** spoiler alert ** There is a lyrical, hypnotic quality to Marai's writing that swirls around my brain like a summer scented breeze and draws me in. He takes a story of theft that could easily be told in a paragraph and spins it out to a novel by illuminating all the facets. Esther lives the quiet life of a spinster with her elderly relative Nunu, until after 20 years of silence Lajos, who jilted Esther for her sister, announces his arrival. The hilarious or sad part of this novel, depending on your point of view, is that Lajos has scammed or robbed every other character, some of them multiple times and yet as the day of his visit progresses they all fall for his lies all over again. At the beginning of the novel Nunu and Esther joke about locking up the silver, but really they should have immediately packed all valubles, locked up the house, and left on an extended visit to friends on the other side of the world. After reading this book I feel like I should hate Esther, but I don't; I admire her courage and her spine even as she throws her life away and gives Lajos everything he wants.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from this book:

"We are bound to our enemies, nor can they escape us."

"Nothing awaited me here, it was only somewhere to lay my head and a few dry crumbs. But for anyone who has been through the storm, any shelter is welcome."

"I must exchange the quiet and lonely existence of the study for the noisy, dangerous battlefield of life."

"We all suddenly started 'reading'...with such industriousness, with such a sense of shame , it was as if we were preparing for the most important examination life could offer."

"People looked after us, ...allocating us a slot in the nook of their imaginations where we could quietly get on with our lives."

"People tend not to return, not after a decade of absence, to the places where they have failed."

"But reality, that miraculous ice-cold shower, woke me from my dream."

"One can't throw a woman away the way one does a matchbox simply because one has passions..."

"It is why I stay here, living alone like an old maid who is thrifty with her feelings but eventually buys a cat..."

"It is not enough to love somebody, you must love courageously. You must love so that no thief or plan or law, whether that be the law of heaven or of the world, can come between."