[1] The novel was serialized in the Hamburg magazine Kristall in 1959 under the title Borrowed Life (German: Geborgtes Leben), and first published in book form in 1961.

This changes when a friend of hers dies in that hospital and she realizes that the corpses aren't named, they're given numbers and treated like cargo.

Together they travel over Europe, while Lillian indulges in lavish dresses and food, using the money she inherited and that was saved for her by her uncle.

However, when he expresses his wish to settle down and wants to get her visited by a doctor, she internally realizes that marrying Clerfayt would be to make him a widower within months and refuses the idea.

Directed by Sydney Pollack with Alvin Sargent adapting the book into a screenplay, it starred Al Pacino as automobile racer Bobby Deerfield and Marthe Keller as Lillian Dunkerk.