The Face of Another Read Online Free PDF Page A

you ever seen the expressions of imbeciles or schizophrenics? If the roadway is left blocked too long, one ultimately quite forgets there is one.”
    To avoid being cornered, I tried to strike back at random.
    “Yes, indeed. So let’s suppose that expression is precisely what you say. Isn’t it all rather contradictory, though? How in the world will you restore expression with your way of doing things, which is to put a makeshift cover over only a certain part of the face?”
    “Don’t worry. If you’re concerned, please leave that to me. That’s my specialty. At least, I have confidence that I can offer you something better than your bandages. Well, now, shall we take them off? I’d like you to let me take a few pictures, and with them as a basis, we’ll make a graduated selection, by a process of elimination, of the elements necessary for the restoration of expression. We’ll pick some stable places with little mobility and.…”
    “I beg your pardon, but.…” I wanted only to get away. I forgot all about keeping up appearances and began to entreat and implore him. “Rather than that, I wonder if you wouldn’t just sell me that one finger.”
    As I anticipated, K was struck dumb with amazement, and rubbing his wrist along his thigh, said: “A finger.… This one, do you mean?”
    “If you won’t sell a finger, an ear or anything else will do very well.”
    “But.… It’s a question of the keloid scars on your face, I thought.”
    “I’m sorry. If it’s impossible, I’ll get along without it, but.…”
    “I don’t understand. It’s not particularly that I can’t sell you a finger, but … but, even that is surprisingly expensive. Anyhow, for each one, I have to make an antimony cast, you see. The cost of materials alone comes to about fifty dollars. And that’s a low estimate.…”
    “Fine.”
    “I really don’t understand … what you’re thinking of.”
    He didn’t have to understand. The whole exchange between us seemed to be proceeding on two quite divergent rails. I took out my wallet and, as I counted out the money, I repeated my earnest apologies.
    I left, holding the artificial finger in my pocket like a dangerous weapon. The shadows and light of evening were extremely distinct, but seemed more artificial than the finger. When some young boys who were playing catch in a narrow lane saw me, they changed color and pressed away from me against the fence. Their faces looked as though they were dangling by their ears on clothespins. If I took off the bandage and showed them the real thing, they’d be a lot more surprised! I was seized with an impulse to rip off my bandages in earnest and to jump into the midst of this landscape that seemed like pasted bits of paper. But without a face, it was impossible for me to take a single step away from my bandages. The picture of brandishing the fake finger in my pocket with all my might and ripping that landscape to pieces floated into my mind. I was no more affected by K’s disagreeable remark about being buried alive than by the filling of a molar. Well, look, if I could cover my face with an imitation completely indistinguishable from the real thing, however fake the landscape might be, it couldn’t make me an outcast.

    T HAT evening, I stood the artificial finger on the table like a candle and spent a sleepless night endlessly pondering one aspect and then another of the “fake” which appeared more genuine than the real thing.
    Perhaps beyond that, I was imagining the masked ball of the fairy tale in which I would before long appear. But wasn’t it actually symbolic that even in idle fancy I could not help but add a “fairy-tale” commentary? I have written about this before, but I made my plans lightheartedly, as if I were skipping over some narrow ditch. Of course, I had thought out no final solution. Was it because I strove in my subconscious to consider the mask itself simply the extension of an entirely consistent attitude