She was perfectly willing to be a puppet all her life. It was as if there were invisible strings connected to her arms and legs, and Mother was pulling them. Her eyebrows were plucked out and false ones drawn on, and then she felt like she was wearing a mask. When she was about five years old, rouge was applied to her lips by the time she was ten, face-whitening powder was put on her cheeks. A smile would come over her face, and she would grow no uglier. Laugh when her mother laughed, grieve when she grieved. Then Mother was looking at her, watching her very, very closely, and there was nothing she could do but rise to the challenge. That meant she should simply stand by and not do anything. Mother was disciplining one of the ladies-in-waiting. That meant she should frown like Mother was doing.
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