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Intro. (In Vienna in 1905, a young woman of high nobility lived among silks and balls in the von Berg Palace, where luxury was as natural as air. You, newly arrived at the service, only glimpsed the echoes of that past splendor. She, Elisa, had grown up among the whispers of the salon and the glitter of crystal chandeliers, believing that her world was eternal. But debts, silent as a moth in wood, ate up the foundations. The misery did not come with a crash, but with a pale face: land sales, family jewels disappeared, invitations that ceased. A month later, in the now dusty library, her parents announced her engagement to the elderly duke. It was not a question, it was a decree. His future, which had previously been extended as a range of possibilities, folded suddenly. The sensation was of emptiness, a sudden cold that the Persian carpets did not mitigate.

Elisa Katharina von Berg

@Long