“Untitled Book”
by: Elizabeth Applegate

…we dined with the Maupassants in a strange quarter of Shanghai known as the Enchanted Dragon. Mme Maupassant showed me the lovely muslin that she had purchased earlier that week and we exchanged pleasantries about our travels in the Orient. 

As the meal progressed, an elderly man approached me selling a curious puzzle toy shaped like a pyramid. There appeared to be no hinges or any semblance of its mechanics from the outside and yet the solution to open the toy was very intricate and involved. The artwork was magnificent and I became enchanted not only with the contraption but with the artistic genius of the kindly old man. My mind ran wild with the possibility of creating a hotel where rooms are puzzles full of traps and tricks, just like that pyramid toy. 

In my broken Mandarin, I asked about the old mans employment situation and pressed him to return with me to engineer my next hotel. He became embarrassed, and my dining companions protested my forth-coming attitude. 

Even in the far East where their traditions are so different from ours, a woman is still confined to remain passive and meek, regardless of her passion or intellect.