Der grösste Reichtum

Harriet Pringle travels east with her husband by train through a Europe threatened by war. Guy has been working in Bucharest for some time, and now he is taking his young bride to this metropolis between modernity and oriental confusion, a city where spies, military officers, impoverished Russian aristocrats, half-secret ladies, Nazi functionaries, and Jewish professors who have fled the city are all on hand in the splendid and less splendid hotels, cafés and night bars. The young marital bliss is not at all untroubled. And although Harriet has enough to ponder about the attractive Romanian Sophia and other suspicious contacts of her husband, she goes through the days shortly before the big bang with very open eyes, receptive to signs of an impending catastrophe as well as to the beauty of the so confusing stranger. Everyone wonders: will German tanks roll across the avenues tomorrow, or is the Red Army coming? And meanwhile, the truly colorful British expat community is rehearsing a Shakespeare play: Troilus and Cressida - the fall of Troy.