SOURCE: "Shmuel Yosef Agnon's The Face and the Image'," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 12, Spring, 1975, pp. 184-85.

In the following essay, Knieger attempts to define the central theme of the story "The Face and the Image" ("Ha-panim la-panim").

One of the Agnon stones in Twenty-One Stories is "The Face and the Image." But this title is a metaphorical translation of the Hebrew "Ha-panim la-panim," which literally translates into "The Face to the Face." The editor Nahum N. Glatzer in his "Editorial Postscript" writes (on page 283) that the "Hebrew title of the story is taken from Proverbs 27:19, which the standard translations render as, 'As in the water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.'" But what is the relevance of this proverb to the story? Presumably the reference exists to establish an ironic contrast: the proverb asserts than man comforts man, but the...