🎭 Cast: Lisa Gastoni, Maurice Ronet, Jenny Tamburi, Pino Caruso, Graziella Galvani, Barbara Marzano, Rosario Bonaventura…

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🎭 Cast: Leslie Caron, Horst Buchholz, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Georgette Anys, Salvatore Baccaloni, Lionel Jeffries, Raymond Bussières, Joël Flateau, Victor Francen, Paul Bonifas, Jack Ary, Daniel Crohem, Dominique Davray, Germaine Delbat, Clément Harari, Maguy Horiot, Moustache, Jean Ozenne, Jean Panisse, Pâquerette, Hélène Tossy, René Tramoni …

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🎭 Cast: Fanny Ardant, Melvil Poupaud, Cécile de France, Florence Loiret Caille, Sharif Andoura, Sarah Henochsberg, Martin Laurent, Olenka Ilunga, Manda Touré, Julia Gómez, Corey McKinley, Purshoothe Thayalan, Elsa Bouchain, Loulou Hanssen…

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The Happy Prince
A tale of light and shadow, love and self-sacrifice
Part One: Shadows of the Past
Prologue: The Gaze of the Statue
The first rays of dawn pierced through the mist hovering over the city like golden arrows. The cobblestone streets of the square shimmered wetly from the night’s rain, and in the silence, only the soft rustle of a lonely street sweeper’s broom could be heard. In the center of the square stood the city’s most famous sight: the statue of the Happy Prince, towering on a decorative column.
The gilded figure gazed majestically over his realm. His sapphire eyes, crafted from gemstones as large as a child’s fist, sparkled in the light of the rising sun. Doves rested upon the tip of his sword, and his crown, adorned with rubies, glittered as if an inner fire burned within.
But the Prince had long ceased to be happy.
From his sapphire eyes, tears occasionally rolled down his gilded face, especially on such dawns when only the birds and the old street sweeper bore witness. The droplets fell onto the marble pedestal, crystallizing into gems that the street sweeper secretly collected and gave to the poor.
For now, the Prince had seen everything. He witnessed what he had never seen in life: a widow raising her three children in a one-room apartment on the city’s edge; a young artist painting with frozen hands in an attic room because he could no longer afford heating; an orphaned boy waiting at the back door of a bakery for yesterday’s bread.
Each tear held a story. And these stories were all interconnected, like threads of an enormous, invisible web that enveloped the entire city.
Chapter I: The Lost Love
Thirty years earlier…
In the palace garden, where dew still clung to the grass, Prince Henrik slipped out through the back gate. The eighteen-year-old’s heart raced wildly—not from fear but from excitement. This was his first true adventure.
“Prince Henrik, please stay on your designated path!”—the tutor’s voice echoed in his ears, but he paid it no mind. Beyond the high walls of the palace garden lay another world: the real city, real life.
The narrow streets buzzed with morning activity. Vendors offered their goods, errand boys dashed about with urgent messages, and an old accordion player played a cheerful tune on the corner. Henrik took a deep breath—the air was filled with scents of fresh bread, spices, and horses.
Then he heard it for the first time: the sound of a violin.
The melody floated through the morning air like a silvery thread. Henrik followed it into a small alleyway where nestled between two tall buildings was a tiny workshop with a weathered sign above its door that read: “Giovanni & Daughter – Violin Makers.”
…
The workshop door stood ajar, and Henrik cautiously stepped inside. The room was filled with the scent of freshly polished wood and varnish. Various violins hung on the walls at different stages of completion like silent sentinels. Tools lined up neatly on shelves, and golden dust danced in beams of light filtering through the window.
And there at the back workbench sat Anna.
The girl was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t notice him at first. Her delicate fingers skillfully smoothed a piece of wood for a half-finished violin while she hummed softly—exactly the melody Henrik had heard from outside. Her long dark hair was tied up in a bun, but some rebellious strands had escaped and fell across her face. Occasionally she brushed them aside impatiently, but they stubbornly returned.
Henrik stood motionless halfway between the door and workbench. He couldn’t tell how much time passed—perhaps mere seconds or maybe hours. Finally, a floorboard creaked under his foot and Anna looked up.
Their eyes met, and Henrik felt as if lightning had struck him. The girl’s eyes were like two amber stones: warm golden-brown with a glimmer of ancient wisdom.
“Can I help you?” Anna asked, and for a moment Henrik forgot how to speak.
“I… I heard music,” he finally stammered. “From outside.”
Anna smiled, and that smile transformed her entire face as if an inner light had ignited within her.
“My father plays his violin every morning before he begins work,” she said as she stood up and wiped fine sawdust from her hands. “He says it awakens melodies sleeping within the wood.”
“And you… do you play too?” Henrik asked just to say something.
“Of course,” Anna laughed. “But I prefer making them. Every violin is different; you know? Each has its own soul, its own story. You just have to find it within.”
