The general custom of wearing the nails very long has caused the use of a special nail-glove, which is made of gold. It is shaped like a thimble, open at both ends, and is prolongated by a gold nail, which is intended to cover the real nail and to protect it. I may mention that in China, as everywhere else, it is the demi-monde that creates the fashions. But fashion varies considerably in the different provinces. Only a few ladies, who have travelled a great deal, know how to combine the various styles, often with the happiest effect. As a rule, one can tell at a glance to what province a woman belongs.
One of the most feared of our Censors, a man before the severity of whose criticism the whole world used to tremble, and who was all the more feared that nobody could find any fault in him, was one day surprised in the act of painting his wife’s eyebrows. I leave you to judge how delighted his enemies were to be able to tell the sovereign that this rigid guardian of public morality was, after all, but a very frivolous man. The Censor was sent for and asked if the report were true.
“Yes, your Majesty,” he answered; “but what is there frivolous in that? Is not everything allowed between man and wife?”
The Emperor was quite satisfied with this answer, and the matter dropped. The story is repeated everywhere now-a-days as symbolic of domestic felicity. I see in it, above all things, the triumph of feminine coquetry, which knows how to subjugate mankind, even the most austere, and enslaves us to its delicious trivialities and its irresistible frivolities.
I say fans in the plural, because we have two kinds, the folding fan and the round fan. We use the former during the mild seasons, and the latter during the very hot weather. The reason of this is not easily understood, as the round fan fans much less effectively than the other one. Doubtless it offers this advantage—that it can be used as a substitute for the parasol, which we never carry, and thus plays a double part. I may add, that in summer men and women alike go out bareheaded, so that some protection, such as is afforded by the screen fan, is needed. As a general rule, there is a picture on one side of our fans, and some writing on the other. Common folk buy their fans ready painted and written upon, whereas people of fashion buy their fans blank, and ask distinguished people to illustrate them with a painting or a piece of writing. Some collectors possess hundreds of fans, which replace with us the autograph albums that you have in Europe.