This is a sentence from another evening at the club

the spectres of the eucalyptus trees ranged along the garden fence rocked before her gaze, with white egrets slumbering on their high branches like huge white flowers among the thin leaves

the author most likely compares the eucalyptus trees to spectres to suggest

the woman is troubled by something
a sense of mystery about the woman (my guess is this)
the woman is in imminent danger
the fragile state of the woman's health

femininity is conveyed through bernice's personality. she doesn't act how the other girls act and everyone thinks she is weird. she learns how to act in a way that was considered femininely appropriate at the time. she becomes so popular but her attempts to be liked end up backfiring when she is pressured into bobbing her hair. the author wrote that bernice cut off her cousin's hair in revenge for tricking her to cut her hair. this was the authors way of trying to change the way feminine is defined and the way women are expected to act.

a) madame podtochina used witchcraft to make it disappear.