Some Riddles Solved
The home of Professor Tan Trum was typical of the so-called "Second Class" citizen of the country of Wu. It was composed of five or six small rooms, excavated out of solid rock, and opening on one of the numerous side-galleries that threaded the underworld. There were no windows, but light was provided by the yellowish-green electric bulbs; while a constant supply of air was forced in through whirling fan-like devices located in little orifices near the front door. All in all, the Professor's abode was comfortable enough, although I could never accustom myself to the stone chairs and tables, to the stone beds without pillows, or to the grotesque hangings and adornments, composed of small likenesses of swords, helmets and land-battleships, which constituted the native idea of art.
The family of the Professor included his wife, Tan Tal, and his three daughters, Loa, Moa, and Noa. In them I made my first acquaintance with the feminine half of the population—and not few or slight were the surprises which they gave me! To begin with, there was the trouble of telling them apart, and in distinguishing the oldest from the youngest. On first entering the house, I assumed that Tan Tal, the mother, was the most youthful of the girls, while Loa, the last-born daughter, struck me as undoubtedly the parent. And this mistake, absurd as it may seem, was only natural, owing to the peculiar ideas of beauty entertained by the ladies of Wu.
For it was their opinion—in which the men seemed to share—that the supreme mark of a woman's loveliness was her wrinkles, and that the more wrinkles she boasted, particularly around the eyes and on the neck, the more alluring was her appearance. Hence all the damsels used to spend hours a day with wrinkle-producing creams, with permanent "wrinkle-wavers," and with other devices to create creases in their naturally smooth countenances; and only the old and matronly women, who were past the stage of trying to shine before their lovers, could afford to neglect the cosmetic arts and to let their features unwrinkle themselves.
It was for this reason that the young Loa, who, as I was later told, had barely reached seventeen, impressed me as a hag of advanced years. Her cheeks, her forehead, and her neck were furrowed in such a fashion as to remind me of a crone of ninety; while she was rendered all the more hideous, to my way of thinking, by the cream-colored paint with which she had daubed her lips, and by the fact that her eyelashes, in accordance with native custom, had been shaved away. Yet in the estimation of the chalk-faces, she was supremely beautiful!
There was another fact about Loa—and about all the other ladies—which grated horribly on my sensibilities. This was that, while the men wore skirts, the women all went around in trousers! All females, above the age of four or five, wore loose, pajama-like pantaloons of various colors; and it was considered unseemly, not to say indecent, for a lady to appear in any other costume; in fact, one of the maidens of my acquaintance was denied admittance to the best social circles because once, in jest, she had donned her brother's skirts.
In the same way, I myself was looked upon with suspicion, not to say contempt, because the trousers which I wore were considered unbecoming for a gentleman. Some persons, seeing me from a distance, made a mistake as to my sex, while others were so shocked that they went away shuddering with noses pointed high in the air in horror. Only after Professor Tan Trum had been officially notified of my delinquency, and had remedied the situation by providing me with one of his old black skirts, was I able to appear in respectable society.
I am sure that any of the local youths would have envied me the privilege that I now endured for several hours each day. This was to be instructed in the native language and institutions by the "beautiful" Loa. Professor Tan Trum, of course, supervised my education, but was so absorbed in his researches into the roots of extinct verbs that he could not give me more than a few minutes a day. Hence, it was natural that his daughter, having little else to do with her time, should be my instructress.
I must confess that she took her task, on the whole, conscientiously enough, although her first efforts were not to teach me the language, but to teach me how to pencil my eyebrows, whiten my cheeks and lips, and bleach my hair, so as to conform to the native idea of masculine beauty. Failing in these efforts, she resigned herself with a sigh to the inevitable; yet from the too-gentle and yearning way in which she glanced at me from time to time, I could see that my charms, such as they were, had had too much of an effect on her impressionable young heart. Already I had intimations that trouble was brewing!