A certain Duchess of Alba died yesterday at the age of eighty-eight. She is all over the news. I had no idea who she was, but I did my best to learn about her on the World Wide Web after I saw a few photographs of her face. An amazing face, to be sure. Surrounded by a round bush of frizzy grey hair, it looked like the face of a Martian. Or the face of an unknown primate species. She is celebrated as a flamboyant Spanish aristocrat famous for her fabulous lifestyle. Her full name was María del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, and she had more than forty titles. The five-century old House of Alba brought her many privileges, too. For instance, she did not have to kneel before the pope. Also, she had the right to ride on horseback into Seville Cathedral. Her third and last husband was twenty-five years her junior. Her art collection, considered to be one of the finest in Spain, reaches back five centuries. And so on, and so forth. But her face is worth seeing again and again. The Martian primate had neither forehead nor chin. Her tiny eyes were very close to each other. She had a pointed nose, and an enormous mouth with surprisingly thick lips. The Duchess of Alba will stay with me for many years to come. Her face is etched into my mind’s eye.