Tafani: The almost faultless nil

By Herwig Baumgartner

The author combined real events from his own memory with fictional scenes and tells the story from his Agenda de Liaison.

However, the central characters, even if someone thinks they recognize themselves, are almost exclusively the product of the author's imagination, with the exception of historical figures.

Anyone who thinks they can find more between the lines than in the text is welcome to join The dead poets' club. Anyone who suspects that the places named and scenes described belong to other periods should congratulate themselves. Those who nevertheless persevere to the end must be considered consistent.

Have fun!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
• Release date: Jul 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9783759709851

Herwig Baumgartner

Der Autor kennt aus eigener persönlicher Erfahrung die meisten der geschilderten Orte und Fakten. Einerseits aus seinen beruflichen, andererseits aus privaten Reisen und Erlebnissen. Auf den letzten Seite des Buches stehen nähere Verweise für jeden, der sich weiter und detaillierter darüber informieren möchte.

Book preview

The work of romantic poet Joseph Eichendorff From the Life of a Good-for-Nothing served as a model for this modern picaresque novel with its verses:

"To whom God wills to show right favor, he sends into the wide world ..."

The author combined real events from his memory with fictional scenes and tells the story from his Agenda de Liaison. However, with the exception of historical figures, the central characters, even if someone thought they could recognize themselves, were solely the product of the author's imagination.

If you think you can find more between the lines than in the text, welcome to 'The dead poets' club'. Anyone who suspects that the places named and scenes described are from other periods should congratulate themselves. Those who nevertheless persevere to the end must be considered consistent.

Have fun!

Comment:

The loosely tried translations of the German language poems will not really satisfy a poet and are only kept in the book for the reason of completeness. It is nearly impossible to additionally translate the message in between the written lines.

Contents

Prologue

Gaudeamus igitur

Sacré-Cœur

Safari

Au pair

Consigliere

Evolution

Consilium

Mañana

Papillon

Boudoir

Kismet

Aventures

Epilogue

Prologue

He woke up again. Dimly, his thoughts flashed back hours to the moment she had come. Unexpectedly, all the impressions came back to him, the flabby skin, the tired movements, the suddenly empty feeling in his stomach. The nagging continued to echo in his ears. As if he were standing in the Swiss mountains, where mountains and valleys trumpet back every sound until each note echoes over the others.

Just like in parliament, with the only exception that only women debated here. He thought he was dreaming until he blinked slightly and caught sight of the small group that had occupied his holiest of holies, the combined study and living room, at 10:30 in the morning. Sighing, he staggered into the bathroom, where he recognized by the position of the toilet seat who must have done their work there last. It was not folded up. The enemy had left his mark, the ominous sign pointing to high emancipation school.

Was it already that far? Had he already allowed himself to be domesticated to such an extent that he no longer carried out his genetically determined actions in a chain of instincts and reflexes? Had it perhaps already turned into one of Konrad Lorenz's gray geese, like the one in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis after the Awakening? Or had one of the occupants of the living room been forced to leave her scent mark within the first few minutes of entering, like an old male dog who pees on every street corner, still setting territorial boundaries. This in his bachelor pad! So the women see the raised toilet seat in his own castle as a macho totem pole and react instinctively.

Sighing, he looked at himself in the mirror. He noticed maturing temples, but still firm skin. Stubble that indicated careful handling of the knife appeared to be just over three days old and framed his grin. As he wiped the steamed-up mirror clean, it happened. His face smiled at him in an almost alien way, his breath annoying him, smelling as if he had drunk from the toilet bowl.

He carefully took the toothbrush, squeezed a white blob of paste onto the bristles from the tube, which of course had never been screwed shut, and chased the prairie dog away, remembering the enchanting movie Coyote ugly. He finally woke up as he foamed at the mouth. Sighing, he assessed the taste of spearmint and completed his daily grooming routine. After a quick rinse, he smeared shaving soap on his face with the badger hair brush, grabbed the three-blade Gillette Sensor 3, an ancient piece, and got to work on the stubble. He scraped the undergrowth from his cheeks and chin to the base of his neck, where cheeky stalks ran wild. He thought he could still smell the telltale scents of the night and stepped into the shower. Soon he would feel like a human again.

Then the memory swept him off his feet.

Something terrible had happened, an unbelievable mistake had happened to him, to him, the long-time and absolute bachelor. Not before the extremely heated battle. No, afterwards, when he had long been preoccupied with more important matters, a certain phrase had crept onto his otherwise closed lips, sneaky and intriguing, had slipped away, escaped into the real world before he could be stopped. Do you want to move in with me?

