Eunice Tietjens

From “Profiles from China”

IN a corner of the market place he sits, his face the target for many eyes.

The sombre crowd about him is motionless, inert. Behind their faces no lamp burns; only their eyes glow faintly with a reflected light.

For their eyes are on his face.

It alone is alive, is vibrant, moving bronze under a sun of bronze.

The taut skin, like polished metal, shines along his cheek and jaw. His eyes cut upward from a slender nose, and his quick mouth moves sharply out and in.

Artful are the gestures of his mouth, elaborate and full of guile. When he draws back the bow of his lips his face is like a mask of lacquer, set with teeth of pearl, fantastic, terrible….

What strange tale lives in the gestures of his mouth?

Does a fox-maiden, bewitching, tiny-footed, lure a scholar to his doom? Is an unfilial son tortured of devils? Or does a decadent queen sport with her eunuchs?

I cannot tell.

The faces of the people are wooden; only their eyes burn dully with a reflected light.

I shall never know.

I am alien, alien…..

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD