Eyes.
They have swum up from the depths of the mirror. Stone still, she observes her own face. Cracked skin, bitten lips, eyes burning with sleeplessness. Yet she still looks good, and you could say that after every wakeful night she becomes more beautiful...her complexion shines with pallor, the dry lips are tight, the eyes gleam, and weariness has set the slightly haughty expression of the sphinx on her face. The corners of the lips have twisted in a light grimace reminiscent ...of disdain perhaps...but for what? For everything around her? For herself? In any case, a beautiful face can take a modest dose of pride, since it creates a barrier of inaccessibility against the casual witness, and so also determines her value. As we know, a high value lends an illusion of beauty even to things that are not beautiful, and so how much more will it enhance an object beautiful even before the price went up?
Yes - she was beautiful - and she was well aware of it. She perceived her Form in fleeting encounters with every shiny surface that had the chance to reflect it. She was often charmed, even caught unawares, when she met her own features in some exceptionally favourable light that showed her face and body from some previously unknown angle. The people around her, however, were the more reliable mirrors - she noticed the agreeably surprised looks of male passers-by, but regarded the admiration and envy of other women as the highest form of appreciation.
Women are much the best critics of beauty , thought Helen. they know all the backstage tricks, and use the same techniques to mask or improve this and that, and so it is far harder to dupe them.
Every female competitor who registered Helena's beauty had conducted an entire survey of her face within seconds, unlike the men, whose gaze always fixed only on Helena's eyes - sometimes she had the feeling that they were so dazzled by her image that they couldn't really see her properly. But the woman removed her make up, undressed her and dressed her again in a single glance. If they found any fundamental shortcomings in her face, body or dress they were satisfied, but if Helena survived their X-ray fire without loss of blood, they registered her. How they would then behave was an individual matter - some were friendly and looked at her with interest, but others felt threatened.

She opened the drawer, pulled out a hairbrush and started to brush her hair. Half-closing her eyes, she slowed down and let the brush stroke her cheeks. She caresses herself with the rough bristles, massages her neck, she brushes her hair upwards over her scalp from the nape of her neck. Sparks run through her body and she feels a pleasant itch on her nape. She tosses the brush away and starts to scratch her scalp with her fingers. Then she throws her head back and kneads her neck and shoulders.
"A pleasant massage."
No lover has ever touched her so sweetly,, it occurred to her.