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Welcome to noble blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from Erin

Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

In the 1840s, there was a young princess of Bavaria named Alexandra.

By all accounts, Alexandra was brilliant.

She would go on to write a number of books and published translations.

And she was beautiful.

But in her early 20s, some peculiarities began to reveal themselves.

Alexandra always obsessed with ideas of purity and cleanliness, dressed only in white.

She walked gingerly in her slippers, turning the sideways to go through doorways, and

she avoided touching most things.

Why was she being so careful, her family asked when they noticed the fear behind her eyes

when she narrowed her elbows to make her way down a hallway?

The explanation for her behavior, Alexandra said, was quite simple.

She had swallowed a grand piano as a child, a full-sized grand piano made of glass.

...