Summary
In the gas-lit labyrinth of Roman high finance, Clara Angelo—marble-skinned, velvet-draped, and inwardly smoldering—loathes the bent-backed banker she calls husband. David Angelo, ossified yet shrewd, lumbers through salons while Clara’s mother, Mrs. Brunschaut, a gorgon in pearls, lures her into a transnational cabal whose currency is blackmail and whose yield is silk-draped opulence. A sudden summons to Naples rips David from the chessboard; he entrusts his fortune to partner Stroggi, a wolf in banker’s cloth. Vesuvius, that sulfurous tragedian, erupts, entombing the tycoon in scorching ash—only for a visionary physician to exhume him, transmute him: spine uncurled, wrinkles ironed, visage re-sculpted to Apollian symmetry. Thus reborn, David re-enters Rome as an anonymous financial prodigy, haunting his own salons, intercepting coded telegrams, and dismantling the conspiracy thread by silken thread. In the candle-glow of what once was his parlor, he courts his wife incognito; she, sensing the uncanny, yields her heart. When the masks fall, Clara discovers that the stranger she adores is the husband she scorned—resurrected, rearmed, and finally beloved.
Synopsis
Clara Angelo does not really love her husband, David, a distinguished Roman banker, who is old, ugly and bent. Unknown to her husband, her mother, Mrs. Brunschaut, has involved her in a foreign conspiracy, in order that she may add to the extravagance of her living. David Angelo becomes aware of the intrigue, but before he can discover just what it is, he is called to Naples on business. He leaves his fortune in care of his partner, Stroggi, to be given to Mrs. Angelo in case anything happens to him. On his trip back home he stops to see Vesuvius, and is caught by a sudden eruption and smothered under the hot ashes. He is, however, rescued, and under the treatment of a great scientist, is restored to health; his physical disabilities have also been removed, and he is straight and rejuvenated in appearance, so much so that the doctor tells him he would not be believed if he declared himself to be David Angelo, and he decides to let the world believe that he is dead. He returns to Rome and startles the national treasurer by his brilliant suggestions in connection with finance, spies on the conspirators who are seeking to compromise his wife, is introduced in his own home without being recognized, and prevents his wife's fortune being stolen by his former partner. He also wins his wife's love, and, upon consenting to marry him, she rejoices to learn that he is really the supposedly dead David Angelo.
