
A young woman, fresh from a convent and trapped in a loveless, pragmatic marriage, arrives in Lisbon with a single purpose: to learn the elusive art of flirtation. She follows a faint lilac flyer to the mysterious “School of Flirt,” a secluded eighteenth‑century garden where an ageless, impeccably dressed professor greets her. Their conversation, peppered with French turns and sardonic wit, reveals a world in which manners, charm, and subtle manipulation are taught with the same reverence once reserved for art and science.
The novella unfolds as a sparkling, slightly absurd satire of early‑1900s society, where the boundaries between genuine feeling and performative elegance blur. Listeners will be drawn into the professor’s enigmatic lessons, the fragrant garden’s delicate décor, and the protagonist’s yearning to master a language of glances and gestures. The story balances humor with a keen observation of how culture can turn even intimacy into a crafted performance, leaving the audience eager to discover what lies beyond the first whispered instruction.
Language
pt
Duration
~3 hours (220K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Pedro Saborano and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.)
Release date
2011-01-26
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
1876–1924
A Cape Verde–born Portuguese writer of the decadent movement, he moved easily between literature, journalism, politics, and diplomacy. Best known for the poetry collection Missa negra, he left behind verse and fiction shaped by fin-de-siècle style and cosmopolitan interests.
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