Free Group Portrait with Lady by Heinrich Böll

German girl in the city,” in the district, in fact—perhaps even in the province, or that political-historical-geographical entity that has become known as the German Reich. She could have appeared as a saint (also as Mary Magdalene) in a miracle play, modeled for an advertisement for face cream, perhaps could even have acted in movies; her eyes are now quite dark, almost black, she wears her thick blond hair as described on this page , and not even the brief Gestapo interrogation and the fact that Gretel Mareike has spent two months in detention have substantially impaired her self-confidence.
    Because she feels that not even Rahel has told her enough about the biological differences between men and women, she does some intensive research on the subject. She thumbs through encyclopedias, with not much result, ransacks—with just as little result—her father’s and mother’s libraries; sometimes she goes to see Rahel on Sunday afternoons, taking long walks with her through the convent grounds and entreating her for information. After some hesitation Rahel relents and explains, once again without the slightest necessity for either of them to blush, further details that she had withheld two years earlier: the instrument of male sexuality, its stimulation and stimulability, with all the attendant consequences and pleasures; and since Leni asks for illustrated material on the subject and Rahel refuses to give it to her, saying it is not good to look at pictures of it, Leni telephones a book dealer for advice, speaking (quite unnecessarily) in a disguised voice, and is directed to the “Civic Health Museum,” where under “Sex Life” the main displays consist of venereal diseases: starting with ordinary clap and proceeding by way of soft chancre to “Spanish collar” and covering every phase of syphilis, all naturalistically displayed bytrue-to-life colored plaster models, Leni learns of the existence of this unwholesome world—and is infuriated; not that she was prudish, what made her so angry was the fact that in this museum sex and venereal disease appeared to be regarded as identical; this pessimistic naturalism enraged her no less than the symbolism of her religious instructor. The Health Museum seemed to her a variation of the “strawberries and whipped cream” (witness Margret, who—blushing again—refused to contribute personally to Leni’s enlightenment).
    Now the impression may have been given that Leni’s interests were confined to a wholesome and healthy world. Not at all: her materialistically sensual concretism went so far that she began to be less brusque in declining the numerous advances to which she was exposed, and she finally yielded to the ardent entreaties of a young architect from her father’s office whom she found agreeable, and consented to a rendezvous. Weekend, summertime, a luxury hotel on the Rhine, dancing on the terrace in the evening, she blond, he blond, she seventeen, he twenty-three, both healthy—surely there will be a happy ending or at least a happy night—but nothing came of it; after the second dance Leni left the hotel, paid for the unused single room where she had hastily unpacked her housecoat (= bathrobe) and toilet articles, and went to see Margret, whom she told that during the very first dance she had felt that “the fellow” did not have “tender hands,” and that a certain fleeting sense of being in love had instantly evaporated.
    At this point there is a distinct feeling that the reader, thus far fairly patient, is becoming impatient and wondering to himself: For God’s sake, is this Leni girl supposed to be perfect? Answer: almost. Other readers—depending on their ideological point of departure—will put the question differently: For God’ssake, what kind of dirty-minded hussy is this Leni? Answer: She isn’t one at all. She is merely waiting for “the right man,” who fails to appear; she continues to be pestered, invited for dates and weekend