This explained the crowds in his temple, the sanctuary of a notorious bachelor pad, this place of successful debates on the optimal use of contraceptives, alternatives during a visit from the red aunt or voluntary arbitration in the event of unexpected demands for wreath money. He hated these in particular, like the medieval plague.

Who would seriously suspect that a girl over 23 did not yet know the secret of Ali Baba and sesame only from sweet pastries from Morocco? The unavoidable and irrefutable marks on the altar testified to her confession. His legitimate question as to why she had offered herself as game was cleverly circumvented by her lamentation over the shame of having been seduced and mentally abused.

This in the 21st century. In modern times like these, should the inside of the 'Brazilian waxing zone' still have been covered in organic cling film? This with a face for a set card and the ravishing body of an accomplished concubine in slinky sheaths, strutting on red Manolos, making any stallion concerned about his reputation go into heat?

But by then it was already far too late. Anyone who allows themselves to be hindered by cheeky gate wings when attacking the moated castle does not deserve to be called a warrior. Moreover, by retreating ignominiously, he would either have committed a mortal insult or been labeled a softie. What a disgrace for a conqueror. Both were absolutely beyond consideration and therefore out of the question. So he had stormed the supposed fortress at the first attempt and left no prisoners behind. He had mercilessly tidied up the remains of the defense, of whose former existence only a few dark stains still bore witness.

At first, the damsel had been theatrically coy, but soon offered what the kitchen and cellar had to offer and showed the future bailiff, or rather his bare weapon, the respect he deserved, cleaned his lance and made it shine again. After all, as the new bailiff, all doors were open to him. If they were still slightly jammed at the beginning, this would be remedied by walking through them several times.

He had broken through the brief phase of slight resistance with his usual means. Should he ask each time whether he was allowed to enter the conquered bower, the chamber of his desires? His strong hand had made it clear that only one person was in charge, only one person wore the pants and the one with the lowered pants recognized his own role. At least that was to prove true at the beginning.

The strange relationship with Suzette, as she wanted to be called by him, had already lasted a few weeks. She couldn't smell her baptismal name and it didn't really suit her personality. Not to such a self-confident creature who seemed to want to end his bachelor life abruptly.

Nothing remained of his dreamy ideas of being available as a wise old man in voluntary asceticism for young people seeking experience, as a kind of lexical oracle and competence center. There would be no story to tell about how it had been founded, nothing about the true

Genesis of his asceticism.

We warn against overtaking on the sidewalk!

He was fascinated by the sway of the hips, the staccato of the high heels on the pavement, by the attraction that a well-built female figure-eight exerts on men.

Conversely, he appreciated the pencil test and taut lines, so that hardly a second glance was needed to assess the rest of the surroundings. Women were thrilled that he looked them in the eye and openly addressed their hidden qualities rather than deep-digging into their cleavage. Unfortunately, a handicap prevented him from acting really successfully, as an instinctive compulsion caused disappointment every time.

Anyone who risks a glance at the front when overtaking enthusiastic rear views will notice again and again that the distribution of gifts is in balance, that nature favors no one. So throughout his life he was faced with the agony of choice, the choice of agony to decide, until he ended up as a withered bachelor. This is how poor prioritization and polite hesitation develop in the opposite direction to the attractiveness of one's own characteristics, until asceticism remains in the end.

He would not become the hag pride of an Adalbert Stifter, who could prepare himself for life with 72 Huri in seventh heaven with lustful virgins, no time as an ageing playboy was destined for him. Sooner or later, he would probably be thrown into the wedding machinery like a Charlie Chaplin in 'Modern Times', devoured by it and resurrected as a henpecked husband, like so many before him, comparable to an Odysseus with Circe.

The good-for-nothing of his years of roaming the world unattached would turn into a respectable pater familiae if he didn't manage to elegantly turn the corner once more. Just one more time. As long as there was still time. As long as he felt young, at over thirty.

Gaudeamus igitur

He had never been obedient to authority. None of his relatives could remember any such character trait in him either. Let's just call him Martin, our Strawanzer, who in later years would come to be known as an almost faultless nil. For him, prohibitions were intended as an invitation to find a direct, feasible way or a way around, a loophole, whether in the fence to the black and red sweet cherries in the neighbor's garden or in the law.

