The Fraud

by Zadie Smith

‘The Change’ marked, in the mind of Mrs Touchet, the final hurdle in the ladies’ steeplechase: The humiliations of girlhood. The separating of the beautiful from the plain and the ugly. The terror of maidenhood. The trials of marriage or childbirth – or their absence. The loss of that same beauty around which the whole system appears to revolve. The change of life. What strange lives women lead!

It amused Mrs Touchet and it interested her: how hard it proves to take occupancy of our own feelings.