As she spoke, her eyes sparkled and her hands unconsciously made caressing gestures as if cradling an invisible instrument. It was then that Henrik understood this girl did not merely craft violins—she breathed life into them.
“Would you show me?” he heard his own voice ask, surprised by his own question.
Anna studied him for a moment as if trying to see into his soul. Then she nodded.
“Come,” she said, leading him to her workbench. “This will be my very first violin. My father says I am ready for it.”
In those next hours, Henrik gained insight into an entirely new world. Anna explained—the different sounds of woods, her father’s secret varnish recipe brought over from Cremona by her grandfather, and even the mathematics behind string tension. But she did not just talk—she demonstrated too. Under her hands, wood came alive, and Henrik slowly began to understand what she had said earlier: every violin truly possessed its own soul.
“Can I come back tomorrow?” he asked when noon bells warned him he should have been back at the palace long ago.
Anna paused for a moment and Henrik’s heart tightened. But then she smiled again.
“Violins need time to awaken,” she said mysteriously. “And sometimes… sometimes people do too.”
All along his way home that day, Henrik pondered this phrase. And that evening for the first time in his life he did not feel confined within palace walls because he knew tomorrow he would be free again.
…
In the following weeks, Henrik found ways to sneak out every afternoon from the palace. His tutor began to gray with worry but never had Henrik been so diligent in his studies—he quickly finished all tasks just to rush back to Anna’s workshop afterward.
On one particularly warm summer afternoon Anna showed him a small garden behind her workshop—a pocket-sized paradise surrounded by roses and lavender bushes with an old apple tree stretching toward the sky above them. Beneath its branches stood a worn bench adorned with faded cushions.
“This is my secret realm,” Anna said as they sat down together. “I come here when a violin is particularly stubborn and refuses to reveal its soul.”
Henrik looked around; beyond garden walls he could see rooftops of houses and further away glimmering towers of the palace. But here among roses felt like another world altogether.
“You know,” Anna spoke while gently caressing a half-finished violin neck—“music is like love—it transcends walls; it knows no boundaries between rich and poor. When a violin first sings… it’s like awakening a soul.”
“And you put a piece of your soul into every violin?” Henrik asked softly.
Anna looked at him with depths in her gaze that he had never seen before.
“We all do this don’t we? We put our souls into what we love; we just sometimes forget what that truly means.”
The sun began to set casting golden light over their little garden; amidst roses buzzed a solitary bee while somewhere in distance bells chimed softly. At that moment Henrik understood he was in love.
But happiness is a rare guest in princely palaces.
One cool autumn morning as usual Henrik headed towards Anna’s workshop when an unusual unease gripped him—the streets were strangely quiet; as he turned into alleyway he immediately sensed something was wrong.
The workshop door was closed tight; no familiar light shone through its windows and fresh wood scent was absent from air around him. The cold handle met Henrik’s hand without yielding.
“Anna!” he cried but only echoes replied.
An old neighbor peered out from her window.
“No use shouting dear,” she said sadly. “They took them away at dawn; they say by order of the king…”
Henrik’s heart froze; he turned sharply and ran—back to palace straight into his father’s study but guards crossed their halberds before him at door.
“His Majesty will not receive anyone,” they stated stiffly.
“But I am his son!”
“Exactly why Your Highness cannot enter; His Majesty has given specific orders.”
That evening Henrik locked himself away in his room; he didn’t emerge next day or even third day after that until finally succumbing to demands appearing at dinner where not one word passed between him and his father—only thick envelope slid across table:
Royal Academy of Arts, Vienna
“You leave tomorrow,” said king without room for argument in voice; “a prince must learn what duty means—and what is… impossible.”
Henrik didn’t reply; that night he snuck out again but found workshop already demolished; where once stood little garden now lay rubble scattered among uprooted rosebushes—but bench… bench remained standing there waiting for him with half-finished violin resting atop it as if expecting him.
The prince picked up instrument; wood still held warmth from Anna’s hands; as he ran fingers across it felt like hearing girl’s voice whispering:
“Love transcends walls…”
That night Henrik stood long upon palace balcony gazing down upon city imprinting every light every shadow into memory; then took hold of violin snapping it apart—shards collected into small golden box buried beneath roses in palace garden before carriage departed for Vienna next day.
“One day I shall return,” he whispered softly; “and find you wherever you may be.”
But he never returned again.
Years later when statue stood as Happy Prince in town square often gazed upon roses from old garden; sometimes especially on moonlit nights seemed to hear strains of violin—a fragment melody left unfinished…

