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The Tiger’s Bride Angela Carter, p. 53. Excerpt My senses were increasingly troubled by the fuddling perfume of Milord, far too potent a reek of purplish civet at such close quarters in so small a room. He must bathe himself in scent, soak his shirts and underlinen in it what can he smell of, that needs so much camouflage I never saw a man so big look so two dimensional, in spite of the quaint elegance of The Beast, in the oldfashioned tailcoat that might, from its looks, have been bought in those distant years before he imposed seclusion on himself he does not feel he need keep up with the times. There is a crude clumsiness about his outlines, that are on the ungainly, giant side and he has an odd air of selfimposed restraint, as if fighting a battle with himself to remain upright when he would far rather drop down on all fours. He throws our human aspirations to the godlike sadly awry, poor fellow only from a distance would you think The Beast not much different from any other man, although he wears a mask with a mans face painted most beautifully on it. Oh, yes, a beautiful face but one with too much formal symmetry of feature to be entirely human one profile of his mask is the mirror image of the other, too perfect, uncanny. He wears a wig, too, false hair tied at the nape with a bow, a wig of the kind you see in oldfashioned portraits. A chaste silk stock stuck with a pearl hides his throat. And gloves of blonde kid that are yet so huge and clumsy they do not seem to cover his hands. He is a carnival figure made of papiermache and crepe hair…