My Fair Lady

I once knew a girl whose face was a mystery. I don’t mean her face was mysterious, I mean that her face posed a mystery, because her face, if someone were to describe in words, wouldn’t make for much: eyes nothing like the sun and the rest. And so I’d look at her, and her face, and I’d be looking, and I’d be confronted with something that I could see but not understand: she had a perfect face. A perfect face. So perfect that to see her was to be contented. But you couldn’t explain how, or why. What was it about her? Was it her smile? And why was that, anyway? She was always laughing, or giggling, always smiling, no matter what the time or place, whether it was a Tuesday or nine in the evening or windy outside. And you wouldn’t know why. Maybe at first you’d be inclined to think, as I had, it was because she was simple, that she lacked the capacity to react to misfortune. But then you’d talk to her, and if you listened, you’d realize something: how wrong you’d been, how it wasn’t because she was simple or lacking in anything, but because she understood something you did not, which is that levity is a direction of will.