The old student song - 'gaudeamus igitur' - calls on us to rejoice in our youth until the earth wants us back in our old age. After that, after ageing has molested us. Youth resembles the Golden Age - the 'aurea prima' - of Publius Ovidius Naso, whose rules were not cast in bronze letters like those of childhood. „Don't get unnecessarily excited and don't get caught doing anything dubious," was how the parental legislator of childhood summed it up best in the 1980s.

The pranks were harmless, if a little daring. Tickling bare-footed Germanic tourists in the park, producing water bombs from Parisian balloons or deliberately misleading bossy Germans asking for directions in a fat Mercedes were as much a part of country life as water is to fish.

Apart from the fasting cod or rare, 'stray' rainbow trout from Alpine streams, these were usually only available as roast herrings, which were carried home in a large jug with the freshly tapped beer from one of the eight surrounding inns and eaten in the evening, usually accompanied by hot, freshly cooked, floury potatoes.

The years passed until it became clear that Martin was suitable for grammar school, which, however, could only be reached by the early shift workers' train, some 20 km away from the small town where he had spent his childhood and elementary school.

Habits quickly became established that revealed a creative approach to the rules of life and the authorities. As the last train for lunch left at 13:50 after the sixth lesson, but the lesson didn't end until 13:40, the harried students had to leave at 13:25, otherwise they would have had no connection until 15:20 without lunch. With a travel time of around 50 to 120 minutes, the authorities considered this unreasonable.

The student who left home at around 6:15 a.m. to go to school did not get home for lunch until around 2:45 p.m., eight and a half hours later. The premature departure made sense to all the professors, especially those who wanted to leave on the train themselves and had become victims of this Federal Railways regulation due to their job. The railroads saw the problem and a year later adapted the timetables to the teaching times.

However, the smart learner drivers did not change their departure times. For years, this saved them a good twenty minutes of boring lessons in the last lesson, or even up to thirty minutes for some gullible teachers. After all, there were also disabled pupils who had to be assisted and kept company on the way to school, or who were offered other bullshit excuses in abundance.

The morning and especially the first lesson were particularly hated. It had become customary for pupils to be tested unexpectedly in the first 5 or 10 minutes, which was to be avoided. Who likes to go under the pedagogical hatchet unprepared? Ideas buzzed around the creative circle of time scouts and soon - again - the state railroad company offered an ingenious solution.

In addition to the workers' train, which stopped at every station as a quasi-collector, an express train also stopped in the town at around 7:10 a.m., which made it possible for the student to arrive at class on time as he hurried towards the educational institution, opening up an opportunity par excellence. One professor even used this connection, which was the only one possible for him, so that there could not be the slightest doubt about the veracity of the external circumstances, arrival time and usability for students.

In the end, several groups of hopeful waiting passengers formed at the main station of the school and university town, who happily welcomed the almost daily delay of this connection, as it offered the chance to avoid 5 to 15 minutes of lessons and exam stress in exchange for a cozy chat with like-minded, moderately education-hungry people. Everything was rock-solidly secured by the inconvenience caused by the public transport companies due to these timetable deviations and joyfully applauded, occasional total breakdowns of the fast train. But then there were the much-loved official confirmations with a magnificent official seal, which consoled the pedantic authorities for the missed minutes of instruction.

This meant that those hungry for education missed around 30 to 50 minutes of lessons a day, almost a whole hour of school on a good day. Only a few clever teachers were malicious enough to study the timetables and put obstacles in the way of the prospective students' time management. As we all know, the exception proves the rule everywhere.

Martin was a bright little boy who used his time on the train to finish all his homework so that when he arrived home he would be relieved of such tiresome duties and also to prevent his parents, who were sometimes interested in education, from gaining an insight into the secrets of further education and training at home to consolidate the subject matter.

This was successful in almost all objects, except for Geometric Drawing, as the rattling of the train prevented sufficiently clean lines or the straightforward use of circles. The time spent at the stops was also too short. As a result, only a few of the required construction drawings were produced on the school bag on my knees, which meant that the few homework exercises in the limited free time were tolerable.

As time went on, the young inspectors, mainly from the first rows of seats, decoded the squiggles and abbreviations of the individual professors in their notebooks, so that nervous classmates could be informed in good time of any impending danger of exams, which seemed particularly helpful with the translations that were currently on the agenda in Latin class or with math problems. This allowed the average grade to be raised, creating a classic win-win situation.

Don't learn for school, learn for life, the professors' motto was adapted accordingly, Martin practiced the pragmatic-practical application of this motto in effortoptimizing creativity. And so the school years went by until the Matura put an end to the drama and the educational institution sent the successful graduates on their way to university.

