Aurelien, 1944

In the face of this young unknown woman, a mask of an adolescent with closed eyes, whose fate—suicide, murder, or accident—was never determined, leading to her being cast into the waters of the Ourcq Canal before her body was found floating in the Seine, numerous copies of the mask were made at the instigation of the forensic pathologist who was struck by its beauty and its resemblance to a Madonna. This cast of her face was subsequently reproduced in a multitude of copies at the beginning of the century.

Louis Aragon had asked Man Ray to take photographs on the theme of the mask, in preparation for the republication of Aurélien. The photographer produced about fifteen images depicting the mask in front of a mirror, photomontages, including one of the unknown woman's face crossed by a blindfold bearing open eyes.

In the novel, on the last page of the epilogue: “Aurélien’s good hand lifted her face. Her eyes were half-closed, she had a smile, the smile of the Unknown Woman of the Seine… the bullets had pierced her like a great leap of murder.”