About five years ago, in his parents' New York home, the ten-year-old Neville Mark told Neville that he knew he wore a mask and that if he could turn around he would see the being he really is; his mother, a poor girl who had married great wealth, stopped him because talk of death frightened her.
Date (happened)
c. 1962
stated · preferred
c. 1963
estimated · probable
Why
Both figures ('about five years ago' and the 71-to-75 age gap) are Neville's own approximations, not exact records.
Reasoning
Neville says the incident was 'about five years ago' relative to this certainly-dated 1967-03-10 lecture, which points to circa 1962; his own age arithmetic in the same passage (the father is now 75, but 'was only seventy-one' when the lad was ten, a 4-year gap) points to circa 1963. The two approximations converge closely; 1963 is used as the better-corroborated middle estimate.
Told
10 March 1967
estimated
Reasoning
Passage 549184 is Neville recounting on the platform Neville Mark's remark about wearing a mask; the lecture carrying this telling (nid 1923) is dated 1967-03-10 by three independently sourced exact/certain delivery claims that agree with each other and with the coarser circa-March-1967 claim, so the telling inherits that date at certain confidence.
10 March 1967
stated
Reasoning
Three independently-sourced claims agree exactly on 1967-03-10; the preferred claim [d0] ('circa 1967-03', probable) is the weakest of the four and is superseded by the three converging exact/certain claims, per the corpus's known pattern that preferred=1 does not discriminate quality.
Sources
Source
- The Riddle ¶5 (He said, “You know, Neville, I feel that if I could turn around I could see who I really am. I know I am wearing a mask, but I can’t turn around.”)