The Happy Prince

Part One: Shadows of the Past

Prologue: The Gaze of the Statue

The sun slowly rose over the city, its first rays glinting off the proud statue in the main square. The figure of the Happy Prince bathed in gold, his sapphire eyes gleaming in the early light. He stood high on a decorative pillar, overseeing the entire city—the grand palaces of the wealthy and the rickety shacks of the poor alike.

But the Prince had not been happy for a long time.

At dawn, when no one could see, tears sometimes rolled down from his sapphire eyes, tracing a path over his gilded face. For now, the Prince saw everything. He saw what he had never seen in life: suffering, poverty, loneliness. And each tear held a story about the city’s inhabitants.

Chapter I: The Lost Love

Thirty years earlier…

“Prince Henry, please stay on the designated path!” The tutor’s voice was stern, but the eighteen-year-old youth paid no heed. The back gate of the palace garden stood open, and for the first time in his life, he slipped through it.

The city was different than it appeared from the palace windows. The narrow streets were full of life: the cries of vendors, the laughter of children, and… music. The sound of a violin drifted from a tiny workshop.

It was here that he first met Anna. The girl worked in her father’s violin-making shop, her delicate fingers skillfully caressing the wood of the instruments. Henry fell in love at once—not just with her beauty, but with the way she saw the world.

“You know,” Anna said one evening as they sat in the little garden behind the workshop, “music is like love. It passes through walls; it knows no boundaries between rich and poor.”

The following months passed in secret. Every afternoon, Henry sneaked away from the palace to be with Anna. She showed him the true face of the city: took him to the poor quarters, where people survived by helping one another, introduced him to the bustling life of the market, and taught him to hear the heartbeat of the city.

But secrets cannot stay hidden forever.

“A prince cannot be involved in such a relationship!” thundered the old king when the truth came to light. “Your duty is to be a strong ruler, not to mingle with common folk!”

That night, Henry went to the workshop in vain. The violin maker and his daughter were gone, and the workshop stood empty. He never found out where they had been taken, but in his heart, he kept Anna’s last words forever: “Happiness is not found in the height of walls, but in whether we can see the heart of another person.”

Chapter II: The Swallow’s Decision

The little swallow had been flying southward for days. All his companions were heading south, following the ancient path, but he felt something different. A call stronger than the urge for safety.

“Why don’t you come with us, little brother?” asked the old swallow, the leader of the flock. “Winter is coming, and safety awaits in the south.”

“There is something in this city,” replied the little swallow. “Something stronger than the desire for safety.”

Understanding glimmered in the old swallow’s eyes. “You are the most special among us,” he said quietly. “The elders said that once every hundred years, a swallow is born who can hear the call of hearts. Perhaps you are that one.”

That evening, the little swallow was left alone, circling above the city in search of the source of the call. Then he saw the statue—the figure of the Happy Prince, from whose eyes tears were falling.

And that was when it all began.

To be continued…

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Married At First Sight Novel Chapter 10 ❤️

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Married At First Sight Novel Chapter 6 ❤️

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Married At First Sight Novel Chapter 5 ❤️

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