Every day she wore a dress of black-and-red-checked imitation wool, so big it was baggy on her, and a pair of homemade, grey cloth shoes,. She had a lot of siblings, so she wouldn't get any pretty clothes until she had a likely match - but since she didn't have anything pretty to wear, she couldn't get a match. she was trapped in a vicious circle, doomed to spend her blooming years in wishful longing: no young women, no matter how clever, could break her way out of a dress like that.
E. Chang, 'In the waiting room' tr. K.S. Kingsbury, Lust, Caution and other stories (1979), 43
