Читать книгу Tales of a Chinese Grandmother - Frances Carpenter - Страница 18

VII

THE PAINTED EYEBROW

YU LANG was watching her grandmother dress. It was a day in the New Year holiday time, and there were to be important guests in the Court of Politeness. The old woman seemed to be taking more than ordinary care with her appearance, although Yu Lang could never remember a day when the Old Old One did not look as if she had stepped down from a scroll painting.

Lao Lao was sitting in her carved wooden chair before a little table. She had placed herself near the wide latticed windows which filled half of the south side of her room. She wanted to get as much as possible of the light coming through the thin white paper that served instead of glass in the window frames. Upon the table before her was a mahogany box whose open lid stood upright and whose body was filled with little boxes and bottles of powder and paint, with combs and brushes and jars of "hair water."