The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-dayStark, Harriet
Science
The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day
Stark, Harriet
Beauty, Personal -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Science fiction
It was the fading of a little scar on my thumb that first let me know
the blessed truth. Now I can scarcely see the place where it was, and
I'm sure no one else would notice it. It will never go away entirely.
Prof. Darmstetter says I am not proof against wounds and old age,
because these are a part of Nature's great plan. But it faded, faded!
And my ears! How I used to hate their prominence! But soon they
snuggled closer to my beautiful, beautiful face--and I'm in sure I
don't blame them. Every morning when I woke, my shining eyes and the
bloom of my cheeks told me I was growing perfect, just as he said I
must do. Though I'm not yet quite perfect.
I could sit at my glass and look for hours at my reflected image--if it
weren't for Kitty--and--
Why, it seems like another girl, and such a girl as never the world saw
before--not me, but Her. Sometimes times I fear Her; but oftener and
oftener, as I get used to the lovely vision, I want to hug Her right
out of the cold mirror and kiss Her and pat Her smooth cheek like a
child's, and put pretty clothes upon Her, as if she were a doll.
And then I try to realise that Her is Me, my own self, and I just
cannot believe it! I look from the reflected image to a little
photograph of the Helen Winship I once knew, and back again to the
glass, and wonder, and thank God, and shudder with awe of my own
loveliness. I luxuriate in it, I joy in it, I feel it in every fibre of
my being. I am as happy as a queen. I am a queen--or She is.
I am but slightly taller. My form is more rounded and of better mould,
but I am still slender. My face is the same face but--how can I express
it? A Venus with the--the expression of a Western schoolgirl pursuing
special studies in New York, looks at me with Her eyes. They are the
eyes of Helen Winship, but larger and fuller orbed and more lustrous,
with an appeal that makes me fall in love with myself, as I look. The
nose is longer and straighter, the cheeks fuller and fairer, the chin
daintier, the neck--ah, well, why shouldn't I be frank? I am beautiful!
And the complexion--still so strange I do not say "my
complexion"--clear, fair, rosy all in one, with the fineness and purity
of a baby's; it is the most indescribable of all the marvels that glow
in my glass. Before, I had the rather sallow, powder-excusing skin of
so many Western girls. Now it is perfect. I love to gaze by the hour at
my own beauty. I should be renamed Narcissa.
My voice, too, is glorious. I have to school myself not to start at the
sound of it when I speak. And most of all, what most impresses me when
I try to consider myself fairly--candidly--critically--is the
appearance of strength, of health, of unbounded power and deathless
youth--as if the blood of generations of athletic girls and free,
Viking men ran in my veins. I am, I believe, the only perfectly healthy
woman on earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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