Summary

Everett describes the villainous lover’s slow infiltration of every aspect of the business man’s life and the culmination of his machinations when he adopts the face of the businessman through plastic surgery. The businessman is ejected from his home and rejected by his friends and forced to live on the street due to his mad insistence his identity has been stolen. Einstein talks about the self-involved insecurities of all despotism and goes on to discuss the Holocaust. He writes, “For you see what moves not as fast as light but fast enough, and with an accrued mass of such density as not to be borne, is the accelerating disaster of human history” (53).

This introduces the first passage of Mr. Blumenthal’s experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust and his career as a runner for the Jewish council in the Kovno Ghetto. He tells...