Antal Szerb · 1937 · rail

Antal Szerb's 1937 Hungarian novel. On his honeymoon in Italy, Mihaly slips away from his bride and his respectable life and drifts alone through Venice and the hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria toward Rome, pursued by the ghosts of his bohemian youth and an old longing for death. The route follows his wandering down the length of Italy.

1. 1
   Venice

   In Venice on his honeymoon, Mihaly wanders off into the back alleys one night and feels his careful adult life begin to come apart, the old pull of his youth returning.

2. 2
   Ravenna

   Among the gold mosaics of Ravenna the unease deepens, and at a small station soon after, almost by accident, he lets a train carry him away from his wife and into his own past.

3. 3
   Perugia

   He drifts through the Umbrian hill towns, feverish and adrift, haunted by memories of the Ulpius house and the friends of his youth, the dead Tamas and the elusive Eva.

4. 4
   Siena

   In Tuscany he falls ill and lies dreaming of death and adolescence, the journey now as much inward as across the map of Italy.

5. 5
   Rome

   In Rome the scattered threads of his life converge, the past catches him up, and Mihaly must decide whether to follow it into the dark or turn quietly back toward living.