In the meantime, the athletic youngster had made his breakthrough and had won Austrian runner-up titles in several disciplines in a fringe sport. This led to service without a weapon in the army's sports company, where he spent a year getting to know the big city and was given a further education in life than the provincial plant he was taken for in the army.

Perky, long-legged girls on high heels on the way to the barracks offered enough incentive to throw themselves into a friendly called fried potato relationship between a matron and a young student that brought fresh meat to a mid-thirties girl and Martin practical experience in the exchange of intensive body care.

They say that the big city makes young people mature faster. For a country bumpkin, the gain in experience was exponential and so he grew up unexpectedly quickly, becoming more resourceful and resourceful when it came to time and cost-saving solutions, as his financial resources were severely limited. Above all, he got to know the mentality of the capital city's inhabitants better and reported back home on various aspects of daily life, because that's what you get in this cultural capital alone, a Golden Viennese heart

This character trait of the Central European leading power with its idols Faymann¹ and Spindelegger² is world-famous. In terms of popularity, it is not even beaten by the Golden Viennese Happiness, the wet dog excrement on the sidewalk, which is said to bring true happiness. This is where this euphemistic term comes from.

Representatives of this species with a golden heart are often heavyweight matrons who bring the weight of their usually more than 40 years of age panting into everyday traffic, scrambling for space for butts the size of coachman's horses, their voice a threatening tone, like the engine noise of a caterpillar. This is primarily in the daily struggle for a seat on the so-called 'Bim', the Viennese streetcar, and on all other public transport.³

Equally magical and fairy-like, primary school girls enliven the scene, as their school routes often intersect with the shopping and working routes of the busy Viennese people. It should also be noted that the majority of the natives can point to a historical migrant background. It is hardly difficult for them to adapt to the special culture of life as foreigners, or already fully integrated as citizens. The morning migration of peoples is sometimes amused by theatrical scenes such as those that take place on public transport.

Like Donatelli's putti, sculptures that adorn the altars of churches in a golden and childishly enchanting way, elementary school children go to the trough of knowledge and delight the public on public transport. Many passengers stand during rush hour, as seats are relatively scarce.

First come, first served and occupies the coveted armchair, which no Viennese would give up at any price in the world. Neither frail old people nor heavily pregnant women or mothers with small children are granted the pleasure of resting. The scout's honor ends at the seat. Gluing on an chair became famous as the world's best-known characteristic of the trained Viennese.

Manners are available to buy if required. The 'Neue Ellmayer', successor of the German Knigge, is supposedly bringing in record sales again, but offering your seat to someone in need is of the utmost rarity in the city on the Danube. Only lively old men with St. John's instinct sense their chance to ingratiate themselves with pretty girls or racy ladies in a gentlemanly manner. To do so, they pull this gesture out of their treasure chest of forgotten memories of the manner befitting a gentleman, accompanied by an implied kiss on the older ladies' hands.

This is what happened one morning in a traffic jam when a cute little girl of primary school age was sitting on line 6. This streetcar line runs from Simmering via Favoriten to Westbahnhof, crossing the adjacent working-class districts with their local neighborhood cultures.

At about the level of Absberggasse, i.e. on the border between the 10th and 11th 'Hieb⁴ ', shortly after the Geiereckstraße station, the massive body of a sweating battle tank in battle readiness had heaved itself up to the front rows of seats and hissed at the dark-haired foreign woman who was just preparing to occupy the last seat with that's my seat!.

Honor your age, this gesture of courtesy is still taken to heart by migrants, so the young lady gave way to the violence of flabby femininity. Heavy breathing after a successful battle regenerated the heavily athletic body. Soon afterwards, the living moral began to salivate in the best Favoriten dialect that young people today had no manners and were stealing seats from hard-working mothers. In fact, they no longer even intended to support the hardest-working people in living respect for the wisdom of old age.

The little angel in blonde across from her scrutinized the mega-angel with a long, critical gaze.

Brat, what's wrong with you? Miss Coachman's Horse snapped at the fairy-like girl. You're also sitting and stealing the working people's well-deserved armchairs!

The little girl was pensively silent, her smile blown away from her childish lips.

They have no education, no manners these days. Probably some kind of foreign bastard who is preventing our children from succeeding at school, continued the paragon of grace in the Viennese lady's fur.

Suddenly the child lifted its pretty little head and beamed fervently at its counterpart. Her delicate mouth opened and she whistled: "Blade⁵ - fuck off!"

