at for a long time. Children wore their faces like something they had to grow into, which wouldn't fit them for many years. The face was almost always put on too high, and they had to stand on tiptoe and make a tremendous effort just to see the images on the inside of the eyelids. (p. 4-5)