"How old is she?"
"I do not know. I have asked her, and she has laughed and said that time is nothing to her. I was five
years old when she took me. She looked then just as she does now."
"Has she any accomplices-I mean are there others who make the dolls?"
"One. She taught him. He was her lover in Prague."
"Her lover!" I exclaimed, incredulously-the image of the immense gross body, the great breasts, the
heavy horse-like face of the doll-maker rising before my eyes. She said:
"I know what you are thinking. But she has another body. She wears it when she pleases. It is a beautiful
body. It belongs to her eyes, her hands, her voice. When she wears that body she is beautiful. She is
terrifyingly beautiful. I have seen her wear it many times."