Excerpt from The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"How are you, my good fellow?" asks Wojnicz politely in schoolboy German, but he waits in vain for an answer; the boy pulls his cap low and impatiently points to a seat for him in the britzka.

And at once they move off. First through the town over cobblestones, then along a road that in the falling darkness takes them through forest, on a winding track between steep mountain slopes. They are accompanied by the constant murmur of a nearby stream and its smell, which unsettles Wojnicz badly: the odor of damp brush, rotting leaves, eternally wet stones and water. In an attempt to establish contact he asks the driver questions, how long will their journey be, for example, how did he recognize him at the station, what is his name, but the boy remains silent and does not even glance at him. A gas lantern placed on the boy's right side partly illuminates his face, which in profile resembles the snout of a highland rodent, a marmot, and Wojnicz figures he must be either deaf or insolent.

After about three quarters of an hour, they emerge from the shadow of the forest onto an unexpected plateau between the wooded mountains. The sky is fading, but that tall, imposing horizon, still visible, brings a lump to the throat of any new arrival from the lowlands.

"Görbersdorf," says the driver suddenly, in an unexpectedly shrill, boyish tone.

But Wojnicz can see nothing beyond a dense wall of darkness that is heedlessly breaking free of the mountainsides in whole sheets. Once his eyes have grown used to it, a viaduct suddenly looms before them, under which they drive into a village; beyond it, the vast bulk of a redbrick edifice comes into sight, followed by other, smaller buildings, a street, and even two gas lamps. The brick edifice proves colossal as it emerges from the darkness, and the motion of the vehicle picks out rows of illuminated windows. The light in them is dingy yellow. Wojnicz cannot tear his eyes from this sudden, triumphal vision, and he looks back at it for a long time, until it sinks into the darkness like a huge steamship.

Now the britzka turns into a narrow side road along the stream and crosses a small bridge, on which the wheels raise a noise like the sound of gunfire. At last it stops outside a sizable wooden building with very strange architecture that brings to mind a matchstick house—there are so many verandas, balconies and terraces. A pleasant light glows in the windows. Under the first-floor windows there is a beautiful sign in Gothic script carved out of thick tin:

*Gästehaus für Herren

Excerpted from The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk. Copyright © 2024 by Olga Tokarczuk. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.