Without a change of expression, the angelic apparition closed her lips. Absolute silence fell in an instant. The entire carriage froze. For seconds, the scene resembled a silent movie sequence from a Buster Keaton film.

Then the excitement broke out. The tension erupted into raucous laughter. Jokes were cracked at the expense of the brewery horse's backside of the fair lady who had previously given such educational suggestions.

In the masses, the Viennese fellow travelers mutated to parade bullies and suggestions to the living fighting machine sounded from all corners and throats, with diet suggestions or sports tips from the lowest drawer of milieu-related idioms.

One joker wanted to see whether the battle tank might also roll on tracks or have twin tires to transport the calories it had eaten, while another thought it would be ideal as a life raft on the banks of the Danube, as fat is known to always float on top, and more.

It took just under a minute for Miss Adipositas to lift her megatons into the air and leave the unfriendly surroundings, get out with an Oscar-winning expression to the derisive laughter of the mob, and then make a Bambi Award-winning dash towards the Bohemian Prater.

As an innocent bystander to this event, Martin documented the trilogy of gold in the heart, verbal happiness and curls of a Viennese elf. He had no trouble imagining her, herself around 40 years older, in the role of her opponent. After all, the generational trap in the inheritance of physical and character traits always strikes mercilessly.

The scene had achieved one thing. Normally there are only grumpy faces on the public transport, but many people were laughing and joking. To experience this in Vienna was an unimaginable stroke of luck. The fact that the kick in the verbal feces had provided the occasion for this shows that the legend of the Golden Viennese Happiness speaks true.

It may have been a twist of fate that brought a spontaneous halt to xenophobia here with a dog turd that had become a word.

More devout people would assume that the migrants' guardian angel may have snapped and used the figure of the innocent elf. Well, the end justifies the means.

After serving in the army, which mainly consisted of avoiding being in the barracks by constantly attending training camps at home or traveling to competitions, the young athlete chose to study to optimize his life goals.

A real career opportunity, a return to the capital and a 'Plan B' if the project failed were the three must-have criteria for his choice of subjects. This meant that sport or sports science were out of the question, as he could never imagine working as a frustrated animator for pimple-faced exercise abstainers. A compulsory second subject, which did not appeal to him in the slightest, was something he would only have thought of completing as an alibi anyway.

This led him to choose the business administration course with the option of teaching at commercial academies or other vocational schools if he could not find a job in the real world. Without the risk of dismissal - should he fail in the private sector - he would have to teach in a school. Therefore teaching offered a belt he was aiming for in parallel with suspenders to keep his trousers in place. Moreover, this course of study was only offered in Vienna or Graz, which fulfilled three of his premises.

Satisfied with the optimization, he presented his parents with the goals of an academic career that his brother had already embarked on, promising a smooth discussion. He was accepted, which enabled him to leave the nest at home and be forced to do so. He freed himself from narrow provincial thinking and clucking care.

As a formal dance enthusiast even in small village events, he learned to devote himself to pure fun at ball events and experienced his second era of risk-free game-hunting, for example in the Vienna Hofburg, decked out in a tuxedo and a jacket, for example at the Rose Monday.

The Rudolfina-Redoute is one of the most interesting ball events in the Hofburg. On Rose Monday, when the city center of Cologne becomes hormonally and alcoholically contaminated with around 20,000 women and just 5,000 searching guys, the last living bat operetta goes live in the ball city of Vienna.

The carnival idea from bygone days of carnival hustle and bustle still exists as a retro event, reminiscent of times when little else delighted young academics and their ancestors.

The charm of this special masked ball can be admired every year, usually on ORF TV, in one of the old, kitschy productions on New Year's Eve. All the ladies appear in evening dress, but with masks, and its ladies' choice until midnight. At the stroke of the witching hour, if they are still present, the beauties of the night unmask themselves and reveal their true identities.

For friends of burka and chador, this is actually nothing special, apart from the fact that, according to the prevailing fundamentalist customs, the fair wife has to sacrifice her head of hair out of respect for marriage and husband and her bald head shines towards the master of her house on her wedding night.

Until midnight, i.e. for about 2¹/² hours after the opening by the states ballet, the ladies alone command the favor and their choice of tailcoated gentlemen may be watched suspiciously by some partners, should jealousy be involved. But other motives can also prevail. This was Martin's experience when he once again sought to experience the delights of the 'taxi dancer'.

