Among other things, he told me that girls liked boys to play the gallant with them, but in general were too frightened to go any further. You could hope for more success with women. Women were much cleverer. For instance, there was

Mrs. Jaggelt, who sold pencils and copybooks, who was much easier to deal with. All that had happened behind the counter in her shop was unprintable in any book.

I sat on captivated; my head was swimming. To be sure, I could not exactly have loved Mrs. Jaggelt, but still, it was unheard of. It seemed as if things happened, at least to older people, of which I had never dreamed. There was a false ring about it, to be sure, everything seemed more trivial and commonplace, and did not coincide with my own ideas about love, but still, it was reality, it was love and adventure, someone sat next to me who had lived it in experience, to whom it seemed a matter of course.