[...\ In our family, only my cousin Madeleine defied this ban on cosmetics. When she reached the age of sixteen she began to tart herself up discreetly. Papa, Mama, and Aunt Marguerite would point scandalized fingers at her: ‘Madeleine! You’ve been putting powder on!’ ‘No, Aunt, I swear I haven’t!’ she would protest coquettishly, in an affected, babyish tone of voice. Along with the grown-ups, I laughed at her: any kind of artifice was always ‘ridiculous’. Every morning they would harp on the same theme: ‘It’s no use trying to deny it, Madeleine, you’ve been putting powder on again; you can see it a mile off.’ One day – she was then eighteen or nineteen – she got fed-up and retorted: ‘Well, why shouldn’t I?’ She had finally admitted it: triumph for the grown-ups! But her reply gave me something to think about. In any case, we were far from living in a state of nature. In our family, the grown-ups claimed that ‘make-up spoils the complexion’. But my sister and I often remarked to one another when we saw our aunts’ raddled features that their prudence had not brought them any great reward. But I didn’t attempt to argue them into letting me use cosmetics. So I used to arrive at the dancing academy in a dowdy old frock, with badly brushed hair, well scrubbed cheeks, and a shiny nose. I couldn’t do anything with my body; I couldn’t even swim or ride a bicycle: I felt as awkward and self-conscious as the day I had tried to show off my charms in the role of a Spanish dancer. [...]