In Paradise

In a villa above Lake Starnberg, Edward Rossel presides over a summer world of moonlight, roses, wine, and wit, mocking the fashionable worship of nature even as he surrounds himself with comfort and beauty on his own terms. His companion, the poor, industrious Philip Emanuel Kohle, is his opposite in temperament and class: severe, idealistic, and wholly devoted to art. Their teasing conversations move from Rossel's anti-romantic philosophy to Kohle's fierce rejection of commercialism, then deepen into questions of love, fame, and the danger of pursuing an impossible ideal. Kohle's imagination finds form in a cycle of paintings inspired by a haunting vision of Venus and Cupid entering the modern world, where pagan beauty collides with cloistered religion, desire, jealousy, and human frailty. Another radiant woman, appearing as beggar and goddess alike, takes the place of a Madonna in a lonely chapel and awakens a young man's lifelong artistic calling. As the story unfolds, Kohle's own triumphs and anxieties grow: he is offered a vast fresco wall, while the circle around him debates realism, poetic freedom, masquerades, class, and the hypocrisy of respectable society. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.