With her shoulder she brushed aside the curtain that served to partition off the kitchen and entered the room with an affectedly light, girlish step, her weight borne forward, carrying over her arm a man’s raincoat, on which she had placed a folded, used newspaper and on top of that her free hand. Evidently she had made short work of putting on her make-up. The neat, velvety-soft color of her skin and even her freckles had restored her usual freshness, and her hair had been brushed. Perhaps the attempt to conceal her real face was because she had a woman’s consciousness of being seen, or it might on the other hand be a manifestation of caution. But even so, the effectiveness was open to question. This woman became more transparent by using cosmetics, and she could easily be seen through. A distant dream village enshrouded in mist. Before I became what I am now, my breast was filled with yearning for it—a remote village that seemed lost among the trees, where I remember spending several days.
