SEMBLING

  About ten minutes later we came into a thoroughfare very closely resembling our own Oxford Street,  and something told me we were in the centre of the town, and that it would be advisable for me to get off the bus.  I was trying to make up my mind , looking out of the window at each stop, when all at once something happened, or rather I saw something, which nearly shot me out of my seat.

     The gloriously pretty girl who so fascinated me upon entering, had moved over to a seat opposite to me, and had been looking out of the window, so that I could only see her profile.  She now turned and looked at me and I saw her full face for the first time.

     I do not know how to express the macabre horror of what I saw.  It was not one face, but two faces in one !   A straight firm dividing line came down from the middle of the forehead, through the nose, to the chin and it seemed that each half of her face belonged to a different person !

Text:  Excerpt from Patrick Hamilton (1904-1962), Impromptu In Moribundia.

Images:  First, Laura Gilpin (1891-1979), Untitled;  Second, Francis Picabia (1879-1953), Portrait of Olga.