Dear Alexandre Charles Hugo,

Please could you give me some relationship advice? I am a composer and singing teacher. I have a disfigurement over part of my face so I don't go out much. But that did not stop me from making a friend in the past of a ballet mistress who has been my friend for many years.

Over the past months I've fallen in love with a very promising girl called Christine, whom I was giving music lessons which made her such a succes. At first she seemed to return my affections, and I gave her the lead role in my opera "Don Juan Triumphant". But recently a childhood friend of hers, a viscount, turned up at the Opera House, and now she seems a different person, her talk is different, and she avoids me. I even caught them French kissing on the roof of the building last night.

What about all I did for her, raising her from obscurity? How can she be so ungrateful? Worst of all, this other guy desperately needs a haircut. What should I do to win her back? I tried killing people, but it did not help.

Erik

Dear Erik,

Thank you for your intriguing letter. First of all, you seem to be having a spell of midlife crisis. I'm sorry but all the symptoms are there. You are around 40, you seem to get restless and seek new thrills. You and the ballet mistress have grown apart; along comes this talented young girl who wants to be your trophy wife.

Now it turns out that she has used you to get ahead, and once she's famous, she moves on to the next stepping stone and tries to marry something with money, a title, and sideburns (even I can't explain those). If Christine really loved you, she would have easily overlooked a little disfigurement in the face and a few murders.

However, don't be sorry. I've watched her carefully and apart from a nice voice she has no discernible character traits or personality of any kind. She sings well, but she's a generic female lead, a shallow creature who doesn't have the depth to understand or appreciate you. What we have here is basically the Paris equivalent of a valley girl. The things that occupy your mind are way above her head.

So, what to do: Nothing. This Raoul is the perfect match for Christine, because he is just as empty-headed and superficial as she is. Anyway, if you think they'll be happy, first she will need to explain to him why their firstborn child wears a little half-mask...

Alexandre Charles Hugo