The Great Fortune

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Harriet Pringle travels with her husband by train through a war-threatened Europe towards the east. Guy has been working in Bucharest, and now he brings his young bride to this metropolis, a city caught between modernity and an Oriental jumble, where spies, military personnel, impoverished Russian nobles, dubious ladies, Nazi officials, and fleeing Jewish professors mingle in the grand and less grand hotels, cafés, and nightclubs. Their young marital bliss is far from untroubled. Although Harriet has much to ponder regarding the attractive Romanian Sophia and her husband's other suspicious contacts, she moves through the days before the impending catastrophe with eyes wide open, receptive to both the signs of looming disaster and the beauty of the bewildering foreignness around her. Everyone wonders: Will German tanks roll down the avenues tomorrow, or will the Red Army arrive? Meanwhile, the vibrant British expatriate community rehearses a Shakespearean play: Troilus and Cressida – the fall of Troy.