Measure of Beauty

Beauty

“I know I’m getting older,” Claire said. “I can see the wrinkles and spots on my hands. And I see the grey hairs in my brush.”

“But what do you look like?”

“I was beautiful once,” she said.

“Yes. But now?”

“I think most of my beauty is still there,” Claire said.

“That’s what you see in the mirror?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still stand at the same distance from the mirror as when you were young?”

“Yes.”

“You never take steps forward or back?”

“No.”

“Do you ever squint at the reflection? The eyes do grow old.”

“No,” Claire said.

“Perhaps your eyesight is not what it once was.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“So how can you know of your beauty? How do you measure it?”

“My beauty is my perception,” she said.

“Do men chase you today as the boys did back then?”

“No,” she said.

“Then what’s changed?”

“The boys and men have changed,” Claire said. “But not me.”