Vanity Fair

Vanity—definitely my favorite sin!---Satan, “Devil’s Advocate”

She walked in beauty! Belittling the treacherous and the distasteful, she emerged like a flawless piece of jewelry that glows even in darkness. However, what sustained her charm was nothing but vanity—a sin favored by Devil and regretted by God—whose lustrous appearances belay the very weakness of human being.

The human weakness of vanity had led her to fame and famine, to money and misery, to glory and gloomy. An orphan of low birth, she fought to “marry upward” to join the London society, where her wits and talents fit perfectly but her identity did not. The result was a long struggle between the body and the soul. She knew she had to give up her life and eventually her love to reach the impossible, which was to be accepted by the rich and to live like one.

Being a desirable woman, she held more cards than others because there would always be a backdoor opened by greedy and sensational men. All she had to do was to knock. And she did, but she quickly withdrew for fear of turning into a prostitute, a thing though didn’t happen, still drove her husband away. That was the moment she realized the true value of herself. She did not need the society’s recognition, especially when that came from trading her body and eventually her heart. Most importantly, she did not need vanity.

That was about the last chapter of her fancy life. She retreated to a foreign casino where she served as card dealer until her elementary-school best friend accidentally found her. Since she’d experienced ups and downs in life so harshly, she couldn’t care less about the reunion and the acceptance. However, fate granted her a salvation: another tender man. The story ends happily there.

The walking beauty is a mirror reflection of almost all women, and perhaps all men (only in a different fashion). Nonetheless, we may not be so lucky as to land on a happy ending. So, does the walking beauty have a name? Oh yeah! Vanity!