gaze of a gossiping city. The story shifts from tense domestic drama to the promise of reinvention through travel and enterprise. The opening of the novel traces Peter’s attempt to rein in household extravagance, only for Ree to shoot her prized horses rather than sell them, after which he lashes out and she leaves. Hermann soon witnesses Ree’s reckless liaison with Larisch on the heath, triggering Peter’s resolve to seek a divorce as the city revels in gossip and the lawyer readies a legal case; Ree alternates between defiance and attempts at reconciliation. Peter grows alienated and unproductive, while Hermann channels him into a purposeful escape: a long journey that doubles as a plan to expand their copra business from Ceylon to the South Seas; Larisch’s suicide hardens this break. The section closes with Peter embarking at Genoa, already turning from scandal to the wider world as shipboard life begins. (This is an automatically generated summary.)