The beauty of this festival is that the colorful round dance also occasionally provides a dance master for every lady who is considered to be a bit of an oddball or other frightful woman with a veiled appearance. As a result, the turnout is more than slightly lady-heavy, at least until midnight. Schnitzler's 'Traumnovelle' is the intellectual continuation of the underlying idea of this frivolous masked ball.

In 'Kölle am Rhein', Cologne, on the other hand, the laws of married life are considered to be suspended between the Thursday of Weiberfasnacht and Shrove Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Generally speaking, population statistics also show that births are more frequent around nine months after Ash Wednesday and that interdependencies are therefore clearly demonstrable. The consumption of 'Kamelle', the sweets thrown into the crowd during the Rose Monday parade, is also said to be enormous, as are the balloons of various designs. It is said that you catch mice with bacon.

The fact that such conclusions could also be drawn about the birth register in the Danube metropolis is prevented both by the limited capacity of the Hofburg halls and the achievements of chemistry in medicine. At least as far as statistically reliable statements are concerned.

In any case, good dancers are in great demand and it wasn't just Martin who found himself constantly in close combat with an odalisque in a mask, but also every single one of his acquaintances who had also fallen into the vice of dance mania.

A fantastic little figure with a passionate temperament was just having fun with him, dragging him from hall to hall, from one dance to another. The racy ballerina enchanted him with her youth, sporty aesthetics and overwhelming charm. She cast a spell over him and loved to be swayed around to the beat.

Her gypsy mentality was expressed in a brightly colored evening dress, gorgeous black hair and a divine bottom. With South American temperament, she drummed her samba steps on the dance floor, the swing of her hips and the quivering of her globes testified to her fiery passion and caught the eyes of many a gallant.

She spoke French with Martin, although a Viennese accent came through audibly. Nevertheless, she played the foreigner, the incomprehensible naïf, whenever covetous rivals came on to her in German. He secretly christened her Ma chére Joséphine in memory of the infamous Creole mistress of the Roi of the French and called her ma petite Haitienne, as she stood barely more than 1.66 m high on her stiletto heels.

At some point, she suddenly pressed herself very close to him and played 'la grande tempteuse', trying to 'seduce' him in public while dancing. Her cheek nestled against his in a clinch, so that they glided through the hall as little more than a couple than Siamese twins.

Sorry that I'm abusing you right now, she whispered in his ear, the one opposite with the red bolero jacket is my husband's current mistress. The scoundrel really did invite her here and didn't tell me that he was already back in Vienna. He was still on a business trip, he lied to me.

Martin had become curious, albeit slightly irritated. Then why doesn't he recognize you? he asked, unsuspecting of female cunning and applied acting.

Because he doesn't know this dress and I've dyed my hair a new color. I'm naturally auburn. It will end up being expensive for him. The bill alone for the hairdresser, Balenciaga evening gown, accessories and the high heels with all the other frills amounts to several thousand euros. He will also find the jewelry on his credit card. The bill will teach him that a resourceful wife comes at a high price when he smiles at a random mistress.

Now his hunting instinct was awakened. How long have you known about his adultery games? he wanted to know.

Well, as long as the bimbos change regularly, I don't give a damn, she confessed, because I'm no wallflower either and I love the custom of French women to have a good time. I only sense danger when it's regular and experience teaches me to do something about it in good time. This one is probably quite new and mentally simple, as she succumbs to his charms at the ball, as you can easily see. Her dress is expensive enough for her to be married, as the shine on her ring finger confirms. So any danger seems to be averted, because such a wardrobe costs money. The possible thought of England's prince instead of your own frog in the marriage bed as a reward for the regular expansion of your bank account usually prevents a nerve-wracking separation. In any case, I have gained some enlightening insights.

With that, she pulled her dancer into the neighboring hall of mirrors and let herself be pirouetted, enjoying the fiery music. As midnight approached, everyone rushed towards the main hall to witness the unveiling of the secrets after the ballet interlude.

In the midst of the turmoil, Martin realized that his race wife was slipping away from him. He lost her in a group of ladies through whom she had gracefully meandered. Obviously not unprompted, the phalanx of robes did not move one foot to keep the beauty's secret.

Only after a long time did he manage to resume the search, but to no avail. Cinderella had left the place at the witching hour and no glass slipper allowed her to be tracked. La Criolla remained missing. Whether for her husband's sake or to avoid temptation was to remain forever unexplored.

The colorful butterfly had fluttered on and left a gap in Martin's heart. Only much later, after various dance partners, did the carefree pleasure return with an enthusiastic ballerina. He devoted his charm to her and told her about the pitfalls that a poor husband must be aware of in his wife's harness.