Preview of Il Conde Summary:

Conrad's story is dominated by a tragic and elegiac tone, as the elderly count is first shown as a very admirable man who has settled for an orderly life as a spectator of events; but it is revealed to the narrator on his return from ten days' absence the the count's psychological composure has been completely destroyed. When the count is driven by fear and a sense of humiliation to leave Naples, the narrator suggests that the count is going back to his landed estate to slowly wither away and die. This tragic theme is underscored by the narrator's quotation of the proverbial Italian phrase, vediNapoli e poi mori ("see Naples and die"), which also serves as the story's epigraph and its final line.

Although the story's action is largely psychological, as Conrad describes the impact of the robbery and the robber's boldfaced effrontery on the count's selfesteem...